The White House, through an outside event production company called Harbinger, is soliciting corporate sponsors for this year’s Easter Egg Roll, which is prompting major concerns from ethics experts and shock from former White House officials from both parties.
The sponsorship offers range from $75,000 to $200,000, with the promise of logo and branding opportunities, according to a nine-page document sent to potential sponsors and obtained by CNN.
But the solicitation for sponsorships marks an unprecedented offering of corporate branding opportunities on White House grounds running counter to long-established regulations prohibiting the use of public office for private gain.
This unironically should have been a requirement of all politicians from the very beginning. They need to publicly disclose their donors at all times, attempts to hide or alter this list can be punished with disbarment and removal of office.
Patch jackets are a great way to accomplish this (with other referencable lists online to support), they will even work as advertising for the companies. If there is an upcoming candidate that I’m a big fan of and I find out that, let’s say, Microsoft is a major sponsor of this candidate, that will cause me to a) find out why that is, and b) change my opinions of Microsoft, likely for the better if they aren’t doing something underhanded.
If we can’t remove sponsorships and donations and money in general from our politics, which, let’s be real here… We can at least make it more transparent.