Golden Sacks

You might think that with hundreds of billions in government funds for businesses to plunder pouring out from statehouses and Capitol Hill that there might be just a little piety when it came to reconstruction funds for New York's World Trade Center reconstruction. But that's proven irresistable as well.

The financial giant, Goldman Sachs -- which raked in $4.5 billion in profits last year -- has shaken out a $1.65 billion "liberty bond." That's equivalent to one fifth of the entire funds allocated for business reconstruction in the rebuilding of all of lower Manhattan. Greg LeRoy, author of The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Jobs Creation," has seized on Sachs' shameless grab:

"After 20 years documenting outrageous subsidy deals, I thought I'd seen it all," said LeRoy. "But this episode takes the cake. Here's a company with $4.5 billion in profits hogging 9/11 reconstruction funds while small businesses languish. The subsidies are irrelevant to the company's stated concerns, and the approval process is rushed and secretive, mocking taxpayers' right to review and comment."