Obama Donors Embrace Corporate Inversions He Criticizes

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-13/obama-donors-embrace-corporate-inversions-he-criticizes.html



President Barack Obama has been bashing companies that pursue offshore mergers to reduce taxes. He hasn’t talked about the people behind the deals -- some of whom are his biggest donors.

Executives, advisers and directors involved in some of the tax-cutting transactions include Blair Effron, an investment banker who hosted Obama for a May fundraiser at his two-level, 9,000-square-foot apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Others are Jim Rogers, co-chairman of the host committee for the 2012 Democratic National Convention; Roger Altman, a former senior Treasury Department official who raised at least $200,000 for Obama’s re-election campaign; and Shantanu Narayen, who sits on the president’s management advisory board.

The administration’s connections to more than 20 donors associated with the transactions are causing tensions for the president as he urges Congress to act against the deals and prods the Treasury Department for short-term steps to curb them. The president’s tough talk also may become a liability as Democrats seek corporate America’s cash this year as they try to preserve their majority in the U.S. Senate.