Joe O’Dea Built Fortune on Gov’t Contracts & Slammed for Hypocrisy

“O’Dea is now fully onboard the GOP hypocrisy train: he hates government spending, unless it is for his own business.”

GOP Senate candidate Joe O’Dea is receiving brutal criticism for boarding the “GOP hypocrisy train” and condemning government spending while he has built a fortune off of taxpayer money. Colorado Politics columnist Hal Bidlack slams O’Dea and writes that O’Dea doesn’t “get to sip at the public trough for decades and then denounce that very same type of funding that put your business over the top in the first place.” 

Last week, Colorado Newsline reported that wealthy self-funder O’Dea has made a substantial fortune off of government contracts for his business. Public records show that O’Dea has benefited from more than $400 million in government contracts mostly within the last 15 years.

O’Dea has repeatedly campaigned on “reckless” federal spending and touts the success of his business, however he fails to tell Coloradans that his business’ success is largely attributed to taxpayer money. When making arguments to cut spending, O’Dea has suggested making cuts to critical programs like Medicare and Social Security – while approving spending that benefits his bottom line.

Colorado Politics: BIDLACK | O'Dea often sipped at government trough

I mention this hypocrisy to help frame yet another example of such GOP fuzziness with the truth as seen in a recent report. That story noted that GOP senate candidate Joe O’Dea seems to by “pulling a Cruz,”...

…He keeps telling us that he is a moderate who will vote against Mitch McConnell and the MAGA folks.

Those claims fair less well when it is noted that O’Dea has bent the knee in appearances with McConnell and has reached out to the far-right folks for support, while also trying to “pull a Cruz” by indicating his alleged “moderate” positions, but that’s all old news.

But the story above noted that while O’Dea embraces the standard GOP yelping about making government smaller, he himself has massively profited from lots and lots of government contracts and spending. Recently, for example, O’Dea showed up at the groundbreaking ceremony for an environmental mitigation project on the Western Slope. 

It makes sense that Bennet, as one of our senators, would be there. But oddly, it also makes sense for O’Dea to be there. Not because he is an elected official, but because his company is the project’s general contractor. That’s $14 million of our tax dollars going to the company of a guy who, at least to some, argues there should be less government spending.

Now, if that one project was the entirety of his governmental largess, that wouldn’t mean too much. Big companies often have governmental contracts. But as is reported in the story, O’Dea has been very, very busy pursuing tax dollars and government contracts for years. The vast majority of CEI’s business comes from governmental entities, with millions and millions of federal, state and local tax dollars finding their way to O’Dea’s company and to his pocket. 

All this while on his official website, O’Dea attacks the Dems over, you guessed it, government spending. So, O’Dea hates government spending, unless, it appears, that spending requires the services of a certain company named CEI.

…you don’t get to sip at the public trough for decades and then denounce that very same type of funding that put your business over the top in the first place.

O’Dea “pulled a Cruz” in his two-faced pronouncements on government spending. When tilting toward the left, he calls (through a campaign spokesperson) the environmental project noted above as “an ecologically responsible project that will help wildlife and help conserve Colorado water.” But when he tilts right, he denounces big government and big government spending.

…

But the evidence suggests, it seems to me, that O’Dea is now fully onboard the GOP hypocrisy train: he hates government spending, unless it is for his own business.

Ted Cruz would be proud.