James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas broke a story yesterday in which Veritas created a fake company called Earth Supply and Renewal – a company which only digs holes and fills them in again — and proceeded to get several union officials to pledge help to secure taxpayer funding. Now one of those officials, Ron Tocci, a former assemblyman, is saying that he knew the whole time that it was a “scam” – even though he joined in praising the possible project on tape.
“The purpose of our investigation is to illustrate that many of the jobs being championed — and funded — by the Obama administration are merely paper positions that come at great expense to the American taxpayer,” O’Keefe explained. “Digging holes just to fill them up again is not meaningful work, nor does it produce economic output for a recovery. Giving people jobs for jobs’ sake will not revitalize an economy or restore our country’s future.”
But Tocci said that the union bosses would never back such jobs: “We figured they were shysters. We tried to be courteous. They were young kids; first thing that comes to mind is that it’s young idealists, like Occupy Wall Street. We sized it up even half-way through the meeting when they couldn’t explain what they did with the dirt.”
The bosses in the tape were far more than courteous. They were downright friendly, offering not just help, but explaining that the Green Jobs/Green New York bill was filled with ditch-digging-and-filling projects. The tape speaks for itself. And Tocci doesn’t look good.