Remember when Barack Obama spent the better part of a decade telling everyone he was the ultimate defender of working folks and small businesses? Well, his presidential center in Chicago apparently missed that memo, because a plumbing contractor just got absolutely hosed. And yes, that pun was intentional.
As USA Journal reported, Adamson Plumbing Contractors has completely shut down operations. Owner Mike Owen had to let go of nearly 30 workers, walk away from half a dozen other construction projects that were still in progress, and slap a $1.72 million lien on the Obama Presidential Center because he says they owe him close to $4 million in unpaid bills. Four. Million. Dollars.
Owen told Fox News Digital that terminating close to 30 positions is something no business owner ever wants to do, calling it the final death blow for his company. The timing of the collapse was almost theatrical in its cruelty. His crew had already been grinding through previous payment headaches, but when two of his plumbers got asked to handle some last minute work before the center's grand opening, Owen said sure, on one condition: send at least $100,000 of what you already owe us first. He says the money never showed up. Within weeks, the whole operation folded like a lawn chair in a hurricane.
Owen said he negotiated everything in good faith and agreed against his own better judgment. When that big payment never materialized, it basically yanked the emergency brake on the entire business.
But wait, it gets better. Or worse, depending on how much irony you can stomach in one sitting. This is apparently not a one off situation. Multiple contractors and subcontractors have reportedly been tangled up in payment disputes with the Obama Center, with some claiming they are owed anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.
And here is the part that really makes your eyebrows climb into your hairline. A significant number of those unpaid contractors are reportedly Black owned businesses. A community leader posted on social media that many Black contractors have been complaining about not receiving their money, and that much of the Black community and local newspapers are not even aware of the situation.
So the guy who built his entire political brand around equity and justice for Black America constructed a giant monument to his own legacy and then, according to these contractors, neglected to compensate the very people who physically built the thing. You genuinely could not write this stuff for a sitcom because nobody would believe it.
The article also points out that Obama's economic track record in office was not exactly a highlight reel either. The recovery from the 2008 recession was the slowest in postwar American history. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the ACA reduced the equivalent of 2 million full time jobs from the labor supply. And his 2009 stimulus apparently inflated job numbers with temporary positions before his administration switched from counting actual jobs to counting "lives touched," meaning anyone who logged a single hour on a funded contract.
Thirty families in Chicago are now missing paychecks because a plumber trusted that a presidential monument would honor its invoices. Turns out the monument to hope and change was a little short on the change.
Read more conservative news commentary at: USA Journal News
