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LOUISVILLE /JEFFERSON COUNTY
DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER
Week of November 21, 2008
The link to this electronic newsletter is being e-mailed to 7,500+
Jefferson County Democrats
We hope you will forward the link to your own e-mail list.
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CLICK HERE FOR CURRENT LIST OF EVENTS
Updated on a regular basis
Bulletin Board:
- The Louisville/Jefferson County Democratic Executive Committee meets the 4th Wednesday of every month at 5:00 pm at Democratic Headquarters,
- 640 Barret Avenue .
-
As much as we'd like it to be, the 2008 election isn't over yet.
Of particular interest to us southern Democrats is the runoff election for the Georgia Senate between Jim Martin and Saxby Chambliss. The runoff will take place on December 2nd. There's no reason why our sphere of influence has to stop at the Ohio River and the borders of Jefferson County. Republicans are trying to make this runoff an early referendum on Obama - Here's what they're doing:
http://nationalrepublicantrust.com/
Now, here's what we should do:
1. Make some GOTV phone calls in Georgia. You can do that through
http://mybarackobama.com2. Send an e-mail to all of your Georgia friends, relatives, and other people who your mother pays to be nice to you. Here's some content you can use:
In 2002, Saxby Chambliss ran a nasty advertising campaign against disabled Vietnam veteran Max Cleland. Here's what another Vietnam vet had to say about one of Chambliss' disgraceful messages:
"I'd never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield - it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible." - John McCain, July 3rd, 2003.
You can see the ad for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKFYpd0q9nE
Now, Chambliss is refusing to cooperate with an investigation of the Imperial Sugar disaster - all because he's financed by their lobbyists:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXlrRyvCsj4
Jim Martin is a Vietnam veteran, and he has no ties to special interests like Imperial Sugar. Georgia doesn't need another six years of Saxby Chambliss. Please get out and vote for Jim Martin on December 2nd.
Regards, James W. Moore, President-Elect MDC
Statement of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies:
Tickets to the 56th Inaugural Ceremonies will be provided free of charge and distributed through Members of the 111th Congress. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies does not provide tickets to the public. Members of the public interested in attending the Inaugural Ceremonies should contact their Member of Congress or U.S. Senators to request tickets.
Senator Mitch McConnell
502-582-6304
Senator Jim Bunning
502-582.5341
Congressman John Yarmuth
502-582-5129
The public should also be aware that no website or other ticket outlet actually has inaugural swearing-in tickets to sell, regardless of what they may claim. Tickets will not be distributed to Congressional offices until the week before the inauguration and will require in-person pick-up.
"Any website or ticket broker claiming that they have inaugural tickets is simply not telling the truth," said Howard Gantman, Staff Director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. "Tickets for the swearing-in of President-elect are all provided through members of Congress, and the President-elect and Vice President-elect through the Presidential Inaugural Committee. We urge the public to view any offers of tickets for sale with great skepticism."
America Needs a Strong, Unionized Auto Industry
-- That Requires Government Action, by Robert Creamer
As the debate over federal help for the auto industry has heated up, we've heard a lot from those who believe that the problem with the auto industry is "bloated union contracts." They see those contracts as a reason not to provide federal loans that could prevent one or more of the "Big Three" from falling into bankruptcy.
In fact, it is precisely this fact -- that unionized automobile manufacturers provide their workers with middle class incomes -- that makes it critical for government to assure the long-term survival of this industry in particular, and the U.S. manufacturing sector in general.
The core failure of the radical-right-Bush economic policy is that the "markets uber alles" economic philosophy led them to lower incomes for most Americans while siphoning off all of the fruits of economic growth for the top two-percent of the population. Of course, that is a terrible outcome because the point of our economy should be to improve the lives of everyone -- not just the gang on Wall Street. But it has also been a disaster because widely-spread income growth is necessary to provide the demand that fuels long-term economic growth in the entire economy.
It's really simple: good economic policy requires that more and more Americans make higher wages, not that more and more Americans make lower wages.
Unfortunately, market forces by themselves do not yield that result. For that to be the case, you have to have strong unions like the United Auto Workers -- whose demands for good wages helped create the American middle class after World War II.
If we allow the unionized American automobile industry to collapse, we will accelerate the reduction of middle class incomes for everyone. That collapse would start a tidal wave of lower wages and, in turn, lower buying power throughout the economy. The auto industry and its suppliers represent a huge chunk of the American manufacturing sector. The collapse of GM or Chrysler would throw hundreds of thousands of workers onto the shrinking job market. It would start a domino effect of bankruptcies and layoffs among suppliers and dealers all over the country.
Any attempt to reorganize one of these companies under the bankruptcy laws would almost certainly result in massive layoffs. Consumers don't by cars from companies that they worry won't be around to service them. The workers that remain would see reduced wages as union contracts are abrogated by the bankruptcy court.
If a foreign manufacturer expanded auto production in the U.S. in order to fill the void, it would no doubt pay lower wages with no guarantee of union representation.
All of this would be bad at any time. But at this precarious time it could serve as the precipitating event that pushes the economy into a long, deep recession. It could easily be remembered as the most foolhardy, risky policy choice in modern economic history.
Should the government make capital available without strings? Absolutely not. The taxpayers should demand a plan that guarantees the American auto industry has long-term viability. But that doesn't mean it should become a low wage industry. Its problems have very little to do with "bloated union contracts." And they certainly were not caused by "overregulation" or the intrusion of government into the decisions of the "private sector."
The economic problems of today's American auto industry are grounded in two catastrophically bad management decisions -- both rooted in the view that unregulated markets always yield correct outcomes. These have been exacerbated by the recent collapse of the financial markets.
1). Following World War II, GM's Chair Charlie Wilson had a major battle with the president of the UAW, Walter Reuther. Reuther wanted the government to set up a federal insurance program to provide health care for all . He also wanted to expand Social Security with a federally administered pension system that was not wholly dependent on the economic health of particular employers.
Wilson -- and other titans of American industry -- fought Reuther tooth and nail. They believed that these programs would undermine the "private market." To head him off, they offered a program of employer-based health and pension benefits. Sixty years later those privately funded health and pension benefits have become an economic albatross. That is not because we are over-generous with health care and pensions in the U.S. In fact, our costs for health care, pensions and unemployment are average for the industrial world. The difference is how we fund them.
In Canada, Europe and Japan, the risks of providing these benefits is spread to everyone through the government. In the U.S. they are associated with specific employers. As the auto industry automated and needed fewer workers to produce a car, it meant that for every car sold, the cost of the benefits -- the "legacy costs" for retirees in particular -- skyrocketed relative to the foreign competition. Health care costs alone now add $1,000 to the cost of every American made car.
In countries where these costs are spread to all through government action, companies are free to succeed or fail based on the qualities of the products and their efficiency -- not the number of their retirees.
Wilson's private sector solution for health care and pensions was a disaster for the long-term health of the auto industry. Reuther's public sector solution must finally be adopted to insure a viable auto industry in the future.
2). Auto industry executives failed to invest in technologies that prepared the industry for the future. They took few steps to eliminate their dependence on hydrocarbon fuels -- and have stubbornly prevented government from imposing tougher emission standards and other regulations that would force them to do so. Now, as we get to the end of the hydrocarbon era, the Big Three are mainly geared to produce huge gas guzzlers.
The major reason for this failure to invest for the future has been the incessant desire for short-term returns. There is very little patient capital in the modern financial marketplace. Private capital is highly mobile. Most investments made by pension funds and large equity investors are securitized as investment instruments (not investments in fixed plant and equipment), so it can move on a moment's notice. There is incredible pressure for immediate high yields. That pressure has been exacerbated by the speculative fever of the last ten years and the bubble it generated.
There was simply more short-term return in big vehicles with gasoline-based combustion engines than there was producing smaller vehicles or in making long-term investments in new propulsion systems. Once again, the market, by itself, failed to generate the decisions that would lead the auto industry to long-term economic health.
3). The collapse of world financial markets and last summer's oil price shock have exacerbated both of these underlying problems. The auto industry's own shortsighted opposition to tougher fuel efficiency standards helped spur the oil price shock, which has been mitigated only temporarily by the current economic collapse. The collapse of the financial market has made it very difficult for these companies to raise capital -- or for their consumers to borrow money to buy cars. That, coupled with the broader economic slowdown, has pushed sales over a cliff. In October car sales dropped 35% from the year previous. That is a recipe for bankruptcy.
Of course everyone now admits that the financial market collapse resulted from the deregulation of financial markets and the failure of government to regulate the international financial system. It flows from exactly the same philosophy of unfettered private markets that lead to the auto industry's underlying problems in the first place.
This week Congress needs to do what is necessary to prevent the short-term collapse of the American auto industry. But over the long term a viable auto industry requires more than capital for auto companies. It requires a federal program to guarantee health care for all, a new approach to private pensions and a crash program to free us from our dependence on oil-powered vehicles.
It will also require a renewed commitment to strong unions and a high-wage economy that grows from the bottom up. After all, the health of every American business is ultimately grounded in the existence of consumers with enough money to buy their products.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com
Goodbye and Good Riddance , by Paul Waldman, The American Prospect
After eight years of President Bush, we almost don't know how to function without him - almost. But before we move on, we should pause to remember just what we're leaving behind.
Just over two years into George W. Bush's presidency, The American Prospect featured Bush on its cover under the headline, "The Most Dangerous President Ever." At the time, some probably thought it a bit over the top. But nearly six years later, it's worth taking a moment to reflect on the multifaceted burden that will soon be lifted from our collective shoulders.
Goodbye, we can say at last, to the most powerful man in the world being such a ridiculous buffoon, incapable of stringing together two coherent sentences. Goodbye to cringing with dread every time our president steps onto the world stage, sure he'll say or do something to embarrass us all. Goodbye to being represented by a man who embodies everything our enemies want the people of the world to believe about America - that we are ignorant, cruel, and only care about foreign countries when we decide to stomp on them. Goodbye to his giggle, and his shoulder shake, and his nicknames. Goodbye to a president who talks to us like we're a nation of fourth-graders.
And goodbye, of course, to Dick Cheney. Goodbye to the man whose naked contempt for democracy contorted his face to a permanent sneer, who spent his days in his undisclosed location with his man-sized safe. And while we're at it, goodbye to Cheney's consigliore David Addington, as malevolent a force as has ever left his trail of slime across our federal institutions.
Goodbye, indeed, to the entire band of liars and crooks and thieves who have so sullied the federal government that belongs to us all. We can even say goodbye to those who have already gone, to Rummy and Scooter, to Fredo and Rove, tornados of misery left in their wake.
Goodbye to the rotating cast of butchers manning the White House's legal abattoir, where the Constitution has been sliced and bled and gutted since September 11. Goodbye to the "unitary executive" theory and its claims that the president can do whatever he wants - even snatch an American citizen off the street and lock him up for life without charge, without legal representation, and without trial. Goodbye to the promiscuous use of "signing statements" (1,100 at last count) to declare that the law is whatever the president says it is, and that he'll enforce only those laws he likes. Goodbye to an executive branch that treats lawfully issued subpoenas like suggestions that can be ignored. Goodbye to thinking of John Ashcroft as the liberal attorney general. Goodbye to the culture of incompetence, where rebuilding a country we destroyed could be turned over to a bunch of clueless 20-somethings with no qualifications save an internship at the Heritage Foundation and an opposition to abortion. Goodbye to the "Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job" philosophy, where vital agencies are turned over to incompetent boobs to rot and decay. Goodbye to handing out the Medal of Freedom as an award for engineering one of the greatest screw-ups of our time.
Goodbye to an administration that welcomed gluttonous war profiteering, that was only too happy to outsource every government function it could to well-connected contractors who would do a worse job for more money.
Goodbye to the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. Goodbye to the lust for sending off other people's sons and daughters to fight and kill and die just to show your daddy you're a real man. Goodbye to playing dress-up in flight suits, goodbye to strutting and posing and desperate sexual insecurity as a driver of American foreign policy. Goodbye to the neocons, so sinister and deluded they beg us all to become fevered conspiracy theorists. Goodbye to Guantanamo and its kangaroo courts. Goodbye to the use of torture as official U.S. government policy, and goodbye to the immoral ghouls who think you can rename it "enhanced interrogation techniques" and render it any less monstrous.
Goodbye to the accusation that if you disagree with what the president wants to do, you don't "support the troops."
Goodbye to stocking government agencies with people who are opposed to the very missions those agencies are charged with carrying out. Goodbye to putting industry lobbyists in charge of the agencies that are supposed to regulate those very industries.
Goodbye to madly giving away public lands to private interests. Goodbye to a Food and Drug Administration that acts like a wholly owned subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry, except when it acts like a wholly owned subsidiary of the fundamentalist puritans who believe that sex is dirty and birth control will turn girls into sluts. Goodbye to the "global gag rule," which prohibits any entity receiving American funds from even telling women where they can get an abortion if they need it.
Goodbye to vetoing health insurance for poor children but rushing back to Washington to sign a bill to keep alive a woman whose cerebral cortex had liquefied. Goodbye to the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.
Goodbye to the philosophy that says that if we give tax cuts to the rich and keep the government from any oversight of the economy, prosperity will eventually trickle down. Goodbye to the thirst for privatizing Social Security and to the belief that the success of a social safety-net program is what makes it a threat and should mark it for destruction. Goodbye to the war on unions and to a National Labor Relations Board devoted to crushing them. Goodbye to the principle of loyalty above all else, that nominates Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and puts Alberto Gonzales in charge of the Justice Department. And goodbye to that Justice Department, the one where U.S. attorneys keep their jobs only if they are willing to undertake bogus investigations of Democrats timed to hit the papers just before Election Day. Goodbye to a Justice Department where graduates of Pat Robertson's law school roam the halls by the dozens, where "justice" is a joke.
Goodbye to James Dobson and a host of radical clerics picking up the phone and hearing someone in the White House on the other end. Goodbye to the most consequential decisions being made on the basis of one man's "gut," a gut that proved so wrong so often. Goodbye to the contempt for evidence, to the scorn for intellect and book learnin', to the relentless war on science itself as a means of understanding the world.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye to it all.
This presidency is finally over. We can say goodbye to an administration whose misdeeds have piled so high that the size of the mountain no longer shocks us. In our lifetimes, we will see administrations of varying degrees of competence and integrity, some we'll agree with and some we won't. But we will probably never see another quite like the one now finally reaching its end, so mind-boggling a parade of incompetence and malice, dishonesty, corporate greed, and immorality. So at last - at long, long last - we can say goodbye.
And good riddance.
Wal-Mart Part of $1 Billion Skim-Scam Flimflam by Mike Hall
Big-box retail chains like Wal-Mart are skimming some $1 billion a year in local and state tax revenues and pocketing the cash, according to a new report by the non-profit research center Good Jobs First.
Skimming the Sales Tax: How Wal-Mart and other Big Retailers (Legally) Keep a Cut of the Taxes We Pay on Everyday Purchases says the biggest losses to local and state tax coffers come from programs—known by names such as “vendor discount” or “collection allowance”—that pay retailers for collecting sales tax on behalf of governments.
Says Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoy:
At a time when state and local governments are facing a fiscal crunch, policymakers should take a hard look at retailer compensation practices. This legal skimming is depriving governments of desperately needed revenue.
According to the report, these “vendor discounts” originally were established decades ago when store owners kept records by hand, as a service fee for compensating owners for their time in calculating and then remitting sales taxes to local and state agencies. But these legal tax kickbacks remain in place in the age of electronic cash registers and computers when it simply takes a push of a button, compared to what it used to take store owners hours to figure out.
Twenty-six states provide retailer compensation, which is calculated as a percentage of the sales tax collected, but 13 of those states have no cap on the amount an individual business can receive. Says Philip Mattera, the report’s principal author:
This creates a windfall for giant retailers such as Wal-Mart, which we estimate receives a total of about $60 million a year from retailer compensation programs.
Especially in states without a ceiling, the diversion of money that could go to schools, health care and other services is substantial. The report finds that Illinois leads the nation with an annual revenue loss of $126 million. Texas is second at $89 million, followed by Pennsylvania at $72 million and Colorado at $68 million. Says Mattera:
Even if you accept the idea that retailers deserve some compensation, it is difficult to justify an open-ended amount. The main expenses that retailers incur with regard to sales taxes—especially software programs to track them—are fixed costs that do not rise in tandem with growth in receipts. States should keep that in mind when determining their definition of reasonable.
Click here to read the full report.
New Bush Rules Narrow Family Leave for Workers by Mike Hall
As part of its last-minute move to push dozens of pro-business regulations onto the books before it leaves office, the Bush administration today issued new finalized rules for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) that will make it tougher for some 77 million workers to use leave when they need to take care of themselves or family members.
Jocelyn Frye, general counsel for the National Partnership for Women & Families, says the new rules:
Will make it more difficult to take leave when they needed it.
But, along with new restrictions on workers’ use of leave, the U.S. Department of Labor also added new rules clarifying how military families can take time off to care for wounded service members. In January, Congress approved legislation extending the FMLA to military families.
Yesterday, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) told reporters the changes for military families will:
…help military families balance work and family. But other changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act on balance, benefit employers at the expense of workers.
Under FMLA, companies employing 50 or more people must allow workers up to 12 weeks a year of unpaid leave to care for themselves or family members during illnesses or for the birth or adoption of a child.
One of the business-backed changes requires workers to give advance notification before they take leave. Family advocates point out many workers are forced to take family and medical leave because of sudden illness or injury to themselves or family members.
The final rules are nearly identical to initial regulations the Labor Department first proposed. Testifying before a House committee earlier this year, National Partnership President Debra Ness said:
workers will find that they must give more notice, more information, have more medical examinations and respond to employer requirements in shorter time frames. Employers, on the other hand, would have more time to respond to employees’ request for FMLA leave and more ways to delay or deny FMLA leave.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the rules “another slap in the face to working families who are struggling just to get by in the midst of an economic crisis.”
It’s reprehensible—but all too predictable—that the Bush administration would use its final days in office to give business interests one more gift by placing more hurdles in front of workers who need to care for their families.
The new rules will be published Nov. 17 in the Federal Register and go into effect Jan. 17, just days before President-elect Barack Obama takes office. By finalizing the family leave rules now, the Bush administration has made sure that if the Obama administration wants to rescind or modify the business-backed changes, it will face a long and drawn-out regulatory process.
Obama has called for expanding the FMLA to cover more workers and also supports paid sick leave for workers.
New ethics complaint filed against Palin.
A
resident of Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) hometown of Wasilla filed a new ethics
complaint against the governor, arguing that her recent
media blitz broke
state ethics rules because portions of the interviews took place in the
governor’s office. The Anchorage Daily News reports:
Jane Henning, a North Slope worker from Wasilla, said he filed the complaint with the attorney general. He says Palin is promoting her future political career on state property, pointing in particular to the governor’s Nov. 10 interview with Fox News Channel host Greta Van Susteren. […]
“The governor is using her official position and office in an attempt to repair her damaged political image on the national scene,” Henning wrote.
The state executive branch ethics rules say officials can’t use state resources to help or hurt a political candidate. Or a potential candidate.
Comments:
DAILY GRILL
"President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul
controversial Bush administration intelligence policies." -- Wall Street
Journal,
11/11/08
VERSUS
"I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow
through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture, and
I'm going to make sure that we don't torture." -- Obama,
11/16/08
**************************
"We did not torture." -- White House Press Secretary Dana Perino,
11/18/08
VERSUS
"The CIA director on Tuesday publicly named for the first time the three
suspected al Qaeda detainees who were subjected to the harsh interrogation
technique of waterboarding." -- CNN,
2/5/08
Quotes of the Day
Recent Senate Votes
NOT IN SESSION
Recent House Votes
NOT IN SESSION
HUMOR
"The three big domestic automakers are now saying they are working
jointly on a new hybrid car. It runs on a combination of state and federal
bailout money." --Jay Leno
"That's the big debate in Washington, now, whether to bail out Detroit
automakers. Because if they went under, we'd lose millions and millions of
jobs. You know what we need to do? And this is what I think would work. We
need to get Oprah to buy everybody a car again, that would turn this thing
around!" --Jay Leno
"The three C.E.O.s made a huge mistake today. You may have seen this -- they
each flew to Washington in their own private jet to ask for $25 billion
bailout. Even A.I.G. executives are going, 'What are you thinking?'" --Jay
Leno
"They each took their own private jet that cost $20,000 round trip. And
here's the sad part, today the Japanese announced they have a jet that costs
half that and gets better mileage." --Jay Leno
"Sociologists believe that nine months after election day, there could be
thousands of Obama babies born, 'cause a lot of people celebrated a big
victory by having sex. But, you know, they act like this is new. This is not
new. In fact, you know,
John McCain was a Lincoln baby." --Jay Leno
"Once he becomes president,
Barack Obama will not be allowed to use his Blackberry, or even his
email anymore for, security reasons. Obama says, even if he can't email, he
still wants to be the first president to have a laptop on his desk in the
Oval Office. See, Bush thought he had a laptop. Turns out it was just an
Etch-a-Sketch." --Jay Leno
"Because he's a kind of a techno guy, the press is calling Obama the first
wired president. As opposed to
President Bush, who was the first wiretap president." --Jay Leno
"Al-Qaeda released a new tape today, in which they used a racial slur
directed at President-elect Barack Obama. Hey, al-Qaeda thought it was tough
dealing with the U.S. military? Now they've got Al Sharpton coming after
them, alright?" --Jay Leno
"The word is that Hillary Clinton does want the job as secretary of state.
And as you know, the secretary of state serves at the pleasure of the
president, to which Bill said, 'Yeah, that will be a first.'" --Jay Leno
"And the longest-serving Republican senator, Ted Stevens of Alaska, was just
convicted of seven felonies. He's on his way to jail, lost his Senate race
in a squeaker, a squeaker. Which, ironically, is what they call the new guy
in prison." --Jay Leno
"Eliot Spitzer's call girl, remember her? She's being interviewed on '20/20'
this Friday. And she told '20/20,' no matter how long the interview lasts,
even if the interview's only 15 minutes, they still have to pay for the
whole hour." --Jay Leno
"Pirates from Somalia hijacked a Saudi Arabian super tanker full of oil and
are holding it for ransom. You know what you call someone who hijacks a ton
of oil [and] holds it for ransom? Anybody know? Exxon Mobil." --Jay Leno
"Is it chilly outside today? I'm telling you, coming to work today, it was
so cold, I was shaking like
Sarah Palin taking a geography test." --David Letterman
"Auto executives, the Big Three, are asking Congress now for bailout money.
Yeah. Hey, don’t kid yourself. Things are getting desperate, and if they
get any worse, these guys may have to trim their $10 million bonuses."
--David Letterman
"Today,
Bill Clinton said, if it will help Hillary become secretary of state,
he'd be willing to release his financial records. Yeah. Yeah, meanwhile,
Hillary said, if it will help her get the job, she'll release Bill's
testicles. They've been in the jar so long." --Conan O'Brien
"This week, John McCain met with his advisers to prepare to run for
reelection to the Senate. Yeah. Apparently, McCain’s new campaign slogan
is, 'Now 100 percent Sarah Palin-free.'" --Conan O'Brien
"The big rumor yesterday was that Barack Obama would select Hillary
Clinton to be his secretary of state. Now it seems like that might not be
the case and there are a lot of theories as to why. But maybe the best
indicator that she might not take the job, apparently this morning, Bill
took down his e-Harmony page." --Jimmy Kimmel
ECONOMY -- NEW DATA
SHOW U.S. CORPORATIONS PAY LOWER TAXES THAN MOST INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS:
Conservatives spent the last year
railing
against the United States' 35 percent corporate tax rate. What they
never mentioned is that this 35 percent corporate rate is so riddled with
loopholes and shelters that the United States collects
less in corporate taxes as a percentage of GDP than most other
industrialized countries.
New IRS data show that typical American companies paid only 25.3 percent
of their U.S. book income in federal corporate taxes in 2005, despite a
statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent, by using loopholes and shelters.
U.S. companies "reported about
$1.35 trillion in pretax U.S. book income to their investors in 2005,
but about $1.03 trillion to the IRS -- a difference of about 23%." A quick
calculation shows that the difference between paying 35 percent on $1.03
trillion in income and $1.35 trillion in income is approximately $112
billion -- enough to finance more than half of the Center for American
Progress's ambitious "Green
Recovery" plan to jumpstart a clean energy economy. Some differences
between book -- and reported -- income are legal and legitimate, but they
can also be a sign of
sheltering and abuse. Effective tax reform would first
broaden the tax base by closing loopholes and eliminating shelters,
before considering a lower statutory corporate rate.
ETHICS -- CHAMBLISS CLAIMS HIS 2002 ATTACK AD ON CLELAND WAS 'TRUTHFUL IN EVERY WAY': Earlier this week, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) defended an ad he ran against Max Cleland in 2002 that linked Cleland -- a triple amputee Vietnam veteran -- to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Chambliss called it "a lightweight ad" and "very fair." Yesterday on MSNBC, host Andrea Mitchell wondered if Chambliss had any regrets about the ad. "You know, Andrea, that ad is truthful in every way," Chambliss said, adding that Cleland "voted against George Bush eleven times on the issue of homeland security." The ad is not truthful. While it claims that Cleland voted against homeland security efforts, in fact, Cleland was voting against a provision in a homeland security measure that would have stripped away the collective bargaining rights of federal employees -- many of whom would form the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And Cleland actually co-sponsored legislation that called for the creation of a cabinet-level DHS. Despite having called the Cleland ad "disgraceful" and "reprehensible," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) campaigned yesterday in Georgia for Chambliss, who is locked in a tight runoff election against Democrat Jim Martin.
JUSTICE -- RECORD NUMBER OF FELONS SEEK PARDONS FROM
BUSH: As President Bush enters his final months in office,
a record number of felons are seeking presidential pardons or
commutations from him, causing "one of the largest backlogs in clemency
applications in recent history." In fiscal year 2008, which ended on Sept.
30, more than 2,300 people applied for a pardon or commutation, the largest
number for any single year since at least 1900. An additional
103 people have applied for pardons in the last month. The list of those
applying for clemency includes a number of "high-profile
felons" such as John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, and
Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former California congressman who was convicted
of tax evasion. In his presidency thus far, Bush has "taken
a stingy stand on pardons," granting fewer of them than any president in
modern history. But Bush's use of his clemency powers has not been without
controversy. In 2007, Bush
commuted former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby's
two-and-a-half year prison sentence for lying to federal prosecutors. Though
Libby has
not submitted a pardon request, "speculation is rampant that Libby's
allies will press Bush for one."
MISPLACED BLAME:
Part of conservatives' efforts to curb any talk of rescuing car makers has
involved
placing blame for the crisis on labor unions. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
claimed that "some auto manufacturers are struggling because of a bad
business structure with high unionized labor costs," while Sen. Jon Kyl
(R-AZ)
said on Sunday that the auto industry has "been sick" for years because
of a "bad business model" with "contracts negotiated with the United Auto
Workers that impose huge costs." But unions have
repeatedly made
concessions to auto executives over recent years. Bad executive
leadership is more likely the catalyst for the Big Three's woes. GM Vice
Chairman Bob Lutz has dismissed global warming as "a total crock of sh*t."
Such sentiments from Detroit's leadership has contributed to the Big Three
basing their business model on a
future of cheap oil while
fighting fuel efficiency standards despite repeated warnings against
pursuing such a strategy. Indeed, as The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn noted,
Lutz "should
be the first to go."
FOCUS ON THE FAMILY FORCED TO MAKE LAYOFFS AFTER SPENDING $600,000 TO DEFEAT MARRIAGE EQUALITY: The Colorado Independent reported yesterday that James Dobson's Focus on the Family will be cutting 202 jobs, laying off an estimated 20 percent of its workforce. The layoffs come just weeks after the right-wing group spent more than $600,000 to defeat marriage equality in California. The Focus on the Family empire invested $539,000 in cash and another $83,000 worth of non-monetary support into passing Prop. 8, praising the initiative as one that would "help protect millions of children from radical indoctrination in the homosexual lifestyle." The group also touted its involvement collecting signatures and gathering donations for Prop. 8, patting itself on the back for being "integrally involved" in the fight against marriage equality. As the Independent reported, "Critics are holding up the layoffs, which come just two months after the organization's last round of dismissals, as a sad commentary on the true priorities of the ministry."
Think Fast
Some Republican governors were not happy about yesterday's Palin-centric press conference, at the Republican Governors Association. "One called it awkward," CNN reports, while another described the event as "odd" and "weird," and said it "unfortunately sent a message that she was the de facto leader of the party."
Democratic congressional leaders appeared to concede yesterday that "they would face potentially insurmountable Republican opposition" to a proposed $25 billion auto industry bailout when they meet for a lame-duck session next week.
PhRMA, the nation's largest pharmaceutical lobbying group, "is preparing a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign to tout the importance of free-market health care and undercut an expected push by the Obama administration for price controls of prescription drugs."
Judge Barbara L. Neilson of Minnesota threw out a lawsuit Thursday against Al Franken by Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN). Coleman claimed Franken defamed him by calling him the "fourth most corrupt" senator, according to CREW. Franken's reference of CREW was "substantially accurate, if not literally true," according to Nielson.
Former senator Phil Gramm, who once said subprime loans were "the American dream in action" and declared recently that America has "become a nation of whiners," has no remorse over pushing deregulation throughout this career. Rejecting "this idea afloat that if you had more regulation you would have fewer mistakes," Gramm told the New York Times. "The markets have worked better than you might have thought."
On Election Day, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a Dec. 19 auction of more than 50,000 acres of oil and gas parcels alongside or within view of three national parks in Utah. Environmentalists are calling the move a Bush administration "fire sale" for the oil and gas industry while the National Park Service's top official in the state said it was "shocking and disturbing."
"The Pentagon spent about $600 million on more than 1,200 Iraq reconstruction contracts that were eventually canceled," reports the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, adding that "42% of canceled contracts were terminated because the contractor either failed to deliver or performed poorly."
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) announced yesterday that "he would advance a bill early next year calling for universal health care." Kennedy, who was making his second appearance on Capitol Hill since he began treatment for a malignant brain tumor in June, said that "the president-elect has indicated that this is going to be a priority, and I certainly hope it will."
Senate Democrats called on President Bush yesterday to "halt any effort by his administration to place political appointees in career jobs just weeks before his team leaves office." Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sent a letter to Bush urging him "to keep his pledge of a smooth transition without partisan maneuvering.
Despite formal dissents from half of the agency's 10 regional administrators, the Environmental Protection Agency "is finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas." The proposal would make it so spikes in pollution during periods of peak energy demand would no longer violate the law.
INTERESTING
Buy American Mention of the Week, By Roger Simmermaker
NONE THIS WEEK
*************************************************************************
Roger Simmermaker is the author of How Americans Can Buy American: The Power of Consumer Patriotism and writes "Buy American Mention of the Week" articles for WorldNetDaily.com and his website www.howtobuyamerican.com. Roger is a member of the Machinists Union and National Writers Union, has been a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, and has been quoted in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Business Week among many other publications.
GOOD NEWS
"The number of young people considering a military career has significantly increased for the first time in about five years, buoyed by more positive news out of Iraq."
VIDEOS
NONE THIS WEEK
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