http://capitolfax.com/2011/03/30/actual-caterpillar-ceo-letter-paints-far-different-picture-than-media-coverage/
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
US Chamber of Commerce and Caterpillar Collude to Extort Illinois #p2 #tcot
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/us-chamber-commerce-and-caterpillar-collude
Click here to view this media
The US Chamber of Commerce strikes again. Ed laid out Caterpillar's extortion of the state of Illinois in this clip. It seems that the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., Doug Oberhelman, is bothered by the recent personal and corporate sales tax increases the Illinois legislature passed to balance their budget. Oberhelman has recently been courted by Nebraska, Texas, South Dakota and Virginia, all states with very low to no taxes.
So how does the US Chamber factor in? Well, the Group President of Caterpillar, Inc. is Gerald L. Shaheen, past chair of the US Chamber of Commerce and a current director of the National Chamber Foundation. The National Chamber Foundation recently issued a "study" entitled "Enterprising States", citing those states with the perfect environment for job creation. Unsurprisingly, the states mentioned were states with little to no state taxes, or states which recently cut tax rates -- Texas, North Dakota, Indiana, and Nebraska among them.
This isn't the first time Caterpillar has led the corporate charge against any policy which might actually benefit the middle class either. Last year they were at the front of the charge against health care reform, claiming it would cost them $100 million for retiree health care, which they took pains to write down immediately (along with AT&T and a few other Chamber bigwigs) so that they could show the hit on their balance sheets now for a charge that won't take effect until 2014. That move was intended to anger investors and others who might otherwise have remained neutral on the Affordable Care Act.
It's also no coincidence that Mr. Oberhelman sent his letter in just enough time for it to make the news and generate some buzz ahead of Wednesday's US Chamber-sponsored Capital Markets Summit, where I'm sure the main topic of discussion will be which states should be strafed by conservatives next as corporations strive to end the middle class entirely.
Other news bites from Caterpillar in the past week or so include this gem of a press release about how they're "in a hurry to increase production" -- in Asia. No jobs for the United States, nope, no way. But in Asia, they just can't wait to ramp up the production lines. Or this more specific one:
"By 2015, we will have made $5 billion in investments to increase production capacity at existing and new Caterpillar facilities to support customers in every region of the world, including plans to nearly triple machine capacity across our operations in Asia," said Oberhelman. "This is in addition to more than $10 billion in investments announced in 2010 for three significant acquisitions—Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc., Motoren-Werke Mannheim Holding GmbH (MWM) and Bucyrus International, Inc. Together, these moves represent Caterpillar's commitment to leadership in support of our growing base of customers and to expand our products and services," Oberhelman added.
See, here's how they did that. They sat on their cash after getting a bunch of federal stimulus money, then went on an acquisition spree with the billions in the coffers and built some new facilities around the world. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, they're whining about having to pay state income tax in Illinois. Aww. Poor, hungry Caterpillar.
If it isn't obvious to everyone by now that these corporations think they're running the country, it ought to be after this. They poured money into state-level elections in 2010 and now they expect a return on their investment. Isn't it time we started talking about de-funding THEM instead of letting them de-fund everything else?
Nightly News stays mum on GE's $0 tax bill #p2 #tcot
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/nightly-news-stays-mum-on-ges-0-tax-bill
As the New Yorker's former press critic, A.J. Liebling, famously said, "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." Perhaps that quotation is framed somewhere in a boardroom at the General Electric Corp., which owns NBC News.
As the New Yorker's former press critic, A.J. Liebling, famously said, "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." Perhaps that quotation is framed somewhere in a boardroom at the General Electric Corp., which owns NBC News.
In spite of robust profits of $14.2 billion worldwide, GE has calculated a corporate tax bill for 2010 that adds up to zero, via a creative series of tax referrals and revenue shifts. (This was, indeed, the second year running that the company—which has an enormous, and famously nimble, 975-employee tax division, led by former Treasury official John Samuels—paid nothing in U.S. taxes; indeed by claiming a series of losses and deductions, GE came up with a negative tax of 10.5 percent in the admittedly dismal business year of 2009, and realized a $1.5 billion "tax benefit.")
The curious thing about this year's tax story is that it turned up in many major news outlets, with one key exception: NBC News. As the Washington Post's Paul Farhi notes, the network's "Nightly News" broadcast, hosted by Brian Williams, has not mentioned anything about its corporate parent's resourceful accounting, even though the story has been in wide circulation in the business and general-interest press for nearly a week. "This was a straightforward news decision, the kind we make daily around here" network spokeswoman Lauren Kapp told the Post.
One press critic who begs to differ: Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who noted that the Nightly News found the time for a dispatch on the inclusion of slang expressions in the Oxford English Dictionary, such as "LOL" and "OMG." Of course, Comedy Central's corporate parent, Viacom, is also no slouch when it comes to tax strategy: Earlier this year it sold its struggling videogame unit Harmonix for $50—so that it could claim a tax credit of $50 million.
(Photo of Williams: Matt Sayles/AP)
Bernie Sanders Exposed The 10 Worst Tax Cheats In America #p2 #tcot
That clip above is from a senatorial "Back Off Social Security" rally to rescue Social Security from the clutches of the deranged House Republicans. I liked what Bernie had to say-- as usual-- but other senators participating included Harry Reid, Al Franken, Tom Harkin and Richard Blumenthal. Obviously I wouldn't expect corporate shills like Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor or Joe Manchin at this kind of event but any Democrat who thinks he or she has a higher priority than saving Social Security ought to state what it is and exactly how it kept him or her from the rally. Paul Ryan's Wall Street proposal to begin dismantling Social Security through partial privatization would do exactly what Republicans are doing in every state they control-- wrecking the social safety net and disabling countervailing forces (be they government or unions, public media or even teachers) standing in the way of complete corporate domination of the nation-- a form of classic fascism, which is inevitably and always what right-wing ideology leads to.
As Bernie pointed out, just lift the unfair and ridiculous cap on payroll taxes so that the wealthy start paying the same as everyone else pays and Social Security is home free for eternity.
The day before the rally Bernie called on wealthy individuals and corporations to pay their fair share and called out the worst tax cheats by name, something few if any, other senators would ever even consider doing.
1) ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. [Note: Our post last April reported that ExxonMobil was owed $46 million by the IRS.]
rest at http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2011/03/ge-management-arent-only-crooks-not.html
As Bernie pointed out, just lift the unfair and ridiculous cap on payroll taxes so that the wealthy start paying the same as everyone else pays and Social Security is home free for eternity.
The day before the rally Bernie called on wealthy individuals and corporations to pay their fair share and called out the worst tax cheats by name, something few if any, other senators would ever even consider doing.
1) ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. [Note: Our post last April reported that ExxonMobil was owed $46 million by the IRS.]
rest at http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2011/03/ge-management-arent-only-crooks-not.html
Tea party unpopularity on the rise #p2 #tcot
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/tea_party_unpopularity_on_the_rise/2011/03/30/AFlitS3B_blog.html?wprss=rss_politics
The tea party movement has been growing less popular over the past year. (Ben Sklar - GETTY IMAGES) Almost half of Americans have an unfavorable view of the tea party movement, according to a new CNN poll, a 21 percent rise in that number from January 2010.
In the survey, 47 percent of Americans say they see the tea party in an unfavorable light while 32 percent regard the movement favorably.
That makes the tea party about as unpopular as the Democratic and Republican parties.
(The CNN numbers track closely with what the Post found in its most recent poll.)
What explains the tea party's rising unpopularity?
Let's first take a step back and look at the broader picture on the the tea party's favorable and unfavorable ratings.
A graph by the New York Times' Nate Silver shows that the tea party has been growing steadily less popular over the past year, while its favorability ratings have stayed steady in the low 30s.
There's no simple explanation for the uptick in unfavorability.
CNN polling director Keating Holland pointed out that the rise in tea party unfavorability in his poll came primarily among people making less than $50,000 a year.
"It's possible the drop among lower income Americans is a reaction to the tea party's push for large cuts in government programs that help lower-income Americans, although there are certainly other factors at work," Holland explained.
It also could be that as the tea party has become better known and better defined, some people who initially said they liked the movement even though they knew little about it have grown disenchanted as they have learned more.
The growing unpopularity of the tea party with the public puts Republicans in a tough political spot.
On the one hand, the tea party retains considerable power within the GOP — one needs only look at the results from the 2010 Senate primaries for proof of that. On the other, aligning too closely with the tea party creates the possibility of running afoul of some significant chunk of people outside of the Republican base.
That choice is playing out in real time right now on Capitol Hill as House Republican leaders have begun to court moderate Democrats for a budget compromise bill under the theory that anything short of the $61 billion package of cuts passed by the House will not pass muster with tea party-aligned members.
Should such a deal be cut, it's a near-certainty that many tea party leaders will balk, arguing that the party is abandoning (again) its core principles. "Unless the Tea Party stays active, we will wilt," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a leader within the movement, said Tuesday.
With the tea party coming to Washington for a major rally on Thursday, Republicans leaders will come face to face with the tough decision before them. Side with the tea party and risk tying yourself to a group that is not broadly popular with the public. Go against them and risk alienating the most active and passionate members of the party's base, the men and women most responsible for helping deliver the GOP across-the-board gains in 2010.
The clock is ticking, literally, as the government will shut down April 9 without some sort of budget deal.
House Republicans Plan Strategy To Overturn DC Marriage Equality Law #p2 #tcot
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/house-republicans-plan-strategy-overturn-dc-marriage-equality-law
A leading House Republican is pledging to follow-through on his promise to force a referendum on the District of Columbia's 2010 marriage equality law. In January, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Religious Right activists demanded that the rights of gays and lesbians to marry in D.C. be put to a popular vote after the Supreme Court rebuffed an attempt by Harry Jackson to compel a referendum. Jordan is head of the Republican Study Committee, the principal caucus for House conservatives, and wants to take advantage of Congress's disproportionate power over District affairs in order to push his opposition to marriage equality. CQ reports (subscription only):
Jim Jordan, chairman of the 176-member Republican Study Committee, is leading an effort by conservatives to press House leaders for floor votes in opposition to gay marriage.
Jordan's first project is a draft proposal that would set up a referendum to overturn a year-old District of Columbia law recognizing marriages of gay and lesbian couples. The move comes as conservatives express a desire to move beyond a focus on spending cuts and expand the House majority's legislative agenda to include social issues.
The Supreme Court declined in January to take up a case aimed at clearing the way for a referendum to ban gay marriage in the nation's capital. City officials have blocked the referendum on the grounds that it would violate a city human rights law.
Jordan said he expects the draft measure to draw strong support from House Republicans. He and other conservatives say they are weighing how best to promote the vote as an example of Republicans fulfilling a campaign promise. The GOP's 2010 Pledge to America vowed that a Republican majority would "honor families, traditional marriage, life and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values."
…
Jordan says he will press for a floor vote to allow fellow conservatives to make clear their opposition to gay marriage. "We want to advance marriage. That's the pledge. Our party should be all about defending marriage as it has always been defined," he said.
Reps. Steve King of Iowa and Vicky Hartzler of Missouri have also been calling for floor action to demonstrate opposition to gay marriage. Hartzler has gathered 98 cosponsors for a resolution condemning the Obama administration's decision to stop defending restrictions on gay marriage.
KS GOP Rep. Slams Anti-Abortion Bill: I’m ‘Embarrased To Be A State That Bases Its Laws On Untruths’ #p2 #tcot
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/30/kansas-anti-abortion-bill/
But not all Republicans bought the Republican argument that "this is a significant advancement" and "a more appropriate benchmark for late-term abortions." "It's based on false research," said GOP Rep. Barbara Bollier who joined 8 other Republicans who voted against the bill:
"No one really knows and it's based on false research," said Rep. Barbara Bollier, R-Mission Hills. "It's not universally held and I would be embarrassed to be a state that bases its laws on untruths."
Bollier's skepticism is shared by many in the medical profession. Though debate exists, a thorough review of the medical evidence in the Journal of the American Medical Association determined that "pain perception probably does not function before the third trimester." Before then, "the fetus's higher pain pathways are not yet fully developed and functional."
But why worry about "untruths" when right-wing lawmakers can use "false research" to challenge Roe v. Wade? This bill, a twin of Nebraska's "first in the nation" fetal pain law, challenges the ruling's key viability standard — "the point at which the fetus can live outside the womb" — as the point when states can ban abortions. These laws could submit fetal pain as "a new dividing line at which abortions could be banned." Nebraska's law, enacted last year, has already had drastic consequences — just ask Danielle Deaver.
Kansas's second anti-abortion bill, HB 2035, would require parental consent for anyone under 18 to have an abortion. Current law requires that one parent be notified, but neither parent can veto a daughter's abortion. Unsatisfied with tightening parental control, the GOP included provisions that allow family members to sue doctors and force women to agree that they're terminating a human being:
* Allow a woman's close family members to sue if they believe an illegal abortion was performed.
* Require providers of abortions to provide patients with a newly revised informed consent statement including wording that abortion "terminates the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being."
Both bills go directly to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R). Brownback, "who is pro-life, has promised to sign" the fetal pain measure into law. Florida, Arkansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, and Kentucky are mulling similar "fetal pain" bills.
tool: Rick Santorum: ‘Abortion is killing Social Security’
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/rick_santorum_abortion_is_killing_social_security/
You gotta hand it to him, Rick Santorum, that wacky wingnut Republican no-hoper presidential candidate, a man with even less of a chance of gaining the GOP nomination than, say, Newt Gingrich (or any of the rest of them for that matter), just won't give up. Despite the fact that NO ONE, I mean NO ONE thinks he's got a snowball's chance in hot hot Hades of gaining traction with, you know, actual voters, Rick's out there, fighting the good fight… or something. It's hard to say what he's really doing or what he thinks he's accomplishing.
Could there be a less-inspiring, less-intelligent, less-attractive candidate than Rick Santorum? Of course there could be, never count out the GOP when it comes to scraping the bottom of the loony bin, but the odds are against a lesser contender turning up in this election cycle. Even Ron or Rand Paul have better chances of moving into the White House than Santorum—effectively none, of course—and yet like a buffoonish Energerizer Bunny, he just keeps on going. BUT WHY? WHO is urging him to run? What kind of people shows up at his campaign events? What's his motivation to run for President in spite of overwhelming indifference?
Who the fuck knows? Michele Bachmann probably even thinks Santorum is a pinhead. What alternate conclusion could anyone, even a Republican, come to when faced with a statement like this one:
"The social security system in my opinion is a flawed design, period. But, having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends. … The reason social security is in big trouble is we don't have enough workers to support the retirees. Well, a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion."
Mull that one over. Nope, Social Security's problems have nothing to do with the fact that after $106,800 the wealthy don't have to pay anything else into the fund. Repeal Roe v. Wade and America's financial woes will magically right themselves…
I can't even get a hard on to make fun of Rick Santorum anymore. Why let perfectly good mockery go to waste on a guy like him?
Via Wonkette
Joe Barton claims that “Texas air quality is excellent” while leading the nation in carbon pollution #p2 #tcot
http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/30/joe-barton-claims-that-texas-air-quality-is-excellent-while-leading-the-nation-in-carbon-pollution/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29
A recent study found "air quality in Houston is still among the worst in the nation." Yet, as this Wonk Room cross-post makes clear, "Smokey" Joe Barton apparently lives in a different Texas.
Visiting the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in Fort Worth, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) — who infamously apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward for having to pay Gulf residents for damage caused by his company's oil spill — stated that the air in Texas is "excellent":
Texas' environmental regulators are "the best in the country," and "Texas air quality is excellent," U.S. Rep. Joe Barton said Friday during an event that highlighted the state's ongoing scrap with federal authorities over air quality.
"The federal government sets the standard, but then the states implement it," Barton said. "I think Texas has done an excellent job of not only implementing the standards but of proving they're in compliance."
Not only is Texas the biggest polluter in the country but it isn't complying with federal air quality standards. Texas leads the nation in carbon dioxide emissions, and in 2008, Houston was ranked the fourth worst city for ozone — a far cry from "excellent" air quality.
Texas has not been in compliance with federal air quality standards since 1994, when the state submitted a system of issuing flexible air pollution limits to the EPA — which allowed for a portion of a refinery or chemical plant to emit more pollutants than federal standards authorize as long as the total emissions did not infringe on federal air quality standards. Both the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush missed deadlines to make a decision on the Texas permitting program, but the Bush administration repeatedly sent notices insisting that they comply with federal requirements. Finally, in June 2010, the EPA published its "disapproval" of Texas' air quality standards, stating, the Texas program "does not meet several national Clean Air Act requirements that help to assure the protection of health and the environment."
Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples has pushed back against the EPA's decision, saying, "[u]ltimately, in this process, it is the consumer, American families, that will be picking up the tab for" stronger air quality enforcement.
Gina McCarthy, the EPA's top air official, responded to the agency's critics, saying that "enforcement of the Clean Air Act has saved lives and allowed the economy to grow." In fact, the EPA just released a study which concluded that the Clean Air Act will "prevent 230,000 premature deaths and result in $2 trillion in economic benefits in 2020."
GOP defends government shutdown as being a walk in the park #p2 #tcot
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/30/961566/-GOP-defends-government-shutdown-as-being-a-walk-in-the-park?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29
Broun's argument is that if Congress fails to fund government past April 8, it wouldn't completely shut down—essential functions would remain operational. "Shutting the government down," he said, "is not going to stop the essential services of the federal government."
Rep. Paul Broun, Republican of Georgia, giving voice earlier this morning to the newest GOP argument about a federal shutdown: that shutting down the government wouldn't be a big deal at all.
But while it's true that the Obama administration would almost certainly find a way to make sure Social Security checks go out, if you needed to change your address or bank account information, or sign up for payments, you'd be a out of luck. A wide range of important services—everything from issuing passports to conducting energy research to operating national parks to operating the veterans administration—would be shuttered.
The strange thing about the GOP's new argument is that at the same time that they are arguing that a government shutdown wouldn't be a big deal, they are also arguing that Democrats are trying to engineer a government shutdown to gain a political advantage. For example, just before saying a shutdown would be no big deal, Broun said of Democrats that "their diabolical plan is to shut the government down, blame Republicans, and try to get re-elected." But if Republicans really believe a government shutdown is as good an idea as they say it would be, then why are they accusing Democrats of trying to force once? If that's really what they believed, wouldn't they be trying to take credit instead?
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