Catherine Crier's Blog, page 7

The one federal agency designed to ensure our electoral process is currently leaderless.

Without careful oversight, faulty voting machines could put our entire electoral process at risk. But as November fast approaches, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission currently operates without any leadership whatsoever due to congressional attempts to defund the agency.

Republican lawmakers nationwide risk disenfranchising millions of voters with harsh Voter ID laws and voter roll purges, yet they continue to obstruct the one federal agency designed to ensure the honesty of our electoral process. Are they really concerned about voter fraud, or is there something more underway?

From The Huffington Post

Federal Voting Commissioners AWOL As Election Approaches

By Dan Froomkin

WASHINGTON — As local officials gear up for a national election where razor-thin margins could tip the balance of power, the federal agency established after the Florida ballot disaster of 2000 to ensure that every vote gets counted is leaderless and adrift.

There are supposed to be four commissioners on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), but right now there are none.

The last executive director resigned in November, and the commissioners must vote to appoint a new one.

President Barack Obama nominated two new Democratic commissioners last year, but congressional Republicans are trying to defund the agency entirely — which means for now no Republican nominations and no confirmation of the Democrats’ candidates.

“If it is still as toothless by November 6 as it is today, I would have every expectation that things will fall through the cracks,” said Estelle H. Rogers, legislative director at Project VOTE, a nonpartisan group that supports voting accessibility. Rogers said the EAC has provided important assistance to local officials with respect to registration forms, poll worker training and issue alerts.

“It is kind of disgraceful that we’re headed into a major election and the only federal agency that’s devoted to election administration has zero commissioners,” said Lawrence Norden, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

The commission’s staff continues to serve as a clearinghouse for information to the public and election officials, and tests and certifies voting machines, but is limited in what it can do going forward. Without commissioners, the EAC can’t adopt new policies, issue formal advisory opinions or update regulations.

Norden said he worries that there are no federal standards for the next generation of voting machines. “We’re still working off a standard that was developed in 2005,” he said.

Norden also criticized Republican attempts to get rid of the agency, saying that with more than 5,000 election jurisdictions, it’s important to have a federal clearinghouse for voting system problems.

Opponents of the EAC act as if the Florida ballot-counting problems were ancient history, said Norden. “But it’s like yesterday that we decided we needed this agency because of all these problems. It’s amazing to me.”

Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) has led the campaign against the EAC, decrying what he calls the agency’s “bloated budget, ever-growing staff, shrinking responsibilities,” among other complaints.

The GOP has invested heavily this year in new voter identification laws and purges of voter rolls. Critics see its opposition to the EAC as another aspect of a push to restrict voting.

After all, shuttering the commission is hardly a top budget priority. It’s slated to get $14 million in federal money next year — a relatively insignificant chunk of the budget. The EAC actually received $11.5 million this year, and is expected to receive the same amount next year, despite the official budget.

EAC spokesman Bryan Whitener told The Huffington Post that the commission is still carrying out the policies established earlier by the commissioners. “We have our statutory obligations and responsibilities, and we’re working to serve our mission,” he said. “If this were in the very beginning, when we had no established policies or procedures, that would be a very different matter. But we’ve done quite a bit of work.”

Whitener cited a roundtable webcast in June in which election officials could discuss best practices and issues related to the upcoming election.

Whitener wouldn’t say how the agency itself feels about lacking leaders. “Any questions regarding commissioners, that’s a question for the president and the Congress,” he said, also declining to respond to the GOP charges that the EAC should be shut down. “Perhaps that’s a question you’d want to ask commissioners.”

Ion Sancho, the elections supervisor for Leon County, Fla., said the EAC shouldn’t be eliminated — it should be empowered. “The EAC in concept I think was very good, but in practice was a complete disaster,” he said.

A four-person commission, with two members from each party, meant important questions resulted in gridlock, he said.

Regulating the largely unregulated voting machine industry is a particularly important area where the EAC needs to be active, Sancho argued.

There is so little federal role right now, he said, that malfunctions in one state are often not reported to other states with the same equipment. “I think we do need a national panel of this type, to take a tougher position on examining voting processes all over the country,” he said.

Banksters lie and cheat to win, but rarely do they own up to their misdeeds.

Banksters like Sandy Weill have no qualms with lying and cheating to win. Rarely do they ever confess their crimes—not until we’re tapped out, they’re caught on tape, or as ruse to lower suspicion while preparing their next assault.

From The Atlantic Wire

Jon Stewart Gives Sandy Weill ‘A Vigorous Tongue-Lashing’

By SERENA DAI

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart introduced a new segment targeting Sanford Weill, former CEO of Citigroup.

With a little help from his undermining writers, the segment was called “Jon Stewart fingers some a**holes and then gives them a vigorous tongue-lashing.” (!)

Weill is seen telling CNBC that he wanted to reenact the Glass-Steagall act, which separates commercial banking from investment banking. Stewart says its repeal in 1999 led to the financial debacle of the 2000s.

But Stewart points out that Weill wrote in his autobiography that he had lobbied Congress “intensively for months to overturn it.” “Oh right!” Stewart said as he spit. “It was you!”

 

Private prisons exploit ‘voluntary’ work arrangements to profit off of undocumented workers.

For generations, immigrants have assimilated and contributed to the economic well-being of our country because they were given the tools to do so. And while America may no longer be the ‘land of opportunity’ it once was, something must be done to prevent private prisons from using exploitative, ‘voluntary’ work arrangements to profit off of undocumented workers.

It is ironic that the only place in which illegal immigrants are allowed to work is within the confines of a Corrections Corp of America detention center for a mere $1-3 dollars a day. Here’s the real kicker: most of these wages go right back to the corporation since the CCA prison store is the only shop in town. Your thoughts?

From Truthout

“Voluntary” Work Program Run in Private Detention Centers Pays Detained Immigrants $1 a Day

By Yana Kunichoff, Truthout | Report

In the Stewart Detention Center in rural Lumpkin, Georgia, Pedro Guzman cleaned the communal areas, cooked, painted walls, ran paperwork and buffed floors. But Guzman was not brought into Stewart as an employee – he was a detained immigrant taking part in the detention center’s “voluntary” work program.

“I didn’t go more than a month without a job,” said Guzman, who spent almost 20 months waiting, and working, inside Stewart while his immigration case was resolved.

In private prisons around the country, immigrants languishing in detention centers are being put to work by profit-making companies like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for far below the minimum wage. For doing a range of manual labor in the facility, the immigrants, many of whom are not legally permitted to work in the United States, are paid between $1-$3 a day.

The Obama administration’s move away from the workplace raids of the Bush years and toward an increasing reliance on Secure Communities, which critics say has functioned as a dragnet for immigrants who have committed low-level crimes or none at all, has flooded detention centers across the country.

Between 1996 and 2011, deportations increased by 400 percent and the Department of Homeland Security now has a daily detention capacity of 34,000 beds. Along with this trend has come the widespread privatization of the federal detention centers.

Guzman was paid only $1 a day for cleaning communal areas in the detention center. When he moved to working in the kitchen – “an 8 hour job and you do get your full 30 minute break” – his pay shifted to $3 a day.

Most of the work in Stewart was done by detainees, said Guzman, who was placed into deportation proceedings when a letter about his asylum case was sent to the wrong address. “Ninety percent of the jobs in CCA are run by detainees,” he said of Stewart.

Immigrant rights advocates have called the voluntary work program another dehumanizing avenue for companies like CCA to profit from immigrants already in a vulnerable position.

“The whole nature of this program is problematic,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, director of the National Security and Immigrant Rights Project at the ACLU of Georgia. “At the end of the day, they are getting the detainees to work for a wage that is far below minimum wage and for the work that they would have had to hire personnel. Obviously they are deriving a profit whatever way you look at it.”

“The detainees need the money, the phone cards are expensive … and the food that they get is not enough to sustain themselves,” said Shahshahani, editor of a “Prisoners of Profit,” report about immigration detention centers in Georgia. “They really need the money to eke out somewhat of a normal existence.”

If undocumented workers, the people that pick America’s produce, mow its lawns, do its laundry, build its houses and cook in its restaurants, are not allowed to work legally in the United States, what are their labor protections when employed by a private detention company?

“Illegal” Workers Legalized in Detention

According to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Jacqueline Stevens, a professor of political science at Northwestern University, detainees in detention centers work in five main areas – recreation, processing, housing units, main hallway/traverse areas and the library.

At the facilities reviewed in the documents – Florence Correctional Center in Florence, Arizona; El Centro Service Processing Center in El Centro, California; Stewart Detention Center and Varick Detention Center in New York City – the maximum wage under the voluntary work program was $1 a day.

“Detainees that participate in the volunteer work program are required to work according to an assigned work schedule and to participate in all work related training,” the FOIA request noted. The maximum amount of work detainees were allowed to do was eight hours a day, 40 hours a week.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) calls the voluntary work program “one method of managing detained aliens to give them an opportunity to be gainfully occupied on a voluntary basis.” The program also contributes to the deportation program’s “ability to successfully perform its detention mission.”

Is there a loophole that allows CCA to use undocumented labor at below minimum wage to help run their detention centers, and what are the immigrants’ rights as workers?

In response to the question above, a spokesperson at the Department of Labor directed questions about workers in immigration detention centers to ICE. ICE did not directly address the question of what their labor position was. Instead, ICE said that the workers were not employees:

“The Voluntary Work Program, under conditions of confinement, does not constitute employment and is done by detainees on a voluntary basis for a small stipend.”

But some advocates say that this legal gray area covers something more sinister. Stevens, the Northwestern professor, said the voluntary work program is consistent with slave labor: “Forced to work at wages they can’t negotiate and far below the wages Congress set.”

“In any other context,” she continued, “these private companies would be penalized for hiring people who don’t have legal documents and paying them below the federal minimum wage.”

The ICE spokesperson said a federally mandated precedent makes it legal for undocumented workers in detention centers to be paid. The average rate of pay for immigrants – $1 a day – was first set in the appropriations act for fiscal year 1979 and has held steady since. ICE considers the payment for work done by immigrants “allowances,” according to a section of the US Code Classification tables, despite their undocumented status.

ICE Caps Its Payment for Detained Workers at $1

The amount ICE pays the contracting company for the immigrants it employs is capped at $1 even though “contract companies such as CCA may choose to provide a higher level of compensation.” At Stewart, CCA’s payment to Guzman of $3 a day for kitchen work makes it triple the ICE-mandated daily wage.

This payment was challenged in a 1990 lawsuit under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which “establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State and local governments” and said that workers are entitled to a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

In the lawsuit, 16 immigrants at a detention center in Texas sued the then-Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), arguing that only being paid $1 a day violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The final ruling in the case by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld INS’s right to pay detained workers only $1 a day. In the response, it noted that “alien detainees are not government ‘employees’ “and “the federal government usually authorizes the employment of aliens only under limited circumstances, none of which apply here.”

Therefore, the ruling said, the detainees couldn’t claim protection under the act because “alien detainees whose work is described by no statute authorizing use of taxpayers’ money to pay government employees cannot claim such status.”

There are several treaties that try to govern the use of labor in detention. One is the Inter-American Principles on Detention, cited in a 2012 report on private prisons by the ACLU of Georgia, as saying: “All persons deprived of liberty shall have the right to work.”

“This includes the right ‘to receive a fair and equitable remuneration,’ the report noted.

Then there is the 13th Amendment, which has been used as a basis for the allowance of prison labor – with an average pay that ranges from $0.93 a day to $1.25 an hour - though the fairness of this has also been challenged.

But Stevens noted that, even within the context of a corrections environment, an immigration offense is a civil one, and therefore the detention should not be punitive.

“Detention centers are not legal punishment,” said Stevens. “They are for people who are trying to pursue their civil right to remain in the country.”

The Money Earned by Detainees Makes Its Way Back to CCA

Guzman said the work he did while detained at Stewart broke up the tedium of being locked up and the stress of dealing with his constantly delayed appeals. But he said there was another incentive to continue making the meager wage he got paid for working a 40-hour week in the kitchen.

“You would get paid once a week and it would go directly into your canteen money,” said Guzman. And with that “you bought food, a calling card, a bar of soap, shampoo, toothbrush” – from the CCA-run store inside the detention center.

Steven said her research has shown that the primary reasons for detainees to take part in the voluntary work programs is “so that they can buy food and hygiene products. If they don’t have relatives on the outside to pump up their commissary accounts then they’ll buff floors.”

If some of the money being paid to undocumented workers taking part in the voluntary work program goes back to CCA, how much are private prison companies earning from these workers?

Companies like CCA are paid a lump sum by ICE for housing detainees – and then from whatever costs they can cut on food, labor or facilities, comes their profits. CCA, “the nation’s largest owner and operator of partnership correction and detention facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the United States, behind only the federal government and three states,” had earnings before tax of $96.4 million for 2012.

“The colossal “savings” from paying people a small fraction of the legal wage makes possible these centers,” wrote Stevens in a blog post on the voluntary work program in private detention centers. “How much exactly is being saved?”

According to Stevens’ analysis of figures in her FOIA requests, the monthly payments from just one detention center break down like this:

“Each dollar is a day’s payment’s to one detainee, so July 2009 at 5,815 = 5815 individual days or shifts of labor. Not all of the shifts are 8 hours but they go up to that. If the range of hours worked for this example is 4-8 hours day, then the payments that should have been made for July 2009 under federal minimum wage laws would be $168,635 to $337,000. Again, what actually was paid was $5,815.”

“In brief,” said Stevens, “the ICE jails are paying people $1/day for work that minimum wage laws would require compensated at $29-$58/day.”

This is only a small window on the earnings from this program. Among the questions CCA declined to answer, despite repeated requests for comment over a period of several weeks, was how widespread the voluntary work program was and how many immigrants were involved in it nationally.

Abuse? 

ICE and CCA descriptions of the program stress the term “voluntary,” but a recently released ACLU report shows otherwise, detailing instances of detained immigrants being forced to work at Stewart Detention Center:

Omar Ponce was subjected to disciplinary action for refusing to work and for organizing a work strike in 2010. He was in the segregation unit for a week before he had his disciplinary review hearing. Another detainee was threatened with segregation if he refused to work less than eight hours per day. This is not atypical.

In response, CCA representative Mike Machak said: “The incident described in the ACLU report was reported to CCA staff, was dealt with appropriately and was reported to ICE in accordance with detention standards and contract requirements.”

Oversight, said Machak, is provided by “our longstanding government partner [ICE], including on-site ICE staff.”

The Irony

Critics of private detention like Bob Libal, a Texas organizer for Grassroots Leadership focusing on the expansion of the private federal detention system, stress the unfairness of people criminalized as workers detained and then made to work.

“I think it’s pretty disturbing that private prison corporations are padding their bottom line by exploiting undocumented labor in their facilities,” said Libal, “when it would be much more humane and beneficial for the sort of country as a whole to allow people to live and work outside of detention facilities while their immigration cases are processed.”

It’s an irony not lost on Guzman. “You will boot them out of the country because they don’t have papers to work in the US,” he said when asked about the issue, “but then you give them a job and you underpay them. Why are you underpaying them?”

NRA members polled by GOP strategist Frank Luntz support more sensible laws.

Banning the ownership of assault and semi-automatic weaponry DOES NOT infringe upon the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Majority of NRA members polled by GOP strategist Frank Luntz support more sensible laws.

The NRA’s lobbying efforts are designed to protect the interests of gun manufacturers, not the public. When will capital-R Reason surmount the influence of big business?

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From The Huffington Post

Gun Owners Surveyed By Frank Luntz Express Broad Support For Gun Control Policies

By Sam Stein

WASHINGTON — A survey of National Rifle Association members and non-affiliated gun owners conducted by a prominent Republican pollster shows that there is broad support for certain provisions that would restrict the sale of guns.

According to a study unveiled at the Center for American Progress on Tuesday, 82 percent of 945 self-identified gun owners said they support requiring criminal background checks for gun purchasers. The sample was divided evenly between gun owners who were current or lapsed members of the NRA and non-NRA gun owners. 74 percent of the NRA members said they support the background checks.

The study, which was conducted in May by GOP wordsmith Frank Luntz, revealed the following data points as well:

74 percent of NRA members believe concealed carry permits should only be granted to applicants who have completed gun safety training.
68 percent of NRA members believe concealed carry permits should only be granted to applicants who do not have prior arrests for domestic violence.
63 percent of NRA members believe concealed carry permits should only be granted to applicants 21 years of age or older.
75 percent of NRA members believe that concealed carry permits should be granted only to those applicants who have not committed any violent misdemeanors.

Taken in full, the numbers cut against the conventional wisdom, which holds that there is little political will for tackling gun control legislation in the wake of Friday’s shooting in Aurora, Colo. But that theory, the study’s authors insisted, was always based on a false reading of the public opinion data.

“Gun owners and NRA members overwhelmingly support common sense steps to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, even as the NRA leadership continues to oppose them,” said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which commissioned the study. “It’s time for those in Washington -– and those running for President –- to stand with gun owning citizens who are concerned about public safety, rather than influence peddling lobbyists who are obsessed with ideology.”

An equally telling feature of the study is the pollster who put it together. While Luntz’s work on the topic alongside Bloomberg’s group and the liberal Center for American Progress may seem like the personification of a strange-bedfellows coalition, Luntz explained that his ideological bent is towards sensible gun laws.

“I grew up in an NRA family and strongly believe in Second Amendment rights,” he told The Huffington Post in an email. “But I don’t believe that anyone with a felony record should automatically be able to own a gun. I don’t believe in absolutes.”

 

Non-financial corporations hoarding $2 trillion in cash.

IRS data shows non-financial corporations are hoarding $2 trillion in cash, yet they continue to plead with Congress for more cuts and austerity measures on poor and middle-class Americans.

From Reuters

Idle cash piles up: David Cay Johnston

By David Cay Johnston

(Reuters) – IRS data suggests that, globally, U.S. nonfinancial companies hold at least three times more cash and other liquid assets than the Federal Reserve reports, idle money that could be creating jobs, funding dividends or even paying a stiff federal penalty tax for hoarding corporate cash.

The Fed’s latest Flow of Funds report showed that U.S. nonfinancial companies held $1.7 trillion in liquid assets at the end of March. But newly released IRS figures show that in 2009 these companies held $4.8 trillion in liquid assets, which equals $5.1 trillion in today’s dollars, triple the Fed figure.

Why the huge gap?

The Fed gets its data from the IRS, but only measures the flow of funds in the domestic economy. The IRS reports the worldwide holdings of U.S. companies, which I think is the more revealing measure.

From the companies’ point of view, it makes perfect sense these days to hoard cash.

First, Congress lets overseas profits accumulate untaxed, so long as offshore subsidiaries own the cash. Second, companies have a hard time putting cash to work because fewer jobs and lower wages mean less demand for products and services. Third, a thick pile of cash gives risk-averse CEOs a nice cushion if the economy worsens.

Given the enduring hard times, you might think that corporations have used up their cash since 2009. But real pretax corporate profits have soared, from less than $1.5 trillion in 2009 to $1.9 trillion in 2010 and almost $2 trillion in 2011, data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis shows.

That is nearly $1 trillion of increased profits over two years, while actual taxes paid rose less than a tenth as much, BEA reports show. Dividends, wages and capital expenditures all grew less than profits, while undistributed profits rose. The result: more cash.

Bigger profits are good news, but it would have been better news had those increased profits been put to work, not laid off in accounts paying modest interest. Hoarding corporate cash in bank accounts, Treasuries and tax-exempt bonds poses a serious threat to the economy, as Congress recognized when it enacted the corporate income tax in 1909.

Let’s get some perspective on these gigantic figures, all measured in today’s dollars.

The 2009 cash reported to the IRS equaled America’s entire economic output that year from New Year’s Day through May Day.

This cash pool came to $16,700 for every man, woman and child in the United States, a 53 percent real increase from 2004, my calculations from IRS data show.

Looked at yet another way, these companies had 11.3 percent of their assets in cash, or enough to pay their 2009 corporate income tax bills, which amounted to $148 billion, more than 34 times over.

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Huma Abedin, the latest victim of radical McCarthy-esque allegations from the far right.

Michelle Bachmann’s McCarthy-esque witch-hunt against imaginary Congressional ‘infiltrators’ is inexcusable.

Huma Abedin, a dedicated public servant and patriotic American, is just the latest victim of outrageous allegations of Islamic and communist plots within the government by radical, irresponsible elected officials on the far right. Arizona Tea Party leader Wes Harris even threatened Senator John McCain for defending Ms. Abedin. Such fear-mongering must be denounced by all true patriots.

From The Huffington Post

Wes Harris, Arizona Tea Party Leader, Seeks To Recall John McCain Over Huma Abedin Defense

By Nick Wing

Conspiracy theories about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin being linked to the Muslim Brotherhood publicly dribbled down to the lower echelons of conservative politics this week, with an Arizona Tea Party leader promising to launch a recall effort against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for his defense of Abedin.

Last week, a group of Republican lawmakers led by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) drew widespread condemnation from both sides of the aisle for the loosely sourced contention that Huma Abedin, the Muslim-American wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

McCain strongly pushed back against this charge, taking to the Senate floor to call the allegations “nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman.”

Wes Harris, the founder and chairman of the Original North Phoenix Tea Party, now says McCain’s words have given him grounds to mount an effort to unseat the longtime senator.

In an interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, Harris called McCain an “embarrassment,” before laying out a variety of unapologetic anti-Islamic sentiments.

“Have you ever read the Quran? I suggest you do so, because anyone that is a Muslim is a threat to this country, and that’s a fact,” Harris told the Times. “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. If they are Muslim they have to follow the Quran. That’s their religion and that’s their doctrine.”

According to the Times, Harris believes Muslims are incapable of being loyal to the U.S., because he claims that their faith in Islam and the Quran trumps any other allegiance. He also apparently believes Muslims shouldn’t be able to serve in the State Department at all.

“Is [Abedin] a Muslim? Is she an active Muslim?” Harris asked the Times. “I rest my case. That’s all she needs to be.”

In his email airing his grievances, Harris also linked to the Bare Naked Islam blog, an internet clearinghouse for Islamophobia that claims to have further proof of Abedin’s supposed ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. One post touts a new report from the Center for Security Policy, the right-wing think tank behind the paper that led to Bachmann and her cohort’s initial inquiry, that seeks to unveil the “Islamist” roots of Abedin’s mother.

While other top Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), came out to reject Bachmann’s accusation, Harris says McCain’s defense of Abedin is just the latest in a string of actions that have warranted a recall effort.

“Go to hell, Senator, it’s time for you to take your final dirt nap,” Harris concludes.

Republican Senator Jon Kyl insists that rich ‘Michael Jordans’ will rebuild our domestic economy.

‘Job creators’ have the opportunity to make huge profits here in the U.S., but they are keeping literally TRILLIONS of dollars in tax havens overseas. Still, Republican Senator Jon Kyl insists that rich ‘Michael Jordans’ will rebuild our domestic economy.

From The Huffington Post

Jon Kyl Berates Obama For Focus On Middle Class

By Michael McAuliff

 

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama should stop talking about the middle class because it turns people against rich Americans, who should be embraced as the Michael Jordans of the U.S. economy, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said Monday.

Declaring that the use of the phrase “middle class” is “misguided and wrong and even dangerous,” Kyl argued in a Senate floor speech that Obama is “spreading economic resentment [that] weakens American values” and ignoring “the uniquely meritocratic basis of our society.”

“We have a president who talks incessantly about class, particularly the middle class,” Kyl said.

“I just think the whole discussion of class is wrong. It’s not what we do here in America,” said Kyl, the Senate minority whip. He added, “I don’t think there’s anything called ‘middle class values’ that are different from the values of other people in this country. Tell me what’s different about the values of someone who the president identifies as middle class?”

Democrats have long argued that the nation’s tax system favors the wealthy, and with the economic downturn, inequality has reached levels not seen since the roaring ’20s.

Over the winter, the Occupy Wall Street movement focused popular attention on the divide between the top 1 percent and the rest of the country, with organizers arguing that it was time to stop rigging the system to favor rich, corporate special interests while the rest suffer. Democrats have embraced that message on the campaign trail, with some success.

But Kyl said he sees the rich very differently — more like sports heroes along the line of Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordan.

“When Michael Jordan came, after he established how great he would be, he was given an enormous, almost unheard of salary. Did the other players say, ‘That’s not fair?’ No, actually all the other players got big salary increases, too,” Kyl said. “The whole franchise did well, the people selling popcorn, the people parking the cars … made more money than they ever would have had Michael Jordan never came to the team.”

Kyl’s remarks come in the context of the Senate’s debate this week on whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for not just people earning under $250,000, but for the wealthiest Americans as well.

Many Democrats note that the growing income disparity escalated with the Bush tax cuts, and that job creation under Bush’s presidency was among the weakest in modern history.

Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.

 

Evidence in Libor rate-rigging sheds light on regulatory authorities’ implicit approval.

Recent evidence in the Libor rate-rigging scandal sheds light on the implicit approval of regulatory ‘authorities’ who had knowledge of bankers’ long-standing manipulation of the Libor. This “see no evil, speak no evil” regulatory approach must be met with serious repercussions for all those involved.

We should be nurturing an economic environment that enables no-nonsense regulators who have the manpower, funding and GUTS to impose heavy sanctions. Instead, Stockholm Syndrome appears to be a recurring theme in recent regulatory failures.

From The New York Times

Libor Case Documents Show Timid Regulators

BY BEN PROTESS AND MARK SCOTT

As an interest rate manipulation scandal grips the banking industry, regulators have defended their actions and trumpeted their efforts to overhaul the flawed system during the financial crisis.

But documents released on Friday show that regulators balked at playing a more public role in reform efforts during 2008, and some British officials resisted certain fixes.

Although the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank of England advocated changes to the rate-setting process, they demanded anonymity. In shunning the spotlight, the regulators deferred to the British Bankers’ Association, a private industry group that oversees the rate-setting process.

“They will obviously have to remove the references to us and Fed,” a Bank of England official said in a June 2008 e-mail, referring to a draft of the trade group’s proposal.

The documents, released by the Bank of England, shed new light on the inconsistent regulatory response to problems with the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. The crucial benchmark affects the cost of trillions of dollars in mortgages and other loans.

Authorities around the globe are investigating whether more than 10 banks reported false rates to produce profits and deflect concerns about their well-being. In June, Barclays reached a $450 million settlement with regulators over rate-rigging, the first case to stem from the broad investigation. The wrongdoing at Barclays intensified during the financial crisis, when the bank lowballed its rate out of fear that high borrowing costs indicated weak health.

After the Barclays case, lawmakers in London and Washington are questioning why regulators were not more aggressive in thwarting the illegal activities. The House Financial Services Committee is collecting transcripts of calls between regulators and the banks under scrutiny.

The trove of e-mails and documents released on Friday builds on what regulators have disclosed in pieces over the last few weeks.

The New York Fed previously divulged that it learned in April 2008 that Barclays was reporting false rates, a revelation that came months after hearing market chatter about issues with Libor. In testimony before Parliament this week, British authorities said the New York Fed never told them that Barclays was breaking the law.

Instead, Timothy F. Geithner, who served as the head of the New York Fed at the time, proposed changes to the rate-setting process. The Bank of England echoed the recommendations.

But the new documents suggest that the British central bank heard complaints about potential Libor manipulation in 2007, sooner than previously known. Despite the knowledge, the documents show that Bank of England officials failed to stop the illegal actions and dismissed some of Mr. Geithner’s plans to fix the process.

In part, officials at the British central bank were unsure about the extent of the Libor problems. Some issues “might go away with time,” one Bank of England official said in a June 2008 e-mail. The regulator also acknowledged that some market participants saw fundamental flaws with the system. “Since August 2007, this problem has become more severe,” a Bank of England official wrote in an internal memo in May 2008. “There is a longstanding perception that Libor by virtue of the manner in which it is set is open to distortion.”

By the middle of 2008, there was a consensus among British and American authorities that the rate-setting process — whether or not it was deliberately manipulated — needed to be fixed.

In an e-mail to Mervyn A. King, the governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Geithner recommended that British officials “strengthen governance and establish a credible reporting procedure” and “eliminate incentive to misreport,” according to documents released last week. Mr. King replied that the ideas “seem sensible,” and he agreed to pass them on to the British Bankers’ Association.

Both the New York Fed and the Bank of England pushed the trade group to beef up its proposal and ensure that the rate-setting process was accurate. The changes focused on improving Libor’s governance procedures, including audits into how banks submitted rates. Officials also wanted to ensure that the Libor-setting process was more transparent and featured rates from a broader panel of financial institutions.

But within the Bank of England, new documents show, some central bank officials undermined parts of Mr. Geithner’s plan.

The New York Fed recommended, for example, that the British Bankers’ Association could randomly select rates from banks. A Bank of England official said it “does not seem such a good idea,” according to the documents released on Friday. Another idea to poll banks twice daily about their rates, rather than just once in the morning, will “create more difficult issues than it solves,” a different official said.

Instead, some Bank of England officials seemed to support a plan to have “a panel of senior bankers overseeing” the Libor process. In essence, the central bank wanted to let a wider set of firms police themselves.

At the same time, neither the New York Fed nor the Bank of England was willing to help oversee Libor. Authorities say they could not provide the government’s official stamp of approval to a for-profit plan. The regulators also hoped to keep open the possibility that alternatives would emerge to compete with Libor.

A Bank of England official said in a June 2008 e-mail that “we have a clear line” that the central bank’s name “should not be used.” The official proposed a broader phrase instead: “all interested parties.”

That approach upset the trade group, which said the new wording “is just too weak.” The British Bankers’ Association argued that government had an interest in protecting the integrity of Libor.

The lobbying became so fierce that a Bank of England official noted that the trade group “is close to desperate for even a small hook to imply that there will be a dialogue with central banks.”

After months of discussions, the regulators got their way. The final wording of the Libor review, which was published in late 2008, did not refer to specific central bank authorities.

‘Job creators’ potentially hiding up to $32 TRILLION in offshore tax havens.

If you still have any doubts as to why trickle-down economics simply does not work, take a look at this report released by the UK-based Tax Justice Network.

When ‘job creators’ hide up to $32 TRILLION in offshore tax havens, how can we expect any of this wealth to help rebuild global economy?

From The Huffington Post

Super-Rich Hold Up To $32 Trillion In Offshore Havens: Report

Reporting by Chris Vellacott

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) – Rich individuals and their families have as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenues, according to research published on Sunday.

The study estimating the extent of global private financial wealth held in offshore accounts – excluding non-financial assets such as real estate, gold, yachts and racehorses – puts the sum at between $21 and $32 trillion.

The research was carried out for pressure group Tax Justice Network, which campaigns against tax havens, by James Henry, former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.

He used data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations and central banks.

The report also highlights the impact on the balance sheets of 139 developing countries of money held in tax havens by private elites, putting wealth beyond the reach of local tax authorities.

The research estimates that since the 1970s, the richest citizens of these 139 countries had amassed $7.3 to $9.3 trillion of “unrecorded offshore wealth” by 2010.

Private wealth held offshore represents “a huge black hole in the world economy,” Henry said in a statement.

Outdated online sales tax exemptions hurting brick and mortar companies.

Online sales tax was initially waived to help jumpstart Internet commerce, not kill brick and mortar companies.

Isn’t it about time we level the playing field?

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From Politico

Online sales tax bill is approached with caution

By MICHELLE QUINN

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite the support of about a dozen GOP governors, conservative Republicans on the Hill have a way to go before they are willing to support a federal bill on online sales tax.

The lawmakers tend to view — or fear their constituents will view — the measures as a tax increase. And that just won’t fly in 2012. “In this election season, any reference to tax increase, especially for a conservative Republican, is toxic,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), one of the sponsors of the House bill, told POLITICO.

In recent months, Republican governors have joined some Democratic counterparts in voicing support for a federal bill, sometimes as they announced deals in their states to open Amazon distribution centers or an agreement with Amazon to begin collecting sales tax at a future date.

Most recently, Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa wrote to Sens. Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin, both of Iowa, advocating for the Senate bill.

Other GOP governors who have spoken in support are Chris Christie of New Jersey and Brian Sandoval of Nevada. “Support from Republican governors like Chris Christie has been a game changer,” said Jason Brewer with the Retail Industry Leaders Association. “They effectively swat away the false assertion that this is some sort of new tax.”

Conservative lawmakers have other concerns. One is whether supporting the bill is in violation of the Americans for Tax Reform’s no new taxes pledge, something many Republicans have signed. The organization has yet to make a determination about whether support is in violation.

But Kelly William Cobb, government affairs manager at ATR, said that “states with Republican governors like New Jersey, Virginia and Nevada did not act to raise taxes on all online sales. They simply worked with companies who were going to be physically based in their states to collect sales taxes. This is wholly different than the federal Internet tax bills, which would dissolve this physical nexus requirement and allow states to reach across their borders to collect sales tax.”

Despite the ATR’s position, when Womack meets with his conservative colleagues, he said they understand that this isn’t a tax increase but a states’ rights issue.

“They are looking for cover so they aren’t perceived as supporting a tax increase. I understand it,” said Womack, who is a former mayor of Rogers, Ark., and a self-described conservative. His argument to them is that the bill itself is sound policy and provides conservatives cover — it promotes free-market solutions, it is a states’ rights issue and it will help local governments not raise sales tax, he said.

The House bill, known as the Marketplace Equity Act, which Womack introduced with Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), has 50 co-sponsors, about half Republican. “To get it to the floor, it’s quite a stretch,” said Womack, adding that other issues are more pressing on the agenda of the 112th Congress. Trying to attach the proposal to another bill, a strategy the Senate is weighing, is always a possibility, he said, but “I’m not hearing any whispers to that yet.”

The House Judiciary is holding a hearing on the issue on July 24. On the first panel, Womack and Speier will testify, according to sources. The second panel will include Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee, Joseph Henchman of the Tax Foundation, Steve DelBianco of NetChoice and Wayne Harper, a Republican Utah state representative and incoming president of the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board.

Last week, the Senate bill, sponsored by Sens. Dick Durbin, Lamar Alexander and Mike Enzi, filed an amendment to the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act based on their bill, the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would give states the power to require online retailers to collect sales tax.

The move demonstrated the commitment among the bill’s sponsors, say supporters. Alexander has been quoted saying he believed the bill would be passed this year or next. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Durbin said that while the Senate calendar is tight, he is hopeful the bill’s sponsors will get the 60 votes necessary to overcome the filibuster and bring the bill to the floor.

“Having the support of Republican and Democratic governors, state legislators and local officials nationwide is definitely key to getting this bill passed,” said a staffer for Enzi. “They realize this bill could provide $23 billion in local fiscal relief and can help prevent income and property taxes from being raised to offset the loss in sales tax revenue.”

This week, the National Retail Federation has sent advocates to the Hill to talk to committees and lawmakers as part of a 60-day campaign to raise awareness of the issue.

But the bill faces opposition in other quarters, such as from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). “Instead of trying to raise taxes on families and businesses outside their borders, states should focus on lowering taxes and competing for new businesses,” a spokesman for the senator said.

“As the nation struggles to create jobs, we should not increase taxes and increase federal meddling in one of our most vibrant and successful parts of our economy.”

Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte agrees. “I think it tramples on states like mine, New Hampshire, that have chosen not to have a sales tax,” she said. “I also think that it’s a burden on small business and innovation on the Internet.”

Womack said on Tuesday he had just written a check to the state of Arkansas for the tax he owed on the online purchase of K-Cups, an individual serving coffee product. Many people don’t know they owe us tax, he said, and if they do, they are often unclear how to pay it. Besides, the process must be cumbersome for state tax officials, he added.

“If everyone was doing this as they are obligated by law, how in the world would states be able to manage the burden of receiving thousands and thousands of small checks every quarter or yearly,” he said. “It’s just insanity.”