Saturday, June 30, 2012

Who is Bankrolling the Fight Against "Obamacare?"

Original Link: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/06/11614/who-bankrolling-fight-against-obamacare

By Brendan Fischer

The lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the National Federation for Independent Business (NFIB), is a highly partisan front group masquerading as the "nation's leading small business association," critics say. The nation's highest court is expected to rule on the federal health care law Thursday.

Bankrolled By Big Donors, Not Small Business

A recent analysis by Public Campaign and Alliance for a Just Society shows that the NFIB and its Legal Center received an influx of big dollar donations in 2010 and 2011 as their challenge to the federal health care law moved forward -- suggesting the challenge is bankrolled by deep-pocketed special interests. The NFIB pocketed more than $10 million in six figure contributions in 2010 and 2011, with $8.5 million coming from just four contributors. As a non-profit, NFIB is not required to disclose its donors, but it is known that the organization received $3.7 million in 2010 from Karl Rove's 501(c)(4) political group Crossroads GPS. In contrast, in 2009, the year before the healthcare lawsuit, the largest donation NFIB received was $21,000.

"Small businesses don't give multi-million dollar contributions, like the ones NFIB has recently received without disclosing their sources," says Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Grijalva and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) have asked the organization to disclose who is bankrolling their health care lawsuit. "If NFIB is determined not to say where its money comes from or who its members are, we must ask what the group is hiding," Grijalva said.

The NFIB joined with 26 states in a lawsuit against the 2010 Affordable Care Act (better known as "Obamacare"), but is funding the challenge entirely on its own. "I'm not sure most voters understand that a lawsuit by their states is being funded by an ideological organization with an issue ax to grind," said Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now.

"This type of thing raises all kind of red flags," Florida state Rep. Mark Pafford (D) told the Palm Beach Post last year. "My concern is, if it's a lawsuit on behalf of the people of Florida, then I would believe it should be the people of Florida footing the bill. When you have an outside party paying, then every aspect of the [state Attorney General's] office might be up for sale."

NFIB Ties to Right-Wing, ALEC

While NFIB's funding has recently swelled with its crusade against Obamacare, its partisan affiliations run deep. Ninety percent of its campaign contributions over the past fifteen years have gone to support GOP candidates -- and it is safe to say that ninety percent of small business owners are not Republican. The NFIB's president, Dan Danner, is a longtime lobbyist who has never been a small businessman. The rest of the NFIB's leadership consists of right-wing veterans.

For example, NFIB Senior Vice President for Federal Policy, Susan Eckerly, was previously the director of regulatory policy for the David Koch-founded Citizens for a Sound Economy, which split into Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity. She also previously served on the board of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, where she voiced support for the Cato Institute's push to repeal the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Community Reinvestment Act.

NFIB is also closely tied to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Jean Card, NFIB's Vice President of Media and Communications, was an ALEC Task Force advisor from 1994 to 1996, before becoming a speechwriter in the Bush administration and eventually moving to the NFIB.
The NFIB is currently a private sector member of ALEC and has had representatives on the ALEC Civil Justice Task Force, the Health and Human Services Task Force, and the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force. In August 2011, an NFIB lobbyist received ALEC's "Private Sector Member of the Year" award. ALEC's Civil Justice Task Force legal adviser, Mark Behrens of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, is on the advisory board of NFIB's Legal Center. NFIB representatives have also been presenters at ALEC meetings and workshops, and Jonathan Williams, director of ALEC's Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force, has spoken at NFIB events. ALEC, for its part, proudly displays an NFIB endorsement of its 2011 Koch-funded report on state competitiveness, Rich States, Poor States, with a quote from NFIB Vice President Steve Woods exclaiming "Kudos to ALEC, Laffer, and Moore."

ALEC also filed an amicus brief in the challenge to the health care law and has also been focused on repealing "Obamacare" with state resolutions and bills to undermine the federal law.

Who Represents Small Business?

Despite the NFIB's right-wing ties and possible financial support from big business interests, it purports to represent small businesses, and says it is challenging the Affordable Care Act because of the law's purported impact on the "small business community" (despite tax credits that help small business provide insurance for employees).

Another small business association, the Small Business Majority, conducted a poll showing that around half of small-business owners want to preserve the Affordable Care Act, while just 30 percent want to repeal it.

Who does the NFIB really represent?

America is no longer a land of opportunity

Original Link: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/56c7e518-bc8f-11e1-a111-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1zKE1Ndhj

By Joseph Stiglitz

US inequality is at its highest point for nearly a century. Those at the top – no matter how you slice it – are enjoying a larger share of the national pie; the number below the poverty level is growing. The gap between those with the median income and those at the top is growing, too. The US used to think of itself as a middle-class country – but this is no longer true. 

Economists have justified such disparities by citing “marginal productivity theory”, which explains higher incomes through greater societal contributions. But those who have really transformed our society, by providing the knowledge that underpins the advances in technology, earn a relative pittance. Just think of the inventors of the laser, the Turing machine or the discoverers of DNA. The innovation of those on Wall Street, while well compensated, brought the global economy to the brink of ruin; and these financial entrepreneurs walked off with mega-incomes.
One might feel better about inequality if there were a grain of truth in trickle-down economics. But the median income of Americans today is lower than it was a decade and a half ago; and the median income of a full-time male worker is lower than it was more than four decades ago. Meanwhile, those at the top have never had it so good.

Some argue that increased inequality is an inevitable byproduct of the market. False: several countries are reducing inequality while maintaining economic growth.

Markets are shaped by the rules of the game. Our political system has written rules that benefit the rich at the expense of others. Financial regulations allow predatory lending and abusive credit-card practices that transfer money from the bottom to the top. So do bankruptcy laws that provide priority for derivatives. The rules of globalisation – where capital is freely mobile but workers are not – enhance an already large asymmetry of bargaining: businesses threaten to leave the country unless workers make strong concessions.

Textbooks teach us that we can have a more egalitarian society only if we give up growth or efficiency. However, closer analysis shows that we are paying a high price for inequality: it contributes to social, economic and political instability, and to lower growth. Western countries with the healthiest economies (for example those in Scandinavia) are also the countries with the highest degree of equality.

The US grew far faster in the decades after the second world war, when inequality was lower, than it did after 1980, since when the gains have gone disproportionately to the top. There is growing evidence looking across countries over time that suggests a link between equality, growth and stability.

There is good news in this: by reducing rent-seeking – finding ways of getting a larger share of the pie, rather than making the pie larger – and the distortions that give rise to so much of America’s inequality we can achieve a fairer society and a better-performing economy. Laws that tax speculators at less than half the rate of those who work for a living or make the innovations that are transforming our society, say something about our values; but they also distort our economy, encouraging young people to move into gambling rather than into more productive areas. Since so much of the income at the top is derived from rent seeking, higher taxes at the top would discourage rent-seeking.

America used to be thought of as the land of opportunity. Today, a child’s life chances are more dependent on the income of his or her parents than in Europe, or any other of the advanced industrial countries for which there are data. The US worked hard to create the American dream of opportunity. But today, that dream is a myth.

We can once again become a land of opportunity but it will not happen on its own, and it will not happen with a politics that focuses on cutting public education and other programmes to enhance opportunities for the bottom and middle, while cutting taxes for those at the very top. President Barack Obama’s support for these investments, as well as the “Buffett rule” that asks those at the top to pay at least as much in tax as a share of their income as those who are less fortunate, are moves in the right direction. Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s suggestion that we cut back on public employees is worrisome; as is his silence on whether capital gains on speculation should be taxed at a lower rate than income derived from hard work.

The country will have to make a choice: if it continues as it has in recent decades, the lack of opportunity will mean a more divided society, marked by lower growth and higher social, political and economic instability. Or it can recognise that the economy has lost its balance. The gilded age led to the progressive era, the excesses of the Roaring Twenties led to the Depression, which in turn led to the New Deal. Each time, the country saw the extremes to which it was going and pulled back. The question is, will it do so once again?

Billionaire Buddies: Adelsons Join Forces

Original Link: http://www.alternet.org/rss/1/769952/billionaire_buddies%3A_adelsons_join_forces_with_koch_brothers_in_desperate_attempt_to_undermine_obama%5C's_popularity/

By Josh Israel

In recent years, billionaire oil magnates David and Charles Koch have bankrolled the Tea Party movement, Republican candidates, and efforts to deny the existence global warming. But less noticed have been their series of twice-yearly strategy coordination meetings for wealthy right-wing donors. These secret confabs have attracted Republicans like Govs. Rick Perry (R-TX) and Rick Scott (R-FL), as well as former Fox News Channel talker Glenn Beck, Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and executives from the oil, banking, and health insurance industries.

The most recent meeting attracted two newcomers: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson. Between them, the Las Vegas casino-owner and his wife have reportedly plowed $10 million into a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC and have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republican party committees and candidates already this cycle.

A Center for Public Integrity report suggests this may just be the beginning:
Adelson has recently indicated strong interest in backing other GOP allied groups, say fundraisers familiar with his giving. In 2010, Adelson wrote a seven figure check to Crossroads GPS, a non-profit advocacy group that doesn’t have to disclose its donors publicly which was co-founded by GOP super consultants Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.
The story quotes unnamed fundraisers “familiar with Adelson,” the American Crossroads super PAC and the 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS, as expecting Adelson to “pump a few million dollars more” into one of the Crossroads groups this year, to help defeat President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. They also say Adelson is also considering writing a check to the American Action Network, former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)’s non-profit, to help preserve the Republican majority in the U.S. House.

Between the Kochs and the Adelsons, voters around the country should expect to see what voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida have seen in recent weeks: a seemingly unending stream of dishonest attack ads, paid for by billionaire-funded super PACs and tax-exempt organizations.

Sheldon Adelson pledges $10M to Koch effort

Original Link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/78005.html

By KENNETH P. VOGEL


Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson this week pledged $10 million to the Koch brothers’ 2012 efforts, cementing a potent alliance of two of the biggest spending forces in conservative politics.

The pledge was delivered by Adelson aide Andy Abboud at the Koch brothers’ donor summit early this week in suburban San Diego and was among the biggest of the gathering, multiple sources told POLITICO. Other large pledges came from personal investment tycoon Charles Schwab, who committed to a seven-figure donation, and the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch.

The summit also featured the unveiling of a new candidate training academy supported by the Kochs called the Grassroots Institute.

The Grassroots Institute adds a new tool to a loose coalition of groups backed by the Kochs that increasingly resembles a political party of its own. It includes Americans for Prosperity, among the biggest spenders on tough ads attacking President Barack Obama, and Themis, a voter mobilization database that was reportedly deployed to great effect in the Wisconsin recall fight, as well as a host of other groups not commonly thought of as Koch-affiliated.

Together, the groups in the Koch network intend to spend nearly $400 million ahead of the 2012 election — marking the brothers not only as key players in a planned $1 billion GOP-allied outside campaign but also as among the most powerful forces in American politics.

Adelson’s family, meanwhile, is among the single biggest donors to political groups this cycle, and this month he committed to donating $10 million to a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, Obama’s GOP challenger. Adelson’s dueling $10 million pledges to the Kochs and the pro-Romney super PAC underscore an unprecedented coalescing of conservative outside money to try to defeat Obama and congressional Democrats in the fall.

The CEO of the Las Vegas Sands, estimated to be worth nearly $25 billion, Adelson has long been a major Republican financier. But his donations have primarily benefited establishment Republican groups and candidates, or those supportive of his single biggest pet issue — the vigorous defense of Israel.

Adelson’s donation to the Koch network demonstrates how the brothers have branched out beyond the libertarian strain of conservatism that once completely defined them. The Kochs have increasingly directed cash to more traditional GOP-allied groups such as the 60 Plus Association and American Future Fund. They’ve sent representatives to regular meetings first organized by Karl Rove at which outside groups coordinate their campaign advertising. And they’ve invited more rich conservatives — and not just free market purists — to their twice-a-year donor summits.

Adelson attended his first Koch summit in January in Indian Wells, Calif., though he did not make a pledge at the time. In the past few months, though, he has embarked on an unprecedented political spending spree, motivated by enmity for Obama and facilitated by a pair of 2010 federal court decisions that created super PACs and paved the way for unlimited donations to them and other outside groups to air ads attacking or supporting candidates.

Adelson’s family donated more than $20 million to the super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich’s failed presidential bid (though $5 million was refunded last month) and $5 million to a super PAC affiliated with House Speaker John Boehner. He has committed $10 million to the pro-Romney PAC and, according to The Huffington Post, $20 million to a Rove-linked nonprofit group called Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies and $5 million to one linked to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. HuffPo also reported that Adelson planned to donate $10 million to a nonprofit linked to the Kochs, but the pledge made by Abboud this week is expected to go into a fund collected at the brothers’ summits and controlled by their operatives.

Adelson’s spokesman did not respond to telephone and email messages from POLITICO seeking comment on his $10 million pledge at the Koch summit. Adelson was traveling during the San Diego conference and Abboud, an executive at Las Vegas Sands Corporation, appeared on his behalf to deliver the pledge.

The San Diego summit featured a breakout session for donors on the Grassroots Institute. The group, which will offer training to fiscally conservative candidates, does not appear to have a public presence yet, though in the past few days, a conservative think tank in Hawaii called the Grassroot Institute began receiving inquiries confusing the two, according to an official there.

The summit also featured a brief presentation on Themis, a massive database of voter and volunteer information into which POLITICO has learned Koch operatives have discussed investing $20 million.

First reported by POLITICO, the San Diego summit was called “Path to Freedom,” according to a report from a BuzzFeed correspondent who sneaked into the heavily guarded Park Hyatt Aviara Resort in Carlsbad, Calif.

It started on the same weekend as a retreat in Park City, Utah, for big donors and bundlers to Romney’s presidential campaign, and a handful of folks attended both confabs, sources told POLITICO.

Among them was Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who has attended at least eight Koch donor summits, though his spokesman wouldn’t say whether he gave a speech and, if so, about what.

There was also a presentation by Phil Cox, executive director of the Republican Governors Association, which worked with Americans for Prosperity in the fight against the Wisconsin recall, according to a source familiar with the conference.

Koch brothers hope to raise even more funds at secretive right-wing gathering

Original Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/24/koch-brothers-funds-secretive-gathering

By Ed Pilkington

While Romney has his own confab for the super-rich, oil baron brothers hunker down in California with wealthy conservatives.

Charles and David Koch, the secretive oil barons who are attempting to sway the 2012 presidential contest by injecting vast sums of private cash into the electoral process, have moved one step closer to achieving their goal by staging a gathering of right-wing donors in San Diego.

The brothers, who have set themselves up as a two-man attack machine devoted to unseating Barack Obama, held the latest of their twice-yearly summits of super-wealthy conservative funders this weekend.

Previous conferences have raised about $250m in private donations, putting the Kochs well on the way to their target of $400m for this election cycle – a flexing of individual political muscle by the super-rich never before seen in American history.

Details of the guest list and agenda at the luxury Carlsbad resort were sketchy, unsurprisingly so given the brothers' legendary secrecy.

Only rarely have glimpses been achieved into the rarefied world of these gatherings, in which wealthy conservatives meet to discuss how they can overturn normal democratic processes by leveraging their money into electoral races.

The only major breach of the security fortress they erect around their summits was in 2011, when advance notice of a Koch confab at the enclave of Rancho Mirage in the California desert allowed protesters to swarm the event.

Snippets of information collected over the years have revealed some of the top names among the Kochs' guests, who have included the US supreme court justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia; talk radio stars such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck; and prominent Republicans like Rick Perry of Texas and Chris Christie of New Jersey, who are both regular attendees.

This year the Kochs had competition – an unusual experience for them – as the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney staged his own shindig for super-wealthy donors in Park City, Utah.

His guest line up included that other powerhouse of conservative fundraising in this election cycle – the former George Bush adviser Karl Rove, who has also pledged to inject hundreds of millions of dollars into political campaigns this year through his Crossroads GPS group of super PACs.

Technically, there is no contact allowed under campaign finance laws between the non-party political fundraising efforts of the Kochs and Rove and the official campaign of Romney and the Republican party. But the cross-over of staff, supporters and issues makes the line between them very blurry indeed.

Taken together, Romney's official campaign and his outlying supporters could throw more than $1bn at their attempt to extract Obama from the White House and retake the US senate in November. Much of the money is being invested in negative TV attack advertising in key swing states.

The Kochs have also been working quietly behind the scenes to amplify their political influence by creating a vast database containing the details of potential Republican voters, known as Themis.

The database was believed to have been on exhibition at the San Diego summit this weekend.
Over the past five years, the Kochs have become a contentious force within American politics, partly because of the sheer resources they have at their disposal. The brothers, who made their money in oil, coal and manufacturing, have a personal wealth of $25bn each.

Their controversial role is heightened by the increasingly activist stance they have taken in recent years. They have a stated desire – expressed openly to their inner circle – to bend the political process to their individual will.

A leaflet sent to donors in 2008, obtained by one of the top Koch watchers in the US, Kenneth Vogel of Politico, warned that"our society faces dangerous and imminent threats".

It added ominously: "Can a small but dedicated group of leaders make a difference?"

The brothers have even caused fights within the core conservative movement.

On Monday, the Cato institute, a prominent libertarian think-tank, will announce that it has reached a settlement with them in a bruising fight for control.

The brothers had used the death of one of the Cato's four shareholders, William Niskanen, to launch a power grab for the institute, which was then fiercely resisted by senior Cato figures who feared the Kochs would reposition the organization to fit their own agenda.

The settlement appears to be a compromise. The Kochs will agree to give up their attempt to take over Niskanen's shares, which would have given them a majority stake, and in return the founder and president of Cato, Ed Crane, will stand down and be replaced by a successor that he will select – albeit with the Koch brothers holding an ultimate power of veto.

If they meet their target of $400m for this year's presidential election cycle, the Kochs will have surpassed the $370m that John McCain had at his disposal as his entire campaign funding in 2008.

Two Koch’s And A Smile: Weekend Of Secrecy For Mitt Romney And Big GOP Donors

Original Link: http://mykeystrokes.com/2012/06/22/two-kochs-and-a-smile-weekend-of-secrecy-for-mitt-romney-and-big-gop-donors/

By Brian Montopoli

It’s going to be a big weekend in the world of big conservative money: Both Mitt Romney and billionaire industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch are holding hush-hush events with wealthy donors designed to keep the dollars coming in.

Romney’s three-day retreat, which is being held at the Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah, is an opportunity for about 700 Romney’s biggest fundraisers to get some face time with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. (Many of them are “bundlers” – wealthy and well-connected individuals who call on their family, friends and associates to max out their contributions to Romney and the GOP – who have raised in the area of $250,000 for Romney.) Some of the biggest names in the Republican Party, and many of the top contenders to be Romney’s running mate, are also coming to Park City: CBS News has confirmed that attendees will include former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Republican strategist Karl Rove, former Reagan chief of staff James Baker, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker.

Republican strategist Mary Matalin, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and former Utah governor Mike Leavitt are among the other big names expected to attend. The Romney campaign would not discuss who is attending the retreat, which is not open to the press. Spokespersons for two top contenders for the vice presidential slot – Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – told CBS News the politicians were invited but would not attend for scheduling reasons. CBS News has also confirmed that Olympic champion figure skater Dorothy Hamill, who participated in the Romney-run 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, will attend.

Romney was not expected to compete in terms of fundraising with President Obama, who broke records in raising nearly $750 million in the 2008 cycle. But he has largely kept pace thanks in part to his personal engagement with wealthy donors, which has come in the form of dozens of intimate meetings around the country and, as the New York Times notes, invitations to his summer home at New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. The Romney campaign, which has garnered a reputation for aggressive and prompt engagement with potential donors, outraised the Obama campaign $78.6 million to $60 million in May.

While Romney and his Republican allies are busy cultivating donors in Utah, the Koch brothers will be in San Diego holding a convention designed to help them generate hundreds of millions of dollars to advance conservative causes. At least we think they will: The event is shrouded in secrecy, and neither representatives for Koch Industries nor a number of expected attendees contacted by CBS News would even confirm that it is taking place.

Word got out last week that it was indeed happening, when Minnesota television station owner Stanley Hubbard confirmed its existence - and San Diego location – to Politico. In an apparent attempt to head off protesters and potential infiltrators, organizers and attendees will not say exactly where the convention will be held; a San Diego alternative newspaper is holding a “Find the Koch Brothers Confab” contest in order to figure it out. (CBS News’ attempts to confirm the venue have thus far been fruitless, though we have our suspicions.) Liberals have their own version of the Koch brothers’ confab called The Democracy Alliance, where security is similarly strict; both events are awash in security personnel looking to escort uninvited guests (such as reporters) off the premises.

Organizations tied to the Koch brothers are reportedly planning to spend nearly $400 million on the 2012 campaign cycle, and their conferences are largely designed to garner contributions to the cause. Last year, Mother Jones infiltrated a Koch conference in Vail where Christie was a speaker and recorded Charles Koch thanking donors who had given more than $1 million; the list, which is here, includes more than thirty names. According to a leaked invitation, Koch conferences have attracted conservative heavy hitters such as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, Govs. Jindal and Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Rep. Ryan, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

The semi-secrecy of the Romney retreat and extreme secrecy of the Koch conference mirror the secrecy that currently exists in the world of campaign financing. The Romney campaign, unlike the Obama campaign, refuses to disclose its bundlers, which makes it more difficult for the public to assess what his biggest donors might expect in exchange for their money. The Koch brothers funnel money into groups like Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit “social welfare organization” that does not need to disclose its donors because it is incorporated as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit with the Internal Revenue Service. (More on that here.) And while the super PACs that the Supreme Court freed up to spend unlimited amounts to influence the election do have to disclose their donors, they can simply funnel donations through 501(c)(4) groups – which in many cases are their sister organizations – effectively allowing the super PACs to get around that pesky disclosure requirement. (There is also anonymity on the other side of the spectrum: The Federal Election Commission does not require the campaigns to identify donors who give less than $200 in an election cycle.)

In this election cycle, the Republicans appear to have a significant advantage when it comes to outside group spending – though because 501(c)(4)s and related organizations only have to file with the IRS once per year, it’s impossible to know exactly how much money is flowing into the system. The Obama campaign, which says it expects to be outspent overall, estimated Wednesday that Romney, the Republican National Committee and the outside groups will spend $1.225 billion on ads alone before November.

Meanwhile, Romney and Mr. Obama continue to spend much of their time traveling the country to attend fundraisers, many of them closed to the press. CBS News’ Mark Knoller reported earlier this month that the president has participated in 160 fundraisers since filing for re-election last April, and he has a number scheduled for next week; Romney, whose campaign frequently holds fundraisers it doesn’t let the media know about, plans to follow his weekend retreat with his big donors in Utah by heading to Phoenix, Arizona for another fundraiser on Monday.

Koch-backed group launches $9 million ad campaign against health law; time to debunk their lies

Original Link: http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2012/06/29/koch-backed-group-launches-9-million-ad-campaign-against-health-law-time-to-debunk-their-lies/

Out here in California, I’ve been seeing anti-EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) ad after anti-EPA ad on the Tee Vee machine, sponsored by guess who? The coal industry! Surprise! That has to cost them a pretty penny (and a dirty one).

Now I see the Kochs are walloping the Affordable Care Act with attack ads, and why not? They’ve got millions upon millions to burn, so why not start smearing and lying now? Via The Hill:
A conservative advocacy group closely aligned with the Tea Party announced a $9 million swing-state push against President Obama and the healthcare law.

The announcement by Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which is largely funded by the conservative Koch brothers, comes one day after the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the vast majority of the law in a major coup for Obama.
Know what AFP President Tim Phillips said after the court ruling? “This is far from over.”
Fine with us. If the GOP wants this to be an issue, let’s make it one. We can start with educating voters the way the president did the other day.
A-a-and here come the lies:
The television ad calls the health law “one of the largest tax increases in history” — a refrain expected to form the foundation of GOP arguments against the law as the election draws near.

Shouldn’t President Obama’s priorities have been creating jobs and ending reckless spending?” the ad’s narrator says.
Time to set the record straight. First let’s address the tax increase:
Obamacare includes the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history. According to the independent Congressional Budget Office, 19 million people will receive tax credits worth an average of about $4,800 each to help them afford health care. These tax credits will finally put health insurance within reach for millions of American families.
Psst! KochHeads! It’s not a tax increase. And the penalty is not large by any stretch of the imagination:
The annual penalty is capped at an amount roughly equal to the cost of the national average premium for a qualified health plan — in other words you cannot be forced to pay more than it would have cost to buy a plan in the first place.

Flat dollar amount for individuals: $95 in 2014; $325 in 2015; and $695 in 2016; increases indexed to inflation after that, subject to a cap.
Hey, I know! They can call it a flat tax! Then they’d be all for it! Oh, but I kid the RWNJs.
And they might try addressing those vehemently anti-tax comments to their own candidate, since Willard Romney fully supported the same thing he’s now against in his plan-with-mandate-and-tax-penalty, too:



As for creating jobs, the president’s got that covered, by way of over 4 million private sector jobs; the economy has already added more jobs than in Bush’s first three years in office combined.



Those on the right are telling lies, lies, and more lies. Of course, Team Romney and his supporters would have you believe otherwise. But you know what they say:

Koch brothers: Inside the Koch World convention

Original Link: http://ttruth3829683.newsvine.com/_news/2012/06/15/12238216-koch-brothers-inside-the-koch-world-convention-politicocom

By


The Koch brothers’ political operation has increasingly come to resemble its own political party — and later this month in San Diego, it will hold what amounts to its most ambitious convention to date.

Many of the dozens of rich conservative invitees are expected to write huge checks to a pool of cash distributed among Koch-approved groups, potentially boosting the Kochs’ 2012 spending plan beyond their historic $395 million goal. And it’s also a chance for the Kochs to show off their increasingly robust political machine, including a growing voter database project called Themis that played a major role in conservatives’ recent efforts in Wisconsin and in which POLITICO has learned Koch operatives have discussed investing $20 million.

(Also on POLITICO: Losing faith on campaign finance)

It’s part of an ambitious expansion of the billionaire brothers’ political operation that includes the recruitment of new donors and fundraisers into their network by a development team led by summit emcee Kevin Gentry, and their recent hiring of in-house political operative Marc Short to oversee the spending of funds raised at the summits.

The expansion is also reflected in Charles and David Kochs’ bid to take over the libertarian Cato Institute as well as their operations steering cash to groups that aren’t commonly thought of as Koch affiliated. The 60 Plus Association, American Energy Alliance, American Future Fund, Americans for Limited Government and National Right to Life have all received funds through the Koch donor network.

“They ask for support — and they get it because we all love our country and we have a different vision than do the liberals,” said Stanley Hubbard, a Minnesota television station owner who has attended the Koch donor summits for years and plans to be in San Diego for this month’s meeting. “I’ve gotten friends to be involved, and I think others have, too, so I would guess, yes, that’s expanding.”

Yet, even as Koch World has increasingly flexed its muscles in conservative politics, its inner sanctum — comprised of the brothers and their longtime right-hand man Richard Fink — has remained all but impenetrable to even big GOP players who want a piece of the Koch action or invitations to the summits, according to numerous operatives.

The specific location of the San Diego summit could not be determined. And a Koch spokesman declined to comment on details of the summit, which starts the weekend of June 23, or the brothers’ political plans.

“The Koch groups are very complex in the way they do things. They’re difficult to penetrate from the outside, which is smart,” said one GOP operative who has worked with Koch-backed groups. “You often need a Sherpa.”

That’s what makes Gentry, Short and Tim Phillips so powerful. They came up together in the good-ol’-boy universe of Virginia GOP politics, and they’re now the Kochs’ liaisons to Washington’s professional conservative class.

A number of sources with knowledge of Koch World — who did not want to speak publicly about it for fear of being cut out of the loop — said the trio carry with them the full confidence of the brothers and Fink, and the ability to make and execute decisions on their behalf, not to mention access to the mega-donors who make the network so potent.

The roles break down thusly: Phillips runs the Kochs’ primary political vehicle Americans for Prosperity and Short oversees the spending of Koch network cash by other approved groups, some of which air among the sharpest attack ads against Democrats, and Gentry raises the Koch network’s cash.

Gentry’s fundraising appeals can strike an urgent tone, as was the case in a letter he sent to attendees of a 2008 Koch donor summit, warning that “our society faces dangerous and imminent threats.” The letter, reported here for the first time, seemed to compare the Koch summit with the Continental Congress and asked, “Can a small but dedicated group of leaders make a difference?”

Gentry also leads a sort of informal network of fundraisers for top conservative think tanks and advocacy groups around the country, including The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, POLITICO has learned.

In a weekly email to the network, Gentry passes along tips on donor prospecting and maintenance and cites best practices. For example, in a February email obtained by POLITICO, he shared advice from a Heritage fundraiser who suggested his group won the loyalty of a million-dollar donor who attended Koch summits by introducing him to big names who spoke at Heritage events, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Short, who attends the same church as Gentry, is by far the newest member of the inner circle, having been hired only last year to oversee the spending of Koch donor network cash by other groups. Previously, the Kochs had tasked a contractor named Sean Noble with the responsibility. Short — who most recently had worked with Koch-favorite Rep. Mike Pence, leading an unsuccessful effort to lure him into the presidential race — has been representing Koch World at the Karl Rove-conceived Weaver Terrace Group meetings where conservative groups coordinate ad spending.

But Koch World’s expansion has raised hackles among critics in the conservative movement who see the Kochs and their operatives as secretive control freaks who don’t always play well with others and are trying to leverage their cash to expand their influence.

“Koch has been angling for the last three or four years to consolidate more of the conservative movement within their network,” said a conservative operative who has worked with donors in the Koch network. “That’s why they do these seminars — to try to consolidate more big donors’ money and direct it into their projects,” said the operative, who asserted that groups that attend the summits become beholden to the Kochs, but also marveled at the effectiveness of the gatherings as a fundraising technique.

“Some of the donors believe giving to one source makes it easier for them instead of having to give to a dozen different places,” said the operative, “and others just want to come out to hang with the billionaire brothers and be part of a very elite universe.”

Koch Industries, the brothers’ privately owned oil, chemical and household products company, has sponsored the summits twice a year since 2003 and they are where it all comes together in Koch World. The donors, like regulars Foster Friess and Rich DeVos and first-timers like Sheldon Adelson, are gently pressured to give while the invited operatives jockey to impress the Kochs and their donors with presentations on campaign and legislative strategy.

There’s also a collection of A-list dignitaries that has in recent years included rising political stars like Eric Cantor, Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell and Rick Perry, talkers like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck — even Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Thomas.

Koch summit donors over the years have donated more than $120 million on their own to various federal candidates, committees and super PACs, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data, as well as numerous background interviews and confidential Koch documents reviewed by POLITICO.

But most of the cash raised at the Koch summits — typically in pledge sessions on the last day of the summit that have a revival-like feel — goes to nonprofit groups that do not disclose their donors. And the groups represented at recent conferences provide some hints as to the recipients. According to the documents reviewed by POLITICO and interviews, there are think tanks such as The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and The Federalist Society, as well as advocacy groups including the 60 Plus Association, National Right to Work, the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity.

The Kochs raised more than $150 million at their winter conference this year in Indian Wells, Calif., on top of $49 million at a summit a year earlier in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

There was one summit in between, in Beaver Creek, Colo., and even if donors only matched the lower tally, that would put the Koch network at about $250 million raised for the cycle. That means they’re within striking distance of their $395 million goal, and could exceed it, given that sources said interest in the donor network has only increased since Democrats up to and including President Barack Obama have taken to targeting the Kochs as examples of the corrupting influence of big money in politics.

The attacks haven’t bothered Koch network donors, asserted Hubbard, declaring, “All this nonsense over ‘Well, they’re oil people’ — baloney! They will do the right thing for their country.”

But at last year’s summer conference, Gentry seemed to assure the donors they wouldn’t catch flak for their donations. “There is anonymity that we can protect,” he said in remarks that were surreptitiously recorded and leaked to Mother Jones.

Secrecy is the name of the game at the summits, much like at the Democracy Alliance gatherings of big liberal donors: Koch donors are required to wear name tags at all times, and security officers wearing gold lapel pins bearing Koch Industries’ “K” logo, roamed the halls at last year’s winter meeting, removing a POLITICO reporter under threat of arrest.

Attendees are warned not to “post updates or information about the meeting on blogs, social media such as Facebook and Twitter, or in traditional media articles,” according to a packet distributed to participants at the June 2010 session that was obtained and posted by the liberal blog ThinkProgress. The summits had gone off without a peep of publicity until that packet, which included an invitation to the winter 2011 meeting in Rancho Mirage, Calif., leaked to The New York Times and ThinkProgress, paving the way for raucous protests outside the Rancho Mirage resort hosting the conference.

Attendees are expected to wear business casual attire for panels, according to a packet for an earlier meeting that was reviewed by POLITICO, but “For our evening meals, cocktail attire is appropriate for women. Men should wear a sport coat, though most forgo wearing a tie.” Justice Thomas was the featured guest at one such dinner, while another included a menu of “shiitake mushroom and roasted vegetable strudel with goat cheese crema” and “tomato water poached halibut with heirloom tomato salad and mint couscous.”

Aesthetics aside, the Koch summits are regarded as a holy grail of sorts for conservatives seeking cash for their initiatives. Decisions about who gets invited, and who doesn’t, can lead to raw feelings, as Gentry learned firsthand at a dinner meeting of the Cato board, to which he had been appointed by the Kochs in their bid to wrest control of the libertarian think tank from a faction led by President Ed Crane.

“Kevin Gentry sitting over there has never once — never once! — invited me to one of the Koch donor events that he organizes for Charles!” Crane bellowed at Gentry, according to an account in the Washingtonian. “Nor has he invited anyone from Cato!”

Progressives Plan to Crash Romney's Fundraiser at Koch's Southampton Estate

Original Link: http://southampton.patch.com/articles/progressives-plan-to-crash-romney-s-fundraiser-at-koch-s-southampton-estate

ByBrendan J. O'Reilly

Long Island Progressive Coalition, Moveon.org and other liberal groups will target $50,000-per-guest event on Meadow Lane.

Billionaire industrialist and frequent donator to conservative causes David Koch is planning a fundraiser at his Southampton estate for GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney on July 8 for $50,000 a head — and a number of uninvited guests plan to crash the party.

The Long Island Progressive Coalition said Thursday it will help to lead like-minded groups to "non-violently disrupt" the event, which is one of three Romney fundraisers planned in the Hamptons that day, according to a Politico report.

“We’ll be making noise, holding up signs and letting everybody that has to pass by there on the way to the fundraiser know that Long Island does not support the political agenda that they’re raising money for that night,” said Long Island Progressive Coalition communications coordinator David Segal.

He said the coalition learned of the event after an invitation was leaked online. According to the invitation, the fundraiser will begin at 5 p.m. and the cost is $50,000 per individual and $75,000 per couple, with proceeds benefiting Romney Victory, Inc.

“The fact that David Koch is spearheading this fundraiser is indicative of the role that money is playing in politics right now,” Segal said.

The Romney campaign did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

The protest is planned for 4 p.m. in front of the oceanfront Meadow Lane estate, though demonstrators will first assemble at the Coopers Beach parking lot at 3 p.m. They will then march to Koch's home carrying banners.

“We want to show up in front of the Kochs' house to say, 'We’re tired of you promoting policies that go against the interest of everyday people,'" Segal said.

Joining the coalition are Greenpeace, Occupy Wall Street, Moveon.org, Strong For All, United New York, The Occupied Storefront and Occupy Huntington. Protestors from New York City will be bussed in for free.

Southampton Village has a law against protests targeting a domicile, but Mayor Mark Epley said Thursday that it is the village attorney's opinion the law does not apply in this case because Romney does not reside at the estate.

The law was adopted after anti-illegal immigration protestors took to demonstrating outside Epley's house.

Epley said his biggest concern is the safety hazards a large gathering on Meadow Lane poses on a Sunday afternoon when many vehicles are leaving beaches and the county park at the end of the road.

Segal said the demonstrators will not block driveways or impede traffic, and will follow the conventional rules governing protests.

Fact-Checking Romney: Does Health Reform Cut Medicare, Levy $500 Billion Tax?

Original Link: http://news.yahoo.com/fact-checking-romney-does-health-reform-cut-medicare-230303419--abc-news-politics.html

By Chris Good

In expressing his opposition to Thursday's Supreme Court ruling, Mitt Romney provided some jaw-dropping numbers as to why he believes the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is "bad policy" and a "bad law."

"Let me tell you why I say that. Obamacare raises taxes on the American people by approximately $500 billion," Romney told reporters. "Obamacare cuts Medicare by approximately $500 billion. And even with those cuts, and tax increases, Obamacare adds trillions to our deficits and to our national debt, and pushes those obligations onto coming generations."

So, where does the Romney campaign come up with those numbers?

They cite a memo written by Richard Foster, chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (part of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services), that claims the ACA will, says Romney, "cut Medicare by more than $500 billion."

So does it "cut" Medicare by $500 billion?

Medicare spending will continue to grow, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), but ACA will slow that growth. According to a report from the Kaiser Family Health Foundation over the next 10 years, the federal government will devote about $500 billion less to Medicare than it would have without ACA.

CMS and the Kaiser Family Foundation tell ABC News that there will be no benefit cuts to Medicare. They say instead of Medicare's being cut, there will be much more spending at the end of a 10-year window, but it does slow the rate of that growth. This is all unless Congress makes drastic changes to Medicare, for example passing House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan.

CMS says-and Kaiser agrees-that spending will be reduced by getting rid of fraud and ending overpayments to private insurance companies. It sends a message to those insurance companies: Operate more efficiently.

And instead of cuts, the CMS says they will be able to fund new benefits, including free preventive care and broader prescription coverage, including closing the "doughnut hole" affecting seniors.

The doughnut hole is a gap in Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage, which requires seniors to pay for their prescription drugs out of pocket after surpassing a certain level of spending and before reaching a level where coverage resumed.

The Romney campaign's explanation for why Obamacare is rife with taxes is testimony from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the ACA will raise approximately $500 billion in taxes over its first 10 years.

According to the CBO, this claim is right.

According to the CBO's latest, revised estimates released in March 2012, the reform law raises "$510 billion in receipts and other budgetary effects (primarily revenues from penalties and other sources)"-including the "individual mandate" tax penalty and penalties on employers.

The Kaiser Foundation points out that in the CBO report there are $808 billion in tax credits to low-income and middle-class families to help them afford health insurance over the next 11 years.

In February 2011, the CBO estimated that Obama's health-reform law would reduce the deficit by $210 billion over 10 years. Part of that reduction will come from slowing the rate of Medicare spending growth and imposing taxes.

The Obama campaign did not explicitly refute Romney's $500 million in tax increases claim, but they said it ignores the fact that they predict health care costs will go down.

Larry Levitt, a senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Health Foundation, said it's important to note the tax increases are "all quite specific."

"Taxes on drug companies, on insurance companies, and on medical devices makers," Leavitt said, adding even tanning beds will be subjected to a tax increase.

"What's important is that the congressional budget office projects that on net the law will decrease the federal budget deficit," Levitt said.

Romney also claimed the health law will cost $1.76 trillion. That's the gross cost of its provisions to expand health coverage from 2012-2022, according to a 2012 CBO estimate. According to the latest CBO data, the new law's insurance-coverage provisions will have a gross cost of $1.49 trillion from 2012-2021, the more common timeframe for spending comparison.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Mendacious Mitt: Romney's bid to become liar-in-chief

Original Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/21/mendacious-mitt-romney-bid-liar-in-chief

By Michael Cohen

Spin is normal in politics, but Romney is pioneering a cynical strategy of reducing fact and truth to pure partisanship.

Four years ago, when I was writing about the 2008 presidential campaign, I wrote with dismay and surprise at the spate of falsehoods coming out of John McCain's campaign for president. McCain had falsely accused his opponent Barack Obama of supporting "comprehensive sex education" for children, and of wanting to raise taxes on the middle class, while his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, took credit for opposing the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere", which she had actually supported.

At the time, such false and misleading claims from a presidential candidate seemed shocking: they crossed an unstated line in American politics – going from the usual garden-variety campaign exaggeration to wilful lying.

Ah, those were the days … after watching Mitt Romney run for president the past few months, he makes John McCain look like George Washington (of "I Can't Tell A Lie" fame).

Granted, presidential candidates are no strangers to disingenuous or overstated claims; it's pretty much endemic to the business. But Romney is doing something very different and far more pernicious. Quite simply, the United States has never been witness to a presidential candidate, in modern American history, who lies as frequently, as flagrantly and as brazenly as Mitt Romney.

Now, in general, those of us in the pundit class are really not supposed to accuse politicians of lying – they mislead, they embellish, they mischaracterize, etc. Indeed, there is natural tendency for nominally objective reporters, in particular, to stay away from loaded terms such as lying. Which is precisely why Romney's repeated lies are so effective. In fact, lying is really the only appropriate word to use here, because, well, Romney lies a lot. But that's a criticism you're only likely to hear from partisans.

My personal favorite in Romney's cavalcade of untruths is his repeated assertion that President Obama has apologized for America. In his book, appropriately titled "No Apologies", Romney argues the following:
"Never before in American history has its president gone before so many foreign audiences to apologize for so many American misdeeds, both real and imagined. It is his way of signaling to foreign countries and foreign leaders that their dislike for America is something he understands and that is, at least in part, understandable."
Nothing about this sentence is true.

President Obama never went around the world and apologized for America – and yet, even after multiple news organizations have pointed out this is a "pants on fire" lie, Romney keeps making it. Indeed, the "Obama apology tour", along with the president bowing down to the King of Saudi Arabia, are practically the lodestars of the GOP's criticism of Obama's foreign policy performance (the Saudi thing isn't true either).

But foreign policy is a relatively light area of mistruth for the GOP standard-bearer. The economy is really where the truth takes its greatest vacation in Romney world. First, there is Romney's claim that the 2009 stimulus passed by Congress and signed by President Obama "didn't work". According to Romney, "that stimulus didn't put more private-sector people to work." While one can quibble over whether the stimulus went far enough, the idea that it didn't create private-sector jobs has no relationship to reality. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus bill created more than 3m jobs – a view shared by 80% of economists polled by the Chicago Booth School of Business (only 4% disagree).

Romney also likes to argue that the stimulus didn't help private-sector job growth, but rather helped preserve government jobs. In fact, the Obama years have been witness to massive cuts in government employment. While the private sector is not necessarily "doing fine", as Obama said in a recent White House press conference, it's doing a heck of a lot better than the public sector.

And the list goes on. Romney has accused Obama of raising taxes – in reality, they've gone down under his presidency, and largely because of that stimulus bill that Romney loves to criticize. He's accused the president of doubling the deficit. In fact, it's actually gone down on Obama's watch.

Romney took credit for the success of the auto bailout – even though he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt". He's said repeatedly that businesses in America see Obama as the "enemy", and that under his presidency "free enterprise" and economic freedom" are at risk of disappearing. In reality, since taking office, corporate profits, industrial production and the stock market are up, while corporate bankruptcies have actually decreased.

Then, there is the recent Romney nugget that the Obama administration passed Obamacare with the full knowledge that it "would slow down the economic recovery in this country" and that the White House "knew that before they passed it". It's an argument so clearly spun from whole cloth that according to Jonathan Chait, the acerbic political columnist for New York Magazine, Romney is "Just Making Stuff Up Now".

Also of Obamacare, Romney has said that it will lead to the government taking over 50% of the economy (not true) – its true cost can't be computed (that's why we have a Congressional Budget Office in the United States); that it will create to "a massive European-style entitlement" (many liberals wish this were true, but alas, it is not); and that it will lead to a government-run healthcare system (a lie so pervasive that it's practically become shorthand for Republicans – yet it too, like the infamous made-up death panels of the health care debate, is simply not accurate).

The lying from the Romney campaign is so out-of-control that Steve Benen, a blogger and producer for the Rachel Maddow show compiles a weekly list of "Mitt's Mendacity" that is chockfull of new untruths. Benen appears unlikely to run out of material any time soon, particularly since Romney persists in repeating the same lies over and over, even after they've been debunked.

This is perhaps the most interesting and disturbing element of Romney's tireless obfuscation: that even when corrected, it has little impact on the presumptive GOP nominee's behavior. This is happening at a time when fact-checking operations in major media outlets have increased significantly, yet that appears to have no effect on the Romney campaign.

What is the proper response when, even after it's pointed out that the candidate is not telling the truth, he keeps doing it? Romney actually has a telling rejoinder for this. When a reporter challenged his oft-stated assertion that President Obama had made the economy worse (factually, not correct), he denied ever saying it in the first place. It's a lie on top of a lie.

Now, it's certainly true that on the campaign trail, facts can be stretched in many different directions – and both parties, including President Obama, frequently make arguments that are misleading, lacking in context or simply false. But it is virtually unheard of for a politician to lie with such reckless abandon and appear completely unconcerned about getting caught.

Back in the old days (that is, pre-2008) it would have been considered unimaginable that a politician would lie as brazenly as Romney does – for fear of embarrassment or greater scrutiny. When Joe Biden was accused of plagiarizing British Labor Leader Neil Kinnock's speeches in 1988, it derailed his presidential aspirations. When Al Gore was accused of exaggerating his role in "inventing the internet" (which, actually, was sort of true), it became a frequent attack line that hamstrung his credibility. Romney has done far worse than either of these candidates – yet it's hard to discern the negative impact on his candidacy.

Romney has figured out a loophole – one can lie over and over, and those lies quickly become part of the political narrative, practically immune to "fact-checking". Ironically, the more Romney lies, the harder it then becomes to correct the record. Even if an enterprising reporter can knock down two or three falsehoods, there are still so many more that slip past.

It's reminiscent of the old line that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on. In Romney's case, his lies are regularly corrected by media sources, but usually, in some antiseptic fact-checking article, or by Democratic/liberal voices who can be dismissed for their "partisan bent". Meanwhile, splashed across the front page of newspapers is Romney saying "Obamacare will lead to a government take-over of healthcare"; "Obama went on an apology tour"; or "the stimulus didn't create any jobs". Because, after all, it's what the candidate said and reporters dutifully must transcribe it.

Pointing out that Romney is consistently not telling the truth thus risks simply falling into the category of the usual "he-said, she-said" of American politics. For cynical reporters, the behavior is inevitably seen to be the way the political game is now played. Rather than being viewed and ultimately exposed as examples of a pervasive pattern of falsehoods, Romney's statements embed themselves in the normalized political narrative – along with aggrieved Democrats complaining that Romney isn't telling the truth. Meanwhile, the lie sticks in the minds of voters.

As MSNBC's Steve Benen told me:
"Romney gets away with it because he and his team realize contemporary political journalism isn't equipped to deal with a candidate who lies this much, about so many topics, so often."
Romney is charting new and untraveled waters in American politics. In the process, he is cynically eroding the fragile sense of trust that exists between voters and politicians. It's almost enough to make one pine for the days when Sarah Palin lied about "the Bridge to Nowhere".

Health Care: Give the People What They Want

Original Link: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/health_care_give_the_people_what_they_want_20120621/

By Robert Scheer

The nutty thing about the health care debate that will play a prominent role in the next election is that most Americans want pretty much the same outcome: to control costs without sacrificing quality. And that’s not what either major-party candidate is offering. Few think that Obamacare, a Romneycare descendant that contains the same kind of individual mandate the then-governor of Massachusetts signed into law, will get us to that desired goal. Nor would Mitt Romney, who has been reborn as a celebrant of the old, pre-Obama system with a few nips and tucks.

As the nation awaits a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the Obama health care approach, a new Associated Press-GfK poll suggests that the vast majority of Americans want Congress to come up with a better plan. They know that the current system is unsustainable. Only a third of those polled favored the law President Barack Obama signed, but according to the AP, “... Whatever people think of the law, they don’t want a Supreme Court ruling against it to be the last word on health care reform.” The article continued, “More than three-fourths of Americans want their political leaders to undertake a new effort, rather than leave the health care system alone if the court rules against the law, according to the poll.”

That sentiment underscores the opportunity missed by Obama, who limited his ambition to what Big Pharma and the insurance giants would accept as “reform” in a system that they had so successfully exploited. Obamacare is a faux reform born of opportunism, as was Romney’s original version: Play ball with those who have profited most from the run-up of medical costs and expect them to make it more affordable.

Two dynamics doomed the experiment. First, the new Democratic president wanted to launch a bold progressive program, but rather than channel the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to address the economic crisis that he inherited, he continued the bailouts begun under George W. Bush and fixed on health care reform instead of the financial pain being suffered by average Americans.
The second dynamic that undercut the health care bill was an overeagerness on the part of the new White House operatives to collaborate with the profiteers in the very industry targeted by reform.
The email trail of cave-ins to the medical industry heavyweights is startlingly clear, and it is difficult to quarrel with the headline on a Wall Street Journal story: “Emails Reveal How the White House Bought Big Pharma.” Except, as a related editorial in the WSJ makes clear, it was the pharmaceutical industry that did the buying, with “a $150 million advertising campaign coordinated with the White House political shop.”

What the industry bought was an end to the notion of a health care “public option,” and a guarantee of no serious restrictions on drug prices, arranged by then White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who was in close communication with the lobbyists involved. The Journal article pointed to the cynical language of the emails exchanged, quoting one incriminating note from a lobbyist: “Rahm asked for Harry and Louise ads thru third party. We’ve already contacted the agent.” The American Medical Association and others also were in on the fix, yet with all of that power being exercised the public wasn’t conned. As the WSJ editorialized (it galls me to agree with that newspaper’s editorialists), “The miracle is that despite this collusion of big government and big business, Obamacare has received the public scorn that it deserves.”

But scorn for an individual mandate that compels consumers to purchase something they don’t want does not translate into a rational alternative to the current mess. Californian Gary Hess, a retired school administrator and a Republican, is quoted in the AP story about the new poll as saying that he wants the Supreme Court to reject the entire Obama plan but that he still wants the government to retain the requirement that insurance companies cover people regardless of their prior medical conditions. “There needs to be compromise on both sides,” he said. Clearly, any good compromise must include both control on costs and the availability of health care to the needy in places other than the very expensive emergency room.

Let me humbly suggest that as an alternative to a mandatory system rejected by the majority, we return to the idea of covering most people by attracting them to quality public and private programs through consumer choice, and that one of those choices be a version of the public option we now offer seniors. It’s called Medicare and it works splendidly.

America’s long slope down

Original Link: http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/06/20/americas-long-slope-down/

By David Cay Johnston
A broad swath of official economic data shows that America and its people are in much worse shape than when we paid higher taxes, higher interest rates and made more of the manufactured goods we use.

The numbers since the turn of the millennium point to even worse times ahead if we stay the course. Let’s look at the official numbers in today’s dollars and then what can be done to change course.
First, incomes and jobs since 2000 measured per American:

Internal Revenue Service data show that average adjusted gross income fell $2,699 through 2010 or 9 percent, compared to 2000. That’s the equivalent of making it through Thanksgiving weekend and then having no income for the rest of the year.

Had average incomes just stayed at the level in 2000, Americans through 2009 would have earned $3.5 trillion more income, the equivalent of $26,000 per taxpayer over a decade. Preliminary 2010 data show a partial rebound, reducing the shortfall by a fifth to $2.8 trillion or $21,000 per taxpayer.
Wages per capita in 2010 were 4.3 percent less than in 2000, effectively reducing to 50 weeks the pay for 52 weeks of work. The median wage in 2010 fell back to the level of 1999, with half of workers grossing less than $507 a week, half more, Social Security tax data show. The bottom third, 50 million workers, averaged just $116 a week in 2010.

Social Security and Census data show that the number of people with any work increased just 1.5 percent from 2000 to 2010 while population grew 6.4 times faster. That’s why millions of people cannot find work no matter how hard they try.

In May, nearly 23 million workers, 14.8 percent, were jobless or underemployed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. At shadowstats.com, a website dedicated to exposing and analyzing flaws in government economic data, economist John Williams also counts people who have given up hope of finding work. His figure for May brings the total to almost 30 million people, one in five.

PRESSURE ON WAGES

An economy with many millions more workers than jobs puts downward pressure on wages, especially for those without highly developed skills.

Now let’s look at debt per American since 2000 using Federal Reserve data:


Mortgage debt grew 51 percent through 2010, even though incomes and wages fell, which should result in steady or lower housing prices, not higher prices.

(In 2011, as banks foreclosed on more homes, mortgage debt per capita declined, but was still 42 percent greater than in 2000.)

Consumer debt was virtually unchanged, at nearly $8,300 in 2010, helping explain weak sales of automobiles, furniture and appliances.

Now how about trade? Exporting more than we import creates jobs and riches.

From 2000, the year before China joined the World Trade Organization, to 2011 imports from China grew 62 percent faster than exports to China, Census data show. The annual trade deficit soared to $302 billion from $112 billion.

U.S. exports to China in 2011 ($106 billion) were smaller than US imports from China back in 2000 ($133 billion), showing the lopsided nature of trade with China, where workers lack rights, safety rules are minimal and pollution rampant.

Some 56,000 American factories have closed since 2000, as jobs and the knowledge that goes with those jobs moved to China.

Trade with China has destroyed every 55th job in America, nearly 2.8 million positions, analysis of government data by Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute shows. That equals wiping out every job in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area. Nearly two million of those jobs were in manufacturing, Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. International Trade Commission data show.

SHRINKING TAX REVENUE

And what of taxes? The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were promoted as keys to prosperity. Now Mitt Romney, virtually all Republicans and a fair number of Democrats say more tax cuts will make us prosper. President Barack Obama wants to cut corporate tax rates by a third.

Again, measured per capita, the IRS data show a pattern of shrinking numbers, with modest upticks in 2010.

Individual income taxes in 2010 averaged $2,995, down $1,654 or almost 36 percent from 2000. Use 2001 as the base year — because it was both a recession year and the first year of the temporary George W. Bush tax cuts — and in 2010 per capita income tax revenues were down one third.
In 2011, as the economy improved slightly, income tax revenues rose, but were still 26 percent smaller than in 2000.

The bottom line: less income, hardly any more jobs, sharply increased mortgage debt and Washington ledgers awash in red ink as voters are asked to endorse even more tax cuts.

How many years of evidence does it take to establish that a policy worked or failed?

Will continuing our current tax, credit and trade policies produce favorable results in the future? Will they produce higher incomes?

My reading of this and tons more data is that the Bush tax cuts utterly failed, the Fed’s artificially low-interest rate policies under presidents Bush and Obama do far more damage than good (especially to savers), and that the United States is harmed both by the imbalance in the trade relationship with China and scores of trade agreements with South Korea and other low-wage countries that are deeply flawed at best.

We need to recognize that the tax cutters were snake oil salesmen, the Federal Reserve an enabler of damaging debts and that bilateral trade deals are written of, by and for global financiers, not workers.

To paraphrase the Huey Lewis song, we need a new policy.

Corporations Have Feelings

Original Link: http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/06/20/americas-long-slope-down/

By David Cay Johnston
A broad swath of official economic data shows that America and its people are in much worse shape than when we paid higher taxes, higher interest rates and made more of the manufactured goods we use.

The numbers since the turn of the millennium point to even worse times ahead if we stay the course. Let’s look at the official numbers in today’s dollars and then what can be done to change course.
First, incomes and jobs since 2000 measured per American:

Internal Revenue Service data show that average adjusted gross income fell $2,699 through 2010 or 9 percent, compared to 2000. That’s the equivalent of making it through Thanksgiving weekend and then having no income for the rest of the year.

Had average incomes just stayed at the level in 2000, Americans through 2009 would have earned $3.5 trillion more income, the equivalent of $26,000 per taxpayer over a decade. Preliminary 2010 data show a partial rebound, reducing the shortfall by a fifth to $2.8 trillion or $21,000 per taxpayer.
Wages per capita in 2010 were 4.3 percent less than in 2000, effectively reducing to 50 weeks the pay for 52 weeks of work. The median wage in 2010 fell back to the level of 1999, with half of workers grossing less than $507 a week, half more, Social Security tax data show. The bottom third, 50 million workers, averaged just $116 a week in 2010.

Social Security and Census data show that the number of people with any work increased just 1.5 percent from 2000 to 2010 while population grew 6.4 times faster. That’s why millions of people cannot find work no matter how hard they try.

In May, nearly 23 million workers, 14.8 percent, were jobless or underemployed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. At shadowstats.com, a website dedicated to exposing and analyzing flaws in government economic data, economist John Williams also counts people who have given up hope of finding work. His figure for May brings the total to almost 30 million people, one in five.

PRESSURE ON WAGES

An economy with many millions more workers than jobs puts downward pressure on wages, especially for those without highly developed skills.

Now let’s look at debt per American since 2000 using Federal Reserve data:


Mortgage debt grew 51 percent through 2010, even though incomes and wages fell, which should result in steady or lower housing prices, not higher prices.

(In 2011, as banks foreclosed on more homes, mortgage debt per capita declined, but was still 42 percent greater than in 2000.)

Consumer debt was virtually unchanged, at nearly $8,300 in 2010, helping explain weak sales of automobiles, furniture and appliances.

Now how about trade? Exporting more than we import creates jobs and riches.

From 2000, the year before China joined the World Trade Organization, to 2011 imports from China grew 62 percent faster than exports to China, Census data show. The annual trade deficit soared to $302 billion from $112 billion.

U.S. exports to China in 2011 ($106 billion) were smaller than US imports from China back in 2000 ($133 billion), showing the lopsided nature of trade with China, where workers lack rights, safety rules are minimal and pollution rampant.

Some 56,000 American factories have closed since 2000, as jobs and the knowledge that goes with those jobs moved to China.

Trade with China has destroyed every 55th job in America, nearly 2.8 million positions, analysis of government data by Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute shows. That equals wiping out every job in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area. Nearly two million of those jobs were in manufacturing, Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. International Trade Commission data show.

SHRINKING TAX REVENUE

And what of taxes? The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were promoted as keys to prosperity. Now Mitt Romney, virtually all Republicans and a fair number of Democrats say more tax cuts will make us prosper. President Barack Obama wants to cut corporate tax rates by a third.

Again, measured per capita, the IRS data show a pattern of shrinking numbers, with modest upticks in 2010.

Individual income taxes in 2010 averaged $2,995, down $1,654 or almost 36 percent from 2000. Use 2001 as the base year — because it was both a recession year and the first year of the temporary George W. Bush tax cuts — and in 2010 per capita income tax revenues were down one third.
In 2011, as the economy improved slightly, income tax revenues rose, but were still 26 percent smaller than in 2000.

The bottom line: less income, hardly any more jobs, sharply increased mortgage debt and Washington ledgers awash in red ink as voters are asked to endorse even more tax cuts.

How many years of evidence does it take to establish that a policy worked or failed?

Will continuing our current tax, credit and trade policies produce favorable results in the future? Will they produce higher incomes?

My reading of this and tons more data is that the Bush tax cuts utterly failed, the Fed’s artificially low-interest rate policies under presidents Bush and Obama do far more damage than good (especially to savers), and that the United States is harmed both by the imbalance in the trade relationship with China and scores of trade agreements with South Korea and other low-wage countries that are deeply flawed at best.

We need to recognize that the tax cutters were snake oil salesmen, the Federal Reserve an enabler of damaging debts and that bilateral trade deals are written of, by and for global financiers, not workers.

To paraphrase the Huey Lewis song, we need a new policy.