Original Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/03/koch-entertained-justice-thomas-at-his-private-club/
By PAM MARTENS
For the past three years the U.S. has been served up a heaping dose of free market creative destruction that is the sine qua non of legions of corporate funded front groups. First Wall Street, then housing, now the nation’s highest court have been brought low by its force. As it turns out, creative destruction is 90 percent corruption and 10 percent creative.
The Citizens United case, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 21, 2010, opened the spigots to unlimited corporate money in elections and put free speech for inanimate, unfeeling corporations on equal footing with free speech for humans with a brain and a heart. But it didn’t pass the smell test from day one; four of the nine Justices on the court said so in a scathing dissent that raised the issue of unprincipled behavior on the part of the 5-judge majority which ruled on issues that were not legally before the court.
The unpleasant aroma of that decision enveloped Justice Clarence Thomas over his all-expenses-paid, four-day luxury trip to the January 2008 Koch brothers confab in the Palm Springs area of California. (According to his 2008 disclosure form and the Supreme Court’s public information office, his expenses for that trip were paid by the Federalist Society, a conservative nonprofit that the Koch foundations have given $1.9 million to, from 1991 through 2009.)
The Koch brothers, Charles and David, are controlling shareholders of one of the largest private corporations in the world, Koch Industries. Each brother is worth an estimated $21.5 billion, according to Forbes. The company has a presence in over 60 countries, including interests in oil, refining, pipelines, paper products, chemicals, fertilizer and commodities trading. The Kochs’ semi-annual political fundraising event, which attracts upwards of 250 to 300 people, is so secretive that attendees are told in their instruction packet to keep everything they see and hear confidential, according to a memo leaked to Think Progress.org.
Both Koch Industries, and the multitude of nonprofit think tanks and free market advocacy groups the Koch foundations fund, stand to gain dramatically from the Citizens United decision as they are all corporations. Justice Thomas’ trip to the Koch event occurred in the same year as the Citizens United case was accepted by the Supreme Court. The Court accepts less than two percent of all cases appealed to it.
In back and forth email correspondence last week with Scott Markley, Public Information Specialist at the Supreme Court, it emerges that Justice Thomas was “hosted by Charles and Elizabeth Koch in Indian Wells, California, at the Vintage Club.” According to a spokesperson at the Vintage Club, it restricts dining to members and their guests. Membership requires owning a home in the private, high security community. Homes run from $1.8 million to $18 million. Golf club membership requires $250,000 in equity with annual dues of $32,000 a year. The spokesperson for the Vintage Club confirmed that Charles Koch is a member of the Club and has brought guests for dinner.
According to public records, Charles G. Koch owns a home on Desert Rose Lane in Indian Wells, close to the Vintage Club. The Riverside County Assessor’s office shows it as a 5 bedroom, 8 bathroom, 7,553 square foot home. The creative destruction of an institutionalized wealth transfer system that is stripping purchasing power from 300 million Americans and concentrating wealth in the hands of the top 1 percent is beginning to devour its own. Koch’s Desert Rose Lane home has gone from a value of $12 million in 2009 to $5 million today according to the county tax assessor’s records.
The bottom line of all of the delicate parsing by the public information office of the Supreme Court is that a sitting justice of the Supreme Court was entertained in the private club of one of the richest corporate executives in America. The company, Koch Industries, has paid tens of millions of dollars to settle violations of Federal and State laws. In 1999, according to 60 Minutes, a jury found that Koch Industries had stolen oil from Federal lands “and lied about its purchases – 24 thousand times.” Bill Koch, a dissident brother and whistleblower in the case, said profits on that oil were a minimum of $230 million.
Despite a request to the Supreme Court for clarification on how many people attended this dinner with the Kochs and Justice Thomas at the posh Vintage Club and precisely where Justice Thomas was lodged during his 4-day 2008 trip, the details remain a mystery. The Vintage Club has no hotel rooms, nor is there lodging on the grounds, other than in private homes. The Court said it had no further details to provide beyond what was reported on Justice Thomas’ 2008 disclosure form. That form tells one nothing about either detail. In fact, it portrayed the event as a Federalist Society outing and mentioned nothing about Charles and Elizabeth Koch being the hosts at their private club.
There are only two reasons that come to mind as to why Justice Thomas would refuse to say where he stayed in 2008. (Since the event has already occurred, personal safety is not one of them.) According to local real estate agents, the private community around the Vintage Club has state of the art security technology and three dozen security officers patrolling the grounds; some are former government security officers according to one area resident. Did Justice Thomas stay in a private home for his four-day visit? Did he stay four days at a luxury resort in Palm Springs and fail to report it as income on his tax return?
While the Citizens United case was pending before the Supreme Court, Virginia Thomas, the wife of the Justice, created a tax exempt, Tea Party advocacy group, Liberty Central, Inc., with a former lawyer for the Charles G. Koch Foundation acting as her General Counsel in 2010 (Sarah Field) and a former Koch lobbyist serving on her board at inception (Matt Schlapp).
The political watchdog group, Common Cause, filed a formal complaint with the Department of Justice in January of this year seeking an investigation. It also asked the Department to meet with Common Cause President Bob Edgar. The organization received an emailed response saying the Department was reviewing the correspondence and it hoped “to respond soon to the request for a meeting.” No further communication has been received by Common Cause.
Another watchdog group, Protect Our Elections.org, filed a request for an investigation with both the Department of Justice and FBI. They received a letter in May of this year. It stated, in part, “Please be assured that the Department of Justice takes very seriously alleged wrongdoing by public officials. All such matters are reviewed carefully by career prosecutors and law enforcement agents and appropriate action, if warranted, is taken.” There has been no word since.
Last week, 20 house Democrats sent a letter to James C. Duff, Secretary to the Judicial Conference of the United States, seeking an investigation of Justice Thomas. The letter cited Justice Thomas’ failure for his entire tenure on the Court to report his wife’s source of employment income and “use of a private yacht and airplane owned by Harlan Crow and again failed to disclose this travel as a gift or travel reimbursement on his federal disclosure forms as required by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.”
Virginia Thomas ran Liberty Central, Inc. out of a post office box in a UPS building in Burke, Virginia. It has subsequently moved to 12587 Fair Lakes Circle, Suite 331, Fairfax, Virginia. Suite 331 turns out to be just another post office box in another UPS building.
According to IRS tax filings, Liberty Central, Inc. received $550,000 from anonymous donors in 2009 and was anticipating the receipt of $2,014,000 in 2010. That’s a very precise figure to anticipate for 2010. Had it been pledged? If so, by whom? Virginia Thomas has stepped down from an official post at Liberty Central, stating in December that she would serve as a consultant to the group.
According to IRS filings, she was to receive annual pay of $150,000. Repeated emails to Katy Blackwell, a lawyer listed at the Liberty Central web site, did not unearth the actual funds received by the organization in 2010 or the compensation actually paid to Virginia Thomas. Blackwell says the group has been granted a request for an extension to make its 2010 Federal tax filing on November 15 of this year.
Virginia Thomas’ Liberty Central, Inc. has another serious conflict involving the ruling in Citizens United. The Citizens United case before her husband at the Supreme Court was decided on January 21, 2010. Eight days later, Cleta Mitchell, a partner with the law firm Foley & Lardner, filed the application on behalf of Virginia Thomas’ nonprofit group, Liberty Central, Inc. with the IRS. (Protect Our Elections.org obtained the document under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the IRS and has posted it on its web site along with Justice Thomas’ disclosure filings and its requests for investigations.) But Mitchell was not an impartial attorney; her Amicus brief filed in the Citizens United case may have swayed Justice Thomas.
Mitchell’s brief was filed on behalf of the American Justice Partnership and Let Freedom Ring in support of Citizens United’s position. Cleta Mitchell’s law firm, Foley & Larnder, are registered lobbyists for more than two dozen corporations. Over the past decade, they have spent over $26 million lobbying the Federal government on behalf of corporations. The firm’s clients and the firm’s bottom line stand to benefit from the Citizens United decision since they now can spend unlimited amounts of money influencing elections.
In response to an email query as to how she became involved in representing Liberty Central, Mitchell said Virginia Thomas “asked me to assist in the process. I’ve known Ginny since she worked at Heritage Foundation.” [Virginia Thomas’ nickname is customarily spelled “Ginni” in the press.]
From 1999 through 2007, Virginia Thomas received at least $1,051,214 in compensation from the Heritage Foundation. That figure has previously been reported as approximately $700,000 from 2003 to 2007. Through the courtesy of GuideStar.org, earlier Heritage Foundation tax filings with the IRS were obtained showing additional income paid to Virginia Thomas in years prior to 2003.)
From 1987 through 2009, Koch-controlled foundations gave the Heritage Foundation $4.1 million, according to Greenpeace. Koch foundation money derives from Koch Industries and such corporate brands as Angel Soft, Brawny, Quilted Northern, Sparkle, Vanity Fair, Dixie paper products and Georgia-Pacific.
The rest of Heritage’s money has come predominantly from wealthy foundations built on other corporate brands: the Mellon banking and industrial empire — synonymous with the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Carthage Foundation, Allegheny Foundation and Scaife Family Foundation. Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation (both attended a June 2010 Koch outing according to a guest list leaked to Think Progress.org) synonymous with the Amway brand; John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Mutual Funds). ExxonMobil has also contributed large sums. Virginia Thomas’ $1 million in compensation was corporate money funneled through various tax exempt foundations and then to another tax exempt foundation (Heritage) promoting free market (deregulation) benefits for those very corporations.
Yet another conflict arises through attorney Jason Torchinsky. On May 13, 2010, a letter from Virginia Thomas was sent to the West Virginia Secretary of State on behalf of Liberty Central, enclosing the prior year’s IRS tax filing. The letter advises the Secretary of State’s office to call Liberty Central’s attorney, Jason Torchinsky, if any additional information is needed. Torchinsky is an attorney for the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity. The Federalist Society at the University of Iowa hosted Torchinsky to speak on the Citizens United decision on October 23, 2009, while the case was pending before the Supreme Court.
The Lincoln Journal Star web site reported on March 20 of this year that Torchinsky, representing Americans for Prosperity (AFP), filed a letter with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission effectively stating that it was exempt from the state’s campaign finance laws: “AFP’s communications are not distributed ‘in assistance of, or in opposition to, the nomination or election of a candidate.’ Rather, AFP’s communications are distributed to inform citizens of certain aspects of legislative records, cite specific pieces of legislation and discuss policy implications. A communication that merely informs citizens of a legislator’s record does not constitute ‘express advocacy,’ and does not ’assist’ or ‘oppose’ the election of a candidate.”
Jack Gould, spokesman for the Nebraska chapter of Common Cause responded: “AFP has found a way to avoid all of Nebraska’s disclosure laws…Every individual and organization has a right to speak, but big money gets to speak louder and more often. The public has a right to know who is speaking and how much money they are spending.”
Torchinsky is a law partner at Holtzman Vogel PLLC. His fellow law partner at the firm is Tom Josefiak, a former Federal Elections Commission Chairman who was one of a group filing an Amicus in the Citizens United case.
The stench from Liberty Central wafted all the way to the State of Maine and an anti-gay marriage group in what appears to be an evolving plot to gut the remaining shreds of restrictions on corporate money in elections, including keeping all donor names secret from public view at the state level, by maneuvering this Maine case to the Supreme Court.
When Virginia Thomas filed her registration statement for her tea party group, Liberty Central, Inc., with the state of West Virginia on December 31, 2009, she listed her accountant as Neil Corkery with an address of 8665 Sudley Road, Suite 182 in Manassas , Virginia. According to a UPS store employee located there, there is no other business located at this site; just post office boxes. When Ms. Thomas filed her first IRS 990 form for tax year 2009, she listed her tax preparer as Conlon and Associates LLC.
What is the statistical likelihood of it being sheer coincidence that these same two names, Neil Corkery and Conlon and Associates LLC, would end up on the 2009 tax filings of the National Organization for Marriage, Inc. – a group funding repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine?
The National Organization for Marriage, Inc. was named an anti-gay group in 2010 by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It played a pivotal role in the 2008 Proposition 8 in California, which won voter approval to invalidate same-sex marriage. A Federal District Court struck down Proposition 8 in 2010 as an unconstitutional violation of due process and equal protection. The matter is now under various court challenges.
The IRS 2009 tax filing for the National Organization for Marriage, Inc. shows it took in $7.1 million and made five grants totaling $2,105,000. Stand for Marriage Maine received 93 percent of those funds, or $1,960,000. Stand for Marriage Maine waged the successful 2009 repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine, using the same tactics and, indeed, the same ad and marketing firm that was used in the California Proposition 8 battle.
Secret donors washing money through a 501(c)(4) tax exempt organization and then funneling it to a Political Action Committee in Maine brought a request for an investigation to the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices by Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate. The Commission initiated an investigation. Stepping forward to represent both the National Organization for Marriage and Stand for Marriage Maine PAC was the law firm Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom. In a phone call with Jonathan Wayne, Executive Director of the Maine Commission, he reports that the investigation is currently on hold as court challenges proceed.
James Bopp of Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom is the lawyer who represented Citizens United in the lower courts and, hoping to gut campaign financing reform, maneuvered the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where former Solicitor General, Theodore Olson, was counsel of record. Bopp also filed an Amici Curiae in the case on behalf of former members of the Federal Election Commission.
The law firm Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom is located in Terre Haute, Indiana. What is the statistical probability of it being sheer coincidence that an Indiana law firm is involved in a nonprofit advocacy group case in Maine involving secret donors; also involved in the Citizens United case before the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C. involving secret donors; and the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas is using the same Neil Corkery and Conlon and Associates for her Tea Party nonprofit as Bopp’s anti same-sex marriage clients in the Maine case? An email to Bopp received no response.
Even when Justice Thomas attempted to shore up his stature in his memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son,” there were unseemly conflicts. A web site, www.MyGrandfathersSon.com, was set up by friends of the Supreme Court Justice, apparently with his permission since it includes links to purchase the book , a copy of the copyrighted cover, and a video of Justice Thomas reading the introduction to the book. The web site instructs members of the media to direct their inquiries to Wendy Long at Judicial Network.com. Ms. Long and her husband, Arthur Long, met while serving as law clerks for Supreme Court Justice Thomas.
At the time Long was effectively serving as a publicist for Justice Thomas, she was also serving as Chief Counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, now called the Judicial Crisis Network. In that capacity, she launched a media assault against the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Justice Sotomayor did go on to be confirmed and sit as a fellow Justice alongside Clarence Thomas on our Nation’s highest court, despite his book publicist’s attacks.
On May 26, 2009, Wendy Long posted the following at the National Review Online: “Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.”
The criticism seemed harsh and unseemly, especially for someone simultaneously promoting Justice Thomas. Justice Thomas had less than two years experience as a judge when he was nominated to serve on the nation’s highest court. Justice Sotomayor had almost 17 years, as both a U.S. District Court Judge and 2nd Circuit Appeals Court Judge. Her academic record was impeccable – she graduated Princeton summa cum laude maintaining almost straight A’s in her junior and senior year. In her senior year she was awarded the University’s highest academic honor, the M. Taylor Pyne Prize, according to the Daily Princetonian.
After Wendy Long left the Judicial Crisis Network, another former law clerk for Justice Thomas, Carrie Severino, took over as Chief Counsel. Severino made the same type of media assault against the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. On August 5, 2010, Severino posted the following comment on the Judicial Crisis Network: “It came as no surprise today that the 59 seat Democratic Majority in the Senate confirmed Elena Kagan to join the Supreme Court with the hope that she will rubber stamp President Obama’s liberal agenda that they continue to impose upon the American people including government-run health care, homosexual marriage, cap and trade, and amnesty for illegal immigrants.”
The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) has a link that invites one to view “more JCN sites.” One of those sites is Frank-Dodd Exposed, a web site devoted to attacking Wall Street reforms. The registrant of the web site is Bork Communications Group and the front page of the web site is simply writings by Robert Bork Jr. Bork Communications Group describes Bork’s history as follows: “In his many years of experience managing the public environment surrounding high-risk, high-profile litigation, he has worked on behalf of CEOs and general counsel of major U.S. and international corporate clients and their lawyers.”
The web site notes that it is a “Project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.” Koch foundations have provided over $700,000 to this group since 1986. ExxonMobil is also a large funder.
A call to the contact number listed on the Judicial Crisis Network took me to CRC Public Relations. That is the same public relations firm that was employed by Virginia Thomas at Liberty Central. I requested that Wendy Long contact me. No response was received.
While Justice Thomas’ former law clerk was simultaneously pumping his book and bashing his future colleague, Justice Sotomayor, a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, HarperCollins, was paying Justice Thomas the decidedly round figure of $1,500,000 for book advances and royalties over a period of four years while he was a sitting judge on the Supreme Court. (Murdoch’s empire is currently on the hot seat in the U.K. for illegal hacking and bribes.) These funds were disclosed on Justice Thomas’ federal disclosure forms but, throughout those four years, Justice Thomas stated that he had no agreements to report. Was there no book contract? Does a major publishing house disperse $1.5 million with no agreement?
As Common Cause pointed out to the Department of Justice in its letter of January 19, 2011, “Federal law requires any United States judge – including a Supreme Court justice – to ‘disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.’” 28 USC; 455(a). Justice Thomas’ litany of conflicts raise not just impartiality concerns with the Citizens United case or future cases coming before Justice Thomas. They raise alarm bells as to cases already decided by the Supreme Court.
One such example readily comes to mind. The case was Exxon Shipping Co. et al v. Baker et al. On June 25, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, with Justice Thomas concurring in the majority opinion, that an original $5 billion punitive damage award by a jury against Exxon for the oil tanker spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska, be reduced to $500 million. An appellate ruling had previously reduced the award to $2.5 billion. The ruling suggested that other corporate miscreants might need only pay the same amount in punitive damages as were paid in compensatory damages – a logic that seems to miss the point of the word “punitive.”
In Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent, he said the original jury award should have been upheld. “In light of Exxon’s decision to permit a lapsed alcoholic to command a supertanker carrying tens of millions of gallons of crude oil though the treacherous waters of Prince William Sound, thereby endangering all of the individuals who depended upon the sound for their livelihoods, the jury could reasonably have given expression to its ‘moral condemnation’ of Exxon’s conduct in the form of this award.”
Creating a precedent for capping punitive damage awards benefits both ExxonMobil and Koch Industries, both of which were funding the Heritage Foundation while it was issuing paychecks to Justice Thomas’ wife. Neither fellow justices nor the public had the means of readily knowing of this conflict because the Supreme Court does not put the Justices’ financial disclosures on its web site and Justice Thomas withheld, evading Federal law, the fact that his wife was drawing a salary from the Heritage Foundation for nine years; amending his disclosure forms in January of this year, only when the facts were exposed by watchdog groups.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Secret Sins of Koch Industries
Original Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/koch-industries-report-reveals-secret-sins/story?id=14676652
By BRIAN ROSS
Charles and David Koch, the secretive billionaire brothers behind the Koch Industries, are a huge financial force in the conservative political movement. According to one estimate, they've contributed more than $100 million to conservative political causes, and a foundation that they back has trained thousands of Tea Party activists.
But now reporters for Bloomberg Markets magazine have published an article about what the magazine calls Koch Industries "secret sins" -- including business deals with Iran -- that the reporters claim reflect the same hostility to regulation that powers the Koch brothers' politics.
David H. Koch, 71, and Charles Koch, 75, together own Koch Industries, a Wichita, Kansas-based company started by their father Fred. The privately-held, $100 billion-dollar-a-year company owns such subsidiaries as Georgia Pacific and the maker of Lycra and Stainmaster carpets, but is best-known for its oil and energy business. Koch owns thousands of miles of pipelines and refineries in several states.
In a recent documentary, David Koch can be seen addressing Tea Party leaders and espousing American values, saying, "The American dream of free enterprise, capitalism is alive and well."
But now questions are being raised about the American values of the source of the Koch brothers' wealth.
This week's edition of Bloomberg Markets reveals that one Koch Industries subsidiary was trading with Iran and that another subsidiary in France was paying bribes to get business in six different countries.
In one previously undisclosed document from a French labor court case, Koch Industries admits the payments are "violations of criminal law." A company spokesperson told ABC News that the letter relates only to the conduct of the employee fired in the bribery case and "does not discuss or concern United States law or the company's potential liability."
"It's a document right there in the court record, out of the lips of Koch Industries," said David Evans, one of the co-authors of the Bloomberg Markets article.
David Koch declined to speak when ABC News caught up with him outside his Park Avenue apartment in New York City and asked him to respond to the magazine's allegations.
In a statement posted online, Koch Industries accused Bloomberg Markets magazine of "substandard reporting" and said the company obeys the law.
"Koch Industries and its affiliated companies are committed to compliance," said the statement, "and Koch companies strive to live by their Guiding Principles, including most importantly Principles 1 and 2, which require that all business dealings are conducted lawfully, with integrity, and in compliance with all laws."
READ Koch Industries response to the Bloomberg Markets article.
Koch Industries says it fired those responsible when it learned of the bribes in 2008, but as a private company it was able to keep all of that secret until this week's article.
"I think there are enough of these payments that I think any prosecutor would want to look further," said John Coffee, a professor at Columbia University Law School and director of the school's Center on Corporate Governance. "The only issue that I think Koch has by way of defense is showing that these payments were never authorized, encouraged or ratified by the parent company, but were only done by the foreign subsidiary."
The trading with Iran involved Koch subsidiaries in Germany and Italy providing key components for a huge state-owned petro-chemical plant, despite a U.S. ban on trade with Iran since 1995.
One order was placed on January 29, 2003, the day after President Bush told Congress in his State of the Union message that Iran continued to be an enemy of the U.S. that "represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror."
Koch Industries says the trade was legal because it was done through a foreign subsidiary and no Americans were involved.
Said Asjylyn Loder, a co-author of the Bloomberg Markets article, "You're still dealing with a state that is considered by the U.S. State Department to be a sponsor of terrorism." Koch Industries says it finally stopped trading with Iran in 2006.
By BRIAN ROSS
Charles and David Koch, the secretive billionaire brothers behind the Koch Industries, are a huge financial force in the conservative political movement. According to one estimate, they've contributed more than $100 million to conservative political causes, and a foundation that they back has trained thousands of Tea Party activists.
But now reporters for Bloomberg Markets magazine have published an article about what the magazine calls Koch Industries "secret sins" -- including business deals with Iran -- that the reporters claim reflect the same hostility to regulation that powers the Koch brothers' politics.
David H. Koch, 71, and Charles Koch, 75, together own Koch Industries, a Wichita, Kansas-based company started by their father Fred. The privately-held, $100 billion-dollar-a-year company owns such subsidiaries as Georgia Pacific and the maker of Lycra and Stainmaster carpets, but is best-known for its oil and energy business. Koch owns thousands of miles of pipelines and refineries in several states.
In a recent documentary, David Koch can be seen addressing Tea Party leaders and espousing American values, saying, "The American dream of free enterprise, capitalism is alive and well."
But now questions are being raised about the American values of the source of the Koch brothers' wealth.
This week's edition of Bloomberg Markets reveals that one Koch Industries subsidiary was trading with Iran and that another subsidiary in France was paying bribes to get business in six different countries.
In one previously undisclosed document from a French labor court case, Koch Industries admits the payments are "violations of criminal law." A company spokesperson told ABC News that the letter relates only to the conduct of the employee fired in the bribery case and "does not discuss or concern United States law or the company's potential liability."
"It's a document right there in the court record, out of the lips of Koch Industries," said David Evans, one of the co-authors of the Bloomberg Markets article.
David Koch declined to speak when ABC News caught up with him outside his Park Avenue apartment in New York City and asked him to respond to the magazine's allegations.
In a statement posted online, Koch Industries accused Bloomberg Markets magazine of "substandard reporting" and said the company obeys the law.
"Koch Industries and its affiliated companies are committed to compliance," said the statement, "and Koch companies strive to live by their Guiding Principles, including most importantly Principles 1 and 2, which require that all business dealings are conducted lawfully, with integrity, and in compliance with all laws."
READ Koch Industries response to the Bloomberg Markets article.
Koch Industries says it fired those responsible when it learned of the bribes in 2008, but as a private company it was able to keep all of that secret until this week's article.
"I think there are enough of these payments that I think any prosecutor would want to look further," said John Coffee, a professor at Columbia University Law School and director of the school's Center on Corporate Governance. "The only issue that I think Koch has by way of defense is showing that these payments were never authorized, encouraged or ratified by the parent company, but were only done by the foreign subsidiary."
The trading with Iran involved Koch subsidiaries in Germany and Italy providing key components for a huge state-owned petro-chemical plant, despite a U.S. ban on trade with Iran since 1995.
One order was placed on January 29, 2003, the day after President Bush told Congress in his State of the Union message that Iran continued to be an enemy of the U.S. that "represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror."
Koch Industries says the trade was legal because it was done through a foreign subsidiary and no Americans were involved.
Said Asjylyn Loder, a co-author of the Bloomberg Markets article, "You're still dealing with a state that is considered by the U.S. State Department to be a sponsor of terrorism." Koch Industries says it finally stopped trading with Iran in 2006.
Koch Lobbyist is ALEC State Co-Chair for Wisconsin; Scholarships Raise Ethics Concerns
Original Link: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/09/11031/koch-lobbyist-alec-state-co-chair-wisconsin-scholarships-raise-ethics-concerns
By Brendan Fischer
A lobbyist for Koch Industries and energy interests serves with a lobbyist for Pfizer pharmaceuticals as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) corporate co-chairs in Wisconsin, according to documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy at this year's ALEC Annual Meeting. For some, their fundraising for "scholarships" to benefit ALEC legislative members raises issues of legislative ethics.
The Koch and Pfizer lobbyists are tasked with raising dollars to fund legislators' trips to ALEC meetings, working alongside Wisconsin's legislative state chair, Rep. Robin Vos. Wisconsin is a "no cuppa coffee state," meaning that lobbyists cannot purchase ANY gift for a legislator, even a cup of coffee; free plane tickets and hotel rooms might look like a "gift," but according to Jay Heck, Executive Director of Common Cause Wisconsin, "ALEC has succeeded in skirting Wisconsin's no-gift lobby laws" by calling this spending a "scholarship."
What's more, the "scholarships" are raised and disbursed in secret, preventing the public from knowing which business or ideological interests are funding legislators' expenses for days of meetings with corporate lobbyists.
Lobbyist Amy Boyer (Photo: WI Government Accountability Board)ALEC's bylaws outline the role of state-level legislative and corporate chairs. Wisconsin Rep. Robin Vos, the state legislative "Public Sector" chair, was appointed by the ALEC National Chair, Louisiana Rep. Noble Ellington. Vos was tasked with appointing the state's corporate "Private Sector" chairs," and selected Amy Boyer (whose lobbying clients include Koch Industries, Wal Mart, and Xcel Energy), and Bryon Wornson (in-house lobbyist for Pfizer pharmaceuticals). According to the bylaws, the two would then have been confirmed by the Chair of the national corporate board, former tobacco industry lobbyist W. Preston Baldwin III.
The role for the corporate chairs, as defined in ALEC's bylaws, is to work with the legislative chair to raise funds for the scholarships that pay for legislators to attend the three-day ALEC Annual Meeting, as well as ALEC Summits and Task Force meetings where corporations and legislators initially approve model legislation.
Legislators will always deny they are influenced by lobbyists, he says, but the relationship-building and one-sided presentations, coupled with ready-to-use, corporate-approved model legislation, creates the opportunity for elected officials to become conduits for the corporate agenda.
Average citizens do not have the same access to their elected officials. "Legislators are only in Madison around three days a week," Heck notes. Constituents have a hard time getting an appointment for ten minutes, much less having their legislators as a captive audience for three days. But average citizens may not have high-powered lobbyists raising funds to get their elected officials to meet with them.
The corporate co-chairs appear to play an important role in making sure legislators get to those meetings. According to Government Accountability Board filings, scholarship recipients in 2009 and 2010 (the latest available records) included former ALEC state chair Rep. Mike Huebsch (now Governor Scott Walker's Department of Administration secretary), Rep. Scott Suder, Rep. Rich Zipperer, currrent ALEC state chair Robin Vos, and former ALEC state chair Sen. Scott Fitzgerald. Each reported receiving thousands to attend ALEC meetings.
ALEC asserts on its IRS filings, public statements, and bylaws that it does not grant any scholarships. According to ALEC's bylaws, the "scholarship" funds raised by the state corporate chairs are deposited in trust with ALEC until disbursement is requested by the state legislative chair (Rep. Robin Vos in Wisconsin).
By only noting "ALEC" as the source of a scholarship, Heck says, the "public is totally left in the dark," with legislators obscuring the true source of the funds. Constituents are unable to track the connection between an expenditure and legislative action. "This secrecy is analogous to the funding behind third-party election spending on 'issue ads,'" he says, "with the public shut out from knowing which corporations are funding the ads run by a group like Club for Growth."
The legislators receiving scholarships reportedly are never told where the funding came from. But Heck says this means very little. "Even if legislators are never told which corporations are footing the bill, its pretty obvious once you arrive to the ALEC meeting and see the list of corporate sponsors," he said. "How stupid would you have to be to not know that those who are funding your trip are sitting down at the table with you?"
What is known is that multiple ALEC bills have been introduced in the state in the past year, and that ALEC member corporations, in addition to possibly funding scholarships for legislators to attend ALEC conferences, have also been generous campaign spenders, pouring at least $1.3 million into Wisconsin state elections since 2001.
By Brendan Fischer
A lobbyist for Koch Industries and energy interests serves with a lobbyist for Pfizer pharmaceuticals as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) corporate co-chairs in Wisconsin, according to documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy at this year's ALEC Annual Meeting. For some, their fundraising for "scholarships" to benefit ALEC legislative members raises issues of legislative ethics.
The Koch and Pfizer lobbyists are tasked with raising dollars to fund legislators' trips to ALEC meetings, working alongside Wisconsin's legislative state chair, Rep. Robin Vos. Wisconsin is a "no cuppa coffee state," meaning that lobbyists cannot purchase ANY gift for a legislator, even a cup of coffee; free plane tickets and hotel rooms might look like a "gift," but according to Jay Heck, Executive Director of Common Cause Wisconsin, "ALEC has succeeded in skirting Wisconsin's no-gift lobby laws" by calling this spending a "scholarship."
What's more, the "scholarships" are raised and disbursed in secret, preventing the public from knowing which business or ideological interests are funding legislators' expenses for days of meetings with corporate lobbyists.
Corporate Chairs Raise "Scholarships" for Legislators
Lobbyist Amy Boyer (Photo: WI Government Accountability Board)ALEC's bylaws outline the role of state-level legislative and corporate chairs. Wisconsin Rep. Robin Vos, the state legislative "Public Sector" chair, was appointed by the ALEC National Chair, Louisiana Rep. Noble Ellington. Vos was tasked with appointing the state's corporate "Private Sector" chairs," and selected Amy Boyer (whose lobbying clients include Koch Industries, Wal Mart, and Xcel Energy), and Bryon Wornson (in-house lobbyist for Pfizer pharmaceuticals). According to the bylaws, the two would then have been confirmed by the Chair of the national corporate board, former tobacco industry lobbyist W. Preston Baldwin III.The role for the corporate chairs, as defined in ALEC's bylaws, is to work with the legislative chair to raise funds for the scholarships that pay for legislators to attend the three-day ALEC Annual Meeting, as well as ALEC Summits and Task Force meetings where corporations and legislators initially approve model legislation.
Buying Access
These trips, which look a lot like a vacation, "are designed to create a friendly, favorable environment for exerting influence," says Heck, with legislators as a "captive audience" for corporate lobbyists.Legislators will always deny they are influenced by lobbyists, he says, but the relationship-building and one-sided presentations, coupled with ready-to-use, corporate-approved model legislation, creates the opportunity for elected officials to become conduits for the corporate agenda.
Average citizens do not have the same access to their elected officials. "Legislators are only in Madison around three days a week," Heck notes. Constituents have a hard time getting an appointment for ten minutes, much less having their legislators as a captive audience for three days. But average citizens may not have high-powered lobbyists raising funds to get their elected officials to meet with them.
The corporate co-chairs appear to play an important role in making sure legislators get to those meetings. According to Government Accountability Board filings, scholarship recipients in 2009 and 2010 (the latest available records) included former ALEC state chair Rep. Mike Huebsch (now Governor Scott Walker's Department of Administration secretary), Rep. Scott Suder, Rep. Rich Zipperer, currrent ALEC state chair Robin Vos, and former ALEC state chair Sen. Scott Fitzgerald. Each reported receiving thousands to attend ALEC meetings.
Secrecy and Ethics
Koch Industries and Pfizer lobbyists raise the scholarship funds from unknown sources, but the identity of the corporations, foundations, or individuals who actually donate are kept secret. Wisconsin's ALEC legislators who receive "scholarships" do not disclose the true funders on their Statements of Economic Interest or Campaign Disclosure Reports, but instead list only "ALEC."ALEC asserts on its IRS filings, public statements, and bylaws that it does not grant any scholarships. According to ALEC's bylaws, the "scholarship" funds raised by the state corporate chairs are deposited in trust with ALEC until disbursement is requested by the state legislative chair (Rep. Robin Vos in Wisconsin).
By only noting "ALEC" as the source of a scholarship, Heck says, the "public is totally left in the dark," with legislators obscuring the true source of the funds. Constituents are unable to track the connection between an expenditure and legislative action. "This secrecy is analogous to the funding behind third-party election spending on 'issue ads,'" he says, "with the public shut out from knowing which corporations are funding the ads run by a group like Club for Growth."
The legislators receiving scholarships reportedly are never told where the funding came from. But Heck says this means very little. "Even if legislators are never told which corporations are footing the bill, its pretty obvious once you arrive to the ALEC meeting and see the list of corporate sponsors," he said. "How stupid would you have to be to not know that those who are funding your trip are sitting down at the table with you?"
Other Activities?
While the bylaws only describe the role of the corporate state chairs as raising funds for scholarships, the full extent of the role of the Koch and Pfizer lobbyists is not clear. Their legislative counterpart, ALEC State Chair Rep. Robin Vos, is tasked with ensuring the introduction of ALEC model legislation; what role the corporate co-chairs play in facilitating the passage of that legislation is unknown.What is known is that multiple ALEC bills have been introduced in the state in the past year, and that ALEC member corporations, in addition to possibly funding scholarships for legislators to attend ALEC conferences, have also been generous campaign spenders, pouring at least $1.3 million into Wisconsin state elections since 2001.
Just Three Corporate Front Groups Spent 13 Times As Much As The Entire Labor Movement To Buy Judicial Elections
Original Link: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/27/355090/just-three-corporate-front-groups-spent-13-times-as-much-as-the-entire-labor-movement-to-buy-judicial-elections/
By Ian Millhiser
After the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate money in American elections, the decision’s defenders claimed this wasn’t such a big deal because unions could also take advantage of the decision. A new report by three leading voting rights and judicial independence groups gives the lie to this claim. According to the report, just three corporate interest groups — The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council of Alabama, and the Illinois Civil Justice League spent more than 13 times as much trying to influence state supreme court elections as the entire labor movement:
The report focuses on the 2009-10 cycle, so it does not include the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court race where incumbent Justice David Prosser narrowly defeated a progressive challenger after corporate front groups rode to his rescue with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of funds.
By Ian Millhiser
After the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate money in American elections, the decision’s defenders claimed this wasn’t such a big deal because unions could also take advantage of the decision. A new report by three leading voting rights and judicial independence groups gives the lie to this claim. According to the report, just three corporate interest groups — The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council of Alabama, and the Illinois Civil Justice League spent more than 13 times as much trying to influence state supreme court elections as the entire labor movement:
The report focuses on the 2009-10 cycle, so it does not include the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court race where incumbent Justice David Prosser narrowly defeated a progressive challenger after corporate front groups rode to his rescue with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of funds.
What Are the Latest Revelations About Koch Industries?
Original Link: http://www.propublica.org/article/so-what-exactly-are-the-latest-revelations-about-koch-industries/
By Lois Beckett
Bloomberg Markets Magazine has published an in-depth investigation into business practices at Koch Industries [1], run by politically influential brothers [2] Charles and David Koch. The story lays out what it suggests is a decades-long pattern of illegal and unethical behavior at Koch.
Both Bloomberg Markets Magazine's story [1] and Koch's official response [3] are long and full of complicated details, and it's not easy to untangle it all. Here's our guide to what seem to be the newest, most significant allegations.
Undisputed: Koch's subsidiaries in Europe got contracts through bribes in at least six countries.
In 2008, in the wake of a $1.6 billion settlement by the German engineering giant Siemens [4] for bribing officials around the world, Koch conducted an internal investigation of its own payment practices. The company found that Koch-Glitsch France had paid illegal bribes to secure contracts in India, Africa and the Middle East, including bribes to government officials, a practice banned by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act [5]. In response, Koch fired several employees and sales agents, including the business director of Koch-Glitsch France.
Disputed: Was Koch's response sufficient?
According to Bloomberg Markets Magazine's analysis of French court documents, Koch failed to hold higher-level officials accountable for the bribery payments. Koch said Koch-Glitsch's president for Europe and Asia "had no knowledge" of the misconduct. Koch also ended up firing the ethics manager who first conducted its investigation, and French labor courts upheld the firing as fair.
Context: Many corporations make bribes—and pay fines for breaking the law.
Many large companies have been investigated for bribery of foreign officials, including Hewlett-Packard [6] and Motorola [7]. The United States has recently stepped up its enforcement [8] of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, including a preliminary investigation [9] this year into whether News Corp. may have violated the act [10]. A recent survey of business executives found that only 30 percent were "very confident" [11] that their existing policies would prevent bribery.
Undisputed: Koch's European subsidiary sold petrochemical equipment to Iran, which seems to be perfectly legal.
While American companies have been banned from trading with Iran since 1995, Koch's European subsidiary, Koch-Glitsch, sold equipment to a unit of Iran's National Petrochemical Company for nearly a decade. The equipment helped construct an ethanol processing plant. Koch's legal counsel told the Washington Post that the sales totaled roughly 15 million euros [12] over nine or 10 years, and that the equipment sold had "no military, weapons, or nuclear application whatsoever."
As Bloomberg Markets Magazine notes, while the sales to Iran may be controversial, they appeared to be legal since no U.S. citizens or U.S.-based divisions of the company were involved. Instead, Koch did the business at arms length through Koch-Glitsch offices in Germany and Italy.
Disputed: Was it wrong for a Koch subsidiary to do business with Iran?
Bloomberg Markets Magazine described internal documents demonstrating that Koch took a rigorous approach to following the letter of the law, but the article suggested more investigation might be appropriate. Koch's general counsel told the Washington Post that the company voluntarily ended all sales to Iran in 2005 or 2006 [12]. (Bloomberg Markets Magazine reported records of sales to Iran until 2007.) Koch dismissed comments by what it called a "disgruntled former employee" [3] who told Bloomberg he felt the company's dealings with Iran had betrayed its stated core principle of integrity [13].
Context: Koch is one of many corporations that have done business with Iran.
Many other American companies, including Halliburton and GE [14], have done business with Iran through subsidiaries, and as the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin pointed out, a few were still doing so after Koch ended [12] its ties to Iran.
As well as these new criticisms of Koch's corporate behavior, the Bloomberg Markets Magazine article and Koch's response [3] revisited several previously reported scandals, including millions of dollars in settlements the company paid after it failed to pay for $31 million worth of crude oil it took from Indian land [15], made false statements to cover up illegal emissions of the toxic chemical benzene [16] at a Texas plant and accepted responsibility for the deaths of two Texas teenagers who died in an explosion caused by a leak in a gas pipeline with a well-documented history of corrosion [3].
Correction (10/5/2011): We originally referred to Koch-Glitsch as “France-based.” It has offices around the world, including in France; its main European office is in Italy.
Clarification: We originally referred to the Koch investigation as a Bloomberg story. It is from Bloomberg Markets Magazine.
By Lois Beckett
Bloomberg Markets Magazine has published an in-depth investigation into business practices at Koch Industries [1], run by politically influential brothers [2] Charles and David Koch. The story lays out what it suggests is a decades-long pattern of illegal and unethical behavior at Koch.
Both Bloomberg Markets Magazine's story [1] and Koch's official response [3] are long and full of complicated details, and it's not easy to untangle it all. Here's our guide to what seem to be the newest, most significant allegations.
Undisputed: Koch's subsidiaries in Europe got contracts through bribes in at least six countries.
In 2008, in the wake of a $1.6 billion settlement by the German engineering giant Siemens [4] for bribing officials around the world, Koch conducted an internal investigation of its own payment practices. The company found that Koch-Glitsch France had paid illegal bribes to secure contracts in India, Africa and the Middle East, including bribes to government officials, a practice banned by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act [5]. In response, Koch fired several employees and sales agents, including the business director of Koch-Glitsch France.
Disputed: Was Koch's response sufficient?
According to Bloomberg Markets Magazine's analysis of French court documents, Koch failed to hold higher-level officials accountable for the bribery payments. Koch said Koch-Glitsch's president for Europe and Asia "had no knowledge" of the misconduct. Koch also ended up firing the ethics manager who first conducted its investigation, and French labor courts upheld the firing as fair.
Context: Many corporations make bribes—and pay fines for breaking the law.
Many large companies have been investigated for bribery of foreign officials, including Hewlett-Packard [6] and Motorola [7]. The United States has recently stepped up its enforcement [8] of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, including a preliminary investigation [9] this year into whether News Corp. may have violated the act [10]. A recent survey of business executives found that only 30 percent were "very confident" [11] that their existing policies would prevent bribery.
Undisputed: Koch's European subsidiary sold petrochemical equipment to Iran, which seems to be perfectly legal.
While American companies have been banned from trading with Iran since 1995, Koch's European subsidiary, Koch-Glitsch, sold equipment to a unit of Iran's National Petrochemical Company for nearly a decade. The equipment helped construct an ethanol processing plant. Koch's legal counsel told the Washington Post that the sales totaled roughly 15 million euros [12] over nine or 10 years, and that the equipment sold had "no military, weapons, or nuclear application whatsoever."
As Bloomberg Markets Magazine notes, while the sales to Iran may be controversial, they appeared to be legal since no U.S. citizens or U.S.-based divisions of the company were involved. Instead, Koch did the business at arms length through Koch-Glitsch offices in Germany and Italy.
Disputed: Was it wrong for a Koch subsidiary to do business with Iran?
Bloomberg Markets Magazine described internal documents demonstrating that Koch took a rigorous approach to following the letter of the law, but the article suggested more investigation might be appropriate. Koch's general counsel told the Washington Post that the company voluntarily ended all sales to Iran in 2005 or 2006 [12]. (Bloomberg Markets Magazine reported records of sales to Iran until 2007.) Koch dismissed comments by what it called a "disgruntled former employee" [3] who told Bloomberg he felt the company's dealings with Iran had betrayed its stated core principle of integrity [13].
Context: Koch is one of many corporations that have done business with Iran.
Many other American companies, including Halliburton and GE [14], have done business with Iran through subsidiaries, and as the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin pointed out, a few were still doing so after Koch ended [12] its ties to Iran.
As well as these new criticisms of Koch's corporate behavior, the Bloomberg Markets Magazine article and Koch's response [3] revisited several previously reported scandals, including millions of dollars in settlements the company paid after it failed to pay for $31 million worth of crude oil it took from Indian land [15], made false statements to cover up illegal emissions of the toxic chemical benzene [16] at a Texas plant and accepted responsibility for the deaths of two Texas teenagers who died in an explosion caused by a leak in a gas pipeline with a well-documented history of corrosion [3].
Correction (10/5/2011): We originally referred to Koch-Glitsch as “France-based.” It has offices around the world, including in France; its main European office is in Italy.
Clarification: We originally referred to the Koch investigation as a Bloomberg story. It is from Bloomberg Markets Magazine.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Koch seeks funds from health care law it opposed
Original Link: http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2010/09/koch-seeks-funds-from-health-care-law-it-opposed/
By Phillip Brownlee
By Phillip Brownlee
The national media are noticing that Koch Industries is among the 2,000 groups that have been approved to seek federal reimbursement for the health claims of “early retirees.” The program, which is part of the federal health care law, is aimed at retired workers 55 or older who are too young to get Medicare. The Washington Post noted that David Koch “has been a major funder of groups that lobbied heavily to defeat the health care law.” But Melissa Cohlmia, director of communication at Koch Industries, defended the company seeking federal help. “Once laws or programs are enacted, we will not place ourselves or our employees at a disadvantage by turning our back on incentives offered to our competitors,” she said.
Koch Juice: Proposed $5 Trillion In Medicare Cuts Over 10 Years is Immoral
Original Link: http://asheham.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/koch-juice-proposed-5-trillion-in-medicare-cuts-over-10-years-is-immoral/
This will be the fight President Obama must fight else he will lose his bid for reelection. He has already alienated many environmentalists as he is still promoting safe nuclear, clean coal, and is backing the Keystone XL transportation of tarsands from Canada to Texas. Progressives and liberals have not quite gotten over his approving the $2 trillion Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Unions are still waiting for him to “walk the line” as he promised as candidate-Obama. And the Baby Boomers will not take kindly to this exploitation. Here is what the President needs to address:
$5 Trillion In Cuts Over 10 Years proposed by Republican Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. Most of those cuts would be in healthcare. He calls it “savings”. I call it immoral.
The proposals fall hard on Medicaid and Medicare, on the elderly, the infirmed, the disabled, and the dying. He proposes vouchers and other tricks to ease our pain.
When we get back to 3-4% GDP and employment around 6-7% there will be plenty of revenue to fund these programs. The big problem is the corporations are not investing to create the American jobs we need and thus we have a revenue shortfall. THIS IS A SHORT TERM PROBLEM THAT WE CAN WEATHER. The President needs to put pressure on the business sector to invest in America and create jobs. More jobs, more taxes, and programs get funded. Basic math 101.
What we have is Paul Ryan, another corporate-loving right-winger and member of ALEC the Koch backed lobbying group, who is promoting the Koch agenda to privatize public services like healthcare so that we all will be beholding to corporations, their boards of directors, and middlemen who will offer “a variety of plans”, all the while jacking up prices and bankrupting Americans.
Here is what they are after: Billions of dollars from the 70 million Baby Boomers who will age, get sick, and die over the next 30-40 years. And all their money they will spend on their health will flow into corporations — a gold mine of an opportunity. They want to cash in on my generation, my body, my mortality. Think about it for just one minute. These companies are looking at 70 million CUSTOMERS, NOT PATIENTS. They are vultures.
We can pump up revenues without job creation: Let’s stop the wars and get companies like GE to pay their fair share of taxes, plus all those multi-national slackers that owe this country billions.
Contact your representative on this critical issue. This is about your very life and who will say what care your get and how much you will pay.
Just a note: I have a previous post on the fact that the number one cause of bankruptcy in America is medical debt. Also, 48 million Americans cannot afford private insurance already. That’s the reality.
FROM MLIVE:
Speaking broadly about the proposal, Ryan said it would include:
—A “premium support system” for Medicare. In the future, older people would choose plans in the marketplace and the government would subsidize those plans. Ryan said that would differ from the voucher system he has proposed in the past. Those 55 and older would remain under the present Medicare system.
Ryan acknowledged that the “premium support system” would shift more costs to Medicare recipients, especially what he called “wealthy seniors.” He did not define at what level someone would be considered wealthy.
—Block grants to states for Medicaid, the health program for the poor. Ryan disputed reports that the plan would seek savings of $1 trillion over 10 years from Medicaid, but would say only that the details would be in the plan.
“Medicare and Medicaid spending will go up every single year under our budget. They don’t just go up as much as they’re going right now,” he said. Ryan said governors have told members of Congress they want “the freedom to customize our Medicaid programs. … We want to get governors freedom to do that.”
—A statutory cap on actual discretionary spending as a percentage of the economy. While Ryan did not specify the amount during the interview, he said it would be at a lower level than proposed by Obama and would return the government to its “historic size.”
—Pro-growth tax changes, including lower tax rates and broadening the tax base. Ryan said overhauling taxes would boost the economy. The plan will not propose tax increases.
This will be the fight President Obama must fight else he will lose his bid for reelection. He has already alienated many environmentalists as he is still promoting safe nuclear, clean coal, and is backing the Keystone XL transportation of tarsands from Canada to Texas. Progressives and liberals have not quite gotten over his approving the $2 trillion Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Unions are still waiting for him to “walk the line” as he promised as candidate-Obama. And the Baby Boomers will not take kindly to this exploitation. Here is what the President needs to address:
$5 Trillion In Cuts Over 10 Years proposed by Republican Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. Most of those cuts would be in healthcare. He calls it “savings”. I call it immoral.
The proposals fall hard on Medicaid and Medicare, on the elderly, the infirmed, the disabled, and the dying. He proposes vouchers and other tricks to ease our pain.
When we get back to 3-4% GDP and employment around 6-7% there will be plenty of revenue to fund these programs. The big problem is the corporations are not investing to create the American jobs we need and thus we have a revenue shortfall. THIS IS A SHORT TERM PROBLEM THAT WE CAN WEATHER. The President needs to put pressure on the business sector to invest in America and create jobs. More jobs, more taxes, and programs get funded. Basic math 101.
What we have is Paul Ryan, another corporate-loving right-winger and member of ALEC the Koch backed lobbying group, who is promoting the Koch agenda to privatize public services like healthcare so that we all will be beholding to corporations, their boards of directors, and middlemen who will offer “a variety of plans”, all the while jacking up prices and bankrupting Americans.
Here is what they are after: Billions of dollars from the 70 million Baby Boomers who will age, get sick, and die over the next 30-40 years. And all their money they will spend on their health will flow into corporations — a gold mine of an opportunity. They want to cash in on my generation, my body, my mortality. Think about it for just one minute. These companies are looking at 70 million CUSTOMERS, NOT PATIENTS. They are vultures.
We can pump up revenues without job creation: Let’s stop the wars and get companies like GE to pay their fair share of taxes, plus all those multi-national slackers that owe this country billions.
Contact your representative on this critical issue. This is about your very life and who will say what care your get and how much you will pay.
Just a note: I have a previous post on the fact that the number one cause of bankruptcy in America is medical debt. Also, 48 million Americans cannot afford private insurance already. That’s the reality.
FROM MLIVE:
Speaking broadly about the proposal, Ryan said it would include:
—A “premium support system” for Medicare. In the future, older people would choose plans in the marketplace and the government would subsidize those plans. Ryan said that would differ from the voucher system he has proposed in the past. Those 55 and older would remain under the present Medicare system.
Ryan acknowledged that the “premium support system” would shift more costs to Medicare recipients, especially what he called “wealthy seniors.” He did not define at what level someone would be considered wealthy.
—Block grants to states for Medicaid, the health program for the poor. Ryan disputed reports that the plan would seek savings of $1 trillion over 10 years from Medicaid, but would say only that the details would be in the plan.
“Medicare and Medicaid spending will go up every single year under our budget. They don’t just go up as much as they’re going right now,” he said. Ryan said governors have told members of Congress they want “the freedom to customize our Medicaid programs. … We want to get governors freedom to do that.”
—A statutory cap on actual discretionary spending as a percentage of the economy. While Ryan did not specify the amount during the interview, he said it would be at a lower level than proposed by Obama and would return the government to its “historic size.”
—Pro-growth tax changes, including lower tax rates and broadening the tax base. Ryan said overhauling taxes would boost the economy. The plan will not propose tax increases.
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