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When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; When the government fears the people, there is liberty.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Entries Tagged as 'Taxes'

Congressional earmarks sometimes used to fund projects near lawmakers’ properties

February 7th, 2012 · Congress, Corruption, Deception, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government, Government Control, Greed, Non-Transparency, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism, Terrorism from Within

By David S. Fallis, Scott Higham and Kimberly Kindy, Published: February 6

A U.S. senator from Alabama directed more than $100 million in federal earmarks to renovate downtown Tuscaloosa near his own commercial office building. A congressman from Georgia secured $6.3 million in taxpayer funds to replenish the beach about 900 feet from his island vacation cottage. A representative from Michigan earmarked $486,000 to add a bike lane to a bridge within walking distance of her home.

 Thirty-three members of Congress have directed more than $300 million in earmarks and other spending provisions to dozens of public projects that are next to or within about two miles of the lawmakers’ own property, according to a Washington Post investigation.

See earmarks near lawmakers’ property

In recent weeks, lawmakers have acknowledged the public’s growing concern that they appeared to be using their positions to enrich themselves. In response, the Senate last week passed legislation that would require lawmakers to disclose mortgages for their residences. The bill, known as the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (Stock) Act, would also require lawmakers and executive branch officials to disclose securities trades of more than $1,000 every 30 days. At the same time, the Senate defeated an amendment, 59-40, that would have permanently outlawed earmarks.

 The House is scheduled to vote on the Stock Act on Thursday.

Earmarks have long been controversial, with the focus on spending that unduly favors campaign donors or constituents. The Post’s review is the first systematic effort to examine the alignment of earmarks with lawmakers’ private interests.

Earmarks are a fraction of the federal budget, and the numbers uncovered by The Post are relatively small in the scheme of the overall Congress, but the behavior by lawmakers from both parties points to a larger issue at a time when confidence in Capitol Hill is at an all-time low.

The congressional financial disclosure system obscures certain relationships. Lawmakers are not required to disclose the addresses of their personal residences or the employment of their children and parents. The lawmakers are also allowed to put properties in holding companies without disclosing the properties’ locations. Current versions of the Stock Act would not change that. To provide a fuller portrait of congressional connections, The Post compared the financial disclosure forms with the public record to track spending on projects near legislators’ properties or on programs employing their relatives.

In interviews, lawmakers said their earmarks were needs brought to them by the city and state officials they represent to help pay for safer roads, nicer neighborhoods or improved local economies. They characterized questions about the nearby locations of their own holdings as irrelevant, insisting there is no conflict. Any potential personal benefit — financial or otherwise — is nonexistent, minimal or secondary to the needs of the public, they said.

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Senate approves tax cut deal; House Dems weigh amending estate tax

December 15th, 2010 · Economy, Taxes

  • Reference: Middle Class Tax Relief Act (111 HR 4853)

    • By Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray Washington Post Staff Writers
    Wednesday, December 15, 2010; 2:46 PM

    A sweeping tax package negotiated by the White House and Republican leaders sailed through the Senate on a 81-19 vote and now awaits action by the House as early as Thursday.

    The Senate vote represented a rare moment of bipartisanship and underscored the depth of concern among lawmakers in both parties about the pace of the economic recovery. The legislation would extend for two years the income-tax cuts enacted 10 years ago under President George W. Bush. The cuts are set to expire on New Year’s Eve. But the package also includes a variety of measures aimed at spurring new hiring and consumer spending.

    The stimulus-related provisions include a one-year reduction in the payroll tax rate for individuals, to 4.2 percent from 6.2 percent; an expensing break that would allow businesses to write off new equipment purchases in the 2011 tax year; and continued funding for an emergency program that provides up to 99 weeks of benefits for jobless workers. Additional tax provisions would target businesses and individuals in narrower groups.

    Prospects for House passage appeared to be brightening Wednesday after an initially poor reception, but House Democratic leaders said that liberals continue to insist on changes to the estate-tax provision in the bill.

    “Middle class families need a boost in this economy, and that is exactly what this plan gives them,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement. “It is not perfect, but it will create 2 million jobs, cut taxes for middle class families and small businesses, and ensure that Americans who are still looking for work will continue to have the safety net they rely on to make ends meet.”

    Before senators began debating the $858 billion package in late morning, President Obama urged lawmakers in both houses to pass the tax package “as swiftly as possible.” He called the plan “an essential ingredient in spurring economic growth over the short run.”

    Speaking before a meeting with business leaders, Obama said: “I am absolutely convinced that this tax cut plan, while not perfect, will help grow our economy and create jobs in the private sector.” He acknowledged that lawmakers of both parties object to different aspects of the plan but said, “That’s the nature of compromise.” He added that “we can’t afford to let it fall victim to either delay or defeat.”

    The Senate considered and rejected three amendments before approving the legislation. A proposal by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) would have paid for the extension of jobless benefits and refundable tax credits included in the measure by cutting $156 billion in federal spending, as well as barring unemployment payments to millionaires.

    Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) proposed a permanent extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, permanent repeal of the estate tax and a permanent fix for the expanding alternative minimum tax. And Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed to eliminate the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers, dedicating half the savings to deficit reduction and the other half to fresh infrastructure spending.

    Despite the lopsided tally, many lawmakers were lukewarm about portions of the package. For Democrats, extending all the Bush tax breaks – if only temporarily – was a bitter concession, after many in the party, including Obama, had campaigned on a pledge to allow rate cuts for the wealthiest households to expire.

    “This wasn’t the bill I would have wanted,” Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said in a Senate floor speech. “If there were a better way, I would do that in a heartbeat. But today we are forced to decide between taking a stand against irresponsible tax cuts for millionaires versus helping struggling families. And given that choice, I simply can’t turn my back on all the Minnesotans that desperately need the help this bill will provide.”

    Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) voted against the advancing the package on Monday “to send a message to the House that there are allies here,” but he supported it on final passage. Brown, one of the Senate’s most liberal members who is up for reelection in 2012, said he changed his mind after speaking with his minister and reading letters from constituents who are struggling to find jobs in his hard-hit home state.

    Fourteen Democrats voted against the bill: Sens. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Russell Feingold (Wis.), Kirstin Gillibrand (N.Y.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), Carl M. Levin (Mich.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Mark Udall (Colo.), Tom Udall (N.M.), Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Sanders. And five GOP senators were opposed: Sens. John Ensign (Nev.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.) and George V. Voinovich (Ohio), as well as Coburn and DeMint.

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    Senate spending bill contains thousands of earmarks

    December 15th, 2010 · Accountability, Congress, Corruption, Democrats, Dissention, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Fraud Alert, Greed, Non-Transparency, Republicans, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within

    By Philip Rucker and Paul Kane Washington Post Staff Writers
    Wednesday, December 15, 2010; 12:00 AM

    Weeks after swearing off earmarks, many senators stand to gain tens of millions of dollars for pet projects in a massive spending bill that could be their last chance at the money before a more conservative Congress begins next month.

    The $1.2 trillion bill, released on Tuesday, includes more than 6,000 earmarks totaling $8 billion, an amount that many lawmakers decried as an irresponsible binge following a midterm election in which many voters demanded that the government cut spending.

    “The American people said just 42 days ago, ‘Enough!’ . . . Are we tone deaf? Are we stricken with amnesia?” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading earmark critic, said on the Senate floor, flipping through the 1,924-page bill as he pounded his desk.

    The bill includes $18 million for two nonprofits associated with deceased Democrats, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Rep. John P. Murtha; $349,000 for swine waste management in North Carolina; and $6 million for a rural Iowa school program named after Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) epitomizes the conflicted nature of the debate. Formerly a member of the committee that doles out earmarks, McConnell reluctantly embraced a moratorium on the practice last month to send a signal that Republicans are serious about curbing spending.

    Yet the legislation includes provisions requested this year by McConnell, including $650,000 for a genetic technology center at the University of Kentucky, according to an analysis of the bill by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog.

    Saying he was now “vigorously in opposition” to the legislation, McConnell said Tuesday that rushed consideration of the bill “here on Christmas Eve” compelled him to try to block the bill through a filibuster. “I’m going to vote against things that arguably would benefit my state. I do not think this is the appropriate way to run the Senate,” he said.

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    Harry Reid’s Holiday Jam: What the Senate wants to pass while you’re not paying attention.

    December 15th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Greed, Non-Transparency, Selling Out the US, Senate, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason

    Reid's Holiday Message to the American People.

    In the famous formulation often attributed to George Washington, the U.S. Senate is the saucer designed to cool the drink before it becomes law. In Majority Leader Harry Reid’s rush to beat the looming expiration of the 111th Congress, the Senate has become the express lane to jam through changes in military rules, a giant spending bill and even an arms treaty—and all with virtually no deliberation. Why are Republicans putting up with it?

    The lame duck Congress was supposed to limp out of town this Friday, but yesterday Mr. Reid announced that in the dwindling days before Christmas he plans to pass the bipartisan tax deal, the New Start arms treaty with Russia, the immigration Dream Act, a “lands bill,” and a bill to let gays serve openly in the military. Oh, and yesterday he also dropped on his colleagues a 1,924-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2011 that no one but a few Appropriators have read, if even they have.

    Any one of these issues could warrant at least a week of debate if the Senate were playing its designated constitutional role. But the New Start pact and spending bill in particular deserve at least eight or nine legislative days of debate, with opportunities for Senators to educate the public and offer amendments. As it is, most Americans are preoccupied with their busy holiday lives and have no idea that the world’s greatest deliberative body isn’t deliberating at all.

    The rush for New Start is a special affront to Senate prerogatives under the Constitution, which requires a two-thirds vote for ratification precisely to guarantee a considered debate. The Administration claims that failure to ratify the treaty in two weeks will offend the Russians, though the Russians have said they feel no such urgency. GOP leaders have given Mr. Reid dates in either January or February to bring the treaty to the floor, and upwards of a dozen Republicans seem to be leaning in favor of the pact.

    At a minimum the GOP ought to insist on a debate that is long enough to clarify the U.S. understanding of the treaty. That’s especially important on missile defenses because the pact’s preamble includes the major blunder of re-linking offensive and defensive weapons. At the time the pact was negotiated, the Russians claimed this language meant they could leave the treaty if the U.S. developed new missile defenses. In remarks at the time, U.S. officials did not forcefully counter that claim.

    The Obama Administration has since said the Russians are wrong, but the Senate must make this absolutely clear during the ratification debate. GOP Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl are preparing a formal “understanding” to accompany the treaty that would stipulate that specific future U.S. missile defense plans aren’t part of the deal.

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    Reid threatens to keep Congress into next year: New spending bill totals $575.13 million per page

    December 15th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Greed, Selling Out the US, Senate, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within

    Reid salutes th American People.

    By Stephen Dinan The Washington Times Tuesday, December 14, 2010

    Forget about going quietly into the night.

    Senate Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a broad agenda for an end-of-session sprint that, in other years, could be a whole year’s worth of activity — ranging from an arms-reduction treaty with Russia to a major immigration bill to overturning the ban on gay troops.

    And that’s not to mention the nearly 2,000-page, $1.1 trillion massive spending bill Senate Democrats said they’ll try to push through. The bill contains hundreds of pork-barrel spending projects and new rules governing everything from airport baggage to detainees at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

    “We’re not through. Congress ends on Jan. 4,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.

    The omnibus spending bill is likely to get the most attention, spanning 1,924 pages and spending an average of $575.13 million per page.

    It stands in contrast to the House, which last week passed a streamlined bill freezing fiscal 2011 government spending at 2010′s level. The Senate bill, though, boosts spending by $16 billion — a tough sell at a time when deficits and debt already are dominating the policy debate in Washington.

    In some cases the spending bill not only rejects President Obama’s proposed cuts, it actually boosts spending. For example, Mr. Obama earlier this year told Congress to cut funding for the health and welfare package targeting Mississippi’s Delta region, which in 2010 received about $26 million. But the Senate bill includes funding and actually increases it to nearly $35 million in 2011.

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    Tax-cut package clears procedural hurdle in Senate

    December 14th, 2010 · Politics, Taxes

    By Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writers
    Tuesday, December 14, 2010; 1:46 AM

    Republicans and Democrats joined forces in the Senate on Monday to deliver the most significant bipartisan vote since President Obama took office, advancing a plan to extend tax cuts for virtually every American and to boost the economic recovery.

    The procedural vote could be followed by final Senate passage as early as Tuesday evening. If the bill sails through the Senate, as expected, the last hurdle would be the House, where liberal Democrats remain strongly opposed to continuing President George W. Bush‘s tax breaks for upper-income households as well as the generous terms of a revived estate tax.

    In brief remarks Monday, Obama acknowledged the dismay of these lawmakers but urged them to consider the consequences of legislative inaction.

    “I recognize that folks on both sides of the political spectrum are unhappy with certain parts of the package, and I understand those concerns. I share some of them,” Obama said. “But that’s the nature of compromise – sacrificing something that each of us cares about to move forward on what matters to all of us.”

    The 83-to-15 vote Monday represents a significant milestone for the Senate as a highly contentious legislative session comes to a close. Congress has passed a trove of significant measures over the past two years, but most were approved on party-line votes that infuriated Republicans and alienated independent voters.

    Obama entered uncharted political territory two weeks ago when he opened negotiations with GOP leaders about the fate of the tax cuts, which were enacted in 2001 under Bush and are set to expire on New Year’s Eve.

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    The tax bill is becoming a favor festival, starting with ethanol.

    December 13th, 2010 · Deception, Economy, Non-Transparency, Taxes

    The public choice school of economics describes how the government and special interests collude against the public good, and it’s hard to think of a better model than the ethanol industry. Despite opposition from an emerging left-right anti-boondoggle coalition, the Senate version of the White House-GOP tax deal preserves the corn fuel’s multiple subsidies.

    One measure of ethanol’s political clout is that reformers merely hoped to cut the tax credit for blending ethanol into gasoline to 36 cents per gallon from the current 45 cents that was due to expire at the end of the year. Instead, the deal keeps the full subsidy in place for another year, at a cost to taxpayers of $4.9 billion, and it retains the 54-cent per gallon tariff on ethanol imports that was also expiring.

    Direct subsidies and trade protectionism, plus mandates that force consumers to buy ethanol: This is the trifecta of government support, and all for an industry that is 30 years old and that even Al Gore now admits serves none of its advertised environmental purposes.

    The ethanol extension is the bipartisan handiwork of Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin, who both regularly abandon their professed principles (fiscal conservatism for the Republican and equity for the Democrat) in the service of agribusiness.

    Discredit also goes to the environmental lobby and its running game of bait and switch. The greens have turned on ethanol because of its carbon emissions, but their tax bill support has also been purchased with extensions of such energy subsidies as a Treasury grant program for wind and other renewable projects that were part of the stimulus.

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    House Democrats seek to delay Tax Cut until next year in fight for more spending money.

    December 11th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Greed, House, Taxes, Terrorism from Within

    House Democrats seek changes to Obama’s tax-cut deal

    By Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray Washington Post Staff Writers
    Friday, December 10, 2010; 12:58 AM

    The House Democratic Caucus voted Thursday to try to block the tax-cut deal that President Obama struck with Republicans, a move that does not kill the legislation but shows that its opponents are digging in.

    Rank-and-file Democrats passed a nonbinding resolution, introduced by Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), by voice vote that said the tax package should not come to the House floor for consideration.

    And in her first explicit declaration of dissatisfaction since the tax deal was cut, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested that she would not bring the package to the floor in its current form.

    “House Democrats share the president’s commitment to providing the middle class with a tax cut to grow the economy and create jobs” but “reject the Senate Republican tax provisions as currently written,” Pelosi said. “We will continue discussions with the president and our Democratic and Republican colleagues in the days ahead to improve the proposal before it comes to the House floor for a vote.”

    After the caucus vote, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said: “People would like to see every opportunity to make revisions, and I’m one of them.” Asked whether he still expected the tax deal to come to the House floor for a vote, Clyburn said, “I don’t make those decisions.”

    Said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.): “If it’s take it or leave it, we’ll leave it.”

    At one point during the meeting on the vote, House Democrats erupted in a chant of “Just say no!”

    The White House played down the drama.

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    Tax fight puts Schumer at odds with Obama

    December 11th, 2010 · Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Dissention, Economy, Non-Transparency, Taxes

    By Shailagh Murray Washington Post Staff Writer
    Friday, December 10, 2010; 12:00 AM

    President Obama is getting along better than ever with Capitol Hill Republicans. But his relationship with Democratic Sen. Charles E. Schumer has hit a rough patch.

    The newly appointed Senate Democratic “message” guru has emerged as the White House’s chief antagonist over the tax cut deal Obama worked out with GOP leaders.

    To Schumer (N.Y.), Obama’s decision to accept a two-year extension of all the tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush – even at the highest income levels – is a needless capitulation to resurgent Republicans. Schumer wanted the president to push harder to extend the tax cuts, set to expire at year’s end, only for middle-class families.

    But to the White House, it is Schumer who is acting recklessly by seeking to wage class warfare with just days left on the legislative calendar, risking the health of the economy and the pocketbook of every middle-class household with his threat to carry the fight into next year.

    The contentious, mostly private standoff has turned Schumer into an unlikely villain among administration officials who have long valued his tactical skills and political acumen. It has also made him an unlikely champion to liberal activists who are seething at the Obama deal. In an appeal this week to supporters, the liberal group Moveon.org praised Schumer, a long-time ally of Wall Street, as one of their “progressive heroes” and saying “we need you now.”

    Obama views the fate of the Bush breaks as chiefly an economic question, and to him, the answer is clear: The sputtering recovery can’t withstand any tax increases. The White House also hopes cutting a deal with Republicans will help to clear away some GOP opposition to additional stimulus spending the president wants to enact and to the ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia.

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    Facing frustration from Democrats, Obama defends tax cuts deal in attempt to save face.

    December 8th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Non-Transparency, Selling Out the US, Taxes

    By Scott Wilson, Felicia Sonmez and David A. Fahrenthold Washington Post Staff Writers
    Tuesday, December 7, 2010; 5:00 PM

    A defensive President Obama cast himself Tuesday as the guardian of middle-class Americans and the unemployed, saying sharply that he had to strike a deal with Senate Republicans over the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy in order to protect the fragile economic recovery.

    Facing broad frustration from his party’s liberal base and many Democrats on the Hill, Obama emphasized the portions of the compromise he reached the previous day that benefit middle class families and the jobless, whose government insurance would have expired without the deal.

    Obama said he had little choice but to compromise because he has been unable to persuade Senate Republicans to maintain middle-class tax cuts without also extending the top-tier tax rates for another two years – even though a majority of Americans agree tax cuts on high incomes should end.

    “A long political fight that carried over into next year might have been good politics, but it would be a bad deal for the economy and it would be a bad deal for the American people,” Obama said during an afternoon news conference.

    He also sharply criticized his party, accusing Democratic critics of failing to reasonably assess what he has achieved during a difficult political time. And he compared complaints that he has ceded too much ground on the tax debate to the objections from liberals during the health-care debate.

    “This is a big, diverse country. Not everybody agrees with us,” he said. “I know that shocks people. You know, the New York Times editorial page does not permeate across all of America. Neither does The Wall Street Journal editorial page.

    “Most Americans, they’re just trying to figure out how to – how to go about their lives and – and how can we make sure that our elected officials are looking out for us.”

    Obama spoke as Vice President Biden urged Senate Democrats to support the tax compromise, a $700 billion package that will be paid for through additional borrowing even as public concern mounts over the country’s fiscal condition. Liberal Democrats, in particular, are furious over Obama’s decision to extend the top-tier tax cuts. Obama campaigned in 2008 and again during the midterm season to end them.

    Democrats emerged from their luncheon with Biden divided on the proposal.

    “I’m not talking, I’m not talking,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), whose proposal to let the cuts lapse for income over $1 million was defeated Saturday on a 53 to 37 vote. Schumer has said some Senate Democrats favor allowing the entire Bush tax package to expire on schedule Dec. 31, forcing the next Congress to resolve the issue.

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