Despite a recent study by The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations that found wealthy individuals avoid paying between $40 billion and $70 billion in taxes annually and corporations evade $30 billion in taxes a year by using offshore tax scams, Republicans feel Paris Hilton and company are unfairly picked on.
The Republican leadership of Congress refused to allow a simple up-or-down vote on just the minimum wage. This will allow right-wingers like John McHugh to hide their vote for a Government give-away to the super rich behind an apparently worker friendly action, while costing the American public $753 billion in the first 10 years.
Democratic and Working Famlies candidate for Congress, Bob Johnson, blogged recently about this back-handed "support" for working people that has allowed McHugh and others to falsely cloak themselves in the labor mantle.
First, he voted against CAFTA. The unions gave him big points for that. But he only voted against it after it was clear his vote was meaningless. Here's another, particularly cynical one: he co-sponsored an act giving more collective bargaining rights to health-care professionals, and then he voted against it in the middle of the night. He also once sponsored a pro-labor bill and then refused to sign the discharge petition to get it considered. But he got points on the scorecards by these actions.On top of that, restaurant workers in the states of Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington would actually get a pay cut because of the way the House bill is written. The new law will override laws in those states that provide better wages for restaurant workers.His score is still low (around 40% as opposed to Hillary Clinton's or Chuck Schumer's 90), but it's fairly high for a Republican. So the belief goes ... labor has to support him because it needs friends on the other side of the aisle to work for compromises in legislation. And here you can start to see the echoes of Joe Lieberman. They need to be "bipartisan," they need to extend hands to the GOP to get things done. And, in a normal time, I'd applaud that. I am all for cooperation and putting partisan labels aside.
But this is not a normal time, and it's missing that central fact that puts all the "insiders" on the wrong side of the key issues of our time, that gives them the totally wrong impression of what's going on in the Lieberman/Lamont race. The Republican Party of Tom Delay, of John Boehner, of Bill Frist, of George W. Bush and Karl Rove ... this is not a party designed to govern in the 20th century sense, this is not a party that is interested in the give-and-take of legislative horse-trading to get the best possible outcome. This is not even a Republican Party that many traditional Republicans could really believe in. This is a party that is bent on bending the federal government completely to its vision, that has a radical view of reshaping American society and the world in a totally different image. The truth of this is obvious to anyone outside the Beltway, but it seems completely to have escaped the centralized political and media structures that dominate our discourse. Or, at best, it's only just beginning to dawn on them.
The bill will come up for a vote soon in the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist stands to benefit if it passes in the House form - he has millions he has tried to hide from the estate tax.
In New York thanks to the efforts of the Working Families Party we avoided such a smokescreen and passed a Minimum Wage increase over the opposition of conservatives like Betty Little. Tim Merrick, her Democratic and Working Famlies Party challenger, would have voted for the Minimum Wage raise.
All Americans deserve a real Minimum Wage increase without this tax hand out for the Hilton and Frist clans.
2 comments:
and this has what to do with the skenky craptastic wench you threw up as a photo? I mean, yeah, she's rich, but... ?
Paris Hilton is a good example of the kind of people that would benefit from the estate tax break McHugh and his buddies came up with.
Post a Comment