Monday, August 22, 2011
Darrell Issa (R-Goldman Sachs): Most of the time, when wealthy people are elected to office, they put their investments into a blind trust
Darrell Issa (R-Goldman Sachs)
Courage Campaign
Rick Jacobs
Most of the time, when wealthy people are elected to office, they put their investments into a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest.
But Rep. Darrell Issa -- one of the richest people in America -- didn't do that. He still personally manages hundreds of millions of dollars, and it seems to drive a lot of his official decisions.
Tell Issa to focus on his full time job as a congressman, not on managing his money. Put your money in a blind trust or resign from Congress.
A new report finds that Darrell Issa hired a Goldman Sachs Vice President to run interference on new Wall Street regulations... but only after he changed his name. It's the latest in Issa's long string of conflicts of interest and corporate favoritism, a list that's gotten so long that the New York Times put the problem on the front page this week.
We already know that Issa-as-Chairman is bad news. He asked corporate lobbyists and industry groups to set his committee's agenda, cancelled a hearing when facts didn't fit his narrative, and still won't disclose what lobbyists he meets with. He's steered earmarks to fund improvements around his investment properties, and he's a big fan of South Carolina's taxpayer-funded $900 million corporate handout -- in exchange for the corporation's promise to cut employee wages and benefits.
Stop insulting your constituents and America. Stop spending your spare time looking for personal investment opportunities in his laws and Oversight investigations. The credibility of his committee -- and Issa himself -- requires that he move his money to blind trust now.
Issa has spent his entire life trying to play by special rules, and that hasn't changed just because he has more power now. This week, we've seen once again that so long as Issa is trying to legislate and turn a profit at the same time, he just isn't able to keep them separate. And that's a huge problem.
It's high time that Darrell Issa get focused on responsible oversight and assure us that he isn't still trying to work angles for his own benefit.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Financial Crisis Panel Commissioners Leaked Confidential Information To Lobbyists, Report Alleges
Financial Crisis Panel Commissioners Leaked Confidential Information To Lobbyists, Report Alleges
7/13/11
Shahien Nasiripour
Huffpost
Republican commissioners on the panel created by Congress to probe the roots of the financial crisis leaked documents to partisan allies and shared confidential information with influence peddlers, according to a Wednesday report by Democrats on a Congressional oversight committee.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California, sought to investigate allegations that the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was mismanaged by its Democratic majority, misused taxpayer funds, was compromised by conflicts of interest and colluded with Democrats in Congress as they sought to pass a financial reform bill.
Instead, the 400,000 emails and documents obtained by the investigative committee show that Republican commissioner Peter Wallison broke confidentiality rules by leaking documents to Ed Pinto, a colleague of his at the American Enterprise Institute, a prominent right-leaning Washington-based research and policy organization.
The misconduct did not stop there, according to the report. The assistant of Bill Thomas, the panel's vice chairman and another of the four Republican commissioners, shared information about the commission's hearings, targets and investigative direction with one of Thomas's colleagues at law firm Buchanan, Ingersoll, and Rooney, one of Washington's top lobbying shops. In one case, Thomas's colleague, Alex Brill, asked Thomas's assistant in a March 31, 2010, email about an upcoming hearing on Citigroup for his "friend who represents Citi." The bank was concerned it would be unfairly singled out at its hearing, wrote Brill, who is also the chief executive of economic and political consulting firm Matrix Global Advisors.
The partisan bent of the report, its findings and the investigation that led to it lends credence to the central criticisms that have long dogged the panel: A commission led by former politicians rather than prosecutors and economists would never get to the bottom of the financial crisis, and its findings would inevitably be viewed as a political report rather than as an objective look at the companies, policies and practices that caused the most punishing downturn since the Great Depression.
The House oversight committee was to hold a hearing Wednesday on the crisis commission. It was postponed to a future undetermined date, the crisis commission's former chairman, Phil Angelides, said in an email. Thomas and Brill did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
Wallison violated the commission's ethics rules by leaking confidential information to Pinto on "several" occasions, the report alleges.
In one case, the crisis commission's general counsel concluded that Wallison violated the ethics code by sharing a confidential staff memo with Pinto that used private housing data provided by the Federal Reserve under a confidentiality agreement between the commission and the Fed. Wallison and Pinto both pointed to government housing policies as the primary cause of the financial crisis, a position rejected by the broader committee.
Wallison acknowledged that he supplied Pinto with the confidential staff memo, but said he didn't know it was confidential at the time.
He also said that Pinto deserved to see the memo anyway, as the data its conclusions were based on directly challenged Pinto's data and his claim that the crisis was largely caused by government homeowners policies and subprime lending by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"I get this memo criticizing Pinto's data -- what was I supposed to do?" Wallison said. "Pinto should be the one to respond to criticism of his data."
Pinto said Wallison sent him the FCIC memo with a simple question: "What do you think?"
Both men maintain that Fannie and Freddie's subprime mortgage activities directly led to the crisis, despite an avalanche of data that has led government and university economists to conclude otherwise.
Perhaps more distressing to the House oversight committee's Democratic staff was the unauthorized disclosure of information about the crisis commission's investigations to Brill, a Washington influence peddler who once worked as a senior adviser to Thomas when he led the House Ways and Means Committee.
Thomas's assistant, who wasn't named in the Democratic report, shared with Brill internal draft reports; information about internal commission deliberations; plans to investigate foreign banks; and the commission planned treatment of certain companies under investigation, according to internal emails obtained by the House oversight committee.
The committee noted that it could not find any record of Brill working for the crisis commission in an official or advisory capacity. The committee also could not find any record of Brill signing a confidentiality agreement, a requirement of commission employment.
In one instance, Thomas's assistant emailed Brill a draft of a then-confidential staff report on Wells Fargo's 2008 acquisition of Wachovia, a teetering, giant bank that was being battered by turmoil in the financial markets. The assistant also shared information about the crisis commission's possible witness list for its hearing on the issue.
In a response, Brill made a number of suggestions he hoped the assistant would share with Thomas.
In another instance, Brill asked the assistant about the commission's plans to probe foreign banks.
Thomas's assistant not only said the commission was going to investigate these institutions in his reply, but he named them as well, identifying Deutsche Bank, UBS, BNP Paribas, RBS and Lazard Freres as institutions the commission was probing "for various purposes."
In March 2010, Brill asked the assistant about the crisis commission's plans for its upcoming hearing on Citigroup. Brill states on his firm's website that he's helped a "Wall Street investment bank" navigate policy matters in Washington.
"Fyi, just heard from my friend who represents Citi," Brill wrote in an email. "I guess Citi feels afraid that they will be painted as one of the worst offenders of subprime when really they think that they only dabbled in subprime. I don't know the truth in any of this but I guess the titles of the panels make this look like citi is the subprime devil while WMT [Thomas] was explaining to me that Citi is a great target to study because they did a bit of everything and that is more true for Citi than for anyone else. Any thoughts?"
Later that same day, Thomas's assistant replied to Brill, explaining how the commission would likely treat Citigroup officials during their hearing.
"They aren't going to be painted as a particularly bad offender of subprime origination, because they weren't a bad offender in that area," the assistant wrote. "However, they ended up taking $55B in losses associated with subprime and then got $45B in TARP and a government guarantee on $300B of assets. And their risk management re: their subprime exposure was, by any account, pretty awful. And, it is true that they are a good example because they did a little of everything, which means that we can discuss the entire subprime-universe during their hearing. So, while I don't think they will come across as the person who as ripping off the American public, I think they may come across as a pretty poorly managed company."
It's unclear whether Brill passed on this information to any clients or Citigroup representatives, the House oversight report notes.
In an Aug 2010 email to Angelides, the crisis panel's general counsel explained how such unauthorized disclosures could impede the commission's investigation, and open it up to legal liability.
"Disclosure of commission confidential information will gravely impair the commission's ability to conduct its business in the future by making it hard to secure the cooperation of other information providers in accessing their confidential information," he wrote. "And could expose the commission to damage claims for the improper release thereof."
7/13/11
Shahien Nasiripour
Huffpost
Republican commissioners on the panel created by Congress to probe the roots of the financial crisis leaked documents to partisan allies and shared confidential information with influence peddlers, according to a Wednesday report by Democrats on a Congressional oversight committee.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California, sought to investigate allegations that the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was mismanaged by its Democratic majority, misused taxpayer funds, was compromised by conflicts of interest and colluded with Democrats in Congress as they sought to pass a financial reform bill.
Instead, the 400,000 emails and documents obtained by the investigative committee show that Republican commissioner Peter Wallison broke confidentiality rules by leaking documents to Ed Pinto, a colleague of his at the American Enterprise Institute, a prominent right-leaning Washington-based research and policy organization.
The misconduct did not stop there, according to the report. The assistant of Bill Thomas, the panel's vice chairman and another of the four Republican commissioners, shared information about the commission's hearings, targets and investigative direction with one of Thomas's colleagues at law firm Buchanan, Ingersoll, and Rooney, one of Washington's top lobbying shops. In one case, Thomas's colleague, Alex Brill, asked Thomas's assistant in a March 31, 2010, email about an upcoming hearing on Citigroup for his "friend who represents Citi." The bank was concerned it would be unfairly singled out at its hearing, wrote Brill, who is also the chief executive of economic and political consulting firm Matrix Global Advisors.
The partisan bent of the report, its findings and the investigation that led to it lends credence to the central criticisms that have long dogged the panel: A commission led by former politicians rather than prosecutors and economists would never get to the bottom of the financial crisis, and its findings would inevitably be viewed as a political report rather than as an objective look at the companies, policies and practices that caused the most punishing downturn since the Great Depression.
The House oversight committee was to hold a hearing Wednesday on the crisis commission. It was postponed to a future undetermined date, the crisis commission's former chairman, Phil Angelides, said in an email. Thomas and Brill did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
Wallison violated the commission's ethics rules by leaking confidential information to Pinto on "several" occasions, the report alleges.
In one case, the crisis commission's general counsel concluded that Wallison violated the ethics code by sharing a confidential staff memo with Pinto that used private housing data provided by the Federal Reserve under a confidentiality agreement between the commission and the Fed. Wallison and Pinto both pointed to government housing policies as the primary cause of the financial crisis, a position rejected by the broader committee.
Wallison acknowledged that he supplied Pinto with the confidential staff memo, but said he didn't know it was confidential at the time.
He also said that Pinto deserved to see the memo anyway, as the data its conclusions were based on directly challenged Pinto's data and his claim that the crisis was largely caused by government homeowners policies and subprime lending by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"I get this memo criticizing Pinto's data -- what was I supposed to do?" Wallison said. "Pinto should be the one to respond to criticism of his data."
Pinto said Wallison sent him the FCIC memo with a simple question: "What do you think?"
Both men maintain that Fannie and Freddie's subprime mortgage activities directly led to the crisis, despite an avalanche of data that has led government and university economists to conclude otherwise.
Perhaps more distressing to the House oversight committee's Democratic staff was the unauthorized disclosure of information about the crisis commission's investigations to Brill, a Washington influence peddler who once worked as a senior adviser to Thomas when he led the House Ways and Means Committee.
Thomas's assistant, who wasn't named in the Democratic report, shared with Brill internal draft reports; information about internal commission deliberations; plans to investigate foreign banks; and the commission planned treatment of certain companies under investigation, according to internal emails obtained by the House oversight committee.
The committee noted that it could not find any record of Brill working for the crisis commission in an official or advisory capacity. The committee also could not find any record of Brill signing a confidentiality agreement, a requirement of commission employment.
In one instance, Thomas's assistant emailed Brill a draft of a then-confidential staff report on Wells Fargo's 2008 acquisition of Wachovia, a teetering, giant bank that was being battered by turmoil in the financial markets. The assistant also shared information about the crisis commission's possible witness list for its hearing on the issue.
In a response, Brill made a number of suggestions he hoped the assistant would share with Thomas.
In another instance, Brill asked the assistant about the commission's plans to probe foreign banks.
Thomas's assistant not only said the commission was going to investigate these institutions in his reply, but he named them as well, identifying Deutsche Bank, UBS, BNP Paribas, RBS and Lazard Freres as institutions the commission was probing "for various purposes."
In March 2010, Brill asked the assistant about the crisis commission's plans for its upcoming hearing on Citigroup. Brill states on his firm's website that he's helped a "Wall Street investment bank" navigate policy matters in Washington.
"Fyi, just heard from my friend who represents Citi," Brill wrote in an email. "I guess Citi feels afraid that they will be painted as one of the worst offenders of subprime when really they think that they only dabbled in subprime. I don't know the truth in any of this but I guess the titles of the panels make this look like citi is the subprime devil while WMT [Thomas] was explaining to me that Citi is a great target to study because they did a bit of everything and that is more true for Citi than for anyone else. Any thoughts?"
Later that same day, Thomas's assistant replied to Brill, explaining how the commission would likely treat Citigroup officials during their hearing.
"They aren't going to be painted as a particularly bad offender of subprime origination, because they weren't a bad offender in that area," the assistant wrote. "However, they ended up taking $55B in losses associated with subprime and then got $45B in TARP and a government guarantee on $300B of assets. And their risk management re: their subprime exposure was, by any account, pretty awful. And, it is true that they are a good example because they did a little of everything, which means that we can discuss the entire subprime-universe during their hearing. So, while I don't think they will come across as the person who as ripping off the American public, I think they may come across as a pretty poorly managed company."
It's unclear whether Brill passed on this information to any clients or Citigroup representatives, the House oversight report notes.
In an Aug 2010 email to Angelides, the crisis panel's general counsel explained how such unauthorized disclosures could impede the commission's investigation, and open it up to legal liability.
"Disclosure of commission confidential information will gravely impair the commission's ability to conduct its business in the future by making it hard to secure the cooperation of other information providers in accessing their confidential information," he wrote. "And could expose the commission to damage claims for the improper release thereof."
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Duncan Hunter Aide Protected by Firm Formerly Known as Blackwater
Duncan Hunter Aide Protected by Firm Formerly Known as Blackwater
By Matt Potter
San Diego Reader
June 29, 2011
A top aide to GOP congressman Duncan Hunter headed for Africa this spring on a trip paid for by the International Republican Institute, whose board, chairehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd by Arizona senator John McCain, includes such other Republican stalwarts as Senator Lindsey Graham and Brent Scowcroft, a key national security advisor in the administrations of Nixon, Ford, and both Bushes. Victoria Middleton, Hunter’s chief of staff, received travel expenses of $7999.98, including business class airfare, lodging of $901.21, and meals of $340.55, to be an election observer in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, from April 11 through April 18.
According to Middleton’s travel report, the institute “has observed every election in Nigeria since they ended military rule.” Her observation team was housed at the Transcorp Hilton Abuja at a rate of “$376 per night or less.” One reason for choosing the Hilton, the report says, is that “It has very few instances of food poisoning and otherwise meets international health standards.”
The government-funded institute, closely linked to the Republican Party, is controversial in some quarters for its ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and Blackwater USA (now known as Xe). According to an account last year in Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot, Blackwater had a five-year, no-bid contract to protect the institute’s operations in Iraq. Internal Revenue Service filings by the institute showed that it paid Blackwater $50 million, more than a fifth of the institute’s budget, over a three-year period between October 2005 and September 2008, according to the paper. Eight “democracy building” grants from the State Department to the institute have totaled $131 million since 2004, the paper added.
According to Middleton’s itinerary, upon its arrival in Abuja her delegation received a “Security Overview” from Greystone, which the New York Times reported last September was among 30 “shell companies” that Blackwater set up after the firm ran into controversy in Iraq.
Comments
I am a spokesperson for the International Republican Institute. IRI has no ties to the CIA. Those are conspiracy theories made-up by dictators who will do anything to hold on to power and others who are threatened by real democracy. IRI takes seriously the security of its staff and the volunteers who travel with the Institute. I can’t imagine the outcry if IRI abdicated its responsibility for security and as a result a volunteer was killed. You can learn about IRI at www.iri.org.>
By lgates 9:21 a.m., Jun 29, 2011
I'd feel a lot better if the "International Republican Institute" were more connected to the Central Intelligence Agency than to Blackwater, Xe or Greystone -- those now-notorious private firms made up of unaccountable soldiers of fortune who shoot up Iraqi civilians and answer to no civil authority.
By Matt Potter
San Diego Reader
June 29, 2011
A top aide to GOP congressman Duncan Hunter headed for Africa this spring on a trip paid for by the International Republican Institute, whose board, chairehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd by Arizona senator John McCain, includes such other Republican stalwarts as Senator Lindsey Graham and Brent Scowcroft, a key national security advisor in the administrations of Nixon, Ford, and both Bushes. Victoria Middleton, Hunter’s chief of staff, received travel expenses of $7999.98, including business class airfare, lodging of $901.21, and meals of $340.55, to be an election observer in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, from April 11 through April 18.
According to Middleton’s travel report, the institute “has observed every election in Nigeria since they ended military rule.” Her observation team was housed at the Transcorp Hilton Abuja at a rate of “$376 per night or less.” One reason for choosing the Hilton, the report says, is that “It has very few instances of food poisoning and otherwise meets international health standards.”
The government-funded institute, closely linked to the Republican Party, is controversial in some quarters for its ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and Blackwater USA (now known as Xe). According to an account last year in Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot, Blackwater had a five-year, no-bid contract to protect the institute’s operations in Iraq. Internal Revenue Service filings by the institute showed that it paid Blackwater $50 million, more than a fifth of the institute’s budget, over a three-year period between October 2005 and September 2008, according to the paper. Eight “democracy building” grants from the State Department to the institute have totaled $131 million since 2004, the paper added.
According to Middleton’s itinerary, upon its arrival in Abuja her delegation received a “Security Overview” from Greystone, which the New York Times reported last September was among 30 “shell companies” that Blackwater set up after the firm ran into controversy in Iraq.
Comments
I am a spokesperson for the International Republican Institute. IRI has no ties to the CIA. Those are conspiracy theories made-up by dictators who will do anything to hold on to power and others who are threatened by real democracy. IRI takes seriously the security of its staff and the volunteers who travel with the Institute. I can’t imagine the outcry if IRI abdicated its responsibility for security and as a result a volunteer was killed. You can learn about IRI at www.iri.org.>
By lgates 9:21 a.m., Jun 29, 2011
I'd feel a lot better if the "International Republican Institute" were more connected to the Central Intelligence Agency than to Blackwater, Xe or Greystone -- those now-notorious private firms made up of unaccountable soldiers of fortune who shoot up Iraqi civilians and answer to no civil authority.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Throw Clarence Thomas Off the Bench:The Supreme Court justice broke the law by not disclosing his wife's $700K
Throw Clarence Thomas Off the Bench
The Supreme Court justice broke the law by not disclosing his wife's $700K think-tank payday. Paul Campos on Clarence Thomas' "preposterous" defense and why he likely won't be punished.
March 3, 2011
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
The criminal-law scholar George Fletcher once quipped that the maxim "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is one of the few fundamental principles of law that most people actually know. As harsh as this principle may sometimes be when applied to ordinary citizens, applying it to justices of the Supreme Court seems only reasonable.
campos-thomas_164100
Clarence Thomas. Credit: Dennis Brack / Getty Images
Thus it's difficult to feel sympathy for Clarence Thomas, as he finds himself embroiled in a controversy over his failure to reveal the sources of his wife's non-investment income (or indeed that she even had any such income). The 1978 Ethics in Government Act requires all federal judges to fill out annual financial-disclosure forms. The relevant question on the disclosure form isn't complicated: Even if Justice Thomas wasn't a lawyer, he shouldn't have needed to hire one to explain to him that the box marked NONE next to the phrase "Spouse's Non-Investment Income" should only be checked if his spouse had no non-investment income.
In fact Ginni Thomas was paid nearly $700,000 by the Heritage Foundation, a "conservative think tank," between 2003 and 2007, as well as an undisclosed amount by another lobbying group in 2009. Justice Thomas' false statements regarding his wife's income certainly constitute a misdemeanor, and quite probably a felony, under federal law. (They would be felonies if he were prosecuted under 18. U.S.C. 1001, which criminalizes knowingly making false statements of material fact to a federal agency. This is the law Martha Stewart was convicted of breaking by lying to investigators.)
Thomas' defense is that he didn't knowingly violate the law, because he " misunderstood" the filing requirements. This is preposterous on its face. Bill Clinton was impeached—and subsequently disbarred—for defending his false statements about his affair with Monica Lewinsky with an excuse that wasn't as incredible as the one Thomas is now employing.
The Supreme Court justice broke the law by not disclosing his wife's $700K think-tank payday. Paul Campos on Clarence Thomas' "preposterous" defense and why he likely won't be punished.
March 3, 2011
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
The criminal-law scholar George Fletcher once quipped that the maxim "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is one of the few fundamental principles of law that most people actually know. As harsh as this principle may sometimes be when applied to ordinary citizens, applying it to justices of the Supreme Court seems only reasonable.
campos-thomas_164100
Clarence Thomas. Credit: Dennis Brack / Getty Images
Thus it's difficult to feel sympathy for Clarence Thomas, as he finds himself embroiled in a controversy over his failure to reveal the sources of his wife's non-investment income (or indeed that she even had any such income). The 1978 Ethics in Government Act requires all federal judges to fill out annual financial-disclosure forms. The relevant question on the disclosure form isn't complicated: Even if Justice Thomas wasn't a lawyer, he shouldn't have needed to hire one to explain to him that the box marked NONE next to the phrase "Spouse's Non-Investment Income" should only be checked if his spouse had no non-investment income.
In fact Ginni Thomas was paid nearly $700,000 by the Heritage Foundation, a "conservative think tank," between 2003 and 2007, as well as an undisclosed amount by another lobbying group in 2009. Justice Thomas' false statements regarding his wife's income certainly constitute a misdemeanor, and quite probably a felony, under federal law. (They would be felonies if he were prosecuted under 18. U.S.C. 1001, which criminalizes knowingly making false statements of material fact to a federal agency. This is the law Martha Stewart was convicted of breaking by lying to investigators.)
Thomas' defense is that he didn't knowingly violate the law, because he " misunderstood" the filing requirements. This is preposterous on its face. Bill Clinton was impeached—and subsequently disbarred—for defending his false statements about his affair with Monica Lewinsky with an excuse that wasn't as incredible as the one Thomas is now employing.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Even in an era of budget cuts, these government programs won’t die
I think scholarships are a reasonable use of government funds. Young people deserve good educations. But the farm subsidies are another story.
Even in an era of budget cuts, these government programs won’t die
THE WASHINGTON POST
By David A. Fahrenthold
April 20, 2011
The programs sound innocuous enough: One spends federal money to store cotton bales. Another offers scholars a chance to study Asian-American relations. Two others pay to market U.S. oranges in Asia and clean up abandoned coal mines.
But in Washington’s wonkier circles, these are the federal budget’s equivalent of Jason Voorhees, the hockey-masked movie villain who could take an ax in the skull and come back for the sequel.
They are the Line Items That Won’t Die.
In recent years, leaders in both parties — including, in some cases, presidents from both parties — have singled out these four programs, worth a total of about $337 million, to either be eliminated or lose millions in funding. But they have survived, again and again, thanks to powerful lobbies or high-placed patrons in Congress. Even this year, after Congress cut $38 billion from the budget, they live on.
Now, in the lull before the next budget battle, watchdog groups say these often-criticized programs show the difficulty of the task ahead.
“This is why Ronald Reagan said that a government program is the closest thing to eternal life that we’ve ever seen on Earth,” said Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation. “If lawmakers can’t cut programs that cost a few million, how are they going to cut deficits that are going to be in the trillions?”
Among the survivors this year was the East-West Center, a Honolulu nonprofit that has long been one of the budget’s great immortals.
The center runs exchange programs for U.S. and Asian journalists and young professionals, conducts research and offers scholarships to study at the University of Hawaii. For 2010, President Obama’s budget proposed reducing its federal funding from $21 million to $12 million, arguing that this would encourage the center to seek other sources for money.
That went nowhere.
The center has a powerful ally in Congress: Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Instead of shrinking by millions, the center’s subsidy went up by $2 million...
Buy American, overseas
At the Agriculture Department, the budget deal spared another untouchable: the Market Access Program.
The program costs about $200 million a year and pays to promote U.S. agricultural products in foreign markets. That could mean holding something as simple as a taste test in the aisles of Asian supermarkets, pitting California pistachios against Iranian ones.
In past years, this was one of the rare things that united Obama and the ultra-conservative Republican Study Committee.
The program’s “economic impact is unclear,” Obama’s 2011 budget said. It recommended a 20 percent cut.
“Taxpayers should not be forced to pick up the tab for this kind of corporate welfare,” said the GOP committee, whose members include 175 of 241 House Republicans. It recommended eliminating the whole thing.
But the program has powerful supporters: the U.S. farm lobby.
“It’s the government’s responsibility to help us counter the heavy subsidization enjoyed by our competitors,” said Michael Wootton, a senior vice president at Sunkist Growers and chairman of a coalition that has lobbied to keep the Market Access Program.
Sunkist, a nonprofit group of citrus growers that took in $1 billion in gross sales in fiscal 2010, got $4 million from the government through the program. Wootton said that advertising helps offset the benefits that foreign growers get from government subsidies and tariffs. “With that brand, and that identity, we’re able to effectively overcome the price differential” with cheaper foreign-produced products, Wootton said.
This year, Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) proposed a budget amendment that would have cut off the money for the program’s staff.
It never came up for a vote.
Quietly surviving
Other often-criticized programs have also survived without much debate. One of them, intended to clean up abandoned coal mines, sends millions every year to states that are finished cleaning up their highest-priority sites.
The Republican Study Committee has called for cutting this program. So did the bipartisan debt commission. So did Obama, starting in 2009.
“We cut $115 million from a program that pays states to clean up mines that have already been cleaned up,” Obama said the next year, as he laid out the reductions he planned in his budget.
It didn’t happen then. And it didn’t happen this year. The program, which state governments say they still need, was not altered by Congress.
Also unchanged: a program that pays cotton and peanut farmers to store their bales and bushels in warehouses. The idea is to let farmers keep their crop off the market while prices are low. The federal government will still budget $2 million a year, despite criticism from Obama and before him George W. Bush.
Not all of the budget’s immortals escaped serious cuts this year.
Congress eliminated $42 million for the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program, named for the longtime senator from West Virginia. It cut $10 million from the National Drug Intelligence Center, a facility in Johnstown, Pa., promoted by House titan John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). And it took more than half the federal funds from the Denali Commission, an agency created by long-serving senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
All three programs share one trait. Their champions in Congress — Byrd, Murtha and Stevens — all recently died.
Even in an era of budget cuts, these government programs won’t die
THE WASHINGTON POST
By David A. Fahrenthold
April 20, 2011
The programs sound innocuous enough: One spends federal money to store cotton bales. Another offers scholars a chance to study Asian-American relations. Two others pay to market U.S. oranges in Asia and clean up abandoned coal mines.
But in Washington’s wonkier circles, these are the federal budget’s equivalent of Jason Voorhees, the hockey-masked movie villain who could take an ax in the skull and come back for the sequel.
They are the Line Items That Won’t Die.
In recent years, leaders in both parties — including, in some cases, presidents from both parties — have singled out these four programs, worth a total of about $337 million, to either be eliminated or lose millions in funding. But they have survived, again and again, thanks to powerful lobbies or high-placed patrons in Congress. Even this year, after Congress cut $38 billion from the budget, they live on.
Now, in the lull before the next budget battle, watchdog groups say these often-criticized programs show the difficulty of the task ahead.
“This is why Ronald Reagan said that a government program is the closest thing to eternal life that we’ve ever seen on Earth,” said Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation. “If lawmakers can’t cut programs that cost a few million, how are they going to cut deficits that are going to be in the trillions?”
Among the survivors this year was the East-West Center, a Honolulu nonprofit that has long been one of the budget’s great immortals.
The center runs exchange programs for U.S. and Asian journalists and young professionals, conducts research and offers scholarships to study at the University of Hawaii. For 2010, President Obama’s budget proposed reducing its federal funding from $21 million to $12 million, arguing that this would encourage the center to seek other sources for money.
That went nowhere.
The center has a powerful ally in Congress: Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Instead of shrinking by millions, the center’s subsidy went up by $2 million...
Buy American, overseas
At the Agriculture Department, the budget deal spared another untouchable: the Market Access Program.
The program costs about $200 million a year and pays to promote U.S. agricultural products in foreign markets. That could mean holding something as simple as a taste test in the aisles of Asian supermarkets, pitting California pistachios against Iranian ones.
In past years, this was one of the rare things that united Obama and the ultra-conservative Republican Study Committee.
The program’s “economic impact is unclear,” Obama’s 2011 budget said. It recommended a 20 percent cut.
“Taxpayers should not be forced to pick up the tab for this kind of corporate welfare,” said the GOP committee, whose members include 175 of 241 House Republicans. It recommended eliminating the whole thing.
But the program has powerful supporters: the U.S. farm lobby.
“It’s the government’s responsibility to help us counter the heavy subsidization enjoyed by our competitors,” said Michael Wootton, a senior vice president at Sunkist Growers and chairman of a coalition that has lobbied to keep the Market Access Program.
Sunkist, a nonprofit group of citrus growers that took in $1 billion in gross sales in fiscal 2010, got $4 million from the government through the program. Wootton said that advertising helps offset the benefits that foreign growers get from government subsidies and tariffs. “With that brand, and that identity, we’re able to effectively overcome the price differential” with cheaper foreign-produced products, Wootton said.
This year, Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) proposed a budget amendment that would have cut off the money for the program’s staff.
It never came up for a vote.
Quietly surviving
Other often-criticized programs have also survived without much debate. One of them, intended to clean up abandoned coal mines, sends millions every year to states that are finished cleaning up their highest-priority sites.
The Republican Study Committee has called for cutting this program. So did the bipartisan debt commission. So did Obama, starting in 2009.
“We cut $115 million from a program that pays states to clean up mines that have already been cleaned up,” Obama said the next year, as he laid out the reductions he planned in his budget.
It didn’t happen then. And it didn’t happen this year. The program, which state governments say they still need, was not altered by Congress.
Also unchanged: a program that pays cotton and peanut farmers to store their bales and bushels in warehouses. The idea is to let farmers keep their crop off the market while prices are low. The federal government will still budget $2 million a year, despite criticism from Obama and before him George W. Bush.
Not all of the budget’s immortals escaped serious cuts this year.
Congress eliminated $42 million for the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program, named for the longtime senator from West Virginia. It cut $10 million from the National Drug Intelligence Center, a facility in Johnstown, Pa., promoted by House titan John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). And it took more than half the federal funds from the Denali Commission, an agency created by long-serving senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
All three programs share one trait. Their champions in Congress — Byrd, Murtha and Stevens — all recently died.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Advisor to ex-NY comptroller gets prison sentence
Advisor to ex-NY comptroller gets prison sentence
Feb 17, 2011
Reuters
Henry "Hank" Morris, the chief political advisor to New York state's former comptroller, has been sentenced to one-and-a-third to four years in prison for "orchestrating" a pension kickback scheme, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said on Thursday.
This is the maximum sentence under the law, Schneiderman said of the wide-ranging corruption probe into how Morris exploited his ties to Democratic Comptroller Alan Hevesi to reap millions of dollars in fees paid by firms seeking to invest the state's $132.8 billion pension fund.
"Today's sentencing decision by the Court sends a strong message to New Yorkers that those who abuse positions of power to line their own pockets will be held accountable by this office, Schneiderman, who inherited the probe when he took up his current post in January, said in a statement.
Last November, Morris plead guilty to a felony, forfeited $19 million of the fees he was paid by investment firms and money managers, and was permanently banned from New York's securities industry. This is the first sentencing decision resulting from the investigation.
Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who was the attorney general before he became governor in January, led the probe and netted eight guilty pleas...
Feb 17, 2011
Reuters
Henry "Hank" Morris, the chief political advisor to New York state's former comptroller, has been sentenced to one-and-a-third to four years in prison for "orchestrating" a pension kickback scheme, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said on Thursday.
This is the maximum sentence under the law, Schneiderman said of the wide-ranging corruption probe into how Morris exploited his ties to Democratic Comptroller Alan Hevesi to reap millions of dollars in fees paid by firms seeking to invest the state's $132.8 billion pension fund.
"Today's sentencing decision by the Court sends a strong message to New Yorkers that those who abuse positions of power to line their own pockets will be held accountable by this office, Schneiderman, who inherited the probe when he took up his current post in January, said in a statement.
Last November, Morris plead guilty to a felony, forfeited $19 million of the fees he was paid by investment firms and money managers, and was permanently banned from New York's securities industry. This is the first sentencing decision resulting from the investigation.
Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who was the attorney general before he became governor in January, led the probe and netted eight guilty pleas...
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Workers toppled a dictator in Egypt, but might be silenced in Wisconsin
Workers toppled a dictator in Egypt, but might be silenced in Wisconsin
By Harold Meyerson
Washington Post
February 16, 2011
In Egypt, workers are having a revolutionary February. In the United States, by contrast, February is shaping up as the cruelest month workers have known in decades.
...But even as workers were helping topple the regime in Cairo, one state government in particular was moving to topple workers' organizations here in the United States. Last Friday, Scott Walker, Wisconsin's new Republican governor, proposed taking away most collective bargaining rights of public employees. Under his legislation, which has moved so swiftly through the newly Republican state legislature that it might come to a vote Thursday, the unions representing teachers, sanitation workers, doctors and nurses at public hospitals, and a host of other public employees, would lose the right to bargain over health coverage, pensions and other benefits. (To make his proposal more politically palatable, the governor exempted from his hit list the unions representing firefighters and police.) The only thing all other public-sector workers could bargain over would be their base wages, and given the fiscal restraints plaguing the states, that's hardly anything to bargain over at all.
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You might think that Walker came to this extreme measure after negotiations with public-sector unions had reached an impasse. In fact, he hasn't held such discussions. "I don't have anything to negotiate," Walker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week. To underscore just how accompli he considered his fait, he vowed to call in the National Guard if protesting workers walked off the job or disrupted state services...
By Harold Meyerson
Washington Post
February 16, 2011
In Egypt, workers are having a revolutionary February. In the United States, by contrast, February is shaping up as the cruelest month workers have known in decades.
...But even as workers were helping topple the regime in Cairo, one state government in particular was moving to topple workers' organizations here in the United States. Last Friday, Scott Walker, Wisconsin's new Republican governor, proposed taking away most collective bargaining rights of public employees. Under his legislation, which has moved so swiftly through the newly Republican state legislature that it might come to a vote Thursday, the unions representing teachers, sanitation workers, doctors and nurses at public hospitals, and a host of other public employees, would lose the right to bargain over health coverage, pensions and other benefits. (To make his proposal more politically palatable, the governor exempted from his hit list the unions representing firefighters and police.) The only thing all other public-sector workers could bargain over would be their base wages, and given the fiscal restraints plaguing the states, that's hardly anything to bargain over at all.
ad_icon
You might think that Walker came to this extreme measure after negotiations with public-sector unions had reached an impasse. In fact, he hasn't held such discussions. "I don't have anything to negotiate," Walker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week. To underscore just how accompli he considered his fait, he vowed to call in the National Guard if protesting workers walked off the job or disrupted state services...
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