The Put-Corporate-Profits-First Act

Senator Toomey (official portrait)

Senate bill 1292 was introduced yesterday (June 29th) by Republican (of course) Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. The text of the bill is not available yet, but I am eagerly anticipating the PDF from the GPO.

In the meantime, we can look at the bill’s Latest Title:

A bill to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to consider the impact on employment levels and economic activity prior to issuing a regulation, policy statement, guidance document, endangerment finding, or other requirement, implementing any new or substantially altered program, or denying any permit, and for other purposes.

Though I have yet to read the text of this bill, it is obviously meant to strip the EPA of their true duty in deference to the Republican Party’s masters’ profits.

Newsflash, Senator Toomey, it’s called the Environmental Protection Agency and not the Service Republican Corporate Masters Agency for a reason. It’s job is to protect the environment.

With any luck, this pile of garbage will die in committee, as it should.

Bachmann and GOP Want Dumber Kids

On June 13, 2011, CNN televised a debate between seven hopefuls for the Republican presidential nomination. At one point, when asked about whether the federal government should support vocational training at the community college level,  Michele Bachmann took the opportunity to say this:

 What we need to do is pass the mother of all repeal bills, but it’s the repeal bill that will get a job killing regulations. And I would begin with the EPA, because there is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the job-killing organization of America.

The EPA is one of the favorite targets of the Corporatism party, as I pointed out in my other blog. Anything that stands in the way of corporate profits is bad and must be eliminated.

What usually stands in the way, at least as far as the EPA is concerned, is the public health. You know, one of those things that modern Republicans don’t seem to give a damn about. Earlier this week, the Chicago Sun-Times ran an article about yet another health risk posed by a corporation.

A two-mile by two-mile section of the city that includes Pilsen does not meet the nation’s air quality standard for lead, according to a preliminary determination released Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

…

Those boundaries were recommended by the Illinois EPA earlier this month based on air samples it collected last year at a Pilsen elementary school.

At an elementary school.

Why is this of particular concern? Because, as the article states, “Even low levels of lead exposure can impair a child’s IQ, memory and learning capabilities.”

So that most hated of all government agencies, the EPA, has identified a health risk in an elementary school, and the surrounding community. They have identified the chief culprit, “a smelter that the state EPA has said is the primary contributor to elevated lead levels in the area.” And as a result, “If the area is formally designated by the EPA to be in violation of national health standards in October, the state will be required to submit a lead-reduction plan by 2013.”

If Bachmann and the GOP have their way, we soon won’t have an EPA to monitor air quality, or to hold businesses accountable for their actions, or to force polluters to change their way. What we’ll have is higher corporate profits and more kids at a disadvantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Michele Bachmann claims to be pro-life, I guess that doesn’t mean pro-quality-life.

The Bankrupt Argument Against Regulation

Yesterday, Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL) tweeted the following:

Government regulations cost small businesses $10,585 per employee per year. Less regulations #4jobs.

This is the sort of brain-dead argument that passes for intelligent discourse on the right. It’s an argument that takes a variety of forms, with myriad targets. Just tonight, in the Republican presidential candidate debate on CNN, Michele Bachmann stated that the Environmental Protection Agency should be called the Job-killing Agency. Ooh, good one, Michele.

This argument has many flaws. I’ll try to hit a couple main ones.

First, it promotes a race to the bottom. They do this particular thing (or don’t do it) so we should (n’t) too. The question that goes unanswered is, “where do we draw the line?” China allows cement factories to belch mercury and other harmful chemicals, along with greenhouse gasses, into the air, so why can’t we stop the EPA from regulating their emission in the US? It takes away from company profits to have to take measures to not kill us all, so we should stop doing that. Other places, after all, are cesspools of industrial waste, so why not the US? Anything that boosts profits is good, this argument goes.

Getting back to the Biggert tweet, I would point out that there are other things that cost small businesses money. Health insurance, for example. Overtime pay. Vacation time. Holiday pay. Fire extinguishers. Air conditioning. The Republican argument seems to be that if the US would only return to the golden age of sweat-shop labor that pre-dated unions (and the middle class,) our economy would take off like a rocket.

Well, the rich would probably get richer, at least.

Conservatism 101

Today the House voted in favor of Paul Ryan’s 2012 federal budget. The legislation represents a high-water mark in the Republican party’s brazen favoritism of the wealthy. In case you missed it, the budget goes something like this:

Huge Benefit to:

• the rich
• corporations

The Shaft to

• seniors
• children
• the poor

Ryan and the GOP want to “fix” Medicare by replacing the single-payor system that exists with an additional layer of private insurance companies. Does anybody actually believe that would reduce costs? According to statesman.com,

The Congressional Budget Office found that part of the plan, which would take effect in 2022, could nearly double out-of-pocket costs for seniors.

The plan also would cut federal spending on Medicaid, which provides health care for seniors, children and the poor, and begin distributing money by block grant to states.

But hey, as long as the rich get more tax breaks.

Be Afraid

Republican Representative from Wisconsin, Paul Ryan, was on Fox “News” the other day. He graciously took a few minutes of his time to explain the latest Republican plans to destroy the American economy.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4622379/years-of-empty-promises/

Ryan says that the “tidal wave of debt” that is coming has to be dealt with or else “we’ll have austerity, cuts to current seniors, tax increases, a slowdown in the economy.”

There’s a lot of blah blah blah about how Obama is making things worse and the only way to give our children a decent future is to wipe out our debt. Then at the 5-minute mark, he says this:

“Getting the debt and deficit under control are some of the best things we can do to get jobs created today.”

Hmm..

There’s one of two reasons that Ryan would say that. Either a) he is an idiot, or b) he is a partisan hack.

Many European countries have been taking the sort of measures that Ryan is talking about in an effort to jump-start their economies. When faced with growing unemployment and a recession, these countries felt that austerity, or a significant cut in government spending and reduction in government debt, would be the solution.

I am not a Nobel-prize winning economist. Paul Krugman, however, is. In his March 25th Op-Ed piece, he took a look at some of the European efforts to reduce debt and create jobs.

[S]lashing spending in the face of high unemployment is a mistake. Austerity advocates predicted that spending cuts would bring quick dividends in the form of rising confidence, and that there would be few, if any, adverse effects on growth and jobs; but they were wrong.

In the video, Ryan makes a reference to European austerity and how his plan will help the US avoid that fate. Ironically, his plan is to implement austerity measures in the US. Measures that have failed to create jobs in European countries. Krugman goes on to say:

Why not slash deficits immediately? Because tax increases and cuts in government spending would depress economies further, worsening unemployment. And cutting spending in a deeply depressed economy is largely self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms: any savings achieved at the front end are partly offset by lower revenue, as the economy shrinks.

I don’t believe that Ryan is an idiot. All he has to do is look at how European efforts at austerity have further damaged their economies to see that those plans don’t work. Ryan is, however, a partisan hack. He has been gunning for Social Security and Medicare for a long time now and has apparently decided to take advantage of the current situation (and the support of various media outlets) to beat the drum for his cause. (His cause being to eliminate programs for the poor and to funnel as many tax dollars as possible into the pockets of the rich.)

So be afraid, if you want. But not of the vague threats of a “debt crisis.” Be afraid of the snake-oil salesmen who would sell you a poisonous tonic to further enrich themselves and their corporate masters.

 

Note: That awesome photo is from Ryan’s web site. Also, I tried to embed the Fox “News” clip, but WordPress didn’t want to let me. Not that I can blame it.

The Bachmann Effect

Photo (without text) by Monique Cala

It appears that Michele Bachmann is considering running for President in 2012.

Or rather, that she is thinking about starting an exploratory committee to maybe look into considering running. And the media is all aflutter. So what, exactly, might become of a Bachmann candidacy?

1) She could be president. Um.. no. Let’s all try to retain a shred of common sense here. There is no way in hell Michele Bachmann could become president. Ever.

2) She could win the nomination. Not likely. She may have a 24% positive rating among Republicans now, but it’s a lot easier to voice support for a candidate over a phone survey than when the ink has to hit the oval in the voting booth.

3) She will make the Republican Party dumber. This is guaranteed. Bachmann plays well on TV. She gets lots of media attention, and the ultra-conservative religious types who show up for Iowa caucuses really like her. She’s bound to bring a whole new level of stupid to the debate and the other candidates will have a choice: stoop to her level or be ignored.

You thought it was a disgrace when three of the 2008 Republican hopefuls admitted on TV that they don’t believe in Evolution? Bachmann’s got them beat by a mile. Not only does she believe that “evolution has never been proven,” she also “introduced a bill into the Minnesota Senate that would require public schools to permit teaching of intelligent design creationism in the school science curriculum.” (via The Bachmann Record) She is also a birther, a climate-change denier, and against anti-compact-fluorescent lightbulbs.

She thinks Obama is un-American, the Democrats are un-American, and any Republican who stands to her left is un-Republican. She’s sort of like if you added Ann Coulter’s obsession with saying the most outrageous thing possible to Sarah Palin’s Tea Party rhetoric.

So if Bachmann does run for president in 2012, the other candidates will be forced to respond to her. Even if they don’t try to pander to her base by matching her level of ignorance, there will be further damage to the already teetering to the right Republican party. Bachmann has the ability to make right-wing-conservatives like Gingrich and Huckabee seem moderate by comparison. They become the new normal and the Republican party shifts further right –further stupid– once more.

PS. Greg Laden has an excellent blog post in which he explains just what Bachmann is.

Bachmann does not get even the simplest nuance. In politics, she is just a dog barking at the shadows behind the fence, and everything is a shadow behind the fence.

Indeed. And:

Michelle Bachmann is not Newt Gingrich. She does not grasp the overarching strategy. She is not a simpleton’s face hiding a brilliant political mind. She is just the simpleton.

And all the more dangerous because of it.

PPS. I found that photo here.

Republican Senator Admits Climate Change Is Real

Senator Daniel Coats (R-IN) testified last week in favor of an amendment submitted by Mitch McConnell (R-KY) which would stop the EPA from trying to use their authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This is nothing new. Basically, Coats and McConnell and every other Republican in Congress favors big business over the environment. Who cares if the actions of big business could kill us all? If there’s profit to be made, then so be it.

Coats made a few interesting statements, though.

There is a growing consensus in Congress and across the country that Washington bureaucrats cannot be and should not be setting our Nation’s policy on climate change. The McConnell amendment would make it clear that it is the Congress and not the Environmental Protection Agency that ought to be squarely in the driver’s seat with regard to energy and climate policy.

What he means, of course, is that once in the driver’s seat, the Republicans in Congress put the car in neutral and are sitting there with the engine idling.

The reality is that not only in my home State of Indiana, which obtains more than 90 percent of its electric power from coal resources, but in States across this country that are using fossil fuels currently to generate energy, this would have an extraordinary, detrimental effect on their economies and their ability to produce the necessary power needed to run businesses and heat and cool homes.

So it would cost big business money to reduce their harmful emissions, therefore, he opposes it. Up to that point, he could have argued that human-caused climate change is a hoax, or unproven, or whatever the GOP usually claims. Coats, instead, went on to say this (emphasis added):

I have nothing against looking at ways to provide additional sources of energy that can help with our climate control, whether it is solar, wind, biothermal, biomass, geothermal, or any number of other alternatives. But these alternatives need to be cost-effective and competitive, and currently they are not.

There you have it. Senator Coats has admitted that we could take measures to put the brakes on global climate change, but he would rather not make energy producers pay for it.

• Choice A: decrease energy company profits.
• Choice B: Everybody dies.

Which would you choose?

 

Note: Coats’ testimony is taken from page S1782 of the Congressional Record (PDF).

Lesson: The Hand That Feeds Always Wins

Seems there was something of a split in the Arizona Senate. Several of the Republicans there split with their party leadership and voted to defeat five bills created to turn the screws on suspected illegal immigrants.

Fox News Latino is playing it up like these few Republicans are heroes who saw the error in their ways and decided to vote on the side of treating people with dignity rather than trying to turn people into spies on their neighbors. This is of course a slight distortion of the facts.

What happened is that the business lobby in the state pressured the Republican Senators to reconsider. From the New York Times:

In an abrupt change of course, Arizona lawmakers rejected new anti-immigration measures on Thursday, in what was widely seen as capitulation to pressure from business executives and an admission that the state’s tough stance had resulted in a chilling of the normally robust tourism and convention industry.

So 60 of Arizona’s largest business leaders sent a letter (PDF) to the Senate Republicans explaining that while they aren’t “pro-illegal immigration,” they need to put the bottom line first. Arizona’s Republican Senators had a tough decision to make. Who wins in a battle between the anti-immigration base and the corporate benefactors?

Surprise: business wins.

While the few Arizona Republicans who voted against these five bills did the right thing, they only did so after their big-business sugar-daddies asked them to.

Does that still qualify as doing the right thing?

When Is Pollution Not Pollution?

Answer: When you’re a Republican slave to big business.

H.R. 97 (PDF), a bill submitted by Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee’s 7th district, is designed to help polluting businesses avoid the pesky Clean Air Act regulations by…

redefining pollution!

The bill, in its entirety, states:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Free Industry Act’.

SEC. 2. GREENHOUSE GAS REGULATION UNDER CLEAN AIR ACT.

Section 302(g) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7602(g)) is amended by adding the following at the end thereof: `The term `air pollutant’ shall not include carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, or sulfur hexafluoride.’.

SEC. 3. CLIMATE CHANGE NOT REGULATED BY CLEAN AIR ACT.

Nothing in the Clean Air Act shall be treated as authorizing or requiring the regulation of climate change or global warming.

So, all those polluting substances? Poof! Not pollutants any more! You have to love the Republican War On Science. Also, notice the dig about climate change. Let’s keep ignoring that and I’m sure it will go away.

This bill’s short title could be the ‘Free Industry From The Burden Of Not Killing Us All Act’.

Underwater on Your Mortgage? GOP Wants to Hold Your Head Under.

The Troubled Assets Relief Program (PDF), passed under Bush, has a section that provides the means for the FHA to provide assistance to homeowners. This can take the shape of reduced interest, reduced principal, or other similar modification.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, on August 6, 2010, issued Mortgagee Letter 2010-23 (PDF). This letter outlined a program by which the FHA could help homeowners who are underwater, or owe more than their home is worth.

On March 26, 2010, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) announced enhancements to the existing Making Home Affordable Program (MHA) and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) refinance program that will give a greater number of responsible borrowers an opportunity to remain in their homes.  These enhancements are designed to maintain homeownership by providing borrowers, who owe more on their mortgage than the value of their home, opportunities to refinance into an affordable FHA loan.  This opportunity allows borrowers who are current on their mortgage to qualify for an FHA refinance loan provided that the lender or investor writes off the unpaid principal balance of the original first lien mortgage by at least 10 percent.

Notice that this is a program for people with acceptable credit who are current on their mortgage and is completely voluntary for the mortgage lenders.

Now, in a move that should surprise no one, the House Republicans today passed H.R. 830 (PDF), which effectively ends the portion of TARP aimed at homeowners as well as the Mortgagee Letter 2010-23. It also prohibits the FHA from creating any similar programs. Then, in the name of deficit-reduction, the bill rescinds the nearly $8 Billion allocated to the program because it hasn’t been spent fast enough.

Losing your house? Fuck you! We have to shave .6% off the deficit!

Fortunately, the Senate won’t pass this bill, and even if they do, Obama will veto it.