Category: Taxes

Drunk on Earmarks: Obey’s $6.9M in ONE Bill!

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Wall Street Journal:

A case in point is the HHS-Education spending bill, which so far contains 1,867 earmarks at a cost of just under $500 million. Members tell us the bill has caused a mini-rebellion because two of the three largest earmarkers are Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who walks away with $7.9 million worth of goodies, and David Obey, the ranking Democrat on Appropriations who receives $6.8 million for his Wisconsin district. This is the same Ms. Pelosi who earlier this session pledged to give up her pork to help balance the budget.

The House GOP leadership finally seems to comprehend the stakes in this pre-election budget fight. Majority Leader John Boehner calls the anti-earmarking bill “must-pass legislation,” and has agreed to separate it from a bottled-up lobbying-reform bill. All that can block this from passing now are the spend-happy Republicans on Appropriations. If they succeed, they will have inflicted a far greater wound on their majority than the Democrats ever could.

I’ve not heard back from Tammy Baldwin regarding her views on earmarks [see “Spreading the Love“].

Robert Reich says earmarks must go:

The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has ballooned to the point there are over 60 of them for every single member of Congress. And they spent $2.4 billion last year. What do you think the lobbyists bought with that money?

A lot of it’s called “earmarks” — special spending that’s stuck into pieces of legislation to benefit particular constituents, like that Alaskan bridge to nowhere in last year’s highway bill, and the special casino licenses that got lobbyist Jack Abramoff into trouble.

Ten years ago there were about 3,000 earmarks. Last year there were over 14,000, costing taxpayers over $47 billion according to the Congressional Research Service.

Last January, after the Jack Abramoff scandal had spread to staffers of former House Whip Tom DeLay and Ohio Republican Bob Ney, and after FBI agents found an unexplained $90,000 cash in the freezer of Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson, and after former California Republican Duke Cunningham pleaded guilty to bribery — after all that — it seemed like the House was so embarrassed it would clean itself up. At least that’s what Speaker Dennis Hastert promised.

Spreading the Love (Pork): Local Federal Earmark Map – Our Politician’s Deficit Spending (and Payback?)

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Sunlight Labs:

There are over 1,800 earmarks in the upcoming Labor HHS Bill, and we don’t know where they came from. Help figure it out, by researching and posting in the comment section on this blog post.

1) Who secured the earmark?
What district is it in? Call the office of the congressperson you think might have secured the earmark and ask them if they are indeed responsible for it. Record whatever answer they give.

Check out Wisconsin’s earmarks from this single congressional bill here. (Enter Wisconsin in the search field and click go). St. Mary’s Hospital will receive $350,000 for “facilities and equipment” while Baraboo’s St. Claire Health Care Foundation will also receive $350,000.00 for “facilities and equipment”. The Boscobel Area Health Center will receive $455,000.00 for facilities and equipment. The Beloit Regional Hospice will receive $100,000 for computerization of medical records while the UW-Whitewater will receive $150,000 for “equipment and technology” for its Living and Learning Center. David Obey’s Wausau area Aspirus Wausau Hospital gets $1.2M for for facilities and equipment.

There are many more. Tammy Baldwin represents the Madison area. Earmarks are a heck of a way to increase deficit spending. I hope we see more “sunlight” on this matter. Sunlight’s National Director is Zephyr Teachout – who directed online organizing for Howard Dean in 2004. Judy Sarasohn has more.


It would be interesting to compare earmarks over time with contributions.
Finally, I sent an email to Tammy Baldwin and Dave Magnum seeking comments on earmarks generally and these items specifically.

UPDATE: Michael Byrne (Research Director – Magnum for Congress) responded:

Our view here exactly. Especially things tacked on in the shadows which is why we liked Paul Ryan’s efforts to force this stuff out in the open. Dave will be speaking about pork through the coming days and will be referencing the record of his opponent who has quite a string of earmarks she’s walked through Congress. Some were completely unnecessary and certainly not well publicized. Others were just vote trolling things that won’t help our district keep itself competitive economically… Thanks for checking in and keep coming back. Mike
=============
Michael E. Byrne
Research Director,
Magnum for Congress
www.davemagnum.com email: byrnex4 _at_ tds.net
Cell: 608.712.5340
FAX: 608.767.2187e
On Aug 17, 2006, at 9:22 AM, Jim Zellmer wrote:
I’m surprised and disappointed in the number and amount of earmarks:
http://www.zmetro.com/archives/005931.php
The projects may or may not have merit, but earmarks are clearly an abuse of the system and simply add to the debt we burden our children with….
Any comments? I’ve sent the same email to Tammy Baldwin
Best wishes,
Jim

I’ll post Tammy’s response as soon as I receive it.

Marketplace (now wonderfully available on Wisconsin Public Radio – Finally!) has more.

Keep in mind this is “one” bill!

The Politics of High Fructose Corn Syrup and Does it Make You Fat?

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Alex Tabarrok:

I don’t know whether High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) acts more like fat than does sugar (compare here and here) but it’s worthwhile pointing out that HFCS is a child of the sugar quota. The import quotas raise the US price of sugar well above the world price (~24 cents per pound compared to ~9 cents per pound) and encourage consumption of HFCS. Reflecting this fact, the main defenders of the sugar quota are no longer Florida sugar growers but rather mid-West corn growers.

The HFCS business is a cartel – prices are the same, change quarterly on the same day and enjoy, as Tabarrok points out, subsidies. Years ago, working in the water and juice industry, I sent a letter to the anti-trust division complaining about this. A lawyer deep in the bowels of the justice department phoned me and said that “as long as Bob Dole is active on this issue, nothing will change”. I assume someone has replaced Dole as a friend to the corn processors.

NOBEL ECONOMIST ROUNDTABLE: ON GLOBAL WARMING AND GLOBAL FINANCIAL IMBALANCE

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New Perspectives Quarterly:

ON GLOBAL FINANCIAL IMBALANCES

Milken: A number of countries around the world — the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Norway, Taiwan — have built up tremendous reserves relative to the size of their country. Most of them have not made the mistake of Japan, where deploying that surplus within the country through, for example superfluous road or bridge construction, caused massive increases in prices in the 1980s.

All in all, there is at least $25 trillion worth of surpluses in the world today that is invested short-term. It is pretty hard to find anything to put a trillion dollars into except U.S. government and private bonds or mortgage-backed securities.

Where do you see this capital being deployed? Do you see it just compounding away, or do you see them following the mode maybe of Singapore where the government is creating its own industrial companies?

What Does $7 Billion in Telco Subsidies Buy?

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Thomas Hazlett:

The “universal service” regime ostensibly extends local phone service to consumers who could not otherwise afford it. To achieve this goal, some $7 billion annually is raised – up from less than $4 billion in 1998 – by taxing telecommunications users. Yet, benefits are largely distributed to shareholders of rural telephone companies, not consumers, and fail – on net – to extend network access. Rather, the incentives created by these subsidies encourage widespread inefficiency and block adoption of advanced technologies – such as wireless, satellite, and Internet-based services – that could provide superior voice and data links at a fraction of the cost of traditional fixed-line networks. Ironically, subsidy payments are rising even as fixed-line phone subscribership falls, and as the emergence of competitive wireless and broadband networks make traditional universal service concepts obsolete. Unless policies are reformed to reflect current market realities, tax increases will continue to undermine the very goals “universal service” is said to advance.

Alex Tabarrok adds:

Guess how much would it cost a farmer to get telephone service in a small rural county far from a major city? Let’s say $800 for satellite service.

Now guess how much the government subsidizes rural phone carriers to provide this service. The answer? As much as $13,000 per line per year.

How Big is the Federal Deficit – Really?

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Citizens for Tax Justice:

n July, the Bush administration estimated that the fiscal 2006 budget deficit, including $174 billion borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund, will be $470 billion. That will bring total federal borrowing over the past five years to $2,449 billion.

That $2.4 trillion in borrowing means that from fiscal 2002 through fiscal 2006, a quarter of non-Social Security federal spending will be financed with borrowed money. In contrast, in fiscal 1999 through 2001, the federal government did not borrow a penny from the Social Security Trust Fund.

Indeed, the government saved all of Social Security’s $434 billion in surpluses, and actually ran surpluses in its regular budget, too, thus paying down the national debt by $120 billion.

Judge Rules a Tax Shelter in KPMG Case Is Legitimate

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Lynnley Browning:

The heart of Judge Ward’s ruling was that the I.R.S.’s retroactive use of tougher Treasury Department rules in 2003 on liabilities like those in Blips was “ineffective” and “not enforceable” because it was retroactive. The Internal Revenue Code generally prohibits retroactive regulations. The I.R.S. said in 2000 that it would formally challenge Blips deductions claimed by taxpayers.

Jerrold Cohen, a lawyer in Atlanta for Mr. Nix and Mr. Patterson, said yesterday that Judge Ward’s ruling showed that “the government isn’t allowed to change the rules just because it doesn’t like the result.”

Great example of the mess that is our tax system. The Opinion (PDF).

Teletruth Letter to the Judge Regarding the SBC/AT&T and Verizon/MCI Mergers

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Teletruth:

Teletruth believes there exists an inherent contradiction in representations of the SBC-AT&T and Verizon-MCI mergers in the complaints and consent decrees filed by the DOJ October 27, 2005.


The complaints note broad competition. For example – “SBC and AT&T compete in the sale of wireline telecommunications services to retail and wholesale customers in the United States.” The complaints note particular concern about Local Private Lines. For example – “the proposed merger is likely to substantially reduce competition for Local Private Lines and telecommunications services that rely on Local Private Lines to those buildings.” The DOJ believes the magnitude of these concerns provides sufficient justification to block the mergers. For example – “that Defendants be permanently enjoined and restrained from carrying out the Agreement and Plan of Merger dated January 30, 2005.”