Today's Teamster News 08.26.12

CBO: Ending High-Income Tax Cuts Would Save Almost $1 Trillion  Off the Charts   ...The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) new report shows that allowing President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 income tax cuts on income over $250,000 to expire on schedule at the end of 2012 would save $823 billion in revenue and $127 billion on interest on the nation’s debt, compared to permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts...
How Voter Suppression Endangers our Democratic Process  policymic   ...Despite virtually no evidence of voter fraud, states all across America continue to enact voter “reform” legislation. Since 2011, 17 states have passed voter reform measures. Not surprisingly, 15 of these states are either solid red/Republican or toss-ups...
Cal State thaws admission freeze for nonresidents  Los Angeles Times   ...Some campus leaders criticize plans to admit higher-paying out-of-state and international students while barring California residents...
So, Mitt, what do you really believe?  The Economist   ...Too much about the Republican candidate for the presidency is far too mysterious...
Ryan's Medicare Cuts Would Hurt Wisconsin and America's Seniors  Huffington Post   ...As Ryan attempts to dismantle Medicare as we know it, he is trying to distract attention from his plan by falsely claiming that Obama is the one who is cutting Medicare...
Pendleton, Teamsters at odds on pact  Buffalo News   ...The Town Board rejected recommendations made by the New York State Public Employment Relations Board, insisting that extreme changes must be made to the old agreement to remain on budget...

Remember in November: GOP reps voted for tax cuts for the 2%

The House of Representatives voted down a bill today that would raise taxes on the top 2 percent while keeping them at their current level for the rest of us. Instead, led by Republicans, they voted to extend tax cuts for the wealthy.

Every single Republican but one (Tim Johnson from Illinois) voted FOR tax cuts for the wealthy. Nineteen Democrats voted with them.

Credo Action is outraged:

...the very same politicians who are pleading poverty and yelling the loudest about the need to make brutal budget cuts had no problem voting to give away more tax breaks to the rich and the ultra-rich. 

There is very little that so clearly demonstrates what's broken in Congress than those simultaneously demanding to give the Koch brothers a tax cut while pushing benefit cuts to programs like Social Security and Medicare.

You can sign their petition thanking the members of Congress who voted to end the Bush tax cuts, and asking them to oppose any deficit deal that prevents the tax cuts from expiring as scheduled at the end of the year. Just click here.

Remember in November: Who voted against the middle-class tax cut

Yesterday the Senate voted 51-48 to extend the Bush tax cuts for the bottom 98 percent and let them expire for the richest 2 percent of Americans.

If any of those 48 represent you, remember that in November.

Here are the senators who voted against your interests:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN); Kelly Ayotte (R-NH); John Barrasso (R-WY); Roy Blunt (R-MO); John Boozman (R-AR); Scott Brown (R-MA); Richard Burr (R-NC); Saxby Chambliss (R-GA); Dan Coats (R-IN); Tom Coburn (R-OK); Thad Cochran (R-MS); Susan Collins (R-ME); Bob Corker (R-TN); John Cornyn (R-TX); Mike Crapo (R-ID); Jim DeMint (R-SC); Mike Enzi (R-WY); Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Chuck Grassley (R-IA); Orrin Hatch (R-UT); Dean Heller (R-NV); John Hoeven (R-ND); Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX); Dan Inhofe (R-OK); Johnny Isakson (R-GA); Mike Johanns (R-NE); Ron Johnson (R-WI); John Kyl (R-AZ); Mike Lee (R-UT); Joe Lieberman (ID-CT); Richard Lugar (R-IN); John McCain (R-AZ); Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Jerry Moran (R-KS); Lisa Murkowski (R-AK); Rand Paul (R-KY); Rob Portman (R-OH); James Risch (R-ID); Pat Roberts (R-KS); Marco Rubio (R-FL); Jeff Sessions (R-AL); Richard Shelby (R-AL); Olympia Snowe (R-ME); John Thune (R-SD); Pat Toomey (R-PA); David Vitter (R-LA); Jim Webb (D-VA); Roger Wicker (R-MS).

November is a long time to wait, but you can write your senators and tell them how you feel about their vote here.

Next week the House of Representatives will vote on similar legislation. Call your representative and tell him or her how to vote. (Find your representative here.)

Today's Teamster News 07.26.12

Senate passes bill to keep tax cuts for the middle class  Washington Post   ...The Senate on Wednesday narrowly approved a plan to preserve tax cuts for the middle class while letting them expire for the wealthy, a powerful if largely symbolic victory for Democrats who have been pushing to raise taxes on the rich for more than a decade...
Reliance on imports leaves U.S. vulnerable to disasters, report says  Washington Post   ...The report, which (former homeland security secretary Tom) Ridge shared with homeland security officials Tuesday morning, warns that the offshoring of U.S. factories means that rebounding from a catastrophe will be more difficult because so many critical supplies would have to come from overseas...
Public pension funds to face calls to set realistic targets  Reuters   ...At least three of the nation's largest U.S. public pension funds have already announced returns of between 1 percent and 1.8 percent, far below the 8 percent that large funds have typically targeted...
Wisconsin second worst in construction job losses  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...the employment is likely to remain flat or shrink if federal and state officials continue to pull back on large infrastructure projects, Simonson said...
Waste Management drivers strike; trash, recycling collection halted  Seattle TImes   ...Garbage, recycling and yard-waste pickup for most of Waste Management's 220,000 customers in King and South Snohomish counties stopped Wednesday when Teamsters went on strike against the region's largest refuse service over wage and benefits issues...
McKesson Shareholders Back Teamsters' Call For Independent Chairman - Quick Fact  Nasdaq   ...McKesson investors have been concerned with board oversight since 1999, when the company was the center of an accounting fraud that resulted in a single day loss of $9 billion of shareholder value and paid out nearly $1 billion in shareholder lawsuit settlements...

Woo-hoo! Senate extends tax cuts for bottom 98%

Now it's up to the House of Representatives to go along. 

Here's what happened late this afternoon: The Senate rejected the Republican amendment to extend the Bush tax cuts to everyone by a vote of 45-54. The plan, according to ThinkProgress. would have extended all of the Bush tax cuts — including those on income of more than $250,000 — while eliminating tax credits that help 20 million working families.

Then the Senate voted FOR the Democratic plan that keeps the tax cuts for households earning less than $250,000 a year -- the 98 percent. Reports the Wall Street Journal:

Not one Republican voted for the one-year, $250 billion measure. Sens. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.), Jon Tester (D., Mont.) and Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) voted with their party, in spite of pressure to break with Mr. Obama ahead of competitive re-election races.

For those tax cuts to take effect, the House of Representatives now has to approve the Senate proposal.

Here's what President Obama had to say about it:

House Republicans are now the only people left in Washington holding hostage the middle-class tax cuts for 98% of Americans and nearly every small business owner.  The last thing a typical middle class family can afford is a $2,200 tax hike at the beginning of next year.  It’s time for House Republicans to drop their demand for another $1 trillion giveaway to the wealthiest Americans and give our families and small businesses the financial security and certainty that they need.  Our economy isn’t built from the top-down, it’s built from a strong and growing middle class, and that’s who we should be fighting for. 

Senate vote delayed on Bush tax cuts

We hear there's all kinds of scrambling going on in the Senate. The 2:15 vote has been postponed to 4 pm and reports of deals and compromises are surfacing.

Our latest understanding is that the Senate will conduct votes on the competing Republican and Democratic tax cut proposals to extend 2001, 2003, and 2009 tax cuts.  The Republican bill would temporarily extend tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, provide for temporary alternative minimum tax relief and extend increased expensing limitations. There's more in the fine print, we expect.

The Democratic proposal is S. 3412, President Obama's proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts for the bottom 98 percent of Americans. But it looks as if it may be amended.

Put simply by @NHAFLCIO,

US Senate will vote on Dem plan to extend Bush tax cuts for middle Americans & R plan to extend tax cuts for billionaires @ 4 p.m. #1u 

Stay tuned. We'll keep you posted.  

End Bush tax cuts for top 2%. Call 888-744-9958.

That's right, call that number right away and tell your senators to vote against extending the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans. The Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the bill at 2:15 EDT today.

The bill would extend tax relief for 98 percent of U.S. taxpayers but end them for people with household income of more than 250,000.

Because of the Senate rules, 60 votes are required to bring the bill to a final vote. Make your senators feel the heat!

The entire concept of "trickle-down economics" is rejected by every credible economist in the country. As Bloomberg reported today,

How about the oft-cited Republican claim that tax cuts will boost the economy so much that they will pay for themselves? It’s an idea born as a sketch on a restaurant napkin by conservative economist Art Laffer. Perhaps when the top tax rate was 91 percent, the idea was plausible. Today, it’s a fantasy. The Booth poll couldn’t find a single economist who believed that cutting taxes today will lead to higher government revenue -- even if we lower only the toptax rate.

Now make the call.

Today's Teamster News 07.25.12

The U.S. Economic Policy Debate Is a Sham  Bloomberg   ...The debate in Washington has become completely unmoored from this consensus, and in a particular direction: Angry Republicans have pushed their representatives to adopt positions that are at odds with the best of modern economic thinking. That may be good politics, but it’s terrible policy...
White House warns of $1,600 tax hike on 114M middle-class families  The Hill   ...The Democrat-controlled Senate is expected to vote this week on legislation to extend tax rates only on those with annual income up to $250,000. Senate Republicans are pressing for a separate vote to extend all of the tax rates...
China Continues Push to Control North American Energy  Economy in Crisis   ...A Chinese oil company has purchased  Canadian firm Nexen Inc. for $15.1 billion in cash, expanding China’s ever growing presence in the North American energy market. This deal, if approved, will give the Chinese firm CNOOC Ltd access to oil drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as shale oil reserves in British Columbia...
Ahead Of Voter ID Trial, Pennsylvania Admits There’s No In-Person Voter Fraud  TPMMuckraker   ...The state signed a stipulation agreement with lawyers for the plaintiffs which acknowledges there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states...”
Marijuana Dispensaries Banned in L.A. Per City Council Vote  LA Weekly   ... No more weed retailers in the pot shop capital of the nation. Maybe...
Cronyism and Corruption Define Walker’s Reign  The Progressive   ... Start tugging at a thread in that story and the whole tapestry of corporate domination of state policy starts to unravel. It leads everywhere: From the recently awarded federal waiver of the No Child Left Behind law to the imposition of more and more standardized testing in schools; from the initiative to orient K-12 curriculum away from the needs of children and toward needs of employers to the practical elimination of teachers’ unions and catastrophic cuts to education budgets...

Senate to vote on Bush tax cuts tomorrow!

This just in: The Senate will vote tomorrow on extending the Bush tax cuts for the bottom 98 percent of  Americans. Taxes for the top 2 percent would rise.

The Teamsters signed on to a letter along with 130 other organizations asking the Senate to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. It reads, in part:

It is time to begin to restore some basic fairness to our tax system. 

Ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans, households with incomes over $250,000, is simply asking them to pay their fair share. Americans admire financial success, but over the last decade wealthy Americans were enriched even further by substantial tax breaks while millions of other Americans saw their wages drop in real terms. The gap between the richest households and everyone else in the U.S has widened to historically high levels.

Read the whole thing here. And call your senators to tell them to vote against extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent. Dial 888-744-9958.

End the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%

President Obama wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and end them for the rest. That would save working families $1 trillion in taxes.

The U.S. Senate will vote this week on Obama's proposal. The House most likely will vote the week after that. If the proposal fails, taxes will rise by $2,200 for a typical middle class family of four.

You can call your senators and representatives and tell them to end the Bush tax cuts for households making more than $250,000 a year. If you're not sure who your representatives are, go here.

Then call 888-744-9958, ask for your representative and tell him or her to vote for ending the tax breaks for the top 2 percent.