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.

Charter school billionaire charged with massive fraud

Don't forget union-busting.

As the blogger Atrios says, we'll find out soon what happens when all the public schools are shut down and all the charter school owners go to jail.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported yesterday,

A charter school mogul was charged today in a multimillion-dollar fraud case by the U.S. Attorney's Office. 

Dorothy June Hairston Brown, who received accolades for students' test scores and gained notoriety for collecting large salaries and suing parents who questioned her actions, was indicted on multiple counts of wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering. 

Brown, 75, and four executives from her charter schools, were charged with defrauding three charter schools of more than $6.5 million in taxpayer funds. 

U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger announced that a federal grand jury had returned a 62-count indictment against Brown and four of her trusted employees.

David Love nailed it in firedoglake:

...corporate education reform is big business.  And the rightwing, plutocratic agenda— of school privatization, government austerity measures and deunionization— clashes with the needs of poor, working class, and disproportionately black and brown public school students.

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.

Bring Jobs Home, Part II

We're bummed that the Bring Jobs Home Act failed in the Senate last week, but we're happy to learn about another bill that will come to the floor. It would force companies to disclose if they’ve moved call centers overseas -- and if they did, they couldn't get federal funding (such as grants and loans).

Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania introduced the bill and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio cosponsored it. Here's a statement from Sen. Casey's office about the bill:

Thousands of call center jobs have been relocated overseas. Senator Casey’s legislation will fight this trend by preventing companies from taking taxpayer money only to turn around and cut jobs in the United States. 

“Companies that outsource their call centers overseas shouldn’t see the benefits of government grants and loans,” Senator Casey said. “Keeping call center jobs in Pennsylvania is good for our workers and our economy, and my bill will send a clear signal that outsourcing jobs will not be rewarded.” 

Specifically, Senator Casey’s bill would:

• Make businesses that move call center jobs overseas ineligible for federal grants or loans;
• Direct the Department of Labor to make a public list of such companies; Employers remain on list for three years after each relocation; and,
• Require agencies, including Department of Defense, to give preference to U.S. employers that do not appear on the list.

We'll keep you posted on the bill's progress.  

Teamsters mobilizing for August 10-11 Philly rally

Pennsylvania Teamsters will join thousands of workers and labor advocates as they converge on Philadelphia next month for the “Workers Stand for America” mobilization. And at least two tractor-trailers from Locals 107 and 776 will be on hand to demonstrate Teamster power at the demonstrations.

The rallies, which we blogged about yesterday, will bring tens of thousands of workers from around the country together to demand a Second Bill of Rights for workers in America. Included among these rights are the right to full employment, a living wage and a voice at work.

There will be two protests as part of the Workers Stand for America action. A rally on Friday August 10 will feature speakers from the Philadelphia AFL-CIO and Building Trades and John Dougherty from IBEW 89. A reception will be held at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown Hotel later in the evening. The main rally kicks off at 11 am on Saturday August 11 and will take place at Eakins Oval by the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Teamster locals in Pennsylvania, along with Joint Council 53 and the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters, are encouraging members to participate in this historic mobilization to push back against corporate greed and win economic justice for workers.

As the war on workers continues to undermine the livelihoods of middle class families around the country, a demonstration like this couldn’t be more urgent.

We've got to stand and fight. Otherwise, corporate America and their politician servants will not end the war on workers.

Click here to sign the Second Bill of Rights. And for more information on the Workers Stand for America action, contact Teamsters Joint Council 53 at teamstersc53@yahoo.com or the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters at pateamsters@verizon.net

Let’s bring Teamster Power to the streets of Philly!

-- Union Thug