By Carter Bundy
Round 1: foreign agribusiness vs. hungry kids
Congressional Republicans did something quite amazing during this week’s farm bill debate: They advocated letting foreign multinationals pay almost no tax on earnings from farming in
Here’s how the Delta Farm Press (required reading if there ever was) described the battle:
“(Foreign agribusiness) lobbyists also became concerned about the House leadership’s inclusion of a proposal to raise $7.8 billion by ending a practice that allows foreign-owned companies operating in the
“The Bush administration also threatened a veto because of what it and Republican members termed a tax increase.
“Democrats seemed happy to be able to cast Republicans in the position of defending what the former called loopholes in the tax laws that allowed foreign-based corporations to essentially pay no
“In a press conference following the vote on July 27, Peterson said Democrats were more interested in helping feed children than in protecting profits of multi-national corporations.”
Exactly. In this corner, weighing in at a hefty 11,000 pounds, wearing red trunks with gray skin, and sporting a big, long trunk: Chinese-based and European-based agribusiness conglomerates.
In the other corner, weighing a meager 570 pounds, wearing blue trunks with brown, splotchy fur, and sporting thin, floppy ears: hungry poor kids and domestic energy programs.
Who are you rooting for?
Round 2: IBM vs. taxpayers (oh yeah, kids too)
Another major battle in the farm bill is whether food-stamp programs will be privatized all across
Phrases like “crony capitalism” get thrown around a lot, but this is the heart of it. IBM even threatened to close their regular
How is that an efficient use of taxpayer dollars? How is that honest government? The answer is that it’s not.
How did it happen? Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was W’s budget chief for several years – the years when we went from swimming in surpluses to drowning in deficits. So it goes without saying that Mitch isn’t interested in fiscal responsibility.
But who else is Mitch? A guy who has taken millions in contributions from companies like IBM who hope to make a profit off taxpayers by getting sweetheart deals.
I don’t care what party you are – that’s as wrong as former Celtic star Kevin McHale trading T-Wolves franchise player Kevin Garnett to… the Celtics (as a Knicks fan, I’m particularly bitter about this. Ugh.)
Even Tejas kinda gets it
Peter Harkness, the editor of Governing.com, discussed
“Texas just backtracked drastically on an ambitious plan to hand over most of the responsibility for running social-services programs in the state after a consortium of contractors began making embarrassing mistakes like taking away subsidized health insurance from 27,000 children,” he wrote.
When even Texas – yeah, the home of Karl Rove and Enron – thinks corporate control of food stamps and Medicaid has gone too far, hey, isn’t that like Michael Vick admitting that maybe PETA isn’t so bad after all?
Fortunately, House Dems are facing down the IBM/Lockheed Martin/Accenture scam by re-affirming a decades-old rule that food-stamp determinations can’t be outsourced.
This week, Dems are showing they still have the potential greatness within them to be the party of regular working folks and taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the GOP showed Smithers-like eagerness to throw both taxpayers and poor kids under the bus to make Monty Burns a few extra bucks.
Round 3: pay discrimination revisited
Remember the Supreme Court’s outlandish 5-4 decision to gut employment discrimination laws? It’s archived as my second article on this blog. House Dems just voted to restore those laws. Score one for the good guys.
Care to guess whether Heather or Steve was one of the 225 votes against discrimination? Some things never change. Care to guess how Tom voted? Republicrats? Please.
Corporate cluster of the week
Let me make this clear: I’m not anti-capitalism. I think there are tremendous merits to a competitive private sector.
But insider corporate tax loopholes, sweetheart no-bid contract deals and discrimination based on gender and race aren’t exactly competitive capitalism. You can root for the House Dems and still support real competitive capitalism.
As a tribute to this week’s battle against the total sell-out of
The inaugural loser? 1-800-Flowers. Two days late for both Mothers’ Day and mom’s birthday? In the same year? Sheesh, the Super Bowls of flower-giving, and these guys make the Buffalo Bills look absolutely clutch. Now that’s a cluster.
Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in