This week, Apple CEO Tim Cook was questioned in a Congressional Hearing about his company’s complex scheme to avoid paying taxes. According to Mr. Cook, the company’s stash of billions of dollars in overseas shell corporations was not tax dodging – it was ingenuity. And, just in case anyone actually fell for the tech company’s creative explanation, Mark Gongloff of the Huffington Post shared an incredible chart, which illustrates exactly how unjust our nation’s tax system has really become.
Another aging highway bridge falls, cars and people in the water… This problem was well-known and urgent years ago! But Republicans block it, saying fixing our infrastructure is “more government spending.” Fixing our infrastructure is also jobs and economic growth. And after you fix or build a bridge you have the bridge. A continuing seriesRead [...]
On Tuesday, a “sinkhole” suddenly sank in Washington D.C. three blocks from the White House. Not a metaphor, but a massive hole in the road as “long as a Ford Explorer,” double the width of a train car and 17 feet deep. The asphalt eroded around a metal plate covering potholes in the street and [...]
The upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is using a process that is rigged from the start. It is not being negotiated by governments for the benefit of their people, it is being negotiated by executives (or future executives/lobbyists currently in government) largely for the benefit of the giant corporations they serve. The process has these [...]
As I noted in my previous post, even before the winds died down in his home state, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn insisted that additional disaster relief approved by Congress must be “paid for” by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. Coburn even defended his insistence on further slashing the federal budget to pay for [...]
Yes, they’re already on it. I wrote about this building pseudo-scandal the other day, and it appears it’s gaining steam. I noticed that on Fox yesterday it came up several times as “yet another case of the Obama administration shaking down private industry.” When I first read about it, the suggestion was that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was appealing to insurance companies rather than trying to find corporate sponsors for the purpose of educating the public about Obamacare, which is slightly different, but still not particularly scandalous.
After all, if the congress would agree to fund the outreach as any sane government would do for a big new government program, this wouldn’t be necessary. But naturally, they are trying to make it fail so they don’t want the public to be informed of what the new benefits are and what they need to do to get enrolled in insurance and obtain the subsidies.
Republicans have been eager to blame the sequester on President Obama, and complain when certain cuts affect their districts. But beyond proposing robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul solutions for things like protecting air traffic controllers, what do Republican want to do about the sequester cuts? Cut more. The AP reports: Republicans controlling the House pressed ahead Tuesday with slashing [...]
On Monday afternoon 27 people were arrested in front of the Department of Justice and put behind bars. Their crime: Being sick and tired of Washington bailing out banks while there is no bailout for those among the other 99 percent of the country who are drowning in underwater mortgages. Almost 500 activists from the [...]
For over a week, Republicans have refused to focus on anything but so-called scandal. And, it turns out, that’s exactly the way they want it. On Thursday, the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, sent a letter to GOP leaders, and told them to avoid working on any legislation that could take the focus off of the Obama Administration.
The “Apple hearing” is underway (Go Sen. Levin!!) with Apple CEO Tim Cook explaining why Apple “can’t” bring back over $100 billion they have parked outside the country because they would have to pay the taxes they owe. Senator after senator is explaining that our tax rate is not “competitive.” Not sure what this really [...]
