Democrats are behaving like...Democrats

whit said...

If the AIG people are shamed or cajoled into returning the bonuses, that's one thing. But using tax laws to get the money back is unthinkable. Any kind of coercion by the Feds is unacceptable. This is America, dammit, not some banana republic where the tinhorn du jour can run roughshod over whoever he wishes to.

It is scary that so many people from opposite ends of the political spectrum agree on grabbing back the bonuses. The country is going to hell in a rocket ship.

March 18, 2009 politico
House To Vote Tomorrow On Bonus Tax

Democrats will introduce a bill on the House floor tomorrow morning that would apply a 90 percent income tax to bonuses given to employees of companies that have received at least $5 billion in TARP money. This would apply to bonuses paid by AIG, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"We passed a recovery act. We did not pass a license to steal," said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), one of the architects of the bill. "If you won't give the bonuses back, we will tax them back."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who sets the House floor agenda, said at an afternoon press conference that the bill would be voted on tomorrow and that he expects it to pass "in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion."

Hoyer was particularly "outraged" that AIG employees would accept such large bonuses and that the House would be forced to act, especially on the same day the House passed the GIVE Act. That bill will, among other things, increase the number of AmeriCorps volunteers and promote volunteering through college incentives.

"Give it back," Hoyer said. "Give it back to the company and to the people that kept your company alive after your failure to act responsibly. Act responsibly now."

According to a release handed out at the press conference, the bill will apply only to bonus payments received since the beginning of the year and to individuals whose annual income exceeds $250,000.

"This money doesn't belong to AIG," Israel said. "It belongs to the American taxpayer, and we're going to take it back."

Democrats, Obama, Community Organization, Acorn and Your Money

Hat tip: Linearthinker

I guarantee you that if someone explains this connection to the working people of Pennsylvania and Ohio, Barack Hussein Obama will become a footnote in history. Let Sarah Palin do it and keep her in those two states. YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS VIDEO.

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Thousands of voter registration forms faked, officials say

CROWN POINT, Indiana (CNN) -- More than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana's Lake County by a liberal activist group this week have turned out to be bogus, election officials said Thursday.

An official enters the Las Vegas, Nevada, ACORN office, which is under investigation for alleged voter fraud.

The group -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN -- already faces allegations of filing fraudulent voter registrations in Nevada and faces investigations in other states.

And in Lake County, home to the long-depressed steel town of Gary, the bipartisan Elections Board has stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony.

"All the signatures looked exactly the same," Ruthann Hoagland, a Republican on the board. "Everything on the card filled out looks exactly the same."

The forms included registrations submitted in the names of the dead -- and in one case, the name of a fast-food restaurant, Jimmy Johns. Sally LaSota, a Democrat on the board, called the forms fraudulent and said whoever filed them broke the law. Watch how dead people are turning up on voter registration forms »

"ACORN, with its intent, perhaps was good in the beginning, but went awry somewhere," LaSota said.

Over the past four years, a dozen states have investigated complaints of fraudulent registrations filed by ACORN. On Tuesday, Nevada authorities raided an ACORN office in Las Vegas, Nevada, where workers are accused of registering members of the Dallas Cowboys football team. And the group has become the target of Republican attacks on voter fraud, a perennial GOP issue.

A subsidiary of the group was paid $800,000 by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign to register voters for the 2008 primaries, and ACORN's political wing endorsed Obama back in February. But Obama's campaign told CNN that it "is committed to protecting the integrity of the voting process," and said it has not worked with ACORN during the general election.

Brian Mellor, an ACORN attorney in Boston, said the group has its own quality-control process and has fired workers in the past -- including workers in Gary. But he said allegations that his organization committed fraud is a government attempt to keep people disenfranchised. Watch more about this investigation »

"We believe their purpose is to attack ACORN and suppress votes," Mellor said. "We believe that by attacking ACORN, they are going to discourage people that have registered to vote with ACORN from voting."

CNN was unable to reach ACORN officials in Gary and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the group's Indiana operation is based. Offices in both cities were empty when reporters visited.

Lake County elections officials have set aside all 5,000 of the ACORN-submitted applications in what Hoagland called the "fake pile" for later review. But she said every one will be reviewed before the election to make sure no legitimate voters are skipped.

There has been no evidence of voter fraud yet, because voters have yet to go to the polls. But elections officials say they will be sending their information to prosecutors, who will determine whether any investigation will begin.

"We have no idea what the motive behind it is," she said. "It's just overwhelming to us."

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Democrats and the Housing Debacle

The RNC sent me this link.

Dominic Lawson: Democrat fingerprints are all over the financial crisis
The least well off are going to face the most stringent terms for mortgages
Friday, 3 October 2008
Independent

Of all the characteristics of a successful politician, none is more essential than bare-faced cheek. Never has this been more evident than in the past fortnight, as senior Democrat members of the US legislature have sought to lay all the blame for the country's financial crisis on the executive arm of Government and Wall Street.

Neither of these two institutions is blameless – far from it. Yet when I see such senior Democrats as Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Christopher Dodd, Chairman of the Senate's Banking Committee, play the part of avenging angels – well, I can only stand in silent awe at the sheer tight-bottomed nerve of it. These are men with sphincters of steel.

What is the proximate cause of the collapse of confidence in the world's banks? Millions of improvident loans to American housebuyers. Which organisations were on their own responsible for guaranteeing half of this $12 trillion market? Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the so-called Government Sponsored Enterprises which last month were formally nationalised to prevent their immediate and catastrophic collapse. Now, who do you think were among the leading figures blocking all the earlier attempts by President Bush – and other Republicans – to bring these lending behemoths under greater regulatory control? Step forward, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.

In September 2003 the Bush administration launched a measure to bring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under stricter regulatory control, after a report by outside investigators established that they were not adequately hedging against risks and that Fannie Mae in particular had scandalously mis-stated its accounts. In 2006, it was revealed that Fannie Mae had overstated its earnings – to which its senior executives' bonuses were linked – by a stunning $9.3billion. Between 1998 and 2003, Fannie Mae's executive chairman, Franklin Raines, picked up over $90m in bonuses and stock options.

Yet Barney Frank and his chums blocked all Bush's attempts to put a rein on Raines. During the House Financial Services Committee hearing following Bush's initiative, Frank declared: "The more people exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness [at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae], the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially." His colleague on the committee, the California Democrat Maxine Walters, said: "There were nearly a dozen hearings where we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Mr Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and particularly at Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Mr Franklin Raines."

When Mr Raines himself was challenged by the Republican Christopher Shays, to the effect that his ratio of capital to assets (that is, mortgages) of 3 per cent was dangerously low, the Fannie Mae boss retorted that "our assets are so riskless, we could have a capital ratio of under 2 per cent".

Maxine Walters' complaint about previous attempts to bring the great state-sponsored housing finance bodies under stricter control was partly a reference to Bill Clinton's efforts. Last week the former President acknowledged that "responsibility" for the absence of proper regulation rested "with Democrats who were resisting any efforts of Republicans in Congress, and earlier when I was President and tried to impose tighter standards on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac". Then, as now, members of his own party saw all such initiatives as unwonted attacks on the chances for low-earners, and particularly African-Americans, to own their own homes.

From its inception in 1938 Fannie Mae (and later Freddie Mac) was designed to make housing finance available to "ordinary Americans". This was a noble aim. In the 1970s another Democrat President, Jimmy Carter, introduced legislation which demanded that such bodies enhance their lending to minorities. Again, this was based on a noble idea: to stamp out racism in the mortgage market. Thus by 1998 you had the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston producing a document entitled "Closing the Gap: a Guide to Equal Opportunities Lending", which instructed banks that an applicant's "lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor" in obtaining a mortgage. As Stephen Malanga of the Manhatta *Institute notes: "Of course the new federal standards couldn't just apply to minorities. If they could pay back loans under these terms, then so could the majority of loan applicants. Quickly, these became the new standards in the industry. As the housing market boomed, banks embraced these new standards with a vengeance. Between 2004 and 2007, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became the biggest purchasers of subprime mortgages from all kinds of applicants, white and minority, and most of these loans were based on lending standards promoted by the Government."

One of the few journalists to see where this would lead was Jeff Jacoby, of the Boston Globe. Last week he reminded his readers what he had written in 1995: "Our banks are knowingly approving risky loans to get the feds and the activists off their backs... When the coming wave of foreclosures rolls through the inner city, which of today's self-congratulating bankers, politicians and regulators plans to take the credit?". Jacoby adds now: "Barney Frank doesn't. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco."

It's true that the improvident lending was not initiated by Fannie and Freddie: their role in this was to buy these loans and sell them on – but then the music stopped. Cynical students of the American political system will note that the biggest recipient of campaign contributions from the munificent duo of Fannie and Freddie over the past 20 years was one Christopher Dodd, Democrat Chairman of the Senate's Banking Committee.

Rather surprisingly, given that he has only been in the Senate for four of those years, the second biggest beneficiary was Barack Obama. In August the Washington Post reported that Obama's presidential campaign team had sought the advice of Franklin Raines "on mortgage and housing policy matters". Perhaps Mr Obama's team just wanted to know where all the bodies are buried – there are rather a lot of them.

The saddest outcome of all this within America – apart from the crippling cost to the nation's taxpayers – is that the very people the Democrats had intended to help will be the biggest victims: for many years to come banks will demand the most stringent terms for mortgages to the least well off.

In the meantime, let us praise Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, who confessed this week: "Like a lot of my Democrat colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised. I wish my Democrat colleagues would admit that we were wrong." I fear Congressman Davis will not go far with this attitude – but at least he will be able to look at himself in the mirror.

d.lawson@independent.co.uk

Killing the Golden Goose

It is hard to believe that these three mediocre people, Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) would have so much power over the health and wealth of the US economy, but it is true. Plan accordingly.

Democrats Propose New Tax Rate on Investment Funds
By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
June 22, 2007; 5:01 p.m. ET

Top House Democrats today introduced wide-ranging legislation that would more than double the tax rate that private equity firms, venture capital funds and many hedge funds pay on their gains.

The proposed legislation would cause the most comprehensive change to the capital gains tax law in decades. It was authored by Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) and introduced by Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

The bill was introduced on the first day of trading of private equity giant Blackstone. Its IPO was one of the reasons Congress became interested in examining how such firms are taxed.

The IPO became one of the richest in Wall Street history this morning when it began trading about 18 percent above its offering price of $31 per share. Late in the afternoon, the stock was holding onto those gains and was trading just shy of $36 per share.

In a statement, Levin said the proposed legislation "would ensure that investment fund managers who take a share of the funds' profits as compensation for investment management services, known as 'carried interest,' would be taxed at an appropriate ordinary income tax rate."

It said that because of their funds' partnership structure, the managers of private investment partnerships currently are able to receive compensation for these services at the 15 percent capital gains tax rate rather than the ordinary income tax rate of 35 percent.

"Congress must ensure that our tax code is fair," Levin said. "We have to be sure that the lower capital gains tax rate is not being inappropriately substituted for the tax rate on wages and earnings."

He added, "Investment fund employees should not pay a lower rate of tax on their compensation for services than other Americans. These investment managers are being paid to provide a service to their limited partners, and fairness requires they be taxed at the rates applicable to service income just as any other American worker."

The bill would not affect members of partnerships who invest their own money, and fund managers who did so would continue to pay the 15 percent capital gains tax rate on their own profits, Levin said.

"The capital gains rate will continue to apply to the extent that the managers' income represents a reasonable return on capital they have actually invested in the partnership," said the statement issued by Levin's office.

The proposed legislation represents the first comprehensive measure to raise rates on the tax treatment for all hedge funds and buyout firms, which have drawn congressional attention because of billion-dollar paydays for fund managers, Bloomberg news service reported.

Lawmakers are targeting carried interest as part of a broader examination of how hedge funds and buyout firms are taxed. Informal estimates show that taxing carried interest at the same rate as salaries may generate at least $4 billion a year in additional taxes, Bloomberg said.

Unions have increasingly criticized the tax treatment of carried interest as buyout firms acquire more companies, putting jobs at risk, the news service said.

"What we're talking about is making the tax system more fair and equitable and transparent to Americans," said Dan Pedrotty, director of the office of investment at the ALF-CIO, the largest U.S. labor federation.

However, the bill has come under sharp criticism from fund managers and trade groups, Bloomberg reported.

"Congress is just looking for an easy target to shake down and raise some more taxes," said Bill Burnham, managing general partner of Inductive Capital LP, a Menlo Park, Calif., hedge fund.

A separate, narrower bill in the Senate that would force hedge funds and buyout firms that go public, such as Blackstone, to pay taxes at corporate rates as high as 35 percent instead of their current rates as partnerships. Individual partners now pay taxes as low as 15 percent on their share of income.

Staff writer William Branigin contributed to this report.

The Democrats are back and...

...is it possible that the Democrats are actually worse than I remembered? That does not mean the Republicans are a box of chocolates, but golly gee whiz one afternoon of c-span and one does come to some very scary conclusions. First, Nancy Pelosi believes in whatever she says. There is no cynicism or even a smirk. She is a convicted believer.

Second, the Democrats are very inclusive. They are highly represented by the Congressional Black Caucus. Now, to belong to that august body you need only be black and obviously to get elected from their districts, that is also the only qualification.

The Democrats are in white knuckle terror over the Black Caucus. Just look at The House Democratic Caucus who gave Rep. William Jefferson, D-Louisiana, a seat on the House Homeland Security Committee. This comes after the Republican controlled caucus stripped Jefferson of his seat on the powerful Ways and Means committee last June. You will recall that Jefferson thought his freezer was a bank deposit box and he hid fifty thousand next to the frozen gumbo.

These Dems don't believe in segregation.

There are some real dopes there, but then when you get to a lot of the white non-caucus dems, many with real nice hair, they get dumber. I do not think John Murtha is dumb but he needs to get hold of his emotions.

So not to give the impression that I am not inclusive, I am beginning to like Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangell. They speak with conviction especially Charlie, and Charlie is one dapper dresser. I do have some visual prejudices. I cannot get past the face of Henry Waxman to even concentrate on his nonsense.

As to the new breed of freshman Democrats, the war veterans included, not a spit of difference between them and any of the hacks of elections past. The entire spectrum of the Democratic rainbow is various shades of puce.


Had the Republicans governed like Republicans instead of the greedy pigs at the trough they were, and had George W. spent more time in the office instead of the gym, this may not have happened. History will not remember he had nice pecs.

Here is what the unionleader.com
has to say :

Sapping the surge: Dems set their deadline

Well, after complaining that President Bush second-guessed the generals in Iraq, House Democrats second-guessed the very general their Senate colleagues overwhelmingly approved just two months ago.

On Friday, the House passed by only six votes (218 to 212) an emergency Iraq war spending bill that requires withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by August of next year. That's exactly the type of arbitrary deadline Gen. David Petraeus has said would be counterproductive. But never mind what the general in charge thinks, the House has to embarrass Bush. Priorities, priorities.

What was the significance of August 2008? There was none. It was just a date to put on a calendar. As First District Rep. Carol Shea-Porter said, "I signed on because this bill had a date on it."

What date? Didn't matter. Any date would do.

That is wholly irresponsible. But don't take our word for it. Sen. Barack Obama said so. Well, at least he did last summer, when he voted against Sen. John Kerry's plan for pulling out of Iraq by this July, saying an "arbitrary deadline" could make the situation worse. Now he's all for an arbitrary deadline. Gotta get that anti-war vote.

Opponents of the war keep saying that there is "no military solution" in Iraq. Well guess what? President Bush has said that all along. That's why he focused on creating an Iraqi constitution and getting a representative government elected. And that is why his troop surge is being implemented alongside a push to bring warring factions together to stop the fighting.

But what Bush recognizes is that there is no political solution without a military presence. At least not for now. And unless the Democrats have a crystal ball, there's no way they can know that the situation will change by the time they call for the troops to leave.

Besides all that, the House is meddling in the affairs of the executive branch. If House Democrats want to end the war, they can vote to defund it on whatever date they want. But they cannot otherwise dictate the behavior of troops in the field. That is the job of the commander in chief. Our Founding Fathers rightly ensured that there would be only one commander in chief, not 535. The Democrats, as usual, are ignoring the Constitution to do what they think will win them more votes.

That's no way to run a war, or a country.