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maggie hassan
Corporate America Just Threw A Party Celebrating Tax Cuts For The Ultrarich
The deficit squawks who attend each year seek to reverse the progress we’ve made investing in workers, families, and the economy in order to invest in the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.
Nov 22, 2023
After narrowly avoiding a shutdown for the second time in less than two months, lawmakers have gone home to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday without making sustained investments in the critical programs that empower millions of American families and enable our economy to thrive.
Programs that provide nutritional assistance to women and children or offer housing assistance will face multiple funding cliffs early in the new year because extremists in Congress are only interested in advancing the economic interests of the very rich—and partying with them.
Just hours after avoiding a shutdown, tax policy wonks, lawmakers, and staff, polished their shoes, pressed their tuxedos, and attended “Tax Prom,” an annual fundraiser to support the anti-tax Tax Foundation. The organization is a classic D.C. deficit squawk: it flies its Wall Street coop when big corporations want tax cuts, and screeches when it's time to invest in the rest of us.
Deficit squawks are loudly—and predictably—trying their best to turn back this economic progress by proposing significant cuts to the social programs that help power our economy and constantly bringing the government to the brink of shutdown.
For instance, the organization advocated for Presidents George W. Bush's and Donald Trump's tax cut packages, both of which were disproportionately skewed toward the very rich and large corporations, but lowered overall revenue to just 16.5% of GDP in fiscal year 2023 and caused the national deficit to grow.
On May 17 of this year, Scott Hodge, the organization’s President Emeritus, seized on the growing debt to warn the Senate Budget Committee that "the only sustainable solution to stabilize the debt” isn’t increasing revenue or ensuring the wealthiest among us pay their fair share in taxes – it’s “controlling spending." In other words: cut Medicare, Social Security, and other critical programs working Americans rely on.
Sounds familiar, right?
And while it’s no surprise to see conservative economic luminaries and corporate sponsors from big oil, pharma, and the tax prep industry attending and funding the annual celebration, the Foundation’s ability to attract support from more progressive voices is more alarming.
In past years, the Foundation has honored Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, former Senator Max Baucus, and Rep. Richard Neal. In 2023, it bestowed its distinguished service award on Sen. Maggie Hassan – the first time the Foundation celebrated an elected Democrat for “their efforts to advance sound tax policy” since 2016.
That may not be coincidental, since deficit squawks are building momentum for a new round of policies that benefit the ultrarich.
It comes at a time when our economy, powered by the administration’s hard-fought public investments, continues its record-breaking recovery. Real economic growth was at 4.9 percent last quarter, unemployment is below 4 percent for the 20th straight month, and workers are banding together and demanding more, leading to strong wage growth and a wave of union organizing.
Deficit squawks, meanwhile, are loudly—and predictably—trying their best to turn back this economic progress by proposing significant cuts to the social programs that help power our economy and constantly bringing the government to the brink of shutdown. They’re also ringing the alarm about the nation's growing level of debt and calling for a bipartisan fiscal commission to address the so-called crisis.
Deficit squawks seek to reverse the progress we’ve made investing in workers, families, and the economy in order to invest in the wealthiest Americans and large corporations. It’s clear deficit squawks are stuck in the past, advocating for economic policies that are as unpopular and out of date as pale blue ruffle suits. Elected officials committed to building a modern economy that works for all of us should leave Tax Prom in the past.
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'Big Win for the Rights of Many' as Biden's Pro-Corporate Judicial Nominee Withdraws Name
"A lifetime appointment to the federal bench is perhaps the most privileged seat in our country," said one economic justice advocate. "It shouldn't be handed out like a party favor."
May 18, 2023
Advocates for workers' rights and economic justice were among those applauding on Thursday as Michael Delaney, the former attorney general of New Hampshire, asked U.S. President Joe Biden to withdraw his nomination to join the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, following outcry from progressives regarding his record and his positions on issues including regulation and abortion rights.
Delaney's request came a day after eight progressive groups wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee and asked the panel to block Delaney's nomination.
"Mr. Delaney’s record in private practice, as deputy attorney general for the state of New Hampshire, and as a volunteer member of the New England Legal Foundation's (NELF) board of directors demonstrates a hostility to victims' rights, reproductive rights, employee rights, and government regulation that is unsuitable for the lifetime appointment for which he is being considered," wrote the groups, including Demand Progress, the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), the Revolving Door Project, and the National Employment Law Project.
Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, who both represent New Hampshire, had been pushing their colleagues to support Delaney's confirmation. Unanimous support from all Democrats on the Judiciary Committee is needed to bring the nomination to the Senate floor for a vote, and some members had been hesitant to back Delaney.
"His nomination for a lifetime appointment to a federal appellate court in an age where these groups are under sustained courtroom attacks does not meet the moment."
Democratic lawmakers and rights advocates have particularly objected to Delaney's work defending St. Paul's School when a student filed a civil suit alleging a sexual assault by a classmate.
The elite boarding school requested that the survivor only be given anonymity in the case if she and her legal team met certain terms. The survivor, Chessy Prout,
came forward after the school made the request, and she and her family lobbied aggressively against Delaney's nomination.
"I know Michael Delaney," wrote Prout in The Boston Globe after Delaney's nomination was announced. "After what he did, he doesn't deserve to be a judge."
Delaney has also been under fire since his nomination for signing a brief that defending an abortion restriction in New Hampshire and for his connection to NELF, whose stated mission champions "individual economic liberties, traditional property rights, properly limited government, and inclusive economic growth" as well as "vigorous advocacy of free market principles."
The group filed an amicus brief in 2021 in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, arguing that the EPA's ability to impose emissions regulations to fight the climate crisis should be curtailed.
The eight groups that wrote to the committee on Wednesday focused on Delaney's position on monopoly power. In his response to a question from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) during his confirmation hearings, they noted, Delaney said a threshold of 80% to 95% of market share qualified as a monopolization claim—denoting what Katherine Van Dyck, senior legal counsel at AELP, said was "a firm allegiance to corporate power, and an animosity toward efforts to hold corporations accountable."
As the groups wrote, "This suggests that Mr. Delaney could set a threshold of 80% or more if seated on the 1st Circuit, a position that is inconsistent with federal jurisprudence where a threshold market share is not even a mandatory element of monopolization claims."
"Granting Mr. Delaney a seat on the 1st Circuit would be a gift to opponents of the so-called 'administrative state' and a boon to corporate power," the groups added. "It would pose serious threats to the rights of some of the most disadvantaged members of our economy, from women who cannot obtain reproductive health services to underpaid and overworked laborers. His nomination for a lifetime appointment to a federal appellate court in an age where these groups are under sustained courtroom attacks does not meet the moment."
The withdrawal of Delaney's nomination, said Van Dyck on Thursday, represents "a big win for the rights of many."
\u201cA lifetime appointment to the federal bench is perhaps the most privileged seat in our country. It shouldn't be handed out like a party favor. This was the right result, and I'm confident that we can find a better nominee for the 1st Circ.\u201d— Katie Van Dyck (@Katie Van Dyck) 1684425981
"This was the right result, and I'm confident that we can find a better nominee for the 1st Circuit," Van Dyck added.
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One in Four US Senators Still Hold Fossil Fuel Investments Even as World Burns
Reporting reveals the households of at least 28 senators own a combined minimum of $3.7 million and as much as $12.6 million in fossil fuel assets.
Nov 05, 2021
As President Joe Biden aims to assure the world that the United States will fulfill its promise to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in half from 2005 levels by the end of the decade, a new report published Friday reveals that the members of the U.S. Senate who would have to pass climate legislation are heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry.
Sludgereports the households of at least 28 U.S. senators--in both the Democratic and Republican caucuses--hold a combined minimum of $3.7 million and as much as $12.6 million in fossil fuel investments.
\u201chttps://t.co/xq6EpTwJZM\u201d— Public Citizen (@Public Citizen) 1636147411
According tothe report:
Of the 28 senators, at least 20 hold publicly traded stocks in companies like oil supermajor Chevron, pipeline giant Enterprise Products, or electric utility NextEra that belong to trade associations that are lobbying Congress against taking up strong legislation to curb polluting emissions.
Five senators are invested in energy funds built around oil and gas assets, and three own nonpublic stock in private fossil fuel companies. The investments, held by the senators, their spouse, jointly, or a dependent, are disclosed to the Senate Office of Public Records in very broad ranges and often buried in hundreds of pages of scanned paper forms, making a more precise count of their total value impossible.
At least half a dozen of the senators sit on environment- or climate-related committees. The household of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)--who has worked incessantly to destroy or dilute climate action in the Build Back Better Act and beyond--has received over $1 million in income from Enersystems, a coal brokerage firm the senator founded in the 1980s.
According to Sludge, Manchin "has stripped the Democrats' budget reconciliation bill of major climate programs that would have transitioned coal-fired plants like the one where the company, now run by his son, holds a prime fuel services contract," while the committee he chairs "also added more than $11.3 billion in funding to the bipartisan infrastructure bill that could benefit his family company's niche waste coal industry."
Other Democratic senators whose households are heavily invested in fossil fuels include:
- John Hickenlooper (Col.) holds up to $1 million in investments in Chevron and other polluters;
- Tom Carper (Del.) owns as much as $274,000 in Chevron and Duke Energy shares;
- Gary Peters (Mich.) has up to $355,000 in NextEra, DTE Energy, and Pacific Gas & Electric stock in his portfolio; and
- The wife of Angus King--a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats--owns up to $50,000 worth of NextEra shares.
Earlier this year, Common Dreams reported that six Democratic senators--Manchin, Chris Coons (Del.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), and Jon Tester (Mont.)--have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in combined campaign contributions from fossil fuel corporations, some of which have touted their purported support for climate action, over the past decade.
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