Big Bucks Help Koch Brothers’ Influence Run Deep on Capitol Hill
 |
We’ve reported on the right-wing extremist billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch from their Palm Springs summit meeting with like-minded CEOs and politicians to their heavy support and influence on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R).
Now a new report from the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) shows the Koch brothers have become some of the biggest spenders on Capitol Hill, where big spenders abound. Since 2008, they have spent more than $40 million, says the CPI report:
to influence federal policy, as the company’s lobbyists and officials sought to mold, gut or kill more than 100 prospective bills or regulations.
Check out these examples from CPI:
- At an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hearing last summer, representatives from Koch Industries argued that moderate levels of the toxic chemical dioxin should not be designated as a cancer risk for humans.
- When members of Congress sought higher security at chemical plants to guard against terrorist attacks, Koch Industries lobbyists prowled Capitol Hill to voice their opposition.
- And when Congress moved to strengthen regulation of the financial markets after recent collapses, Koch Industries—a major commodities and derivatives trader—deployed a phalanx of lobbyists to resist proposed changes.
Wisconsin Blogs Tracking Walker’s Assault
Wisconsin’s progressive bloggers have been working overtime to cover Gov. Scott Walker’s outrageous assault on middle-class jobs, working families and public employees. The assaults are part of a nationwide pattern we’re seeing as newly elected state governors and legislators offer up payback to corporate CEOs who funded their campaigns. Here’s some of the coverage from this weekend:
Blogging Blue
- Concerned about Gov. Walker’s assault on the middle class? Here’s what you can do to help
- Concerned about Gov. Walker’s assault on the middle class? Here’s what you can do to help, part 2
Why it’s important to have strong labor unions
Brew City Brawler
Big Insurance, Pharma, Wall Street and John Boehner
Stacia Haley in Seattle worked all her life and raised a child as a single parent. Yet she has no retirement income other than Social Security.
[Social Security] is all many of us will have, if we live long enough to retire.
Stacia is right. Some 64 percent of America’s retirees rely on Social Security for 50 percent or more of their income.
Yet the man Wall Street wants to make speaker of the House supports raising the retirement age for Social Security, lowering the hammer even more on low- and middle-income Americans, who die earlier than the rich. (And what about that income gap? Well, never mind.)
This is just one of the extreme positions John Boehner holds while he salivates in the wings as House minority leader, angling for a Republican takeover of Congress bought and paid for by corporate America.
Join Tweet-a-Thon and Expose the Chamber of Commerce Friday
 |
||||
|
||||
Get set to join a tweet-a-thon Friday, at 10 a.m. EST, to help launch the #notmychamber campaign spearheaded by the worker advocacy group, American Rights at Work.
If you are on Twitter, starting at 10 a.m., sign the organization’s “Not My Chamber” act.ly petition at http://act.ly/1cc or by tweeting: RT @araw petition @chamberpost: The U.S. #Chamber doesn’t represent me. It’s Not My Chamber! http://act.ly/1cc #notmychamber (RT to sign!)
If you don’t use Twitter (and can understand nary a word of the previous paragraph), you can sign the “Not My Chamber” pledge here: www.notmychamber.org. Already, 20,301 people and 3,102 business owners have signed the pledge.
CEOs Get One-Third of All Pay; Bank of America Uses Taxpayer $$ for Lobbying
 |
|
Two news items out today highlight how far the nation needs to go in re-balancing the economy toward working people.
First, Think Progress points to a Wall Street Journal analysis that shows more than one-third of all pay in the U.S. now goes to executives and other highly-paid employees.
Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total U.S. pay in 2007, the latest figures available. The compensation numbers don’t include incentive stock options, unexercised stock options, unvested restricted stock units and certain benefits.
The Wall Street Journal based its analysis on Social Security Administration data, which doesn’t count billions of dollars more in pay that remain off federal radar screens that measure wages and salaries.
Next, it turns out that Bank of America, which received $45 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout support, has spent more than $1.5 million lobbying on Capitol Hill.
The Charlotte, N.C., company wants flexibility on spending the bailout funds and also wants to fend off restrictions on executive compensation, home mortgage lending and credit card fees. The bank also is lobbying on a consumer rights bill, on student lending issues, on a bill that would’ve allowed bankruptcy judges to alter mortgages and on a proposed federal regulatory oversight agency.
And none of its positions on any of these bills would help working families.
As we noted in April when we released the AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch data, the Bank of America lost nearly $2.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 due to deeper than expected trading and loan losses. Even after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer money, the bank plans to eliminate up to 35,000 jobs over the next three years—but CEO Kenneth Lewis collected nearly $10 million in 2008, more than 400 times the average amount a bank teller is paid each year. Since becoming CEO in April 2001, Lewis received $134 million in pay, bonuses, stock awards and pension accruals.
As Think Progress notes, between 1979 and 2006, the inflation-adjusted after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of households increased by 256 percent, compared with 21 percent for families in the middle income quintile.
While U.S. worker productivity has skyrocketed over the past 30 years, wages have not kept pace.
America’s working middle class made it clear last November that they wanted change—and reshaping the nation’s economic framework to strengthen the middle class and close the wage disparity between the very top and the rest of us, is fundamental to that change.
