Beware of Professional Politicians Accusing their Opponents of Being A "Professional Politician"

I once knew a state representative in Lynn, MA who came up with a winning slogan: "Tim Bassett Is A Lousy Politician".  As I recall, the  Lynn lawmaker used the phrase to win  a term or two or three up on Beacon Hill giving  meaning to the use of irony in politics.

That same claim has been resurrected over and over again at every level and every year since I first heard it.

In presidential politics this year Mitt Romney, the former Governor of MA, the  former nominee for U.S. Senate and 2008 presidential contender, is using the line again, having accused his GOP opponents of being "professional politicians" in a recent speech. Shameless.

In New Britain, Mayoral Nominee Tim O'Brien's primary opponent, a multi-term alderman and office seeker, labeled himself the "people's advocate, not professional politician!!!"  Shameless again.

Most voters easily dismiss the "professional politician" charge because it always comes from a professional politician trying to deflect attention from issues and their own credentials.   The use of the tag line, however, is just another way of putting down the pursuit of politics and public service -- a meaningless phrase that further contributes to voter apathy and indifference.
And what's wrong with voting for a professional politician? He or she may know what their doing when they attain public office.

Op-Ed: CEOs Rewarded for Corporate Tax Dodging

Other Words Op-Ed: Week of September 5-13 CEOs Rewarded for Corporate Tax Dodging by Chuck Collins

For an elite group of American CEOs, sacrifice is for chumps.

As the nation struggles with budgetary constraints, Congress has exempted a group of imperial CEOs and their companies from contributing to the solution.

High Wire CEO  by Khalil Brendib  www.otherwords.org

One special group of CEOs enjoys huge compensation packages while presiding over companies that pay little or no taxes. Twenty-five companies paid their CEOs more last year than they paid in U.S. corporate taxes, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies that I co-authored.

Instead of building better products or providing superior customer service, they spend millions to lobby Congress to change the tax laws so they don't have to pay.

The ranks of these profitable tax dodgers include Honeywell, General Electric, Verizon, eBay, International Paper, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Ford Motor, and Qwest Communications.

John Lundgren, the CEO of toolmaker Stanley Black and Decker, got a 234 percent pay hike in 2010, bringing his compensation to $32.6 million. Meanwhile the company is shedding thousands of jobs and moving more operations and profits offshore. They have 50 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens. Instead of paying taxes, they collected a $75 million refund.

Twenty of these 25 companies spent more money lobbying than they paid in taxes. When confronted by their tax dodging, their PR flaks complain, "We are just obeying the law." Last year, these 25 companies spent $150 million to influence the law, through lobbying and campaign expenditures.

These companies win gold medals in accounting gymnastics, using subsidiaries in low- or no-tax countries to avoid their tax obligations. Here's how the game works: A corporation pretends its profits are earned in offshore subsidiaries while its losses are incurred in the United States. At tax time, these corporations report to Uncle Sam that all they have are losses. Together, these 25 companies have 556 subsidiaries in tax havens like the Cayman Islands, Ireland, and Bermuda.

These U.S.-based companies use our taxpayer-funded infrastructure, including roads, bridges, broadband, and transportation. They benefit from taxpayer-funded research and spin-off products like the Internet, advanced jet engines, and drug research. Their corporate assets are protected by the U.S. military, police departments, and firefighters — and they rely on our U.S. justice system to defend their intellectual property.

Yet 20 of these companies paid no taxes in 2010. They didn't chip in one dime to pay for the services they enjoy — and that contribute enormously to the success of their businesses. Five companies paid symbolic amounts of taxes, less than the paychecks of their CEOs. But most, in fact, collected checks from Uncle Sam.

We taxpayers just hired Boeing for $35 billion to build new aircraft for the U.S. military. Honeywell also receives huge U.S. government and military contracts. But we don't require either company to pay a nickel for national defense or public services.

As wages for most Americans have remained stagnant over the last several years, these imperial CEOs saw their compensation jump 27.8 percent between 2009 and 2010. The average CEO of an S&P 500 company collected $10.8 million in compensation. But the CEOs of these notorious tax dodgers were paid an average of $16.7 million in 2010.

Shareholders should reward CEOs for building better products or delivering better services, not for accounting gymnastics that game their tax bills down. Shareholders at Stanley Black and Decker are trying to reverse their CEO's pay grab.

Congress should pass the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which would generate an estimated $100 billion in revenue annually. It would save jobs at patriotic U.S. companies that are forced to unfairly compete with corporate tax dodgers on an unlevel playing field.

Our nation needs all hands on deck, with everyone pulling their weight to address our fiscal challenges. As we try to recover from the worst economic depression since the 1930s, middle-class taxpayers and domestic businesses shouldn't have to carry these slacker companies on their backs.

Chuck Collins is a co-author of the new Institute for Policy Studies report, "Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging." www.ips-dc.org

Murphy To Take Up GOP Plan To Outsource and Increase Costs of Medicare, Social Security At New Britain Senior Center 7/18

Congressman Chris Murphy (D-5) will discuss the future of Medicare and Social Security in New Britain Monday July 18th amid Republican plans to reduce benefits and privatize the federal programs for older citizens.

Murphy will be joined by Judy Stein, the executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy at the New Britain Senior Center, 55 Pearl Street, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.

In announcing the New Britain meeting Cong. Murphy released the following statement:

“Rep Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, has proposed a budget that includes drastically changing Medicare. At the same time, many in Congress are calling for an overhaul of the Social Security system. Congressman Ryan’s voucher-based plan would result in increased costs for most Medicare beneficiaries, especially those who are the sickest. Please join Congressman Murphy and Judy Stein to hear how these proposals would impact you.”

Big Box vs. Public Park: Will A.W. Stanley Park and Golf Course Get Malled?

A public hearing and meeting of the Common Council on June 7th and June 8th are expected to stir strong debate on the proposed siting of a COSTCO store on the white nine of the 27-hole Stanley Golf Course. The plan calls for relocating two golf holes across the street on a pristine parcel of A.W. Stanley Park.

The COSTCO store would be built adjacent to the Target Store — a development approved by the Common Council in 1999 which involved the abandonment of single family homes on Glen Carlyn Road and an earlier alteration of the golf course. The Target project did not involve the taking of any of the wooded park across the street.

The ninth hole of the White Nine at Stanley Golf Course is behind
 this public hearing sign. It is the proposed site of a new
COSTCO store on the edge of New Britain.

This slim corridor of New Britain real estate at issue has a particularly high value for retailers. It is down the street from the 138-store Westfarms Mall and the Corbins Corner shopping center that intersect on Farmington and West Hartford land — towns that gain all the tax revenue from those sprawling shopping areas. Proponents are pushing the conversion for economically-distressed New Britain to gain tax revenue and jobs at the expense of open space and a radical change to the golf course.

The Friends of Stanley Park, a group of residents and preservationists, are opposing development that would take out a portion of the wooded park and wetlands area amounting to destruction of space long held in a land trust.

“A. W. Stanley Park’s wooded areas provide valuable habitat for wildlife, with over 150 species of birds and diverse plant life,” says the Friends’ group on their Facebook page. “The woods are used by local residents for recreational walking and running, observing and photographing wildlife, and simply enjoying time in natural surroundings. The woods provide sound barriers to traffic noise from Route 71, help to filter and purify the water supply to the pond they surround, remove greenhouse gases from the air, supply oxygen, and cool the surrounding neighborhoods.” Opponents urge that the city use development parcels in other parts of the city to grow the grand list and develop job opportunities.

The Zoning hearing of the Common Council will be held Tuesday, May 7, at 7 p.m. in the second floor Council Chambers at New Britain City Hall, 27 West Main Street.

from 

www.newbritaindemocrat.org

Herald: Where Will Cuts Fall At Library?

The public library, like public education,  is a  taxpayer-supported institution with a value that isn't easily measured on a ledger sheet.  It's value to a community exceeds what it costs by many measures of human capital and civic involvement.  The possibility of layoffs in city government could hit the library in terms of reduced hours and diminished services that will be painful as the  Robert Storace's May 17th story in the Herald reports.

Busway Advances: Rapid Transit Wins Over Purchase of 28,000 Jeep Patriots

Last week the arguments against Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along the I-84 corridor were less about choosing rail over buses and more about opposing any public investment at all in commuter transportation.

On April 29th, the state Bond Commission approved $90 million for the New Britain-Hartford bus way, the lion's share of state investment in a $567 million project in line to receive $455 million in federal transportation funds.

GOP State Senator Andrew Roraback, in a Hail Mary salvo before the bond vote, equated the cost of  Central Connecticut's first legitimate initiative on mass transit as the equivalent of purchasing 28,000 Jeep Patriots for  every resident of New Milford, one of the towns in his district.  Roraback's ridiculous comparison didn't exactly advance environmentalism nor rail.  Think of all those Jeeps (22 city/28 Highway) on I-84 and their carbon footprint in 2020!

Public transportation needs to encompass more than folks in the Northwest Hills hopping into their SUVs and getting a more convenient train into New York. It needs to be about working people getting to their jobs in cities. It needs to be about the Hartford student without a car being able to get to his CCSU classes on time.

Using fuzzy math, State Senator Jason Welch (R-31) told a constituent that the Busway will be a "boondoggle" and that light rail could be built at "10 percent"of the cost of the BRT.  Welch's opposition clearly led him to start making up numbers on a light rail system. Say what you will about the BRT, but building rail infrastructure in this region, especially light rail, won't be cheap.  At best a rail alternative is a $1 billion idea that is up to a decade away before any environmental and economic return on investments could be realized for the region.

There is an abundance of research on the costs and impact of rail versus BRTs.  BRTs have been shown to be flexible and effective as part of public transportation systems in metro areas around the world.  Certainly BRTs are not the end all for what a good transit system should be like in central Connecticut. But it is a start at reducing auto use and revitalizing urban areas which should be the priority of policymakers whether they come from cities or suburbs.

We've heard better arguments from opponents of the BRT than those made by Republicans Roraback and Welch this past week.  A boondoggle would really be occurring if the Governor had said no to the Busway thereby throwing the more than $65 million already invested in the project down the drain.

It makes you wonder. Had the Busway started in Bristol or Waterbury would these same opponents west of New Britain still be opposed? Or would they be hailing it as a necessary investment of public transportation dollars as economic stimulus (jobs) and every bit as good for the environment as any train?

Hearing on FY 12 City Budget May 12th at Slade Middle School

Now that the Stewart administration has put a $216 million budget on the table officials have set a public hearing for Thursday May 12th at 6 p.m.   The hearing will be held at Slade Middle School, not the high school as originally announced.

With federal recovery act funds gone and a best-case scenario of level funding for state education aid, the operative word is "layoff"from the brass at the Board of Education and the Mayor's Office.

At City Hall, Mayor Stewart says $11 million must be saved via layoffs or related reductions in or to the work force.