Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Bailout Money to Be Used To Buy Elections

 

Welcome to the brave new world where your federal bailout dollars will be used to elect politicians. Hundreds of millions of bailout dollars will be used to re-elect members of Congress. Some of the money will find its way into state elections in Gubernatorial, Supreme Court, and legislative races.

 

Most likely, some of the money is already earmarked to defeat Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson who is on the April ballot in the Badger State.  Saturday’s New York Times reported that Congress is considering legislation that would control the lobbying and political campaigning by receipts of federal bailouts.  Firms That Got Bailout Money Keep Lobbying:

……the growing dilemma facing private companies (bail out recipients), which increasingly deal with the federal government not only as rule-maker but also as shareholder, lender and trading partner.

Pressing federal policy makers risks the appearance of recycling public money to advance a private agenda, while staying on the sidelines could put a company at a comparative disadvantage.

The problem is complicated. The federal bailout money will be used to lobby Congress and to support the election of member of Congress in two years.

 

The Times reports that, “’Nobody mentioned that you are giving up your Constitutional right to petition the government when accepting federal money, said Edward L. Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association.”

 

Wrong. There is no Constitutional right to take federal money and use it to buy Congress. Readers of Waxing America knew this was a pressing issue for two years and certainly since bailout discussions began in September. Mr. Yingling, tell your members if they do not like the rules, to turn down the money.

 

No one made any bank or automobile manufacturer take a cent of federal bailout money. There is a Constitutional right to free speech. There is no Constitutional right to use federal money to influence government or to buy future elections.

 

There are two very critical issues.

 

First there is the question of bans and disclosures. Obviously a ban has more teeth than disclosure.  Secondly, there is the use of the money – the financial service companies can use it for lobbying or electioneering, or both. Some of the money is already going to pay lobbyists to influence legislation such as the pending bill S. 133, the "Troubled Asset Relief Program Transparency Reporting Act.”

Lawmakers, troubled by the prospect of taxpayer-subsidized influence-peddling, are threatening to crack down. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican, are pushing legislation that would explicitly bar companies from using bailout funds for lobbying or campaign contributions. (Emphasis added)

I have been told that similar legislation failed in the House, where there was:

…some opposition from Committee (House) staff as well as Legislative Counsel. Committee staff was concerned that any restrictions on communication to government would restrict the free flow of information and transparency required to track their progress. Legislative Counsel was concerned about the first amendment rights issue...

Here is what will happen. Just as AIG put $25 million into the United States Chamber of Commerce from 2001-05, , similar amounts will go to that business-oriented organization and other trade associations like Mr. Yingling’s American Bankers Association under the guise of “lobbying.”

 

Some portion of those hundreds of millions from AIG, Citigroup and General Motors will actually be used to pay the salary of lobbyists.

 

The bulk of the money will be used to purchase campaign “issue ads.” These  trade associations will either directly make the purchase, as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce did last fall to try to re-elect Norm Coleman (R-MN), or funneled to organizations like The Institute for Tort Reform, Americans for Prosperity, and even All Children Matter, who will then purchase issue ads to reward their friends.

Follow the money. Your tax dollars went from the federal government to the Citigroup to trade associations to issue groups to buy television ads to influence elections.

Blagojevich: Sleaze vs. Crime

Last Friday I was on Wisconsin Public Radio's Week In Review with Joy Cardin and fellow guest and blogger at Boots and Sabers, Owen Robinson.

When the conversation turned to embattled Illinois Governor Blagojevich, I made the observation that:

On the sleaze meter the guy is off the charts, but that so far, the complaint against him has no concrete proof that he either specifically asked anyone for a bribe or that her ever received anything of value.

All of which poses a dilemma, namely when does a politician cross the line from playing hardball politics in appointing only friends and supporters, to the world of extortion and criminality?

The New York Times took up this question on Monday, In Blagojevich Case, Is It a Crime, Or Just Talk?

Ever since the country’s founding, prosecutors, defense lawyers and juries have been trying to define the difference between criminality and political deal-making. They have never established a clear-cut line between the offensive and the illegal, and the hours of wiretapped conversations involving Mr. Blagojevich, filled with crass, profane talk about benefiting from the Senate vacancy, may fall into a legal gray area.

The best advice for any politician, is do not go near that line. You do not want to be in the gray area or any other area that comes near crossing the line.

No Bailout for Automakers Unless...

I will not support a bailout for the U.S. automakers, General Motors, Ford, and what is left of Chrysler,  unless provision is made to stop them from lobbying and influencing elections and public policy.

It is that simple. That is the price for public money. Without proper restraints, the automakers will continue with membership in organizations like the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Institute for Tort Reform, and even Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC). Like bankrupt (fiscally and morally) AIG, millions of dollars will be funneled into these organizations.

AIG sent $23 million to the US Chamber.

These dollars will be used to lobby Congress, purchase television ads supporting the reelection of Republicans like Norm Coleman (R-MN), and issue ads designed to elect their friends to Congress.

More often than not these ads will elect anti-choice, anti-public education, anti-gay officials at the national and state level.

It is unconscionable that if the public, you and me, take a stake in owning the automakers, that our companies, our investment, be used to advance a right wing political agenda.

November Elections 2008: The Morning After

I woke up this morning glad to have done the radio show on WTDY last night with Sly and Bill McCoshen, a Wisconsin Republican who will, hopefully, have a lot to say about the future of his party, but disappointed that I did not attend the parties where so many of my friends celebrated last night.

I was surprised at my own emotional response to the election of Barack Obama. I was more filled with wonderment about what the next four years will bring rather than joy over his election.  Perhaps it was the projections that he was going to win that took the edge off the victory.

In any case, for the first time in my lifetime, and that includes the election of JFK in 1960, or my years as mayor when Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were elected, I am truly excited about the future and the unknown possibilities for our nation and the world. The economy and the wars will prevent any immediate social change, but it is coming.

The engagement of so many young people of so many different colors in this election holds more hope for the future. Voting is the first level of civic engagement. With persistence and hard work, hopefully they will stay engaged by running for office themselves, getting involved in their children's' education, and voting in subsequent local and state elections.

• I missed the gathering of the supporters of the Madison school referendum which won by a large margin, putting to rest the myth that there is some kind of secret plot by the supporters of public education to place these measures on the ballot when turnout is low.
• The Democrats took control of the Wisconsin Assembly. Marc Pocan gets a big thank you for adopting a "50 state" strategy and finding great Democratic candidates in as many Assembly districts as possible.
• Perhaps the biggest local disappointment was the apparent defeat of outstanding Trish O'Neil in the 47th District. She was the victim of one of the nastiest television advertisements this election season.
• While Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) was defanged, it is evident that extreme right-wing money and energy was shifted to outside groups like  Coalition for America's Families, the Club for Growth and All Children Matter which continues to produce WMC-style attack ads.
• In Oshkosh, Gordon Hintz was returned for a second term to the Assembly's 54th district with 66% of the vote.  Keep an eye on him. Here is a legislator who is effective, principled, and a nice guy.
• The biggest Midwest disappointment was Al Franken's apparent loss to incumbent Republican Norm Coleman in the Minnesota US Senate race. Franken would have made a great senator and Coleman is an opportunistic jerk. Coleman has some serious ethical problems in casting future votes regarding the financial bailout which he supported, since AIG put $25 million into the US Chamber of Commerce over a five year period and then the right wing business group spent a hefty sum in his support.
• Best news from the left coast: As of this posting, it appears that same sex marriage survives in Californian. Barely.  Update 2:42 UGH
• Those who checked in here last night can see from my solitary post that it is too difficult to do live radio and  blog simultaneously.
• Congratulations to the high school students who got involved in the school referendum and and all of the electoral races even though they will not vote for a few more years.
• I suppose my nice introduction of Bill McCoshen, above, will get back to the social conservatives and doom him as an influential leader in fixing the Republican Party. With moderate business leaders estranged from their party, and Democrats in control of both houses of the legislature and the Governor's office, they have no place to go. Now is the time for the Democrats to reach out and form a coalition of labor, business, and education leaders to fix and fund education from kindergarten through college in Wisconsin.

Guilty pleasure I will pass on today - No right wing Milwaukee talk radio; I have too much work to do and it will be more fun spending the spare time chatting with friends.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce: Attitude Adjustment. Not

This week's Isthmus says, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce tones it down a notch.

Correctly noting that the tone of this fall's election television advertisements designed to elect Republicans are by WMC's own admission, "reposition(ed)." Erik Gunn reports:

Such ads are a departure for WMC, which is better known for its spots trashing state Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler as "Loophole Louie" or, earlier, portraying Gov. Jim Doyle during his successful 2006 re-election bid in a green, toxic haze to suggest he is a crook.

We recall that it took enormous pressure to get WMC to make these modifications to its political message. They only did so  when the image of the individual members was tarnished by the trash they produced in previous elections.

Left to their own devices, WMC would resume creating more "Willie Horton" style messages.

It is clear that WMC's market position was assumed by such groups as the Coalition for America's Families, the Club for Growth and All Children Matter which continues to produce WMC-style attack ads.

All Children Matter is running nasty spots that have nothing to do with children or the truth.

The Government Accountability Board may or may not get the power to regulate these ads so that the public knows who is paying, but the WMC misinformation machine will continue to roll.

These public advertisements are just one face of the WMC propaganda effort.

When the new session of the legislature opens next year, expect WMC to continue to publish distortion and after distortion about Wisconsin tax levies, expenditures for compensation packages of public employees, and of course, the record of Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

WMC is not going to go quietly into the night.

Where Does WMC, Where Does WMC Watch, Go From Here?

When I posted Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Downsizes for Elections and Image noting that the reduced presence of WMC in this fall's elections could be the result of a number of factors, Xoff pointed out that:

WMC, with its image taking a battering, decides to run a token amount of positive advertising and quietly give its big bucks to one of the other right-wing groups that's running untruthful negative ads against Dems all across the state. No requirement to report it, since it's not PAC money, and WMC lets someone else take the heat. Can I prove it? No. But it's plausible, given how much money WMC was raising and how little it appears to have spent directly.

Absolutely correct.

My guess is that WMC and WMC-sourced funds are down significantly this year. However, even if the they did not  redirect political funds into groups like the Club for Growth in this election cycle, the extreme right wing forces will do so in the spring 2009 Supreme Court race.

There are a number of scenarios:

• Money will continue to pour into WMC from US Chamber of Commerce backed sources and WMC will buy the ads.
• Money will pour into WMC from US Chamber sources and WMC will pass the money on to the Club for Growth, and other fronts.
• Money will pour into the Club for Growth and its clones directly from the US Chamber of Commerce, completely by-passing WMC.

All of these scenarios can have different outcomes in that some will be less effective than others.

All of these scenarios are designed to do the same thing - advance a right wing agenda utilizing a Willie Horton media campaign, for the purpose of undermining public education and eliminating reasonable government regulation that protects consumers and the environment.

The studies due after next Tuesday that look at the purchase of television time by these reactionary groups may give us some clue as to which tactic they are pursuing.

In any case, WMC Watch has much to do. Not only will we continue to monitor WMC's election activities, but we willl continue to expose its anti-environmental record, its anti-education record, its distortions about the nature of taxation in Wisconsin, and its plans for the 2010 gubernatorial election.

Wisconsin Pays for Sarah Palin's Communist System

Wisconsin pays for Sarah Palin's Communist ways in Alaska. Stalin, move over.

The irony of the redistribution of money from one set of states to another is that the receiving states are generally Red States. The result is a taking of hard earned money from states like Wisconsin and sending those dollars to Alaska.

Here are some of the example of the redistribution of wealth that Palin and her pinko fellow travelers support:

• Interstate Highways. The construction of the federal interstate highway system, supposedly for national defense purposes, was financed by us northeners. Tax dollars from Illinois went to Alabama, from New York to Texas and from Wisconsin to Alaska. States too cheap to build their own highways saw new expressways financed by the industrial North and Midwest.
• Rural Eelectrification. We all know the story of the financing of the TVA. The north paid to bring electricity to the rural south. The way the south paid back the north was by opening non-union factories.
• Postal Service for Alaska.  Anyone who watches late night TV knows that shipping to Alaska and Hawaii costs more. To send a first class letter from Alaska to the lower forty-eight should require a doubling of the first class rates. Sarah Palin insists that Jill the Plumber pay for subsidizing mail to Alaska.
• Family travel. When I was in public office the public never paid for Sara or the kids' travel or lodging expenses. Making Joe the Plumber pay for $240 night lodging or $700 apiece airline tickets for her kids is the ultimate in Communism. Maybe she thinks taking from the poor and giving to the rich makes it OK.
• Federal gas-tax money. Alaska Thanks You.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan watchdog group in Washington, that breaks down to $1,150 for every Alaskan in "earmark" funding for in-state projects alone, 25 times what the average American garners for his or her home state.

That comes to $6.60 paid to Alaska for each dollar paid in. Wisconsin does a little better than breaking even getting back $1.05.

• All Taxes. Alaska ranks between 3rd and 5th over the last five years in receiving federal tax dollars. They get back about $1.85 for every dollar they send to Washington. Wisconsin gets back $0.84; we rank about 45th.
• The Bailout of AIG and Lehman Bro's. Enuf said.

Throughout her entire political career, Sarah Palin, Communist and fellow traveler, has had no problem taking redistributed wealth.

She has no problem with redistributing the wealth.

She never asks if the redistribution results in investment in infrastructure and human capacity that is environmentally sound and the best way to stimulate private investment.

Sarah Palin knows that even before the adoption of the flat federal income tax in 1894, the United States government has redistributed wealth. The movement of money from one group of taxpayers to another was advanced by the adoption of the Sixteenth amendment to the Constitution, the advent of the automobile on American roads, and accelerated by the Great Depression.

AIG, Chase, Will Again Buy Congress, This Time With More of Our Money

As the Congressional hearings begin, Congress Begins Mapping Financial Reform,  as to how to reconstruct regulations in the financial services industry, one critical element is ignored.

To date, no one is discussing how to prevent the salvaged corporations, run by greedy, unpatriotic, egotists, from making corporate contributions that end up supporting the election of those Members of Congress who supported the bailout.

Elements of greed were identified:

...a decade-long surge in leverage, risk and mortgage-lending abuses that produced a bonanza for a handful of elite investors...

Self serving gems were offered:

"...never again have the taxpayers pay for Wall Street's mistakes," said Illinois Republican Rep. Judy Biggert

The obvious was repeated:

"There should be a moratorium on it, on bonuses, yes,"

The unregulated pirating must end:

Lawmakers at the hearing called for more disclosure by hedge funds and private equity firms, as well as more openness in markets for credit default swaps.

No one addressed what got us into this mess: the long arm of Wall Street reaching into bloated wallets and spreading the money around the United States Congress.

It allowed them to purchase our Congress with our money in an excessive and vulgar manner and:

• donate directly to campaigns.

• send the money to the United States Chamber of Commerce or All Children Matter who used it to directly influence campaigns.

• send the money to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who funneled into front groups to indirectly influence campaigns.

• send the money to directly to front groups to directly influence campaigns.

Not one dollar of the bail out, or one dollar belonging to bailed-out companies, can be sent to any organization that attempts to lobby Congress directly or indirectly, or that attempts to influence elections, directly or indirectly.

They can have their free speech, but for now, there is no free speech for bailouts. If they want their free speech, they can reject the bailout.

Last time Wall Street purchased Congress, they used obscene profits. This time they will use our tax dollars.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Downsizes for Elections and Image

With two weeks until election day, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) efforts to influence results are taking a back seat to the candidates in state legislative races.

This was anticipated all summer, for a number of reasons. Until a campaign is mounted in the spring state Supreme Court race, where WMC will attempt to defeat Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, we will not know if this low profile is a permanent condition. Or not.

The factors that limit WMC electronic involvement in five assembly races, (AD 47,49,57,88,91) belligerent and misleading ads used in previous elections.

• Two highly publicized affairs, the withdrawal of Cullen Construction and the Madison magazine article by University of Wisconsin Chancellor John C. Wiley damaged WMC's reputation.
• In legislative races, the TV ads used by WMC are not cost effective. since the districts are so small compared to the size of the media markets.
• WMC members realize that the layer of insulation that WMC brought them, which prevented their company's name from being associated with the vicious ads, is no longer effective.
• The purchase of large quantities of TV time by the presidential candidates deprived WMC of access to what limited spots they could afford.
• The national organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who provided the majority of the money for WMC, are preoccupied with key Congressional races in other states and do not have time or money for Wisconsin legislative campaigns.
• WMC is still buying radio spots and mailers in some areas.
• Reformers within WMC may have made headway in reining in the beast.

WMC may still make a last minute effort to attack liberal or progressive candidates, but time is running out.

We will not be able to assess the impact of our WMC Watch campaign and the efforts of One Wisconsin Now (OWN), until we get into the spring election season.

Norm Coleman (R-MN) - What Does He Know about AIG and US Chamber of Commerce

Republican Norm Coleman of Minnesota was a major supporter of the bailout of financial institutions that included  insurance giant AIG.

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman said the massive government bailout of failing financial institutions is not only necessary, but could make money for the federal government...Coleman said the government takeover of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, AIG and others was necessary... (emphasis added)

This is the same mismanaged AIG that sent $23 million to the United States Chamber of Commerce for lobbying and political purposes.

In its brief, the association reports that the insurance giant American International Group (AIG) paid $23 million to the U.S. Chamber between 2001 and 2005. As it was going under last month, AIG was balied out by the Treasury Department -- e.g. the country's taxpayers.

and

Earlier this month, AIG came close to death after guaranteeing billions of dollars worth of banks' and financiers' mortgage-backed investments that proved toxic...The largest recipient of the $25 million the Starr Foundation gave to trade groups was a foundation with ties to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,

Now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is launching a massive TV campaign in support of Norm Coleman's re-election to the United States Senate by running negative ads against Al Franken.

U.S. Chamber targets Franken and his pro-labor stand

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent $1.44 million in Minnesota, most of it on sharp-edged ads attacking Franken over his support of labor’s position on the Employee Free Choice Act, which is pending on Congress...the chamber intends to spend more than the $20 million it spent two years ago on congressional races. Federal Election Commission filings show it already has spent $11 million.

It has spent the most, $2.1 million, in New Hampshire, where it's defending incumbent John Sununu against Jeanne Shaheen, the former governor. There, the Chamber is attacking Shaheen over taxes

That means you and I most likely will be paying to elect US Chamber backed candidates around the country, if we have not done so already. Tax dollars bailed out the companies, they send money to the US Chamber where those dollars either go directly into organizatons that buy the ads or the money frees up other Chamber dollars to go into the ads.

There is Norm Coleman getting paid off for his vote on the bailout.

One has to ask if this was going on in Wisconsin for years. Too bad we cannot trace the money that ended up in Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) issue ads which came from the US Chamber front groups and the insurance companies.