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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (64605)	5/8/2009 1:37:28 PM
From: lorne	3 Recommendations Respond to of 224750

ken...what in hell is wrong with these un-patriotic traitor extremist...They should all be shot with a ball of their own sh*t. Just cant please some people. Silicon Valley execs oppose Obama's tax plan Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau Thursday, May 7, 2009 sfgate.com (05-07) 04:00 PDT Washington - -- The executives pleaded their case at a 2 1/2-hour dinner with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein at the Source, Washington's hottest new restaurant. They discussed strategy with Sen. Barbara Boxer, who arranged a special meeting with President Obama's top economic adviser, Larry Summers, that lasted nearly an hour. And the Silicon Valley executives made clear to all that Obama's hunt for revenue to finance his ambitious agenda, from green energy to health care, should leave them alone. They may succeed, given the reaction from key lawmakers to Obama's proposal to raise $210 billion over 10 years from multinational corporations. With a large gap between Obama's spending plans and the money that would pay for them, his other proposals to raise money already have been snubbed by Congress, including plans to clamp down on deductions for charitable giving and mortgage interest and to raise revenue by limiting carbon emissions. Charities went into overdrive to bat down Obama's plan to limit deductions for donations by high-income taxpayers. The mortgage-interest deduction is all but sacrosanct. The "cap-and-trade" tax on greenhouse gases has run into a wall of angry Democrats from states that rely on coal-fired electricity or produce oil or coal. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, has assured lawmakers that such regions would not be unfairly affected and that consumers would be shielded from higher energy bills. Bernanke's warning Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned lawmakers Tuesday that they should be consistent. "If you want to increase spending, then you have to be willing to accept the tax increases and the consequences that may have for growth and efficiency," Bernanke said. "If you want to have low taxes, then you have to be willing to accept and find program cuts that will match the two." Silicon Valley's lobbying is a case study of how such trade-offs are - or aren't - made on Capitol Hill. More than 50 executives of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, upon arriving for their annual pilgrimage to Washington on Monday, were stunned to hear Obama's announcement that he wants to change tax rules on corporate income earned overseas, where many technology companies operate extensively. Obama contends that the current rules encourage the outsourcing of jobs overseas. His plan would limit deductions for expenses on hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign-earned income unless the money is brought back to the United States and subjected to the 35 percent corporate tax. The plan would "make very good companies very uncompetitive," said Kevin Surace, chief executive of Serious Materials of Sunnyvale. As it is, he said, with the cost advantages that Chinese companies have already, "we're almost uncompetitive now." Just as alarming to the group was the language Obama used, lumping them in with tax cheats and Cayman Islands tax havens, and accusing businesses of "shirking" their responsibilities thanks to a tax code "written by well-connected lobbyists on behalf of well-heeled interests." Boxer arranges meeting But by Wednesday, the executives had an audience with Summers, arranged by Boxer, a California Democrat who has championed a tax holiday on repatriated foreign earnings that would allow U.S. corporations to return money earned abroad at a sharply reduced rate. "I want to make sure the administration hears from the Silicon Valley people that would be affected," Boxer said. Summers gave no hint of movement, said Carl Guardino, president of the leadership group. Summers "reiterated the president's position, which is what we expected," Guardino said. "What we coveted and received was a chance to offer a real-world CEO perspective from companies ranging from struggling startups to mid- and larger-size employers. This impacts the innovation economy, not just name-brand companies but the full spectrum of employers." Feinstein, also a Democrat, raised questions about where the government - facing a record-shattering $1.7 trillion deficit this year - is going to find money. "The senator's concern was similar to the president's concern, which was similar to Dr. Summers' concern," Guardino said. "We need revenue. And we understand that. We're all Americans. We know that we're in a tight spot. Our hope is that corporate tax policy is set on fairness and American competitiveness. Revenue generation should be a different discussion." The executives argued that the Obama plan would put them at a disadvantage against nearly every foreign competitor, because most are not subject to taxes on overseas earnings. Tax analysts contend there is truth to the companies' complaints - and to Obama's about outsourcing. U.S. tax policy should bear in mind that the United States is applying a different tax regime on corporations from much of the rest of the world, said Clint Stretch, a principal at the tax firm Deloitte Tax LLP. "I would think it's a value to have American companies competing abroad," he said. "So we ought to write our tax laws in a way that they're able to do that." But that means multinational corporations "will pay less tax than they would have paid if they had done everything they did in the United States." Tax lawyer's view The Obama proposal would certainly make overseas operations more expensive, said Alan Appel, a tax lawyer with Bryan, Cave LLP. "It's hard to say whether it's fair or not." Despite a lobbying blitz by tech companies earlier this year - including a study sponsored by UC Berkeley economist and former Clinton administration official Laura Tyson that showed repatriation could bring more than half a trillion dollars back to the United States - Boxer was rebuffed when she attempted to get repatriation into this year's $787 billion stimulus package. Boxer said the provision died because a Government Accountability Office report found many companies had established subsidiaries in overseas tax havens, among them Silicon Valley's Cisco - which had 38 subsidiaries in such tax havens as the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, Bermuda and Switzerland - Hewlett-Packard, which had 14; and Intel, which had six. Boxer said the report "poisoned the well" at a time when people were already angry at businesses. But she said it also generated confusion between foreign sales and tax havens. Feinstein told the executives, "We need all of the revenue we can get right now to ease the deficit and ease what is a huge debt out there. It is now creeping up as a large percentage of the gross domestic product, and this causes a lot of concern." She said Obama "wants some of these revenues taxed. He did not indicate the specific terms of this. And I think there is room for a proposal."

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (64605)	5/8/2009 1:48:20 PM
From: lorne	2 Recommendations Respond to of 224750

ken...and here are some more of those ungrateful wretches...some of them may even have been in the same room with the " one " they may even have experienced the leg tingles of other worshipers. bet you had the tingles. Or have them still. Billionaire Donors Split With Obama on Law That May Hurt Hotels By John Lippert and Holly Rosenkrantz bloomberg.com May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Three Chicago billionaires who helped fund President Barack Obama’s election campaign are fighting legislation he backs that would make it easier for unions to organize hotels they own. Penny Pritzker, Obama’s campaign finance chairwoman and a director of Global Hyatt Corp., has told the president she is opposed to the measure, known as card check, said a person familiar with the situation. Neil Bluhm, a partner in Walton Street Capital LLC, also opposes the bill, the person said. Lester Crown, chairman of Henry Crown & Co., criticized the proposal in an interview. For the city’s business leaders who nurtured Obama’s White House bid, card check is a gut check on support for their hometown president. Labor, which spent $100 million on Democratic campaigns last year, made it a top priority to enact a bill giving workers bargaining rights based on signing cards instead of winning a secret-ballot election. Voting privately is “an American prerogative and shouldn’t be overturned,” said Crown, 83, whose family holdings include the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa in Ojai, California, and the Little Nell hotel in Aspen, Colorado. “The recommended legislation is absolutely the wrong thing to do.” Pritzker, 49, and Bluhm, 71, declined to comment. The fight over proposed labor-law revisions heated up this week when Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who is the chief sponsor of the card-check provision, said backers don’t have the votes to push it through. He vowed to press ahead with other elements that unions want, such as shortening the time period allowed for elections. Labor Law ‘Imbalance’ “Many do feel there is an imbalance” in current laws that favors business over labor, he said in an interview. A compromise version may attract support from more lawmakers, Harkin said. Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, employers can demand an election even if more than half of workers sign cards supporting a union. The bill would take away that right, and opponents say it would leave employees open to retaliation if they refuse to sign up. Since the 1980s, management campaigns have defeated 19 of every 20 organizing efforts, according to Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at University of California at Santa Barbara. While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to spend about $20 million this year on advertising and lobbying to block card check, labor leaders said they are determined to get a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate. Pressuring Specter “We are confident we will have the 60 votes to pass major labor-law reform for workers this year,” said William Samuel, the AFL-CIO legislative director. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said his chamber may consider the issue before the August recess. Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, threatened to withhold labor backing for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter in his 2010 re-election campaign if he doesn’t vote for the bill. “We won’t be bludgeoned into supporting him just because important people, like the president, are,” Trumka said of Specter, who switched to the Democratic Party last month from the Republicans. Unions represent about 7.6 percent of the private-sector workforce, down from 35 percent at their peak in the 1950s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Heat on Hotels The outcome of the debate may affect the hotel interests of Crown, Pritzker and Bluhm. Bluhm’s investments include the Drake, Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons hotels, all clustered near Chicago’s North Michigan Avenue shopping district. He joined the Pritzkers in developing two casinos in Niagara Falls, Canada. Pritzker runs her family’s realty group, airport shuttle service and credit checking company. “Labor-law reform gets right into the face of these liberals who own a factory or a hotel,” where the card-check provision would have its greatest impact, said Lichtenstein, the historian. Crown gave Obama a total of $4,600 in 2007 and 2008, the maximum allowed for individuals, Federal Election Commission reports show. He said he still supports Obama. “I think the world of him,” Crown said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with other relationships.” Campaign Bundler Pritzker ran committees that generated a record of more than $745 million for the Obama campaign plus $53 million for the inauguration. Bluhm raised $160,000 in 2008 as a so-called bundler for Obama, pooling donations from other contributors, according to OpenSecrets.org, a Washington-based group that tracks campaign spending. “The president and his supporters don’t agree on every issue, nor does anyone expect them to,” said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor. “But clearly many like Ms. Pritzker, who the president asked to serve on the President’s Economy Recovery Advisory Board, are supportive of his overall economic agenda.” Workers at the Pritzkers’ Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, California, initiated an organizing drive last year. Managers called meetings and told employees that joining a union could cost wages and benefits, said Rigoberto Gutierrez, 55, who has worked in room service there for 12 years. “They tried to scare us,” he said. “They told us we could lose everything.” The matter remains unresolved. Obama’s Vegas Slap Pritzker and other corporate officers knew Obama’s views on labor issues when they joined his campaign. They were surprised, though, when Republicans lost so many seats in the Senate and when Obama indicated his support for card check, said the person familiar with the situation. The Pritzkers in particular also took note of Obama’s public statement on Feb. 9 that executives shouldn’t use federal bailout money for Las Vegas trips, the person said. Later this year, the family will open a Grand Hyatt with 2,973 rooms next to the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. “Obama has very carefully straddled two positions,” said William B. Gould, a former National Labor Relations Board chairman under President Bill Clinton. “He has been supportive of the bill, but he has been very careful to not speak of any particular provision.”