One of the big differences between progressives and right wingers is that right wingers work to protect high powered investors, while progressives use their power to invest in workers.
Someone like Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton demonstrates this difference in her policy on taxation of Wall Street income. Hillary Clinton isn’t a perfect progressive, but when it comes to her policy on carried interest income made by high powered investment fund managers, she’s on a good progressive track. The classification of carried interest made by these managers as income that’s not subject to ordinary levels of taxation allows the fund managers to get away with paying just 15 percent on their income, while the rest of us pay a full third of our income or more.
Commenting on this double standard, Senator Clinton states, “Our tax code should be valuing hard work and helping middle class and working families get ahead. It offends our values as a nation when an investment manager making $50 million can pay a lower tax rate on her earned income than a teacher making $50,000 pays on her income. As President I will reform our tax code to ensure that the carried interest earned by some multi-millionaire Wall Street managers is recognized for what it is: ordinary income that should be taxed at ordinary income tax rates.”
Hillary Clinton is right, and other Democratic presidential candidates, like John Edwards and Barack Obama agree with her. You won’t find a single Republican candidate for President supporting the effort to make investment fund managers pay their fair share, though. They’re counting on campaign donations from these Wall Street investment fund managers, and can’t manage to break themselves free of their compounding influence.
(Sources: Boston Globe, July 14, 2007; HillaryClinton.com, July 13, 2007)
My problem with all the repub and dem celebdidates is how can, say hillery (or any of the others), speak of these issues while taking huge campaign contributions from the industries they are speaking of and about? The answer is simple, they take the money, talk the talk to get elected, then do nothing on a given issue once in office…
The scientifically impossible I do right away
The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer
Well, ClapSo, the difference is that Hillary Clinton takes money from Wall Street interests, and then promotes policies that are not in the interest of Wall Street, whereas the Republicans take money from Wall Street interests, and then use their power to promote the Wall Street interests.
Whether Hillary Clinton follows through, we’ll have to wait to see, but the Republicans are already doing worse than she is on this issue. They’re not even promising to do the right thing.
It is easy to complain about things, and of course it suggests a bonding, but still makes you as only part of the problem instead of exercising your Personal Empowerment to fix the problem. That is what I see these fan fare candidates to be worth. They are undocuumented, and have very little to actually say to you except noise
The Government, Economy and Personal Empowerment are like the gears in a clock, where if one goes out of skew, then it might eventually even stop.
The link decribes the Book, the New Deal. It is the plans that I will use to fix the clock, and the means to fund the campaign in order to be given that honor.
Regards,
Orion -
Here are some lists from:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.asp?id=N00000019&cycle=2008
I have no idea how accurate they are, but they cite their source, so anyone who wanted to challenge their data can look at where they got it.
Take a look at these lists, think about how much -you- have contributed, then think about whom she is going to owe the most to, whether she wins or not. Don’t forget, these contributors recognize that even if she does not win, she has a few years left in this Senate term.
HILLARY CLINTON (D)
Top Industries
Lawyers/Law Firms
$6,259,925
Securities & Investment
$3,330,325
Real Estate
$2,746,039
Retired
$2,672,926
Business Services
$1,677,585
Misc Business
$1,625,380
TV/Movies/Music
$1,563,948
Misc Finance
$1,118,115
Health Professionals
$998,851
Education
$973,531
Hedge Funds
$703,600
Computers/Internet
$622,955
Printing & Publishing
$577,941
Commercial Banks
$492,725
Retail Sales
$489,928
Civil Servants/Public Officials
$478,958
Misc Manufacturing & Distributing
$464,030
Lobbyists
$413,140
Non-Profit Institutions
$400,885
Insurance
$341,240
HILLARY CLINTON (D)
Top Contributors
DLA Piper $284,620
Citigroup Inc $158,145
Skadden, Arps et al $135,060
Goldman Sachs $131,850
Morgan Stanley $127,700
Cablevision Systems $113,425
Kirkland & Ellis $110,200
Greenberg Traurig LLP $108,400
Time Warner $103,220
Blank Rome LLP $96,500
Merrill Lynch $96,300
Viacom Inc $93,200
JP Morgan Chase & Co $89,100
Patton Boggs $88,805
Lehman Brothers $83,650
Credit Suisse Group $80,950
Avenue Capital Group $80,600
News Corp $78,650
Bear Stearns $78,350
Ernst & Young $78,250
Just for fun, I looked at the top contributors for Barack and for Rudy:
BARACK OBAMA (D)
Top Contributors
Goldman Sachs $310,001
Lehman Brothers $219,860
Exelon Corp $190,652
Sidley Austin LLP $189,365
Citadel Investment Group $169,000
JP Morgan Chase & Co $154,455
Citigroup Inc $154,116
UBS AG $142,200
Jones, Day et al $131,333
Time Warner $107,751
Skadden, Arps et al $107,656
Harvard University $106,435
Kirkland & Ellis $103,101
Jenner & Block $101,264
WilmerHale $92,310
University of California $88,346
Morgan Stanley $87,335
UBS Americas $85,130
Viacom Inc $80,399
Proskauer Rose $79,600
RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI (R)
Top Contributors
Ernst & Young $229,050
Elliott Management $224,850
Credit Suisse Group $138,100
Bear Stearns $122,791
Lehman Brothers $114,800
Merrill Lynch $110,400
Citigroup Inc $96,350
Station Casinos $88,300
Morgan Stanley $87,850
Bracewell & Giuliani $87,000
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher $84,525
Highland Capital Management $80,650
Sandler O’Neill & Partners $68,650
JP Morgan Chase & Co $58,550
Kleinberg, Kaplan et al $53,650
Goldman Sachs $50,150
UBS Americas $47,800
Milbank, Tweed et al $46,600
Deutsche Bank North America $46,200
Greenberg Traurig LLP $45,750
Talk is cheap. What matters is whom the candidates are willing to take money from.
Here are the top two or three industries from whom Hillary, Rudy and Barack are willing to take money.
We see that Hillary and Barack have actually accepted -more- money from the securities and investment sector than has Rudy.
Why?
Is Hillary trying to scare the S&I sector into giving her more money? Is she really going to take their contribution money in one hand, then slap their behinds with the other?
What about the lawyers? Have they contributed so much because they expect a Clinton administration to be good for litigation? You know, suing against the government’s attempts to take over medical insurance, suing against all the attempts to curtail use of fossil fuels, stuff like that.
(Source is OpenSecrets.org, and I do not vouch for their accuracy.)
HILLARY CLINTON (D)
Top Industries
1
Lawyers/Law Firms
$6,259,925
2
Securities & Investment
$3,330,325
RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI (R)
Top Industries
1
Securities & Investment
$3,093,701
2
Lawyers/Law Firms
$2,228,344
BARACK OBAMA (D)
Top Industries
1
Lawyers/Law Firms
$5,471,423
2
Retired
$3,218,528
3
Securities & Investment
$3,156,174
Jclifford, Do you really believe the bullshit you write?
Well, that depends, Spanky. Have you stopped beating your wife? (classic leading question)
What people say is important. So is the money they take. The words don’t diminish the importance of the money, but neither does the money diminish the importance of the words.
Money doesn’t buy victory alone, and neither do the words.
Suspicion is always called for, but Hillary Clinton’s promotion of this closing of the loophole is helpful because it puts a bit more pressure on to actually have Congress and the President do something about the problem. Yes, I believe that, and no, I don’t think it’s bullshit.
“Well, that depends, Spanky. Have you stopped beating your wife? (classic leading question)”
Good call!
“The words don’t diminish the importance of the money, but neither does the money diminish the importance of the words.”
Action speaks much louder than words. If Hillary and Barack spoke as they do -and- refused donations from the S&I sector, then I’d be impressed.
There is absolutely no pressure whatsoever on Congress to do anything about this issue. Hillary and Barack can wag their jaws all day, but, since neither one is going to become President, the Congress can just ignore them.
Why not, some may ask? Because Rudy is tapped into the very same political apparatus that got GWB elected *twice* over the mealy-mouthed protests of the Democrats, and the Democrats have done nothing since 2004 to improve the system in such a way that it protects the rights of the electorate.
So Hillary and Barack will play the game, take the money and go back to their seats in Congress, owing the S&I sector (and the others) much more than they owe you or me. And they will pay their debts.
You’re definitely a man of faith, jclifford.
You haven’t read jclifford’s criticisms of the Democratic Party if you think he’s a “man of faith” on this issue.
It’s not empirically true that “there is no pressure whatsoever on Congress to do anything about this issue.” In fact, it’s demonstrably untrue. You can tell by the actions that members of Congress are taking.
See
Washington Post July 11. Who’s putting up the bills? Who’s holding the hearings?
Not the Republicans. The Democrats in Congress are submitting bills and holding hearings on the issue. That is a pretty good indication that there’s at least “pressure on Congress” to do something about the issue. And some presidential candidates are weighing in with observable behaviors on the issue. Senator Barack Obama, for instance, is one of four Senators (all Democrats) throwing his weight behind S. 681, a bill to end the use of off-shore tax havens by corporations and to end some uneven tax advantages for hedge funds, among other things. I have read in the papers that a number of hedge fund taxation bills are in the works, including a Charles Rangel bill in the House, although I have not yet seen any show up in the Thomas legislative database yet.
You know if you’ve read here that I’m quite skeptical of the Democratic party, but there is a difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, especially between most Democrats and most Republicans, even if the Democrats don’t measure up as much as some of us would like, and that difference can be measured in actions as well as in words, on a number of issues.