One Wisconsin Now

Last week I wrote about Republican State Senate candidate (18th SD) Randy Hopper and how he was complaining about taxes and suggesting that the current tax structure has been unfair to him. In that blog, I wrote that he has a credibility problem on the issue since he only paid Wisconsin personal and business income taxes once since 1997. Now we have another conservative candidate, Tom Tiffany (12 SD), complaining about the burden of taxes while having not paid state income taxes since 2005.

Not only did Tiffany manage to avoid paying individual taxes for two years but at least one of his businesses also didn’t pay income tax last year. Given that record on taxes, it is really no surprise that he was a former spokesperson for the Big Oil financed Americans for Prosperity. That extremist right wing group would just as soon have corporations contribute absolutely nothing in the form of income taxes.

If Tom Tiffany is going to run around his district complaining about a tax burden, he should probably say, “I don’t mean me, though, because I haven’t had to pay state income taxes for a number of years.”

Despite his long fealty to an annoying no new taxes pledge, Sheldon Wasserman discovered the hard truth that Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform is nothing but a shill group for Republicans.

Y’know, Republicans like convicted crook Jack Abramoff and moral sleazebags like Ralph Reed, and well, Norquist himself – all long associated with ATR.

As the stock market continues to crash at historic rates, John McCain refuses to talk substantively about the issues that are most affecting American families. His lack of a coherent response to the economic crisis shows once again just how out of touch he is with the economic issues that concern the average American.

John McCain supports tax cuts for millionaires, but provides no relief for 100 million middle-class Americans. He has repeatedly said that the Bush tax cuts for the rich must be made permanent and even expanded. As CNNMoney.com has reported, “President Bush’s tax cuts for investment income have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans.” Unfortunately it has done next to nothing for everyone else.

McCain’s economic plans, like Bush’s, put CEOs, multibillion dollar corporations, and lobbyists before the interests of American families. His stated plans do more for the Fortune 200, who would get $45 billion in tax cuts, than they for families struggling just to get by. As a result of McCain’s policies, Big Oil would receive nearly $4 billion in tax breaks. He makes this proposal at a time when average Americans have been getting gouged at the pumps and are worrying about heating their homes this winter.

How comical is that the Wisconsin representative to the so-called “Palin Truth Squad” is Margaret Farrow?

The “Squad” presumably will criticize anyone who brings up Sarah Palin’s ethics scandal, truth bending, right-wing extremism and revisionist history. Or those who point out that Palin refuses to talk to reporters and won’t answer questions.

Today One Wisconsin Now is debuting the new comic series “McCain and Unable.” (McCainAndUnable.com)It will highlight the Bush-McCain follies, showing what would happen if the wealthy ideological soulmates were forced to go out into the real world and deal with the consequences of their failed policies.

The first episode, “McCain and Unable Go to the Gas Station,” brings the duo face to face with the record gas prices Americans have endured. In July, gas prices topped $4.11 a gallon in Wisconsin and diesel was nearly $4.80 a gallon. Average folks were suffering while John McCain and George W. Bush stood arm and arm to pass $5 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil. Apparently that wasn’t enough for John McCain and now he wants to give Big Oil another $4 billion in tax giveaways. Also consider the impact of these additional McCain-Bush policies when it comes to energy:

McCain has 29 Big Oil lobbyists working for him. At least 29 top advisers or fundraisers for McCain have lobbied for Big Oil. They have represented 4 of the 9 oil companies in the 2008 Fortune 200, including: McCain’s senior campaign adviser, Charlie Black, who is a registered lobbyist for two Russian oil companies whose firm was hired by the China National Off-Shore Oil Corporation. [Roll Call 7/18/05, Senate Lobbying Disclosure Records]

Last week Rep. Frank Lasee announced his latest harebrained scheme, to drill for oil in the Great Lakes. There is nothing like handing over your most precious resource to an industry that can’t be trusted. And for what? For the remote chance that they will find (or spill) oil in 15 years and possibly save a few cents off gas prices? As if that is not enough for one month, now Lasee is cheering his Republican friends on the Natural Resources Committee who voted to block a reasonable rule to protect us from mercury contamination.

Almost every Wisconsin lake is under warning for mercury pollution but Lasee and his friends on the committee would rather obey the corporate interests that pull their strings. The rule was proposed by the Department of Natural Resources as crafted by an independent group of experts. It would have required large coal-fired plants to reduce mercury by 90 percent by the beginning of 2015. Over 437,000 Wisconsinites are exposed to higher-than-safe levels of mercury and six percent of Wisconsin women of childbearing age have elevated levels of mercury.

Health problems caused by mercury include neurological damage for babies and children, as well as hearing and vision loss and impaired coordination and speech for adults. Seniors are at risk from mercury for heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. Mercury is most commonly ingested by humans through fish consumption. The state has issued advisories about fish consumption due to mercury contamination for nearly every Wisconsin water body. Still Lasee cheers the status quo and its defenders in the Assembly. Apparently in the wacky world of Frank Lasee, poisoning your neighbors is not only praiseworthy but is the highest act of civic engagement.

We have seen the Bush energy policy at work now for nearly eight years, it seems to be a plan based on not leaving any big oil and gas company behind. The policy appears to be the following simple formula: give a free pass to these massive special interests in any way possible, give them record amounts of handouts from the public and then allow them to “thank” the public by gouging them at every possible turn. This energy free-for-all has most definitely had an impact, unfortunately it has been a hugely negative one for individual citizens and the entire economy.

Consumers are paying record amounts at the pump, while Big Oil pulls in record profits. This has a major impact on the price of things like food and other essentials. In many ways it is responsible for a 17 year record high in inflation. As if working people weren’t hurting enough in this Bush economy, now we are getting early warnings about just how much more it will take to heat our homes this winter. Estimates from the Department of Energy project that heating costs will climb 21 percent in the Midwest this year. There is an expected 26 percent increase for homes that stay warm with heating oil.

Even with all of the bad news, John McCain has decided to follow the Bush economic and energy “plans”. As it has been previously documented, McCain has already learned how to roll over for Big Oil interests by reversing his own positions. Actually, McCain plans to go even further than Bush in many ways when it comes to appeasing Big Oil. He has not only decided to back Bush’s irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy but he also gives away the treasury on even more tax cuts for big corporations. Big Oil would receive some $4 billion in additional handouts. It would be difficult to imagine, but such a McCain economy could make a terribly bad situation much worse.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) has done an analysis of Senator John McCain’s oil industry subsidies plan and it doesn’t look pretty. At a time when Big Oil has all of us over a barrel and is making such obscene profits, John McCain is proposing massive tax giveaways and other hand outs to them. McCain’s proposals would give $39 billion in federal help for oil and gas companies over the next five years. These subsidies and tax breaks could be used in many different ways to help support a serious long-term solution to our energy crisis. The CAPAF analysis outlines how McCain’s $39 billion for Big Oil could be invested in renewable energy and it estimates how many tax dollars from each state will be spent subsidizing Big Oil.

CAPAF estimates that Wisconsin’s share of McCain’s $39 Billion giveaway to Big Oil is $640 million! That is enough to weatherize 230,000 homes, power 98,000 homes with wind, and create 155,000 homes powered by geothermal technology. Doing all of those things would also create an estimated 2,750 new jobs in Wisconsin. Instead of taking such a long-term and forward thinking approach, John McCain is suggesting that Wisconsin keep using the same old model that keeps enriching the same folks that repeatedly gouge us. Apparently Wisconsin is just supposed to thank Big Oil and hand over it’s share of the $39 billion in extra giveaways. Exactly what kind of energy policy is that? The simple answer: it’s McSame as Bush and it won’t yield any different result.  More pain at the pump and more record profits for Big Oil.

John McCain has made energy his primary issue in recent weeks. It seems to be a strange choice for a U.S. Senator that has skipped every major energy vote in the last two years. That means that McCain was AWOL on 15 important votes on things like renewable energies, energy efficiency, biofuels, and even offshore drilling. Over the last two years McCain has shown no interest in our energy crisis or in the many solutions offered by his colleagues in Congress. Now suddenly, when he is in the midst of a presidential campaign, McCain has made energy issue number one. Someone should tell him that his actions speak much louder than his words.

Perhaps it is McCain’s extended lack of interest in energy that has caused him to ridicule his opponent for talking about energy efficiency moves like inflating tires properly and getting regular tune-ups. McCain used only a portion of that commentary to mock his opponent without looking at the actual data about how much the simple acts would save. The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling (McCain’s newfound passion) would meet 1 percent of our demand some two decades from now. Compare that to the instant 3 percent improvement in gas mileage by keeping tires inflated and the 4 percent improvement by doing regular maintenance. Even Republican Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA) and Charlie Crist (FL) have made the same common sense point that McCain and the right wing are now mocking. It looks like the only joke here is McCain’s plan to continue selling out to Big Oil in a losing effort to drill our way out of an energy crisis. Perhaps McCain would do less damage if he just went back to ignoring these important energy issues. 

Update:  Now McCain has decided to sumbit to common knowledge and has said that now he doesn't disagree with Obama on the importance of tire pressure.  McCain reportedly said, "I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it."  Naturally his campaign continues to mock the idea.

All of the big oil companies have been announcing more record profit for the quarter. Exxon Mobile just reported that it brought in nearly $12 billion dollars in the last three months, which is not only a record for them but also a record for any U.S. company. Similarly the other big oil companies have once again made record profits while consumers struggle to pay record prices at the pump. The pain is not only being felt at the pump because the pain has moved its way through nearly every layer of our struggling Bush/McCain economy.

The Los Angeles Times has reported that in the quarter that just ended, Exxon spent $8 billion buying back shares of its own stock and only spent $7 billion in other projects that could helped ease the supply problem. Although conservatives seem to think that Big Oil should get a free pass to drill wherever they want, they fail to notice that they already have access to a large majority of public lands but have done very little with that access. This has understandably led some in Congress to promote a “use it or lose it” strategy.

In the middle of these record breaking profit announcements by Big Oil, John McCain is running around the country serving as their latest key representative in government. He has earned their recent support by reversing his own position on offshore drilling, a change that has brought in over a million dollars into his campaign coffers in only a month. Even in the midst of such record breaking profits, McCain has sought to hand over many more tax giveaways to his new benefactors to the tune of $4 billion. Just what Big Oil needed, another lacky in Congress trying to create ways to give them even more money.

Thursday I attended Senator John McCain’s town hall meeting in Racine. After passing out OWN’s latest press release to the local and national media, I sat down at a seat right where the Senator from Arizona entered the gym style room that held the event. Since it was billed as a “town hall” I prepared a question to ask Senator McCain. Most of the questions were total softballs and/or compliments from adoring fans. I recall only two questions that were substantive or even remotely challenging during the entire event.

One questioner said that McCain has gone back on his early condemnations of negative ads because he is now running several himself. The other questioner harkened back to a question  McCain failed to answer two weeks ago. It was regarding the disparity in health care coverage between men and women with things like Viagra v. Birth Control. McCain didn't provide the long awkward silence as he did the first time but he mostly sidestepped the crux of the issue in the young women’s question.

At a time in the year when Big Oil is once again reporting record profits, the Sierra Club is announcing a TV ad that puts Senator John McCain’s energy policies under close scrutiny. While working people have been experiencing so much pain at the pump, Big Oil has continued to reap billions of dollars in profit in just the past three months alone. The Sierra Club ad zeros in on the fact that McCain has taken some $2 million in campaign cash from Big Oil and has proposed tax giveaways of as much as $4 billion, even as they gouge the public.

The Sierra Club points out that Big Oil is reporting yet another quarter of billions in record-breaking profits. They are even outpacing last year’s records. ConocoPhillips raked in $5.4 billion, BP pulled down $9.5 billion (which exceeded analysts expectations by more than $1.5 billion, and tomorrow when John McCain visits Wisconsin, ExxonMobil and Shell will also announce billions of dollars of profits, respectively. Chevron is set to announce its profits tomorrow—with analysts expecting them to top last year’s second quarter total of $5.4 billion.

The new Sierra Club ad calls out John McCain for his efforts to further pad the already massive wallets of Big Oil. At a time when fuel costs are hurting our entire economy and oppressing working families, the Sierra Club is right to forcefully address the issue and Big Oil enablers like Senator John McCain.

In anticipation of Senator John McCain’s Racine town hall meeting Thursday, several concerned Wisconsinites that will be unable to attend offered five questions that they would like McCain to answer.

John Valko, President of UAW Local 180 in Racine is concerned about the loss of good paying, family supporting jobs. He wants to ask Senator McCain why the country should continue the harmful policies that he supports which have caused our current economic crisis. This crisis includes the loss of some 92,000 manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin during the Bush administration. Specifically Valko cites John McCain’s support for disastrous Bush policies including unfair trade deals, and massive tax cuts for big corporations and the wealthiest individuals.

John Valko's question: “The policies you have championed have resulted in an economic nightmare for families across Wisconsin, so my question is: Why would we want to continue your failed policies which have devastated our country?"

We already know that Senator John McCain’s economic plan would give some $4 billion in handouts to Big Oil at a time when they are gouging the public and making record profits. We also know that John McCain dramatically reversed himself in June regarding the federal ban on offshore drilling. He changed his position on the issue conveniently just before a fundraising trip through Texas. According to a story in the Washington Post, the move allowed him to cash in big time.

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month compared to only $208,000 in May. The vast majority of McCain’s fundraising in June came after his June 16 speech reversing his own position on the offshore drilling ban. These specific interests have never really been big supporters of McCain, but it looks like he has found a way to change that. Unfortunately it involves dramatically changing positions at the expense of the public, the environment, and his own personal integrity. 

As a top advisor to predatory lenders, as well as John McCain ex-Texas Senator Phil Gramm has been taking heat for calling people concerned about the tanking economy and the loss of the homes, jobs and futures as “whiners” experiencing a “mental recession.”

Having studied the career of Gramm as part of a research paper I had to write in the mid-90s, it was like a trip down memory lane when I heard the Huffington Post had posted something about Gramm investments in a couple failed Russ Meyer-inspired soft-core porn flicks.

To be certain, in the hypocrite hall of fame, Gramm’s got his wing. The smaller government, except when it comes to giving taxpayer money to my corporate clients, Gramm made a career of railing against “guvment” spending.

Although U.S. Senator John McCain is trying to distance himself from the most unpopular president in recent history, they actually are like two peas in a pod when it comes to being totally out of touch with the average person. 

Who can forget the presidential news conference in February when George W. Bush was asked about the cost of gas reaching $4 a gallon? He responded with "that's interesting, I hadn't heard that." Only weeks ago, while he was raising money in California, John McCain admitted that he didn’t know the price of gas and couldn’t remember the last time that he pumped it for himself. Then he tellingly said that he doesn’t “see how it matters” if he knows the current price of gas.

This is more evidence of just how out of touch Bush and McCain are on most issues. Perhaps that is why McCain would have the audacity to propose $4 billion in tax giveaways to Big Oil at the same time that they are gouging consumers and reaping record profits. Perhaps it is why George Bush and John McCain would sell off every single public asset to Big Oil even if it wouldn’t significantly affect the cost of gas or solve our long term energy crisis.

Bush and McCain have not only shown themselves to be out of touch on the issue of energy but also on the economy in general. How many times have we heard them both say that the “fundamentals of the economy are strong” even as average people increasingly struggle with meeting their most basic needs? It seems like every week we get a new example from Bush and McCain of just how out of touch they actually are with the rest of us.

Last Thursday I found myself at a press conference held by local McCain supporters. The topic was generally about the economy and “small business” and was hosted at a company that had just moved to Milwaukee’s Fifth Ward. When I arrived at the location I was given a packet of information and led to the waiting area for the press. While waiting, I shared an OWN press release with the media on how McCain votes have been a disaster for women and the economy in general.

First Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker spoke and then handed it off to the host CEO. The last scheduled speaker at the press conference was former State Senator Cathy Stepp. She largely focused on her business and how the out of control gas prices are hurting it. Frankly, I was surprised that she would make energy policy her central theme at this press conference given John McCain’s awful record in both the U.S. Senate and in recent policy statements.

At the same time that ads started running in Wisconsin trying to paint U.S. Senator John McCain as an environmentalist, he was busy demonstrating that nothing could be further from the truth. The ad attempts to distinguish him from Bush on environmental issues. Actually he undermined that argument himself while on a fundraising tour through oil country. He announced that he was suddenly in favor of giving big oil a free pass to start drilling all along our coast. Right around the same time perpetual candidate for Congress, John Gard, started spouting all of the same talking points including promoting some that flatly inaccurate.

In a recent column, the Sierra Club educates John McCain not only on trying to drill our way out of our oil addiction, but they also remind him of his previous statements on the subject. John Gard would do well to take the same schooling on the issue and make the relevant facts a part of his often advertised “town hall” events.

The column shows that although John McCain advocated for opening the rest of the country’s coasts to oil drilling, only two weeks before he was singing a different tune. At that time he repeated his opposition to such a plan saying that it would take “years to develop” and that “it would only postpone or temporarily relieve our dependency on fossil fuels.” Perhaps McCain was hoping that no one was paying attention to the fact that he just dramatically and suddenly changed his position at a time that he was also raising campaign cash from big oil execs.