Bad Deeds for 6-22-2012

Corporations That Make Billions Refuse to Pay Houston Janitors a Living Wage – Houston janitors of the SEIU clean the offices of some of the largest corporations in America that are reaping billions in profits, yet these hard-working men and women are paid less than $9,000 a year.

Gilberto Hinojosa, the newly elected chairman of the Texas Democratic Party said, “Honest work should receive honest pay, but Republicans want to repeal the minimum wage to make people work for $2 an hour. Then Republicans want to whine about paying for health care for children of American parents who have jobs. It is shameful.”

“Grotesquely overpaid CEOs and upper management expect the men and women who work hard and play by the rules to be forced to beg for public assistance just to support themselves, much less a family. That is a disgrace not only to the America we love, but also to God,” Hinojosa stressed. “These striking workers are seeking a living wage for their work in cleaning the offices of Texas millionaires and one percenters, who not only refuse to pay a decent wage for honest work but are also enlisting Republican support to protect them from paying their fair share of taxes.”

Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa and The Texas Democratic Party call upon all Texans who support the right to a living wage to make a meaningful stand by signing the petition.

Over 10,000 High Earners Paid No US Taxes – A study from the Internal Revenue Service has found that one out of 189 high earners in the US paid no income tax in 2009. That is, 10,080 households who reported adjusted gross income of at least $200,000 annually — 0.26 percent of high earners — paid no income taxes in the US or to other countries. Overall the IRS found that there were 35,061 households that paid nothing. These are some of the same people who don’t want to pay janitors (see above). It is also further reason to support President Obama’s “Buffett rule,” which would tax high-earners at a rate of 30 percent or higher.

Middle Class Would Face Higher Taxes Under Republican Plan, Analysis Finds – The tax reform plan that House Republicans have advanced would sharply cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and could leave middle-class households facing much larger tax bills, according to a new analysis set to be released Wednesday.

The report, prepared by Senate Democrats and reviewed by nonpartisan tax experts, marks the first attempt to quantify the trade-offs inherent in the GOP tax package, which would replace the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent.

Obama For America TV Ad: “Come And Go”

Obama for America TV Ad: “Mosaic”

Romney Hires Alleged Perpetrator of Voter Fraud – Here are a few highlights culled from a recent story in Republic Report and elsewhere:

*The firm Sproul and Associates was investigated for voter fraud in Nevada during their work on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004. Sproul’s registrars allegedly canvassed voters about which candidate they were planning to support. If they were leaning Republican, the group helped them to register. If they leaned Democratic, they ignored them, or later destroyed the form.

*In Oregon as well, the state attorney general opened a criminal investigation into allegations that Sproul’s group (they have since changed their name to “Lincoln Strategies”) was involved in intentionally destroying or discarding voter registration forms signed by Democrats. Portland CBS affiliate KLAS-TV reported that a former employee of Sproul claimed that hundreds, if not thousands, of Democratic registration forms were trashed by the Sproul’s minions.

*Sproul and his operatives were also behind efforts to gather signatures on a petition to place Ralph Nader on the ballot in Arizona in an attempt to siphon votes off from Democrat, John Kerry in 2004.
*During the midterm elections in 2006 Sproul’s “registrars” were kicked out of Wal-Mart in Tennessee, and also the Oregon library system for claiming fraudulently that they were engaged in a “non-partisan voter registration drive, when they were really working for the Republican National Committee.

*In Arizona, according to Salon, Sproul’s minions employed a variety of deceptive tactics– including systematically lying about the bill– to push a ballot initiative to eviscerate the state’s Clean Elections Law. [Salon, 10/21/04]

Sproul’s capers include “tricking Democrats into registering as Republicans, surreptitiously re-registering Democrats and Independents as Republicans, and shredding Democratic registration forms,” according to the Baltimore Chronicle. For which services during the 2004 presidential election campaign, Sproul was paid an astounding $8.3 million by Bush and the Republicans, investigative journalists Mark Crispin Miller and Jared Irmas discovered.

That makes the $71,391 in fees that the consultant has reportedly received so far from Romney for President Inc.

Texas Wrongly Suspending Voters – Texas already has a low voter registration rate, and many of the state’s registered voters are in danger of losing that status. The Houston Chronicle reported that 1.5 million voters are in “suspended” status, which means they will be dropped from registration rolls on Nov. 30. Voters are suspended if they failed to respond to letters seeking to confirm their residence or if they did not receive a letter that was sent.

Some voters may have been dropped from the rolls without knowing it and through no fault of their own. For example, former Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia told the newspaper that she was placed on suspension in 2003 for failing to respond to a letter that she never received.

The Chronicle report cited U.S. Elections Commission data showing that 21 percent of Texans who have received “purge letters” were valid voters who contacted officials and avoided being dropped.

War Contractors Using Slave Labor – U.S. contractors have made billions from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But now, several – including big names like KBR, formerly part of Halliburton – are being investigated for slave labor. Let the Senate know that our tax dollars were never meant to fund slavery. Tell them to IMMEDIATELY pass the bipartisan End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act and stop taxpayer funded modern slavery.

House Republicans Killing Transportation Jobs – Both the U.S. Senate and House have passed versions of the surface transportation bill—the Senate version of the bill would create or sustain nearly 3 million jobs—and a conference committee of key House and Senate leaders is negotiating final details of the bill right now. But some Republicans in the House want to make it their way or the highway. They want to starve funding for badly needed infrastructure projects and hold hostage family-sustaining jobs.

In the past two and a half years, Congress has settled for nine short-term extensions instead of coming up with a long-term solution to fix our crumbling infrastructure and get ironworkers, crane operators, cement masons and other construction workers—14 percent of whom are currently unemployed—back on the job. For too long, we have watched while politicians pushed policies that have sent jobs overseas while kicking the can down the road on investing in infrastructure projects that would create jobs here.

Tell your elected leaders in Washington to pass the surface transportation bill before the June 30 deadline.

Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that moved jobs overseas – Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Regards,

Jim