Bad Deeds for 7-1-2011

 

Texas Creates Jobs the Same Way as Other Third-World Countries Do – Union-hating Texas has created a lot of jobs, but its unemployment rate of 7.7% is the same as New York’s, a blue state with a the largest number of union members in the country.) The question isn’t whether Texas has created jobs, it clearly has. The question is: How, and at what cost?

Of course tax breaks for multi-billion dollar corporations incentivize businesses to expand. They also cost the state money that it needs for schools. Given a choice, Rick Perry’s Texas went with tax breaks. Now the state’s laying off as many as 100,000 teachers. That’s not likely to help Texas improve its current high school graduation rank of 36th in the nation.

If chemical companies didn’t have to comply with both state and federal regulations, they could hire thousands of people. So Perry’s administration not only refuses to regulate them in any meaningful way, but attacks the federal government when it does. Texas now has a thriving chemical industry and the largest levels of airborne carcinogens in the nation.

Corporate responsibility and compliance with law are inconvenient. Making a mistake and getting sued for it is expensive. So Perry, his appointees and allies have enacted tort “reform” so draconian that now, businesses are free to do whatever they want to their employees and consumers literally without consequence. New laws and radical right-wing judges (many of them appointed by Perry) have not “limited” lawsuits, but effectively prevented entire classes of people from seeking justice of any kind.

Today, even if a jury awards you damages against a corporation, there’s about an 87% chance that the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court (five of whose nine justices were appointed by Perry) will take it away from you, regardless of what the law says.

Businesses learned years ago that the best way to avoid being held responsible in court is not to have to go. So they concocted a scheme to avoid it: Get consumers and employees to agree to have their disputes submitted to private arbitration, where they’re ruled on by lawyers who are paid repeatedly by those same businesses instead of impartial judges and juries.

Businesses love arbitration because they pay the same lawyers over and over again to “impartially” decide disputes between them and individuals the arbitrators will only see once. Rule too many times in individual citizens’ favor and the repeat arbitration customers — businesses — won’t use the arbitrator again.

The result is that businesses don’t have to comply with the law: Arbitrators, like the Texas Supreme Court, will always have their backs.

But how could corporations get people to agree to something so patently unfair and weighted so heavily in their favor? Rick Perry. Under his administration, Texas unapologetically bars the courthouse door to average citizens.

Courts in this state say that just working for a company that has an arbitration clause in its employee manual deprives you of your Constitutional right to access justice. It’s not even a contract, they acknowledge, but you kept working there, so you consented to it.

Having a governor who does whatever businesses want — including appointing compliant judges who will freely disregard the law to serve the interests of large corporations regardless of what they do to people like Cathie Williams makes Texas extremely attractive to business. Corporations don’t generally care about miscarriages of justice. They care about being given free passes so they can earn more money. So Perry has made Texas a state with lots of new jobs because it has a court system weighted in favor of corporations against its citizens.

Rick Perry’s secret to job creation is no secret at all: It’s the same recipe used in places like Mexico and Malaysia. Here, companies save millions they would otherwise have had to spend on responsibility. It’s a tradeoff: Give up on public schools, healthy air, and your Constitutional rights and you can have a job.

 

Rich Guys Have Other Rich Guys Telling You Not to Mess With Rich Guys – Glenn Beck is moving his family to a nearly 8,000-square foot mansion in a Dallas/Fort Worth suburb. The seven bedroom and seven bathroom home, which is in a gated community in Westlake, is on the the market for $3.9 million. Beck will be renting it for $20,000 per month.

I think that Beck can spend as much as he want on his rental home. But Beck has always made himself out to be a common guy, talking to other common people. But this makes it clear that his defense of the rich is in his own, and his rich buddies, best interests.

 

Romney Claims He Didn’t Say What He Said – Over the last few weeks, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has argued that President Obama’s policies have made the economy worse.

Here was Romney in New Hampshire on Monday:

The people of New Hampshire have waited long enough. They want to see good jobs. They want to see rising incomes. They want to see an economy that’s growing again, and the president’s failed. He did not cause this recession, but he made it worse.

And he said something similar at the New Hampshire debate earlier this month:

“He didn’t create the recession, but he made it worse and longer.”

But at his press conference today in Allentown, PA — where he was highlighting a company that had closed, after President Obama touted it benefitting from the stimulus — Romney backtracked on the he-made-it-worse line. When NBC producer Sue Kroll asked the former Massachusetts governor why he believes that Obama’s policies have made the economy worse — when the economy is now growing (and not shrinking like it was in 2009), when the Dow is climbing (and no longer in a free-fall like it was in ’09), and when the unemployment rate is down a full percentage point from where it was in Oct. ’09 — Romney gave this answer:

“I didn’t say that things are worse.”

So Romney is wrong on two counts: The economy is not worse and Romney did say that it was.

 

Minnesota’s Government Shuts Down After Republicans Refuse To Agree to Revenue Increases – As of midnight today, Minnesota’s government is shut down and 20,000 government workers are on hiatus. Why? Because the Republican legislature would not agree to any revenue increases to balance the budget. If Minnesota is any indication, there is absolutely no reason to think the United States Congress will step up and be reasonable. The governor said that on Thursday he lowered his proposed tax increase and limited to only a fraction of the richest Minnesotans. But Republicans constantly rejected any tax increase and even gave up a much-desired tax cut during budget talks.

What will it take to overcome this crazy hostage-taking?

 

Republicans Are Intentionally Sabotaging the Economy – Senator Schumer has hammered home what Republicans are doing in this speech at EPI.

And we need to start asking ourselves an uncomfortable question – are Republicans slowing down the recovery on purpose for political gain in 2012? It’s one thing for them to block programs they have always opposed. But when they start to contradict themselves by opposing programs they have supported—such as pro-business tax cuts—we are left to wonder.

Let’s not forget – Senator McConnell made it clear last October that his number one priority, above everything else, is to defeat President Obama.

And now it is becoming clear that insisting on a slash-and-burn approach may be part of this plan – it has a double-benefit for Republicans: it is ideologically tidy and it undermines the economic recovery, which they think only helps them in 2012.

The result is that Republicans aren‘t just opposing the President any more. They are opposing the economic recovery itself – and all that means for America’s working and middle class families.

Republicans are bankrupting the country, stalling any economic growth for short-term Republican gains and keeping unemployment rates high by decimating the ranks of government employees. It is wrong it is to keep tax rates low while the entire country suffers as a result. Republicans are threatening to destroy the economy unless they get everything they want.

 

Another Republican Plan to Ruin Medicare – Republican Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is pushing his plan co-authored by Joe Lieberman to drain $600 billion from Medicare over the next decade. Those savings come from raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67, means-testing wealthier beneficiaries, adding new co-pays and a $550 deductible, and instituting a new $7,500 maximum for “out of pocket” expenses.

Regards,

Jim