Some GOP lawmakers distance themselves from tax pledge By Gregory Korte, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – At least two Republican congressmen say they don't remember signing it. One signed it, but has since disavowed it. A half dozen have bucked pressure from within their own party and never signed it.

• 
  Eric Francis, for USA TODAY
  Rep. Jeff Fortenberry has informed Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform that he no longer wishes to be associated with the pledge.

Enlarge

Eric Francis, for USA TODAY

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry has informed Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform that he no longer wishes to be associated with the pledge.

And a few others say they support the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in principle but would sooner violate the pledge than turn their back on a deal to reduce federal spending.

For more than two decades, the pledge written by activistGrover Norquist has been essential job application paperwork for any conservative Republican seeking a seat in Congress.

But a small number of GOP House members are joining Senate colleagues in distancing themselves from the pledge, as Congress works on a compromise to reduce the deficit.

That distance has taken a number of forms, from amnesia to outright disavowal:

•Not constrained: Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., has informed Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform that he no longer wishes to be associated with the pledge, though his name still appears on the group's website. "When you look at something like ending the ethanol subsidy, if that's considered a tax increase, I can't be constrained by that," he told USA TODAY. "Things have to be on the table."

•Agree in principle, if not in practice? Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., stands behind the "spirit" of the pledge, but "does not believe that the pledge prevents him from supporting tax reform that includes tax increases in some instances or closing loopholes," said his chief of staff Fredrick Piccolo Jr. If raising some taxes to solve the debt crisis means angering Norquist, Piccolo said, "he'll anger Grover Norquist."

A spokesman for Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said Wisconsinites are interested in revenues in general, not the specifics of the Norquist pledge. "That's why Congressman Duffy has voted to get rid of loopholes and deductions in an effort to make the corporate tax code fairer and flatter and more competitive," said his chief of staff, Brandon Moody. Does that mean Duffy could support a deal that ends tax breaks for some people? "He'll take each vote as they come and make an informed decision based on the specifics of the proposal or bill," Moody said.

•Don't remember: At a town-hall-style forum last month, a constituent challenged Rep.Lee Terry, R-Neb., about his signing of the pledge. "I did?" Terry responded. "The list I've seen doesn't have my name on it."

In an interview afterward, Terry said he may have signed the pledge as a candidate in 1998, but wouldn't do so today. "I am so anti-pledges," he said. "At some point, I have to be able to say, 'Look at my record.' And my record shows I have never voted for a tax increase."

Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., also "doesn't sign pledges," said spokesman Tom Pfeifer. But after retrieving a signed copy of the pledge from Norquist's office, Pfeifer said: "Whether or not he remembered signing something 19 years ago. … after reading the pledge it's clear he has stuck to it."

Thirteen members of Congress — including six in the House of Representatives— have never signed the pledge. One is Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va.

With increasing amounts of Treasury debt being bought by China, the deficit is a national security and human rights issue so important that "everything has to be on the table," Wolf said — especially tax breaks favoring special interests. "Tax earmarks ought to be eliminated."

Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Ga., also never signed the pledge, saying it "simply reinforces our existing, broken tax code—the same tax code that's laden with 60,000 pages of deductions, exemptions and exclusions designed to curry favor from special interests," he said in a statement. He supports abolishing the income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax.

Norquist's group says 236 congressmen have signed the pledge, agreeing to oppose tax increases for as long as they hold their current office. That's up from 173 congressmen just a year ago, before Republicans took control of the House.

If tax increases are to be part of a deal to decrease the deficit by the end of this year, 19 will have to find a way out of the pledge.

The pledge takes several forms depending on the office. In its simplest version, politicians oppose "any and all efforts to increase taxes."

The pledge for members of Congress is more specific. Congressmen pledge to: "One, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal tax rate for individuals and businesses; and TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates."

Despite questions about the definition of a tax increase, Norquist has little patience for any equivocation. "Everybody knows what the pledge means. It's very simple. If it raises taxes, it's a tax increase," he said.

Politicians trying to wiggle out of their promise don't have to answer to him, Norquist said. "The commitment is not to Americans for Tax Reform. It's to their constituents."

That's good enough for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who has been feuding with Norquist since leading a group of 34 GOP senators — including 31 pledge-signers — to eliminate ethanol subsidies in June.

"Most of us agree with Grover on most of the stuff," Coburn said. "But he's not the one who gets to determine what a tax increase is. We are, and the American people are.

"The more media he gets, the more false power he has, which is more intimidating to people," Coburn said.

If more House members are showing their independence from Norquist in going after tax "earmarks," that could bode well for future deficit reduction efforts, he said.

Obama and Regulatory Uncertainty

Obama and Regulatory Uncertainty

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 08:31 AM PDT anGRY BEAR

One of the current Republican talking point is that a major reason that firms are not hiring is regulatory uncertainty.

Of course there is little or no evidence to support this argument and virtually every poll of business and especially small business shows that fear of regulation is a very minor factor in current business decisions. The dominant factor in poll after poll is inadequate demand.

ON 11 June 2004 Milton Friedman published an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page called "Freedom's Friend" [reprint available here], where he proposed that the number of pages in the Federal Register could be used as a measure of government's interference in people lives and a measure of freedom.

I've looked at this measure before, back in 2008. Given this new Republican talking point it seems a good time to revisit it, so I've updated the data to include the first two years of the Obama administration. The chart compares the average number of pages published in the Federal Register each year. This measure allows you to compare the number of pages in four-year and eight-year administrations, as well as the number in the first two years of the Obama administration. If you tried to chart the total number of pages published over an administration, you could not make this type of comparison very well.

Milton Friedman wanted to use this approach to demonstrate that Reagan interfered in people freedom less than other presidents. He clearly made that point, and if you update the chart it shows that Bush II set the all time record for the number of pages in the Federal Register. Of course, the Republicans would deny that the record level of interference in people's freedom by President Bush caused business to limit hiring.

But in the first two years of the Obama administration the number of pages in the Federal Register averaged 75,875 as compared to and average of 75,894 under Bush. So far Obama appears to have published -0.02% fewer regulations than Bush. Of course, he still has time to move ahead of Bush. But as of yet this measure implies that there is actually less regulatory uncertainty under Obama than there was under Bush when the Republicans obviously made no claims about regulatory uncertainty restraining employment.



I wonder if anyone in the press would pick up this point and actually question some Republican when they make this talking point.

I clearly miss [the late] Mark Haines of CNBC, who would regularly call politicians or other fools on such talking points. This would clearly give someone else at CNBC the chance to pick up where Mark Haines left off.

At least, I hope some other popular bloggers will spread this analysis.

Exclusive: The Koch Brothers' Million-Dollar Donor Club

Exclusive: The Koch Brothers' Million-Dollar Donor Club - Mother Jones

—By Gavin Aronsen

| Tue Sep. 6, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

 

Illustration: Parker Brothers

 

Read our inside account of the Koch brothers' Vail seminar, and listen to the exclusive audio.
Twice a year, the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch host secretive retreats for an exclusive list of corporate America's rich and powerful to strategize and raise money for their right-wing political agenda. Mother Jones has obtained exclusive audio recordings that shed some light on the brothers' latest retreat, held at a resort near Vail, Colorado, in late June.
In a speech that is part of these recordings, Charles Koch thanks donors who gave more than $1 million to the cause. We checked the audio against a list of participants at the Kochs' 2010 seminar in Aspen that was obtained by ThinkProgress.org and did additional research on these individuals. Below are the names Koch read that appeared on the previous guest list.
John Childs: Childs is the founder and CEO of private equity firm JW Childs Associates. In 2006, Boston Magazine placed the "notoriously media-shy" magnate—a.k.a. "the Republican ATM"—among the city's wealthiest residents, reportedly worth $1.2 billion. Childs donated $750,000 to outside political expenditure groups in 2010. He's also been involved in Florida wetlands conservation efforts.
The Cortopassis: Dean "Dino" Cortopassi and his wife, Joan, hail from Stockton, California. This article, which identifies the pair as philanthroposts, calls Dino a "wealthy self-made agribusinessman who is Stocktonian of the Year for 2005." He is suing the state of California for its failure to dredge streams in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Joe Craft: Joseph Craft is president, CEO, and chairman of Alliance Resource Partners, a coal company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that gave $2.4 million to outside political expenditure groups in 2010. His family is reportedly worth $1.9 billion.
Richard DeVosThe DeVoses: Rich and Helen DeVos hail from Michigan. The cofounder of Amway and owner of the NBA's Orlando Magic, Rich DeVos is reportedly worth in the ballpark of $4.2 billion. The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation funds conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family. The DeVoses are big enough political donors to have their own profile at OpenSecrets.org.
The Farmers: Dick Farmer is from Ohio. The founder and former CEO of the Cintas Corporation, his story is literally rags-to-riches: He turned his father's Depression-era rag-cleaning business into a $3.5 billion enterprise. Farmer and his wife, Joyce, are longtime Republican boosters; during the 2002 election cycle the couple gave about $1 million to the party.

The Friesses: Foster Friess founded the investment firm Friess Associates in 1974 with his wife, Lynn; in 2001, he sold a majority share for $247 million. Friess is a champion of conservative Christian causes and one of Wyoming's richest men. His son, Steve Friess, helps him run the family's philanthropic foundation. (Steve's wife, Polly, was also on the list of Aspen Koch participants.)
The Fullinwiders: Jerry and Leah Fullinwider hail from Dallas. Jerry has pursued oil exploration and development in the United States, Canada, and Russia. He now serves under Ross Perot's son as vice chairman of Hillwood International Energy, which has operations in Iraq and Jordan as well as the United States and Russia. He also has ties to Hilarion Alfeyev, an anti-abortion Russian Orthodox bishop.
The Gilliams: Richard Gilliam and wife, Leslie, are natives of southwest Virginia. Richard founded the Cumberland Resources Corporation, which was one of the nation's largest private coal mining companies when Massey Energy bought it for nearly $1 billion in March 2010. He's now a director with the Vancouver-based mining corporation Endurance Gold.
The Griffins: Ken and Anne Dias Griffin are a hedge fund power couple from Chicago who wed in 2003. Ken is the founder and CEO of Citadel and is reportedly worth $2.3 billion. Anne founded one of the nation's largest woman-run hedge funds, Aragon Global Management. Ken bundled money for both President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain during the 2008 election.
The Haworths: Richard "Dick" Haworth is the former CEO and chairman emeritus of Haworth, an international office-interiors manufacturer based in Holland, Michigan, that he took over from his father in 1975. The company reported sales of $1.4 billion in 2005, the year he retired. He is married to Ethie Haworth and has donated more than $100,000 to Republican causes, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Diane Hendricks: Hendricks is the billionaire former head of the ABC Supply roofing company, which she took over from her husband Kenneth after he died in a construction site accident in 2007. Reportedly worth $2.2 billion, she is the richest businesswoman in Wisconsin and a big Republican Party donor. She recently gave her state's embattled Republican governor, Scott Walker, $10,000 in advance of a potential recall vote next year.
The Humphreys family: Ethelmae Humphreys is the chair of the board of Tamko Building Products, one of the country's largest independent roofing manufacturers. She also serves on the board of directors of the Cato Institute, a Koch-funded think tank. Her son David is Tamko's CEO. The two have doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates. That includes David's $25,000 donation to the successful recount effort this year of conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, who came under fire recently for allegations that he choked a fellow justice. (He wasn't charged.)
The Levys: Kenneth Levy of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, cofounded the Jacobs Levy equity management firm and has donated about $85,000 to conservative causes, according to FEC records. His wife, Frayda Levin, is a national director at the Koch brothers' advocacy group Americans for Prosperity and sits on the board of the Club for Growth. She also cofounded the Motion Picture Institute, which "promotes liberty through film," according to her AFP bio. FEC records show that she has given well over $100,000 to conservative causes.
The Marshall family: Elaine Marshall of Dallas is the widow of E. Pierce Marshall, a son of oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall who served on the board of Koch Industries before his death. Elaine was involved in a successful effort to prevent the late Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith, who married Howard when he was 89, from inheriting the family's wealth. Before Smith's death, she was investigated by the FBI but never prosecuted in a murder-for-hire plot against Pierce. In the end, Pierce inherited the bulk of his father's wealth because he and his father had previously helped Charles and David Koch thwart a takeover of Koch Industries; Howard's eldest son—also named Howard—sided against his father and was disinherited as a result. Meanwhile, Elaine's son, E. Pierce Marshall Jr., is senior vice president and general counsel at oil exploration company MarOpCo. Another son, Preston Marshall of Houston, is the president of MarOpCo.
The Popes: Art Pope is a millionaire Republican booster from Raleigh, North Carolina, who inherited his retail fortune from a family business. According to this article, he’s "one of the most trusted members of the Koch's elite circle" and a regular at the Kochs' secret seminars, as well as a "valuable junior partner in many key Koch operations." He's another national director at Americans for Prosperity and is married to Kathy Pope.
The Robertsons: Corbin Robertson is CEO and chairman of the board of Natural Resource Partners, a Houston-based fossil fuels company. He's also been involved with a number of other energy organizations and was listed as the richest US small-business owner in 2007 by CNNMoney. He and wife Barbara have donated to the Baylor College of Medicine and both Democratic and Republican politicians.
Karen Wright: Wright is the founder and CEO of the Ariel Foundation, a private philanthropy group based in Mount Vernon, Ohio. She's also CEO of the Ariel Corporation, a natural-gas compression company, and on the American Petroleum Institute's board of directors. She has donated more than $100,000 to Republican causes, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Tom Rastin: Rastin shares a Mount Vernon, Ohio, address with Karen Wright. He serves on the board of directors at the Ariel Foundation and is vice president of marketing and engineering at the Ariel Corporation. Last year, he gave $2,400 to the failed congressional campaign of former Democratic Louisiana House Speaker Hunt Downer, who switched to the Republican Party after endorsing the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2000.
The principals with the Services Group of America: SGA is a billion-dollar food services wholesaler; its CEO, Peter Smith of Scottsdale, Arizona, appears on the list of 2010 Koch attendees. Smith took over as CEO last year after its former head, GOP heavyweight Thomas J. Stewart, died in a helicopter crash. According to FEC records, Smith has donated $12,500 to Republican congressional candidates. SGA's political action committee donates heavily to Republicans.
At the event, Charles Koch also read off names that did not appear on the 2010 attendees list, but that mirrored those of well-known GOP donors for whom giving $1 million or more to the Kochs would not seem out of character. You'll find these names below. We chose not to offer any details on the handful of names for which we could find no association with Koch business interests or conservative political giving. (Listen to Charles Koch reading the donor list.)
The Camerons: Ron Cameron of Little Rock, Arkansas, runs agribusiness giant Mountaire Corporation, which generated $1.22 billion in revenue in 2009. He has donated at least $175,000 to Republicans in recent years, including $5,000 to Sarah Palin's PAC, according to FEC records. The company itself has given at least $125,000 to outside spending groups over the past decade, according to OpenSecrets.org.
The Hamms: Self-made magnate Harold Hamm of Oklahoma City is reportedly worth $8.2 billion. The son of sharecroppers, Hamm soared up the corporate ladder from gas station attendant to CEO of "America's Oil Champion," Oklahoma-based Continental Resources. According to OpenSecrets.org, he's doled out more than $100,000 to political causes and candidates, mostly Republican. Stricken with diabetes, he and wife Sue Ann founded a center at the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center to help combat the disease.
The Haydens: Jerry and Marilyn Hayden of Barrington, Illinois, doled out $400,000 to conservative-leaning outside spending groups in 2010 and about $250,000 to Republicans in 2008. Before retirement, Jerry ran Peacock Engineering, a packaging company. As of September 2008, he served on the board of directors at the United Republican Fund of Illinois. The Haydens recently donated $2.5 million toward an alumni center at their alma matter, Bradley University.
Virginia James: James is an investor from New Jersey. She has donated handsomely to right-wing causes, including a $750,000 gift to the Club for Growth in 2008 and another $350,000 last year. This year, she donated $25,000 to the successful recount of Wisconsin's Justice Prosser.
The Menards: John Menard of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is the founder of Menards, the country's third-largest hardware company. He's worth a reported $5.2 billion and has donated about $80,000 to his state's Republican Party and federal candidates, mostly Republicans, according to FEC records. His company backed a recent anti-union program that was linked to the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity and supported by Gov. Scott Walker.
John Moran: Hailing from Palm Springs, Florida, Moran is the former chairman of the Dyson-Kissner-Moran Corporation, an international holding company based in New York City. He also chaired the Republican National Finance Committee from 1993 to 1995. Moran has given more than $900,000 to Republican causes since 1991, according to OpenSecrets.org, and he bundled between $250,000 and $500,000 more for McCain's 2008 presidential bid. In 1997, he warned that the religious right was putting his party's future "in jeopardy."
Charles SchwabThe Schwabs: Charles Schwab of San Francisco is founder and chairman of the Charles Schwab Corporation, the country's largest independent brokerage firm. He is reportedly worth $4.7 billion. Since 1989, Schwab has donated more than $1.6 million to political causes, mostly Republican, according to OpenSecrets.org. Part of that went to his company's lobbying arm, which has given away millions more.
Paul Singer: While Singer is not on the list of Aspen participants, the New York Times noted that "Annie Dickerson, who also runs a foundation for Paul Singer, a hedge fund executive who like the Kochs is active in promoting libertarian causes," showed up at that seminar. Singer founded the $17 billion hedge fund Elliott Management and recently issued an economic manifesto slamming the Federal Reserve as a "group of inbred academics."
The Templetons: John "Jack" Templeton Jr. and his wife, Josephine, of Pennsylvania, gave $50,000 apiece to Wisconsin Justice Prosser's recount effort this year. Jack has donated more than $1 million to Republicans, according to state and federal records. He heads the conservative John Templeton Foundation, which aims to merge evangelical Christianity with "science" and "health." The foundation was started by Jack's father, Sir John the mutual fund billionaire, and in 2009 reportedly had $1.7 billion in assets.
Be sure to Read Part 1 of our two-part series: "Exclusive: The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes."
And check back tomorrow for Part 2, on the GOP superstar who rocked the Koch crowd on opening night.

US Uncut Exposes Rush Limbaugh with One Simple Question

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/?akid=7519.187755.owKoql&id=660961&rd=1&t=1

Sometimes It’s Easy: US Uncut Exposes Rush Limbaugh with One Simple Question

 Carl Gibson, one of the founders of US Uncut, just steamrolled the drugged one. It was a thing of beauty. Rush would take a punch, hit the canvass, struggle to his feet, only to be flattened again. Eventually, as is always the case when right wing talkers find their asses handed to them, Ruash cheated. He spoke over Gibson, cut him off, spewed a slew of irrelevant right wing talking points, hung up on him, and then spent the next 10 minutes flailing desperately in an effort to make his audience forget what Carl’s question was.

So… What was the question? Well, a bit of background is in order first. Did you know that 47% of American households pay no income taxes? Let me tell you, every listener to right wing talk radio has heard that tired old talking point hundreds of times. It’s the ear bug of right wing talk that establishes the foundation of their resentment politics. After all, somebody has to be paying for all those welfare checks, right?

I probably don’t have to mention it to this crowd, but it is true, of course, that Limbaugh and his lieutenants (and the cultists that tune in faithfully every day) ignore the fact that everyone that works pays payroll taxes to the feds (about 12% of every dollar they earn)… They don’t mention the federal tax on gasoline… Or state, local and sales taxes. The truth is that nobody escapes the tax man, and that many of the folks that pay no federal income taxes nevertheless lose a higher percentage of their earnings to taxes than the super-rich do.

So yeah, virtually every day, Limbaugh tells his listeners that they are paying income taxes so that leech scum underclass of America can be coddled by the nanny state. So Carl called and politely as can be, asked:

Carl:  “…several multi-billion dollar corporations paid their CEOs more than they pay the government in taxes. Now I know how you feel about folks, I mean individuals who don’t pay their taxes, but I want to know how you feel about corporations that don’t pay taxes. Do you have the same antagonism for them?”

Rush: “How do I feel about how he felt about corporations that don’t pay income taxes?”

Carl:  “No, corporations.”

Rush:  “No, you said you know how I feel about individuals that don’t pay taxes… How do I feel about that?”

Carl:  “Well, I’ve heard you refer to the 47% of Americans that don’t pay taxes.”

Rush:  “Well, that’s… uh… they’re not illegally avoiding taxes, they don’t have to pay taxes because they’ve been exempted. Their votes are being purchased.”

Carl:  “Well, they have to pay a third of their income in sales and property and payroll and excise taxes too… but..” 

Rush:  “Look, the only major corporation I know not paying US taxes is General Electric.” 

Carl:  “GE, EBAY, Verizon, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Bank of America, Citibank, I mean I can go on…”

Rush:  “Are you trying to tell me that every one of those corporations pay zero US taxes?”

Carl:  “Zero US taxes Rush. Sometimes they get money back from the federal government.”

And on, and on, and on and on… 

Eventually, Rush came back from his break to inform his listeners that ExxonMobil paidbillions in taxes!  It was just the caller's clever use of a technicality that allowed for him to make his claim.  It turns out that United States corporations can deduct the taxes they pay to other governments from their US tax bill.  

Are you kidding me?

Rush thinks it's OK for us to cut Social Security and Medicare while ExxonMobil pays nothing in taxes because they are sending money to other countries instead?  From there, Limbaugh just became a caricature of himself.  The plain fact is this:  Limbaugh had no good answer for Carl's question.  Limbaugh refused to say why he takes umbrage at the poor not paying federal income taxes while multi-billion dollar corporations that are enjoying record profits either pay no taxes, or even get refunds from the federal government.  

Listen for yourself (and you should - there's a lot of good stuff I left out):

By Mike Stark | Sourced from DailyKos 

The right has chosen its scapegoat – the single mum. And she will bleed

The danger of the single woman and the threat she poses to civilisation is an ancient narrative

• 
• • Tanya Gold
  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 August 2011 20.00 BST  

The facts about single mothers read nothing like the righteous narrative. Photograph: Kelly Redinger / Design Pics Inc
 
The rightwing press and politicians have pondered the burning of Poundland and delivered their verdict. They have found the cause of chaos, and will punish the guilty for shaking the foundations of Footlocker. Who brought us here, to this terrible place? Single mothers, yah.
The rhetoric is inspired by The Exorcist. In the Daily Mail Melanie Phillips wrote: "Most of these children come from lone-mother households … Successive generations are being brought up only by mothers, through whose houses pass transitory males by whom these women have yet more children." This is a scene of sexuality depravity.
Max Hastings, also in the Daily Mail, wrote: "They are essentially wild beasts … Their behaviour on the streets resembled that of the polar bear which attacked a Norwegian tourist camp." This one has bears.
Never mind that Phillips has no idea what percentage of the rioting children were from single-parent households. Never mind that the only single mother Hastings is on record as meeting is Princess Diana – although, to be fair, he didn't like her, either.
Peter Hitchens of the Mail on Sunday, meanwhile, would like all benefits stopped for new unmarried mothers, although he does not say what should happen next in his utopia. This is the language of sadism; in fact, they all sound like Grand Inquisitors or Witchfinder Generals from Clapham. Hitchens is crazy, you may say, so remote in his Manichean universe that he deserves pity. But he has a lot of readers, and not all of them read him for comedy.
The danger of the single woman and the threat she poses to civilisation is an ancient narrative. Four hundred years ago we burned such creatures; 50 years ago they were consigned to homes for unmarried mothers or mental institutions, and deprived of their children. So what we have today is slightly better, but of the same vindictive hue.
The rhetoric can be subtle. The Sun wrote a piece about a very fat woman last week, and casually dropped the fact that she is a single mother into the second sentence. See the cause of her depravity and vast bulk! The phrase "single mother" is followed by a trail of associated words, from sexual immorality to council flat, by way of obesity, benefit scrounger, and fags. If she works, she doesn't love her children. If she doesn't, she is a drain on the state.
It is time to smash some myths. I am the child of a single mother and I am not like a polar bear, even if Max Hastings is on deadline and so fell into the world's stupidest metaphor, like a polar bear hurtling into a crevasse. We must have some facts about single mothers, amid all this sub-biblical commentary.
Only 3% of single mothers are teenagers, according to the charity Gingerbread. The average age of the single mother is 37, and the majority (55%) had their children within marriage. That poster girl for the End of Days, the sperm-bandit teenage mother in search of a council house, is not representative. She is a mere sliver of data, nearly an urban myth.
Twenty-three per cent of British households with dependent children are single-parent households; only 8% of single parents are fathers. (Single fathers suffer nothing like the same social fate, although their practical problems are identical. In the playground, they are heroes.) There are 1.9 million single parents in Britain, caring for three million children. They have a disproportionate number of disabled children (34%) and a disproportionate number of disabilities and illnesses of their own (33%).
They are also disproportionately poor. It is one of the most repulsive tendencies of humans to blame the poor for bringing hell to earth, but we do it. Some 46% of single-parent families are below the poverty line, compared with 24% of families with two parents.
The single mother is no more work-shy than any other mother: 57% of single parents work, an increase of 12 percentage points since 1997, which explodes the rightwing lie that New Labour did nothing but harm. As soon as their children reach the age of 12, this figure rises to 71%, which is the also the national average for mothers in relationships. These are the facts. They read nothing like the righteous narrative. But the scapegoat has been chosen, and she will bleed.
David Cameron said in 2010: "To that single mother struggling and working her heart out for her children we can now say: 'We're on your side; we'll help you work; we will bring that injustice to an end.'" Yet this government is punishing single mothers, while fantasising about tax breaks for women with wall-to-wall nannies. They have cut childcare tax credits and, according to a study commissioned by Gingerbread, a single parent of two children working full-time on the minimum wage and paying £300 a week or more for childcare will lose around £1,620 a year. That is 13% of their gross income, and makes nonsense of the government's rhetoric that it wants to help single parents into work.
Without childcare provision, better jobs are closed to single mothers. Even so, the Welfare Reform Bill now going through parliament wants single mothers to look for work when their youngest child is five (it is now seven), or her benefits will be cut. Jobcentre Plus is supposed to ensure single parents are only sent for jobs during school hours, or nearby, but anecdotal evidence suggests this is not the case. Why? Perhaps the rhetoric is to blame.
Then there is the cut in child benefit to higher-rate taxpayers, due to land in 2013. Two parents on £40,000 each will keep it. A single mother on £44,000 will lose it. To use the Child Support Agency (CSA) to chase fathers for unpaid maintenance will now cost £100 for working mothers; and if the CSA does collect on their behalf, it will take a cut of between 7% and 12%. We want an in-family solution, says the government. You could call that faith in the redemptive power of love. Or you could call it a tax on escaping an abusive relationship.
The government says it wants a return to the stable nuclear family. The 1950s-style marriage was stable, yes indeed, principally because women could not leave it. Germaine Greer wrote: "The illusion of stable family life was built on the silence of suffering women, who lived on what their husbands thought fit to give them, did menial work for a pittance … and endured abuse silently because of their children." It seems we are headed there again, hurting real women in the cause of a bringing a brittle fantasy to life.
Sometimes I ponder this sadism. Cameron is all Teflon and pouting now, but he was once a child who was sent to boarding school at seven. What did this do to his capacity for empathy? I asked a shrink about it once, and she said it would make you hyper-functional, but emotionally closed. That should have stayed his tragedy, but he went into politics and made it ours.
I do not know why single mothers are singled out for judgment by the rest. I suspect it is, in the end, the remnants of an ancient misogyny, damning women for failing in that most basic role – making men happy – and seeking independence for themselves. A sane government would provide cheap childcare, of course, and force companies to offer jobs with flexible working hours. But they are not in the business of solutions. They want punishment.
Suzanne Moore is away.

EXPOSED: The Corporations Funding The Annual Meeting Of The Powerful Right-Wing Front Group ALEC

By Zaid Jilani on Aug 5, 2011 at 1:15 pm

 on Aug 5, 2011 at 1:15 pm

This week, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is holding itsannual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. ALEC is a powerful corporate front group that allows big corporations to help write legislation that it then delivers to state legislators across the country. The organization is so influential that as many as a third of all state legislators nationwide, mostly Republicans, are members of its legislative outreach network. Much of the nation’s most dangerous right wing legislation, like laws decimating collective bargaining and promoting climate denial, have come from ALEC.

Now, a source who attended ALEC’s annual meeting has passed on a list of its corporate financiers. The documents detail different levels of funding, ranging from “Presidential” to “Trustee” level sponsors. According to the source, “If the funding levels have not changed since last year’s meeting,” then that means that Presidential sponsors gave $100,000, Chairman sponsors gave $50,000, Vice-Chairman gave $25,000 and Director sponsors gave $10,000. Trustee-level sponsors appear to be new this year.

The following are the documents showing the large list of corporations financing the meeting. As you can see, they run the gamut from big polluters like BP to online retailers like Amazon.com to drug industry representatives from PhRMA to Koch Industries:

To learn more about ALEC, see the Center for Media and Democracy’s new websiteALEC Exposed, which provides an easy way to search through the legislation that the front group has been promoting and passing in states around the country.

Financiers Of ALEC’s 38th Annual Meeting:

PRESIDENT LEVEL BP Reynolds American Takeda Pharmaceutical CHAIRMAN LEVEL Allergan Altria American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity American Electric Power AT&T Bayer Chevron ExxonMobil EZCorp Lumina Foundation Peabody PhRMA Shell State Farm State Policy Network UnitedHealthcare Visa Walmart Walton Family Foundation VICE-CHAIRMAN LEVEL CashAmerica Entergy FedEx Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity Freepont-McMoran Copper & Gold Intuit Johnson & Johnson Koch Industries LouisDreyfus Commodities Louisiana Seafood McMoran Exploration National Rifle Association Pfizer Sanofi TogetherRX Access UPS

DIRECTOR LEVEL Amazon.com Atmos Energy BlueCross BlueShield Association CenturyLink Chesapeake Energy ConocoPhillips Dow Encana Energy Transfer Gulf States Toyota International Paper Jacobs Entertainment LouisianaTravel.com NetChoice QEP Resources StateNet TimeWarner WellPoint TRUSTEE LEVEL American Federation for Children BlueCross Blue Shield of Lousiana BNSF Cleco CN Cox CSX Genesee & Wyoming Inc. Harris Deville & Associates HP Kansas City Southern Kraft Foods Lilly Louisiana Clerical Associates Louisiana Railroads Association Louisiana Realtors Merck Norfolk Southern RestoringFreedom.org Society of Louisiana CPAs Southern Strategy Group Spectra Energy The Capitol Group Union Pacific USAA Walgreens

Tags:

 

• ALEC
• Corporate Ethics