Huffington Post: 14 Things Obama Doesn’t Want You to Know About the last 4 Years

The Huffington Post has broken down Obama’s economic policies into a nice neat little list. A nice little list that should enrage all Americans, not enough so that they would vote for Romney, who would actually be more of the same, but enough to demand actual reform of this entire kabuki theater that is our current two party death spiral.

1)Prosecution For Financial Fraud Hit A 20-Year Low During The Obama Administration

Despite Obama’s promises to crack down on Wall Street, federal prosecutions of financial fraud hit a 20-year low last year, according to a November study from a watchdog group. The number of these types of prosecutions has been falling every year since 1999 — in other words, there were more prosecutions during every year of George W. Bush’s presidency than during every year of Obama’s.

2)Income Inequality Is Worse Under Obama Than Under Bush

The rich took home a greater share of America’s income pie from 2009 to 2010 than they did between 2002 and 2007, according to an April analysis from Emmanuel Saez, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. That means the gap between the rich and the poor was more pronounced under Obama’s presidency than under George W. Bush’s.

3)Obama Wants To Lower The Corporate Tax Rate

Some of America’s most profitable companies used a variety of loopholes to pay less than zero in taxes between 2008 and 2010, according to a November 2011 report from the Center for Tax Justice. But the Obama administration wants to make it even easier for corporations to have a smaller tax bill; Obama proposed a tax overhaul that would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent.

4)Health Care Reform Won’t Make Health Care Cheaper For Most Americans

Once the health care law takes effect, insurance companies will be footing the bill for millions of previously uninsured Americans and for those who were denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. And health insurance companies willlikely pass on to consumers the cost of insuring the new patients. After Massachusetts enacted a similar health care plan in 2006, premiums for an individual plan in the state rose 18 percent over three years.

5)Obama’s Housing Programs Have Largely Been A Failure

In 2009, Obama announced the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, promising to help 3 to 4 million borrowers, but as of January — more than three years into the program — HAMP had only reached 1 million borrowers. In an aim to give the program legs, administration officials changed the rules in January to make more borrowers eligible. Still, the fixes were likely too little too late, experts said at the time.

6)Homeowners Haven’t Seen Much Out Of That Huge Mortgage Deal

The Obama Administration touted the $25 billion mortgage deal it reached with 49 states and the big banks to settle allegations that banks mishandled mortgages. As part of the settlement, banks said they would offer at least $10 billion in loan forgiveness to homeowners. But months after the deal was inked, banks have been slow to hand out the money.

7)Democrats Have Received Lots Of Campaign Cash From Bain

The Democratic National Convention will featureemployees of firms run by Bain Capital – the private equity firm where Mitt Romney was formerly CEO — likely in an aim to raise questions about Romney’s tenure at the now-controversial company. But Democratic candidates and committees had actually netted double the amount of campaign cash from Bain workers as of May than their Republican counterparts since 2008, according to the Boston Globe. Now, Republicans are beating their Democratic colleagues in Bain cash, with 58 percent of donations from Bain employees going to Republican candidates and parties, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

8)Goldman And Other Wall St. Firms Have Largely Escaped Punishment For Their Role In The Financial Crisis

The announcement last month that the Justice Department wouldn’t be prosecuting Goldman Sachs over allegations surrounding the financial crisis was a reminder for many that the Obama Administration has largely let banks off the hook for their role in the meltdown. And regulators and officials may be running out of time; the statute of limitations for crimes related to the financial crisis is fast approaching, according to The New York Times.

9)The Revolving Door Is Alive And Well In Obama Administration

Many current and former members of the Obama Administration have ties to Wall Street. The list includes the president’s current and former chiefs of staff — Jacob Lew and Bill Daley, respectively — as well as his former budget director, Peter Orszag, and others.

10)Too Big To Fail Banks Have Grown Under Obama

At the end of 2011, five big banks, including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, held 56 percent of the U.S. economy, according to Bloomberg, compared to 43 percent five years earlier. That’s right, the too-big-to-fail banks have actually gotten bigger.

11)The U.S. Has Gained A Lot Of Low-Wage Jobs During The Recovery

Welcome to the U.S. of Low-Wage America. Most of the jobs lost during the recession paid middle wages, while most of those gained during the recovery were low-wage jobs, according to a recent study from the National Employment Law Project.

12)Incomes Declined More During The Recovery Than The Recession

Median household income fell 6.7 percentbetween June 2009, when the recession technically ended, and June 2011, according to a Census Bureau study cited by The New York Times. That’s more than the 3.2 percent incomes fell during the recession, between 2007 and 2009.

13)Payroll Tax Cut May Expire On Obama’s Watch

Last December, congressional Democrats managed to save the payroll tax cut for one more year, giving 122 million workers a few extra bucks each paycheck, but now that boost may quietly disappear, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s because the White House won’t be pushing for another payroll tax cut extension this year.

14)Many Top Obama Donors Are Employees Of Major Corporations

Of the top 10 companies with employees donating money to Obama’s campaign, three are big banks: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Some of Obama’s other major contributors include employees from big companies such as Microsoft and Google.

AP Study: Poverty Rates In US on Track to Hit Highest Level Since the 1960s

The Associated Press conducted a survey of more than a dozen nonpartisan, liberal and conservative economists, think tanks and academics, and found a broad consensus. The official poverty rate will continue to rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, to as high as 15.7 percent, and even if the gain is a much more modest one of 0.1% as some predict, it will still  increase the poverty rate to it’s highest level since 1965.

Some 47 million people in the U.S., or 1 in 6, were poor last year. In 1983 the poverty rate was 15.2%, the highest since 1965. The highest level on record was 22.4 percent in 1959, when the government began calculating poverty figures. Poverty is closely tied to joblessness. While the unemployment rate dropped from 9.6 percent in 2010 to 8.2 percent in 2012, the employment-population ratio remained largely unchanged, meaning many discouraged workers stopped looking for work. The number of those collecting assistance for food went up, which is another indicator of the growth of poverty.

Stacey Mazer of the National Association of State Budget Officers said state’s poverty rate increases will be one of the deciding factors in whether states expand their Medicaid coverage. Most states generally assume poverty levels will hold mostly steady and they will hesitate if the findings show otherwise. “It’s a constant tension in the budget,” she said.

Demographers also say:

-Poverty will remain above the pre-recession level of 12.5 percent for the foreseeable future. Peak poverty levels, 15 percent to 16%, will last at least until 2014, due to expiring unemployment benefits, a jobless rate persistently above 6% will accompany weak wage growth.

-Part-time or underemployed workers, who saw a record 15 percent poverty in 2010, will continue to rise.

-Poverty among people 65 and older will remain at historically low levels, buoyed by Social Security cash payments.

The 2010 poverty level was $22,314 for a family of four, and $11,139 for an individual, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as noncash aid such as food stamps and tax credits, which were expanded substantially under President Obama’s stimulus package.

An additional 9 million people in 2010 would have been counted above the poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were taken into account.

 

 

Members of Congress Demand Mittens Romney Release his Tax Returns But Won’t Release Theirs

According to Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s refusal to release more than two years of his personal tax returns makes him unfit to hold the highest office in the land.

Sen. Reid took it a step farther saying that Romney’s refusal makes him unfit to be a dogcatcher.

They do not, however, believe as public servants that that same standard of transparency applies to them. The two Democratic leaders of the Senate and the House are among hundreds of senators and representatives from both parties who refuse to release their tax records. In all a total of 17 out of the 535 members of Congress released their most recent tax forms or some similar documentation of their tax liabilities in response to requests from mcclatchydc.com over the last three months. 19 replied that they wouldn’t provide the information, while the remainder ignored the query outright.

Congress stands to gain or lose by the very tax policies it enacts, and tax records, more than any broad financial disclosure rules now in place , offer voters a chance to see whether the leaders of the government stand to benefit from their own actions.

“Senior public officials, especially members of Congress and presidential candidates, should be required to disclose their tax returns so that the public can monitor potential conflicts of interest,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and co-author of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, who critics say lacks any real teeth, was also among those who elected to not release their returns.

Challenged at a recent news conference to release hers, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee said she wouldn’t because she wasn’t running for president.

“I file full financial disclosure required under the law,” she said.

What’s required by law was written by Congress itself, and is a broad financial-disclosure statement that has no direct information on tax liabilities and does not require the reporting of the amount of spousal income, other than the source, over 1,000. There’s little way of knowing whether that spousal income is $1,001 or $1 million.

Several members of Congress have wealthy spouses. Topping that list are Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, whose wife is an heiress to the Clear Channel Communications fortune, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., whose wife is the heiress to the Heinz ketchup fortune. Pelosi’s husband heads Financial Leasing Services Inc., a San Francisco-based venture capital and real estate firm.

Missouri Democrat McCaskill was one of the few senators who provided her tax return. Her 1040 form lists her as married filing separately, showing an adjusted gross income of $193,384. Her husband, Joe Shepard, is a wealthy businessman who had investments in a reinsurance company in Bermuda, the same country in which Romney’s investments have been criticized by Democrats. Shepard no longer holds those investments after Republicans made allegations in 2009 of tax dodging.

Advocacy groups think that financial-disclosure reporting should be expanded to capture spousal income more fully, and argue that tax data would be a useful tool.

“As public officials, potential conflicts of interest caused by their wealth and assets are a public concern,” said Holman, the Public Citizen lobbyist.

Critics Say Foreclosure Review Program Designed to Fail

4.3 million forms have been sent out under a flagship U .S. program to try to help the estimated 4 million people who may have suffered financially due to errors in their mortgage servicing.

Critics point to the fewer than 5 percent of potential beneficiaries, 214,000, who have requested a review of their cases as confirmation of suspicions that the process was designed to protect banks, not help consumers.

A February 2012 audit by San Francisco County officials found that 84 percent of the 400 foreclosures they examined contained irregularities.

An Independent Foreclosure Review was launched last November by 14 major mortgage servicers and targeted borrowers whose homes were in foreclosure during 2009 and 2010. Tens of thousands of homeowners have been found to be victims of the “robo-signing” scandal in which employees of mortgage servicing firms made up bogus documents to speed up foreclosures.

Depending on the nature of errors, remediation amounts range from $500 to $125,000 plus lost home equity – sums that consumer advocates say often pale in comparison to the overall financial and emotional damage caused by a wrongful foreclosure.

A report released last week by the Government Accountability Office found that the letters’ sent out to homeowners contained complex language, omissions of important information about remediation, and a failure to consider that some recipients speak or read little English which could “impede some borrowers’ ability to respond.”

In addition to the overwhelming lack of response, more than 5 percent of letters were returned as undeliverable, a problem that could have been prevented if counselors and others on the front line of the U.S. housing crisis had been involved when the outreach program was designed.

“The people who are most likely to receive one of these letters and be eligible are no longer at their addresses,” said Walter Walker, who has worked as a housing counselor for 20 years in Florida. “We have the resources to follow up, and in some cases find these people, but to my knowledge, not one housing counselor was consulted.”

Consumer advocates say the low numbers are indicative of the outreach’s flawed design.

While almost half of U.S. adults read at the level of a 13- or 14-year-old, the form is written at a second-year college level, according to an analysis by a consumer group.

The letters and the review’s website were not tested with target audiences, and the letters were sent out only in English, although 5.5 percent of the adult population in the United States reports they speak poor or no English.

Walker said his clients declined to fill out the form when they realized they were not guaranteed compensation, or were suspicious of it and unwilling to give out personal permission.

“Those were the two most common responses I got other than, ‘What is this?’ and throwing it in the trash can,” he said.

To improve the process, the GAO recommended making the form and website more readable and analyzing trends in borrower response and non-response.

The OCC spokesman said the agency is in the process of implementing the recommendations of the GAO’s report but could not comment on cases reviewed to date. He said the agency is considering doing an additional round of mailings before a new deadline on Sept. 30.

“The OCC has now essentially admitted that their outreach is a failure,” said Diane Thompson, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center.

“They’ve now twice extended the time that people have to respond after being extremely adamant both times that there was not going to be an extension. The only reason to extend it is because your numbers are embarrassing.”

U.N. Proposes Global Taxes

The United Nations recently proposed that countries impose international taxes to raise more than $400 billion a year. The global taxes would be on carbon, currency transactions and billionaires.

A U.N. World Economic and Social Survey found that the needs of developing countries were not being met and that more money was needed to fight global issues like climate change. These new taxes would help “donor countries overcome their record of broken promises.”

The United Nations plays a marginal role in global economic issues and has no authority to enforce an international tax. The world body can only urge its 193 members to impose such taxes.

“Donor countries have fallen well short of their aid commitments and development assistance declined last year because of budget cuts, increasing the shortfall to $167 billion,” the survey’s author, Rob Vos, said in a statement.

“We are suggesting various ways to tap resources through international mechanisms, such as coordinated taxes on carbon emissions, air traffic, and financial and currency transactions,” he said.

Some United Nations officials have suggested replacing the U.S. dollar as the world’s currency with IMF Special Drawing Rights, an idea that a number of countries support.

Another idea from The World Economic and Social Survey was that regular allocations of IMF Special Drawing Rights and use of idle Special Drawing Rights could produce about $100 billion annually to buy long-term assets that would then be used as development finance.

The survey also said a $25 per ton tax on carbon emissions from developed countries, to be collected by national authorities and allocated for international causes could raise $250 billion a year. Another $40 billion a year could be raised from a 0.005 percent transaction tax on the world’s four main currencies, the U.S. dollar, euro, yen and the British pound. A tax of 1 percent on billionaires could also be explored.

“Realizing the potential of these mechanisms will require international agreement and corresponding political will, both to tap sources as well as to ensure allocation of revenues for development,” Vos said.

Here’s an interesting word the U.N. might want to look up:

sovereignty n.

1. the quality or state of being sovereign.

2. rightful status, independence, or prerogative.

3. A nation or state’s supreme power within its borders.

 

 

President Obama’s Secretary Paid a Higher Tax Rate Than He Did

Liberals have been blasting Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney for paying such a low tax rate of 14% on his significant income but what they probably do not want the electorate to know is that the president pays a fairly low tax rate on his income as well.

According to President Obama’s 2011 federal income tax, he and his wife reported an adjusted gross income of $789,674. The Obamas paid $162,074 in total tax – an effective federal income tax rate of 20.5%. The Obamas also reported donating 22% of their income to charity, which comes out to $172,130.

The President has been pushing for the “Buffett Rule,” a requirement that millionaires pay a minimum of 30% of their income in taxes. The rule is named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett who famously pointed out that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Maybe the rule should of been called the “Obama Rule” seeing as how the president’s secretary, Anita Decker Breckenridge, makes only $95,000 a year yet pays a higher tax rate than the president does. The administration would not disclose what Breckenridge paid, saying only that it was a “slightly higher rate” than that of her boss. That “is exactly why we need to reform our tax code and ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share,” said spokeswoman Amy Brundage.

The Obama’s income place them in the 1% but their overall tax rate is slightly lower than the average for people in the top tier, largely because they made significant donations to charity. Data compiled by the Tax Policy Center show the average income-tax rate for those making more than $532,000 is 24 percent. Obama’s rate was closer to the average for household earning more than $210,000, which is 19.2 percent.

The president would not be effected by the Buffett Rule, but would see his taxes go up if the Bush tax cuts on higher income wage-earners were allowed to expire, as the president claims he wants.

ACLU NJ Release Police Misconduct Recording Android App “Police Tape”

A new Android app released by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and OpenWatch.net allows users to secretly record police encounters and upload their recordings to a public website.

“Police Tape,” builds on work done by OpenWatch.net with their “Cop Recorder” and “OpenWatch Recorder” programs. ACLU-NJ’s release adds even more helpful content, like legal advice on citizens’ rights during police encounters.

“This app provides an essential tool for police accountability,” ACLU-NJ Executive Director Deborah Jacobs said in an advisory. “Too often incidents of serious misconduct go unreported because citizens don’t feel that they will be believed. Here, the technology empowers citizens to place a check on police power directly.”

ACLU-NJ recommends that only New Jersey residents use the app due to certain states still trying to criminalize the act of citizens recording police in public. The app’s terms and conditions also recommend that users consult an attorney before publishing any recordings online.

A version of the app for iOS devices was still awaiting approval from Apple.

“Historically, vivid images of police mistreating citizens have seared our public consciousness and in some cases spurred important changes,” ACLU-NJ Policy Counsel Alexander Shalom explained. “Photos and video are critical to ensuring police accountability and police should know that the eyes of the public are on them at all times.”

Democracy Now Interviews Glenn Greenwald on Obama’s Lack of Credibility on Banking Industry

Four years after the 2008 economic crisis, not a single top Wall Street executive has gone to jail. “These executives knew that they could take these huge risks and even break laws and pay no real price, and that’s what happened,” says Glenn Greenwald, author of “With Liberty and Justice For Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful,” and a blogger for Salon. “It’s not just a travesty of justice that we haven’t punished them for past transgressions. The real danger is that we’re continuing to send the signal to the world’s most powerful financial actors that they don’t have any fear of criminal accountability when they commit these obvious crimes.”

 

Roberto Unger, Obama’s Former Harvard Law School Professor: “The President Must Be Defeated”

One of President Barack Obama’s former college professors took to YouTube recently to rip his former student.

“President Obama must be defeated in the coming election,” said Roberto Unger, a longtime professor at Harvard Law School.

“He has failed to advance the progressive cause in the United States.”

Unger said that Obama must lose the election in order for “the voice of democratic prophecy to speak once again in American life.”

He says that if a Republican wins the presidency, “there will be a cost … in judicial and administrative appointments.” But that “the risk of military adventurism” would be no worse and that “the Democratic Party proposes no new direction.”

“Give the bond markets what they want, bail out the reckless so long as they are also rich, use fiscal and monetary stimulus to make up for the absence of any consequential broadening of economic and educational opportunity, sweeten the pill of disempowerment with a touch of tax fairness, even though the effect of any such tax reform is sure to be modest,” he said. “This is less a project than it is an abdication.”

President Obama Was Just Too Busy to Visit Wisconsin

Asked why he didn’t visit Wisconsin to support efforts to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker for his legislative attacks on unions, President Obama said he was too busy.

“I have a lot of responsibilities,” he told WBAY, the CBS affiliate in Green Bay in one of eight local interviews he conducted Monday to launch a White House initiative that will direct $2 billion to rural communities from the Small Business Administration.

Obama has been criticized by Democratic activists for not helping Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s unsuccessful effort to unseat Republican Gov. Scott Walker in last week’s vote.

“I would have loved to have seen a different result,” he said.

Too busy to keep his promise to stand with and defend unions but not too busy to attend fundraisers held by the president of a private equity firm, the same kinds of private equity firms that Obama says don’t hold American values.

 

Oh yeah, let’s not forget about that broken promise to raise the minimum wage too