EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS FREE SPEECH

In the last 5 months, Republican legislators in at least 19 states have proposed laws that would crack down on the freedom of speech. [1] This is a bit of a surprise, since conservatives often present themselves as protectors of freedom of speech, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Republicans and conservatives have even asserted a right to freedom of speech for corporations. So, what’s going on?

These Republicans are trying to block the freedom of speech of protesters opposed to their and President Trump’s policies. Proposed legislation in various states would increase punishments for protesters, seize their assets (including homes), and remove penalties on drivers who hit protesters with their cars. Some of the legislation tries to make non-violent protests seem like serious threats that deserve severe punishment by redefining them as “riots” or terrorism.

The good news is that none of these bills has yet been passed into law. Several of them have been stopped by protests or the realization that they are unconstitutional. [2]

It’s noteworthy that these proposals are surfacing when the protests are from the left. They have arisen in the face of protests of the election of Trump, of oil pipelines, and of police shootings and harsh treatment of unarmed Blacks. They target protests that support raising the minimum wage and protecting the environment. Historically, similar efforts from the right to suppress protesting were evident during civil rights protests in the 1960s and workers’ protests in the late 1800s and early 1900s. [3]

It’s interesting that concern over protests wasn’t evident during Tea Party protests; pro-Trump rallies; KKK, white supremacists, or anti-civil rights protests; or anti-gay, anti-immigrant, or anti-Muslim protests. Concern over protests also wasn’t evident when anti-abortion protesters blocked, burned, and bombed Planned Parenthood health clinics. Furthermore, the response from the left to protests by those on the right has been very temperate and focused on efforts to ensure the physical safety of patients wanting to access Planned Parenthood clinics. Those on the left respect the fact that even verbal attacks and harassment are protected free speech.

One of the rationales for Republicans’ anti-protest legislation is that they’re trying to counter the actions of paid, professional protesters who foment violence. This is a common accusation that experts agree is overstated. If anything, instigators of violence more often come from the right than from the left. In fact, there has been remarkably little violence in the anti-Trump protests, despite their size, energy, and strong emotions.

Although none of the anti-protest legislation has yet passed, there is cause for concern. Many state governments are dominated by Republicans and the Republicans there and in Washington (including the President) exhibit quite conservative, law-and-order attitudes, as well as a desire to suppress opposition. This, combined with the frequent demonstrations protesting Trump and Republican policies, as well as the many powerful interests that have a stake in suppressing current protests, produce an atmosphere in which such legislation may pass and where violations of the right to freedom of speech are quite possible.

Threats of legislation that would punish protesters and anti-protest rhetoric are likely to have a chilling effect on dissent, on protesting, and on exercising freedom of speech. As citizens of a democracy, we must pushback against these threats and support the Bill of Rights and the freedom of speech.

[1] Yoder, T., 3/7/17, “New anti-protesting legislation: A deeper look,” National Lawyers Guild and Moyer & Company (http://billmoyers.com/story/new-anti-protesting-legislation-deeper-look/)

[2] McCauley, L., 2/28/17, “Outcry kills anti-protest law in Arizona, but troubling trend continues nationwide,” Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/02/28/outcry-kills-anti-protest-law-arizona-troubling-trend-continues-nationwide)

[3] Ingraham, C., 2/24/17, “Republican lawmakers introduce bills to curb protesting in at least 18 states,” The Washington Post

CORPORATE BEHAVIOR DRIVES INEQUALITY

Several corporate practices, particularly those of large, multi-national corporations, are major contributors to income and wealth inequality. One is their avoidance of taxes, which means other taxpayers must make up the difference. Another is their employee compensation practices.

The huge and growing differential between the compensation for corporate executives and workers needs to be reduced. Increasing the minimum wage is one step. However, taxing or limiting compensation for executives should also occur.

Wall Street gave out $24 billion in bonuses last year to 177,000 workers who got an average of $138,200 each. The average Wall Street bonus has increased 900% since 1985, while the minimum wage has increased a little over 100%. This $24 billion in bonuses for 177,000 workers is over one and a half times the total pay for the year for all 1,000,000 (1 million), full-time, minimum wage workers. [1]

This excessive Wall Street compensation not only contributes to overall inequality, it contributes to gender and racial income disparities. Roughly 85% of Wall Street executives and senior managers are white and over two-thirds are male. By contrast, 56% of minimum wage workers are non-white and almost two-thirds of them are female.

Huge Wall Street bonuses and “performance pay” provide incentives to Wall Street to engage in the kind of high risk, high return financial strategies that led to the 2008 financial collapse. The Dodd-Frank financial reform law called for regulation of these bonuses but these regulations have been blocked and delayed. Furthermore, the 20 largest US banks gave out over $2 billion in so-called performance pay to their top executives between 2012 and 2015. Not only do these huge amounts provide incentives for risky behavior, they are also tax deductible for the corporations, saving them $725 million in taxes.

A recent study of corporate taxes showed that many large, profitable corporations frequently pay no federal taxes. The analysis found that 258 large corporations that were consistently profitable from 2008 to 2015 and had $3.8 trillion in profits rarely paid the 35% tax rate that they, President Trump, and Republicans in Congress say needs to be cut. On average, the study found they paid only 21% of their profits in taxes – a lower rate than many individuals pay on their incomes.

In fact, 18 of these large, consistently profitable corporations paid no federal tax over the study’s 8-year period. And 100 of them paid no taxes in at least one year of the 2008 and 2015 period studied, despite reporting a profit. They did this by using tax loopholes and avoidance strategies such as shifting profits to overseas entities, depreciating assets very quickly, deducting the cost of huge stock options given to executives, and using special industry-specific tax breaks they’ve gotten slipped into our tax laws.

These tax breaks are highly concentrated with most of them going to a few, very large, multi-national corporations. Just 25 corporations received over half of the tax subsidies of all 258 corporations in the study. The study reported that the corporations with the biggest tax subsidies over the 8-year period were AT&T ($38 billion), Wells Fargo ($31 billion), JPMorganChase ($22 billion), and Verizon ($21 billion). [2]

The study refutes the argument that the US’s corporate tax rate is higher than that of foreign countries and that it makes the US an unfavorable location for doing business. The tax rates paid over the 8-year period by certain industries were quite low: gas and electric utilities – 3%, industrial machinery – 11%, telecommunications – 12%, oil, gas, and pipelines – 12%, and Internet services and retailing – 16%. The industry-specific tax breaks that lead to these low tax rates are unfair and unnecessary.

The study’s report recommends five changes to US tax laws to remedy these problems:

Repeal the tax exemption for overseas profits,
Limit the deduction for the phantom costs of executive stock options,
Eliminate tax provisions that allow for rapid, let alone immediate, depreciation of assets,
Reinstate a strong corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, and
Increase transparency by requiring full, country-by-country disclosure of corporate financial information. [3]

I urge you to contact your members of Congress and ask them to support these changes to our tax laws so that large, multi-national corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Please also ask them to support increasing the minimum wage and implementing regulations on Wall Street compensation to reduce incentives for risky behavior that could lead to another financial disaster.

[1] Anderson, S., 3/15/17, “Off the deep end: The Wall Street bonus pool and low-wage workers,” Moyers & Company (http://billmoyers.com/story/wall-street-bonus-pool-2017/)

[2] Cohen, P., 3/9/17, “Profitable companies, no taxes: Here’s how they did it,” The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/business/economy/corporate-tax-report.html?_r=0

[3] Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 3/9/17, “The 35 percent corporate tax myth: Corporate tax avoidance by Fortune 500 companies, 2008 to 2015” http://itep.org/itep_reports/2017/03/the-35-percent-corporate-tax-myth.php#.WM6CaYWcHIU

DAMAGE IS BEING DONE BEHIND THE TRUMP SMOKESCREEN

What you don’t know can hurt you. Behind the smokescreen of President Trump’s high profile Executive Orders and public statements, he and Congress are undermining public health and safety, as well as government revenue. By undoing or weakening existing policies, they are allowing, among other things:

Underpayment of royalties on fossil fuel extraction,
Use of unsafe and inefficient private prisons,
Dumping of coal mining wastes into streams, and
Weakened background checks for gun purchases by people unable to manage their own affairs.

President Trump rescinded a rule that stopped corporations from paying royalties based on artificially low prices. When a corporation extracts oil, gas, and coal on public lands, it will (if it can) sell them to a subsidiary at an artificially low price that allows it to pay an artificially low royalty to the federal government. Its subsidiary then sells the extracted fossil fuel at a much higher, market price. The result is a windfall for the corporation and a rip-off of taxpayers. [1]

Trump’s Attorney General has rescinded the decision to eliminate the use of unsafe and inefficient private prisons. Last August, a Department of Justice Inspector General’s report found that the private prisons used by the Bureau of Prisons did not provide the same level of safety and security as government owned and operated prisons. Therefore, Obama’s Deputy Attorney General announced a decision to eliminate this use of private prisons. In her announcement, she also noted that the private prisons did not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources to prisoners as government-run prisons, and that they did not substantially reduce costs.

Despite this evidence, the Trump administration has decided that 13 private federal prisons, which hold 22,000 inmates, will continue to be run by private corporations. Thus, hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars will pay three corporations to run unsafe, substandard, inefficient prisons. (See my previous posts here and here for more details.) Perhaps not surprisingly, these three corporations have given significant amounts of money to politicians, including to President Trump. One of them, CoreCivic, formerly the Correction Corporation of America, gave $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural festivities. GEO Group, another one of the three private prison corporations, also gave $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural festivities, on top of the $275,000 it had given to a Super PAC that supported the Trump campaign. [2]

Congress has also taken steps to roll back regulations that are in the public interest. A measure to rescind a rule banning the dumping of coal mining debris into streams has passed the House and Senate. President Trump is expected to sign it. The House and Senate have also voted to rescind a regulation requiring oil and gas corporations to disclose payments to foreign governments for mining and drilling rights. The House has voted to overturn a rule that reduced the harmful atmospheric emissions from burning unused natural gas at drilling operations on federal lands. [3] The House has also passed a resolution weakening background checks for gun purchases by Social Security recipients who have been declared incompetent to manage their personal affairs. [4]

Republicans in Congress are employing a rarely used tool, the Congressional Review Act, to roll back rules issued in the final months of Obama’s presidency. The Act provides a temporary window in which a simple majority of both chambers can rescind a newly promulgated rule. Trump must sign these measures to complete the rescinding of the targeted rule. The Act also prevents the executive branch from enacting a substantially similar rule in the near future. [5]

Furthermore, Congress is considering two new laws that would make it even easier for it to exercise its political judgement and overrule science-based regulations. One of the new laws, dubbed the Midnight Rules Relief Act, is described as the Congressional Review Act on steroids and would, among other things, prohibit federal agencies from re-proposing a rejected regulation indefinitely. The other new law, called the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, would require any new regulation to be approved by Congress. If Congress failed to approve the regulation, it would not go into effect. Both of these laws are being pushed by corporate lobbyists who want to block the implementation of science-based standards for air and water quality, among other things. [6]

Behind the smokescreen of Trump’s high-profile actions, his administration and Congress are undermining public health and safety. It seems clear that the current Congress and administration are committed to benefiting corporate America and ignoring the well-being of every-day Americans. Furthermore, sweetheart deals for large corporations are providing them a financial windfall at the expense of every-day taxpayers.

I urge you to tell your Representative and Senators in Congress that you believe it is government’s job to protect the health and safety of the public, even if it is an inconvenience for big corporations. And that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes and government fees, because otherwise you and I and all the other individual taxpayers have to make up the difference. Tell your Congress men and women that our democracy is supposed to be of, by, and for the people, not large corporations.

[1] Sierra Club, 2/14/17, “Trump ends rule blocking corporate polluters from paying themselves,” Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/02/24/trump-ends-rule-blocking-corporate-polluters-paying-themselves)

[2] Zapotosky, M., 2/23/17, “Justice Department will again use private prisons,” The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-will-again-use-private-prisons/2017/02/23/da395d02-fa0e-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html?utm_term=.f631c1be57d2)

[3] Daly, M., 2/3/17, “House votes to overturn Obama rule on natural gas ‘flaring’,” Associated Press (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d84e8dd2a74042ed8d9e864fdb59d069/house-poised-overturn-obama-rule-natural-gas-flaring)

[4] Freking, K., & Daly, M., 2/2/17, “Congress scraps Obama rules on coal mining, guns,” Associated Press (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/bf29ce0c4ba84550b51f503e7618d901/house-gop-aims-scrap-obama-rule-gun-background-checks)

[5] Freking, K., & Daly, M., 2/2/17, see above

[6] Kothari, Y., 1/4/17, “Attacking science in week one: How Congress is trying to dismantle public protections,” Union of Concerned Scientists in Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/01/04/attacking-science-week-one-how-congress-trying-dismantle-public-protections)