Our tax dollars pay their salaries, so under Obama's thinking, we should be able to cap thier salaries. Think that's ever gonna happen? That's right, they just got a raise - so much for not being rewarded for failure.
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Other related messages found in our database My husband does just that. He is on the phone weekly with our sens and reps. state and federal. sm
Our congressment and senators et AL are on speed dial. If my husband has a beef or a question, he is on the phone letting them know (nicely of course) that they screwed up. But on the other hand he does call and tell them thank you when they do something right. One of the congressmen from Michigan voted no on the bailout. So he got a call from both of us. Same with the senator from Michigan who voted FOR the bailout. He got a call saying he has just lost 2 votes. We may be a minority, but the aides in those offices know who my husband is..and all he has to say is his first name. If you keep the heat on, hopefully things can change. Maybe not right away, but hopefully at some time. Just not in my lifetime I am afraid.
Regtulating salaries
Has anyone heard that the Government will be regulating our salaries? Does that mean if we are IC also? How does that work? Anybody
How about from the salaries of the stuffed shirts
that're bleeding their customers and their own employees dry? That'd be good fo at least another $3-4 trillion. Maybe more. Maybe someday our country's finances would be in the black, again.
pays her own kids way? I think that Alaska pays her kids way! nm
x
Larger-Than-Life Corporate Salaries are Unfair to Average American Workers. see article.
Commentary: Larger-Than-Life Corporate Salaries are Unfair to Average American Workers
Date: Friday, April 14, 2006 By: Judge Greg Mathis, BlackAmericaWeb.com
Despite slower-than-anticipated growth and lower-than-expected profits, many corporations have generously rewarded their leaders, while simultaneously reducing lower-level staff salaries and benefits in an attempt to control costs. This disturbing practice only serves to further widen the gap between America’s wealthy few and its working class and clearly demonstrates just how little this country values its workforce.
At a time when most American workers are struggling to make basic ends meet and worrying how they’ll manage to save enough for retirement, many of this country’s corporate chief executives are stuffing their pockets with larger-than-life compensation packages that include high base salaries, stock options and ample pension plans. In 2004, the average chief executive’s salary at a large company was more than 170 times that of the average worker’s pay. Last year, executive salaries grew 25 percent, while that of the average American worker grew only 3.1 percent.
Even when a company struggles, their CEOs are still rewarded. For example, the current CEO of a global manufacturing firm received over $11 million in compensation last year, despite the company’s $3.4 billion revenue loss, an 11-percent drop in stock value and a staff reduction of 17,000 workers. There are similar stories at corporations across the country. While worker pensions are frozen and many are asked to do without raises, CEOs manage to earn their multi-million dollar bonuses.
It’s no surprise that CEOs are cleaning up. Consider this: Corporations often use compensation committees to set their executive salaries. Many of these committees use outside consultants to help guide the process. These consultants are often already contracted to do other work for the company. The conflict of interest here is obvious: The consultant won’t upset the CEO -- and risk losing other contracts -- by setting a more realistic, performance based pay model.
Many corporate CEOs are, in short, getting over, and it is a slap in the face of every American worker. While it is understood that executive salaries would greatly exceed that of the average worker’s, there is no logical argument to explain why the growth rate between the two is so dramatically different. To protect its workforce, corporate America must ensure worker’s salaries grow at rates that keep pace with the cost of living, while slowing the rate of growth of CEO salaries. Corporate boards must stop rewarding CEOs with multi-million dollar bonuses. It is unacceptable for a company to lay off thousands of workers and then turn around and pay an executive for a job well done.
As a country, we often ask our government to think about the needs of the average American, and rightly so. However, if America is to truly prosper, the corporations that feed our local economy must also consider and respect the well-being of average worker.
---
Judge Greg Mathis is national vice president of Rainbow PUSH and a national board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Oh gt, you think all reps are liars. I just heard on TV that all the reps from PA ...
voted no. Heard it on the local news. I also heard that it was many of the Democratic leadership that voted no...heads of committees. That is what leads me to believe that the Dems were not going to vote in majority by design...for the reason you said. They don't want to be in majority passing it because it is identified with Bush and if the bailout fails...there they are, supporting a failed Bush policy. Can't have that.
And Reps want the church to tell me what to do.
nm
I bet a lot of Dems and Reps won't be reelected this time.
Support your local moderates, whichever major party they might represent. And in this election cycle, please don't waste your vote on third party candidates who cannot win. Wasted votes will only serve to let the incumbents sneak back to Washington. After the entrenched power base has been broken up, third parties will have a better chance to make some gains in future elections.
Geez. I thought we were talking about media reps
Apparently this subject STRETCHES all over the place to encompass unfounded smears, just as I suspected. O supporters all along have understood the nearly insurmountable challenges ANY candidate will be facing in the aftermath of W's scorched earth reign. No deadlines apply. All I expect is for him to do his best with it all and feel confident in trusting him to do just that.
I didn't say I wanted our reps to ignore the calls.
it appears that is what they are doing...ignoring the embittered partisan protests (the likes of which I took issue with in my original post) and hammering out a compromise. In other words, they are doing their jobs. i.e., coming up with something that will move us forward and float SOMETHING that will address the ECONOMY, not partisan interests. So no, your assumption that I am proud of this would be false and your indignation, misplaced.
David Ogden - please write or call your reps
Obama has picked a man called David Ogden to be deputy Attorney-General. Ogden has made his legal career from representing pornographers, trying to defeat child protection legislation and undermining family values. As reported this week, he once represented a group of library directors arguing against the Children's Internet Protection Act, which ordered libraries and schools receiving funding for the Internet to restrict access to obscene sites. And on behalf of several media groups, he successfully argued against a child pornography law that required publishers to verify and document the age of their models, which would have ensured these models were at least 18.
The Family Research Council has more examples of his contribution to upholding American and western values. In one such case, he expressed the view that abortion was less damaging to a woman than having children:
In sum, it is grossly misleading to tell a woman that abortion imposes possible detrimental psychological effects when the risks are negligible in most cases, when the evidence shows that she is more likely to experience feelings of relief and happiness, and when child-birth and child-rearing or adoption may pose concomitant (if not greater) risks or adverse psychological effects ...
In another, co-authored brief, he argued that it was an unconstitutional burden on 14-year old girls seeking an abortion for their parents to be notified -- because there was no difference between adults and mid-teens in their ability to grasp all the implications of such a decision:
There is no question that the right to secure an abortion is fundamental. By any objective standard, therefore, the decision to abort is one that a reasonable person, including a reasonable adolescent, could make. [E]mpirical studies have found few differences between minors aged 14-18 and adults in their understanding of information and their ability to think of options and consequences when asked to consider treatment-related decisions. These unvarying and highly significant findings indicate that with respect to the capacity to understand and reason logically, there is no qualitative or quantitative difference between minors in mid-adolescence, i.e., about 14-15 years of age, and adults.
I agree, and I have written to two of my reps, Whitehouse and Reed, what about you??....sm
I am not talking ideology here, I said I was a "traitor Democrat" jokingly because even though I carry the party affiliation with my in my voting records, I do not vote along straight party lines, and I can admit when my president does something wrong, unlike many others here. I want what is right for my country. why not give O a chance and find ways to help him see where changes have to be made, he has crossed over the aisle before, and plans to do so over his administration. We he be entirely successful? No one is giving him the chance or support to find out, everyone wants a genie in a bottle who will "POOF" make all those big bad problems disappear, erase all the wrong-doing of previous administrations (and Yes, that includes Bill Clinton at times), LET'S FOCUS ON THE PROBLEM AT HAND AND AT THE FUTURE.
Nobody pays that much -
They may be in that tax bracket, but after all their deductions, they never pay that much - in fact, since they can afford to pay a good accountant, they usually pay less than the rest of us.
Also, with Obama's tax plan, even if you add the 3% he is talking about, that's what? Another 7500 - after you figure in your deductions, that ain't gonna be nothing.
And as far as their paying higher sales tax, that is a state tax - not a federal tax. And they choose to buy those more expensive items so that tax is their choice - they don't have to pay it.
MQ still pays more for ASR than other
companies. There was one company out there advertising 3 cpl for ASR. Their add said they need MTs who can "hit the ground running." It was on MTdaily a few days ago. There should be "ASR control" where they can't continue to lower our pay. Remember years ago when people voted for "rent control" and won? Time to sign those petitions for "ASR control."
That may be true about the rape kits, but I don't see any other mayor or former mayor saying that they are a maverick and running for VP.
The government pays for nothing....
...we have hired them to handle certain management tasks with OUR money.
We have grown too large to defend the country with just a militia. We have high-rise buildings and can no longer get by with volunteer fire departments. We need street crews because we have too much roadway, highways and freeways, and no longer can simply neaten up the road that runs past our property. We produce far too much trash to simply take it out back and burn it (if that were even still legal in some areas.) Some elements of modern life have grown just to large and complicated to handle on our own.
We have a system of compulsory schooling now that is doing SUCH a great job educating our children. Kids were far more literate and better educated when the bulk of their learning occurred in the home. Read anything written by John Taylor Gatto - Weapons of Mass Instruction is his most recent book - about the origins of public education.
I quote here what was in an earlier post: *If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until the government gives it to you for free.* What the government dispenses, the government rations. Do you really want a government bureaucrat in control of whether you get surgery or some diagnostic test your doctor says you need? Bad enough you have to fight about it with your insurance company now. You really want to turn this over to the government? Really?
They certainly must for so many MTs to be all atwitter over this plan. Fred Thompson said it perfectly last PM.
So those "moneybags" need to stop griping about MQ and how crappy it pays. You think you have less in your pockets now? You think this crap he's promising is free? How ignorant!
Even he see the unfairness here. Some conservatives are fond of saying that Democrats want to tax the wealthy unfairly, but what I would like to see is the wealthy taxed equally. "Mr. Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent." Here is the entire article. It's a great read. Trust me.
June 28, 2007
Buffett blasts system that lets him pay less tax than secretary
Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, has criticised the US tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner.
Speaking at a $4,600-a-seat fundraiser in New York for Senator Hillary Clinton, Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52 billion (£26 billion), said: “The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”
Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent. Mr Buffett told his audience, which included John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Alan Patricof, the founder of the US branch of Apax Partners, that US government policy had accentuated a disparity of wealth that hurt the economy by stifling opportunity and motivation.
The comments are among the most signficant yet in a debate raging on both sides of the Atlantic about growing income inequality and how the super-wealthy are taxed.
They echo those made this month by Nicholas Ferguson, one of the leading figures in Britain’s private equity industry, when he criticised tax rates that left its multimillionaire venture capitalists “paying less tax than a cleaning lady”.
Last week senior members of the US Senate proposed to increase the rate of tax that private equity and hedge fund staff pay on their share of the profits, known as carried interest, from the 15 per cent capital gains rate to about 35 per cent.
Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, acknowledged in an interview yesterday that there were justified concerns about the huge profits generated by private equity firms and that he worried that income inequality was “poisoning democracy”. He also said that he would be voting for the Democrat candidate at the next election. Mr Blankfein is the highest-paid executive on Wall Street, earning $54 million last year.
Mr Buffett, who runs the investment group Berkshire Hathaway and is widely regarded as the world’s most successful investor, said that he was a Democrat because Republicans are more likely to think: “I’m making $80 million a year – God must have intended me to have a lower tax rate.”
Mr Buffett said that a Republican proposal to eliminate elements of inheritance tax, which raises about $30 billion a year from the assets of about 12,000 rich families, would broaden the disparity between rich and poor. He added that the Republicans would seek to recover lost revenue by increasing taxes for the less prosperous.
He said: “You could take that $30 billion and give $1,000 to 30 million poor families. Or should you favour the 12,000 estates and make 30 million families pay an extra $1,000?”
I know I just took an inhouse job that pays me half what I make at home -
I am getting desperate to ensure that I have at least some income. My home-based job line counts are so low lately and I know it is because people are staying home. I am the only money maker in the family and I have to do something.
I am in college to get a degree to get out of this education, but have at least 3 quarters more before I am employable, and then who knows if I will be able to find a job then or not; with the way things are looking, more than likely NOT...
I wonder how it is going to help/hurt the economy and the illegal alien problem - I mean, will it make them go home or will they just draw more benefits off our government? If they go home, does that hurt or or help us?
WASHINGTON - The Republican Party says it still has a zero-tolerance policy for tampering with voters even as it pays the legal bills for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to thwart Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.
James Tobin, the president's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002.
The Republican National Committee already has spent more than $722,000 to provide Tobin, who has pleaded innocent, a team of lawyers from the high-powered Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly. The firm's other clients have included former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros.
Republican Party officials said they don't ordinarily discuss specifics of their legal work, but confirmed to The Associated Press they had agreed to underwrite Tobin's defense because he was a longtime supporter and that he assured them he had committed no crimes.
"Jim is a longtime friend who has served as both an employee and an independent contractor for the RNC," a spokeswoman for the RNC, Tracey Schmitt, said Wednesday. "This support is based on his assurance and our belief that Jim has not engaged in any wrongdoing."
A telephone firm was paid to make repeated hang-up phone calls to overwhelm the phone banks in New Hampshire and prevent them from getting Democratic voters to the polls on Election Day 2002, prosecutors allege. Republican John Sununu won a close race that day to be New Hampshire's newest senator.
At the time, Tobin was the RNC's New England regional director, before moving to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.
A top New Hampshire Party official and a GOP consultant already have pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. Tobin's indictment accuses him of specifically calling the GOP consultant to get a telephone firm to help in the scheme.
"The object of the conspiracy was to deprive inhabitants of New Hampshire and more particularly qualified voters ... of their federally secured right to vote," states the latest indictment issued by a federal grand jury on May 18.
The Republican Party has repeatedly and pointedly disavowed any tactics aimed at keeping citizens from voting since allegations of voter suppression surfaced during the Florida recount in 2000 that tipped the presidential race to Bush.
Earlier this week, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, the former White House political director, reiterated a "zero-tolerance policy" for any GOP official caught trying to block legitimate votes.
"The position of the Republican National Committee is simple: We will not tolerate fraud; we will not tolerate intimidation; we will not tolerate suppression. No employee, associate or any person representing the Republican Party who engages in these kinds of acts will remain in that position," Mehlman wrote Monday to a group that studied voter suppression tactics.
Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean on Thursday questioned Mehlman's commitment to the policy. "This is just another example of his say one thing, do another strategy. Ken Mehlman tells crowds his party is against voter fraud and intimidation, while in the backrooms he supports Republican officials who engage in these dirty tricks," Dean said.
Dennis Black and Dane Butswinkas, two Williams & Connolly lawyers for Tobin, did not return calls seeking comment. Brian Tucker, a New Hampshire lawyer on the team, declined comment.
Tobin's lawyers have attacked the prosecution, suggesting evidence was improperly introduced to the grand jury, that their client originally had been promised he wouldn't be indicted and that he was improperly charged under one of the statutes.
Tobin stepped down from his Bush-Cheney post a couple of weeks before the November 2004 election after Democrats suggested he was involved in the phone bank scheme. He was charged a month after the election.
Paul Twomey, a volunteer lawyer for New Hampshire Democrats who are pursuing a separate lawsuit involving the phone scheme, said he was surprised the RNC was willing to pay Tobin's legal bills and that it suggested more people may be involved.
The new development "really raises the questions of who are they protecting, how high does this go and who was in on this," Twomey said.
Federal prosecutors have secured testimony from the two convicted conspirators in the scheme directly implicating Tobin.
Charles McGee, the New Hampshire GOP official who pleaded guilty, told prosecutors he informed Tobin of the plan and asked for Tobin's help in finding a vendor who could make the calls that would flood the phone banks.
Allen Raymond, a former colleague of Tobin who operated a Virginia-based telephone services firm, told prosecutors Tobin called him in October 2002, explained the telephone plan and asked Raymond's company to help McGee implement it.
Raymond's lawyer told the court that Tobin made the request for help in his official capacity as the top RNC official for New England and his client believed the RNC had sanctioned the activity.
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