taxpayer // Current TV

Congress Strikes Back: Gives Taxpayers a 4% Approval Rating

Washington -- Still stinging from the lowly 10% approval rating it received from the American public, Congress has taken revenge, bestowing a measly four percent approval rating on taxpaying citizens.

“Taxpayers are doing a terrible job of providing the House and the Senate with the resources we need to run America correctly,” said one prominent Senator who asked to remain anonymous. “You ask us: ‘where are the jobs?’ We’re asking you: ‘where is the cash?’ ”

The Senator went on to deny the public’s charge that Congress can’t get together to accomplish anything worthwhile. “Right here is an issue 96% of all Senators and Representatives agree upon. Only 4% of my colleagues believe American taxpayers are holding up their end of the bargain.”

A long-term Representative, who asked to remain anonymous, said that American taxpayers are not working as hard as they should because they are being “distracted by the details of democracy.

“They need to let their Congressmen and Senators take care of such things as liberty, justice and freedom. Most of us are lawyers so we know how to work around those issues. Just send us the money and we will make everything okey-dokey.”

Another Representative, who asked to remain anonymous, began weeping when questioned about the record low approval rating Congress received this month.

“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but those low approval numbers give me a bad case of the blues. So I’m glad my colleagues had the courage to turn the tables. You suck, taxpayers.”

Building on the anti-taxpayer momentum, one Senate leader, who asked to remain anonymous, has drafted a bill “that would make corporations more like people, so they can make up for the increasing number of taxpaying slackers.

“My bill proposes that we give all corporations friendly nicknames, like Fred and Bob. Buy them a cake on their birthdays. Take them out for lunch, even when there’s no special occasion. And if some insider stock information is discussed, there’s nothing wrong with good friends shooting the breeze.”

Also included in the proposed law is a motion that would sell the naming rights to several Washington landmarks. Reportedly, a deal already has been cut with a major bank, renaming Congress’ home “The Capital One Capitol.”

“What’s in your Constitution?“ the Senator asked.Washington -- Still stinging from the lowly 10% approval rating it received from the... more

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New Yorkers Welcome Planned Terror Attacks On Wall Street Banks

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$100,000 Per Year to Lock up a Cheese Thief? The Perverse Logic of "Three Strikes" | | AlterNet

That a man with unpaid-for cheese in his underwear could ever have faced essentially the same sentence as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is an absurdity.
February 25, 2010 |

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In an era of savage budget cuts to the most basic of public services, does it make sense for a state to spend $50,000-$100,000 a year to lock up a cheese thief for the rest of his natural life?

The obvious answer to that question would be "no." After all, $100,000 could keep one or two teachers employed; could pay the home-health care costs of disabled low-income Americans; or could keep an after-school program afloat. And yet, that is precisely what a grandstanding California district attorney's office earlier this month suggested was an appropriate solution for the problem that is Robert Ferguson: a mentally ill, drug-addicted 53-year-old habitual offender who has cycled in and out of prison for most of his adult life and found himself on the wrong end of a three strikes prosecution for the monstrous crime of stuffing a $3.99 bag of shredded cheese down his underpants and hot-tailing it out of a Nugget supermarket without paying.

Deputy District Attorney Clinton Parish argued that because of Ferguson's past history, his inability to learn from his mistakes, the public would be best served by putting him away for at least the next 20 years behind bars -- in effect a life sentence for a man of his age. Parish intended to push for a three strikes ruling during a sentencing hearing scheduled for March 1. Since it costs an average of about $40-$50,000 per year to house an inmate in California, and upwards of $100,000 once they get older and sicker, Parish was essentially asking the state to pony up one to two million dollars to pay for Ferguson's incarceration over the next several decades.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum…

Three strikes and you're out has been a sacrosanct part of the California legal system for nearly 17 years now. It has cost the state a royal fortune and while it has undoubtedly put some very hardened criminals behind bars, it has also snared an awful lot of non-violent, middle-aged offenders in its net. It's like industrial fishing -- sure, you get the tuna, but you also end up destroying a huge number of fish you don't want or need. Yet, the public has remained attached to the three strikes law, DAs love the power it gives them, and attempts to reform it, or to limit its applicability to more serious crimes, have all failed. This time around, however, a number of newspapers, including conservative publications such as the Orange County Register, ridiculed the DA's office for its willingness to waste taxpayer dollars.

Earlier this week, the Yolo County DA suddenly withdrew the request for a Three Strikes sentence. Hostile press coverage, of course, had nothing to do with it; apparently a new psychological evaluation had convinced the office that Ferguson should no longer be looked at as a "life case."That a man with unpaid-for cheese in his underwear could ever have faced essentially... more

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Move Your Money: Project Urges People to Stop Banking with Wall Street

following is a transcript of an interview with Robert Johnson by Amy Goodman for Democracy Now! about Move Your Money, a project to help people transfer their money from bigger banks into smaller, community-oriented financial institutions that generally avoided the reckless investments and schemes that helped cause the financial crisis. Robert Johnson is former economist at the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Budget Committee. He’s now the director of the Economic Policy Initiative at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute.

Amy Goodman: So, Move Your Money, how did it come about?

Robert Johnson: Came about at a dinner. Eugene Jarecki, my wife Alexis and Arianna and I were talking about how frustrated people were that there was no legislative reform and there was no -- well, you might call “remorse” from the big bankers. So we started to just, how we say, bat the fat about what could be done. And we talked about how in past episodes people had sold stock, and in this episode, you could get people to move their money.

Why would they move their money when they’re happy with their services? Because they can get comparable services locally. Everything is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, up to $250,000. And they could stop this toxic side effect of derivatives lobbying and “too big to fail” lobbying that’s going on by the top five or six banks that --

Goodman: So, name names. Who are you saying people should -- which banks should they pull their money out of? And what banks should they put them into? Tell us what community banks are, but name the ones they should pull out.

Johnson: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and, to the extent that it’s asset management, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Those are the six that have 97 percent of the derivatives markets. Those are the “too big to fail” institutions, or at least the large subset of the “too big to fail” institutions. But mostly, they’re the ones who are working very hard right now to stop Congress in the Senate from adequately reforming our financial system, which basically means they want to keep playing and making profit and have the taxpayer pick up the bill in the event of another—they hit another banana peel.

Goodman: And explain what community banks are.

Johnson: Community banks are small, regional or very much local institutions. Most of their activities, their lending activities and so forth, relate to the local region or community around which they collect their deposits.

Goodman: And how do know if you’re moving your money into a bank that’s not owned by one of the entities you just talked about?

Johnson: Well, that requires a little bit of research, but we do have friends at Institutional Risk Analytics that’s on this website, moveyourmoney.info, and they have rated all the FDIC call report banks, and they’ve separated out the big banks from the small, or what you might call the behind-the-scenes ownership, and given you a menu. If you plug in your zip code, it gives you a menu of the banks that they rate A or B, which is safe. And like I say, above and beyond that, you have deposit insurance. But those are the local banks that are independently owned, not owned by the big four to six.

More at link above:following is a transcript of an interview with Robert Johnson by Amy Goodman for... more

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IRS Audits Single Mother For Not Making Enough Money | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | Alte

This is silly, way to waste our taxpayer money auditing someone who makes $18000.

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'Extremely Unlikely' Taxpayers Will Recoup TARP Money: Government Watchdog:

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A government "car czar"? WTF are you Serious????

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