Posts from — December 2007

“What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?” Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860.

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Abraham Lincoln’s First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.

I can quote from Lincoln too, Mr. Roskam, but that doesn’t make me look like him any more than it does you.

On December 28th, Peter Roskam published a glowing self-assessment of his first year in Congress, complete with liberal quotations from Abraham Lincoln to try and make himself appear a statesman.

By Roskam’s account he spent the year battling against partisanship but in the end triumphed by squeaking out a temporary fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax and an Energy Bill. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Peter Roskam is not telling you the truth.

Today (December 19th), Roskam published on his House web site a brief news item announcing “ROSKAM PROTECTS 70,000 IL-6 RESIDENTS FROM ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX”. This was in regard to the Democratic plan to relieve middle class taxpayers of liability for the Alternative Minimum Tax beginning in the coming tax season.

What Roskam is not telling you is that he and his Republican colleagues absolutely refused to vote for the measure until provisions were removed from the bill that would have closed loopholes that allow wealthy individuals to escape paying taxes by keeping assets offshore and allow some investment fund managers and venture capitalists to pay much lower tax rates than ordinary taxpayers.

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Yesterday, Peter Roskam’s web site published a “news item” commenting on the State of Illinois’ agreement to allow employers to use E-Verify to validate employee work authorization, while a federal lawsuit against the State is resolved.

According to Roskam the E-Verify system “provides real-time, accurate verification based on identity information in federal databases, giving employers assurance that the people they hire are legally able to work in the U.S.”.

But in reality, the database has been found to be inaccurate and fails to meet the standards set by Congress.

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On Wednesday, December 12th, Peter Roskam again voted to hold hostage the Democratic plan to relieve middle class taxpayers of liability for the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a tax which was instituted years ago to prevent the wealthiest individuals from escaping paying any taxes by setting a minimum tax that must be paid by individuals with incomes above a threshold. Because the tax was not designed to account for inflation, an addition 23 million individuals of relatively modest incomes will be affected in the coming tax season with an average of $2000 in additional tax liability, unless the Democrats in Congress are able to apply a fix.

Peter Roskam and his Republican colleagues, acting in tandem with George Bush, are presently attempting to obstruct the Democratic efforts to provide this needed relief to middle class taxpayers. The Republicans are obstructing this relief, not so much because they want to increase taxes on the middle class, but because, to them, the needs of the middle class are largely irrelevant. Republicans are focused on giving tax-breaks to the wealthiest individuals and to big business, and if to do so, they have to hold the middle class tax cut hostage, that is just fine with them.

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On December 13th, 2007, Peter Roskam cast another vote in support of the continued use of torture by CIA interrogators.

The vote was on the conference report for HR 2082, the intelligence funding bill, and Roskam voted against it. The bill, if signed into law, would explicitly prohibit the use of such inhumane interrogation techniques as waterboardiing, electrocution, sensory deprivation, induced hypothermia, and deprivation of food, water and medical care. The bill also would require that all detainees be accorded the protections of the Geneva Conventions, ending the practice by the Bush administration of using the “enemy combant” designation invented by the Bush administration as a means of escaping its obligation to meet minimum standards in the treatment of prisoners of its so-called “War on Terrorism”.

It is unclear whether Roskam’s vote reflects a pro-torture conviction on his part or is just another “rubber stamp” of approval on administration policy. It is also possible that Roskam is simply too distracted by his principal agenda of promoting corporate interests to fully attend to the question of torture.

As of this writing, Roskam’s House web site is silent on the issue of torture.

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Walt Zlotow at Heartland Progressive published a great letter to Peter Roskam regarding his support for Bush’s War against Iraq. Great job, Walt. I wish I could write like you. Keep it up and lets get us a new Representative.

LZ at Reluctant Activist 3:1 also just published a good letter to Roskam’s Chief of Staff inquiring about Roskam’s views on torture. Keep writing.

Wonder if Old Rubber Stamp is finally beginning to get the message that his constituents abhor torture and needless wars.