Category — Economic Justice

Peter Roskam continued his self-declared war on “wasteful spending” and “misguided policies” by voting yet again today against the expansion of SCHIP (HR 3963, Children’s Health Insurance Program Extension and Improvement).

The vote was to override the President’s veto of the bill in December. Today’s vote failed to achieve enough votes thanks to the intransigence of Roskam and many of his Roadblock Republican colleagues. Yes, the same Roskam who has enjoyed complaining about excessive partisanship while voting a straight party line in an attempt to obstruct progress by the Democrats in Congress.

This bill, if enacted, would provide health care to 10 million currently uninusred children. Uninsured children are not among Roskam’s legislative priorities. In Roskam’s view, the money needs to be saved to provide aid programs for big business and big tax cuts for his wealthy neighbors.

Peter Roskam wants you to believe that he is your voice in Congress, that he represents your interests as a resident of the 6th Congressional District. That is not, generally speaking, true. If you are very wealthy, live in Glen Ellyn or Wheaton and have “CEO” after your name, perhaps. But not if you are a working person living in Bensenville or in Wood Dale or in West Chicago.

Peter Roskam was elected by voters in the 6th, but he is not representing them. Instead he is serving the interests of large corporations and he has worked hand in hand with George Bush during his first year in office to see that they are well-served indeed.

How closely Roskam is aligned with corporate interests can be seen by looking at the evaluation of his voting record by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). According to that NAM’s evaluation, Roskam has voted NAM’s position 100 percent of the time during his first year in office. He has done so even when NAM’s position conflicted with the interests of his constituents as it frequently does. Roskam has been a perfect rubber stamp for NAM.

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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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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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Peter Roskam has a lot of nerve. In a new op-ed on his Congressional web site entitled “Tax Season Might Just Get Worse”, Roskam warns his constituents that they may become subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax due to Congressional inaction. Peter is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. What he is not telling you is that he VOTED AGAINST a measure designed to relieve middle class taxpayers of threat of liability for the AMT. He voted against it because the bill, H.R. 3996, which is now in the Senate, is designed to reduce the tax burden on the middle class. Peter Roskam has no particular interest in the middle class. His goal is to help his wealthy clientele escape paying any tax whatsoever by totally eliminating the AMT, a change that will ultimately shift more of the tax burden to low-income and middle income taxpayers. Roskam’s Republican Party will attempt to obstruct the bill’s passage in the Senate and then try to blame it on the Democrats. If worse comes to worse, President Bush will find some lame excuse to veto it.

If you are a low-income or middle-income taxpayer, Peter Roskam is not your friend. His mission in Congress is to aid George Bush in his project to help the wealthiest individuals and corporations become wealthier, at the expense of the rest of us. Peter should be ashamed for trying to deceive you.

The other day I took a look at the Congressional Record to try and get a better sense of what Peter Roskam is doing in Congress, what he is fighting for. As expected for a freshman, I guess, the record of his arguments before the House is not long. But what issues got Peter Roskam enthused enough to get up before the House and argue his position? How to provide health care to the nation’s uninsured children? Stopping the war in Iraq? Ensuring fair wage for hourly workers? Providing health services for brain-injured Iraq veterans? Protecting our civil liberties and the powers of Congress against an over-reaching executive branch? Nope, I didn’t find evidence of Roskam speaking to any of these issues.

But Roskam did rise to speak to protect the compensation of highly paid corporate executives.

It was April 18, 2007. At issue was H.R. 1257, Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act. Roskam rose to speak against it. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts would provider for shareholders in a public corporation to have an advisory vote in determining the compensation of executives of that corporation.

Now remember that Peter voted against giving minimum wage workers a raise. He thought it was just fine that these workers, who hadn’t had a raise in 10 years, should go on earning $5.15/hour. Meanwhile he was fighting to prevent shareholders, including those of us whose retirement savings are invested in public corporations, from having a voice in limiting excessive compensation to their CEO’s, compensation that robs shareholders of value and is paid at the expense of ordinary workers.

According to figures reported by the AFL-CIO, the ratio of the average CEO’s pay to the average worker’s pay has increased from 42:1 in 1980 to 411:1 in 2005. In 2006, the average total compensation of the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation was $14.78 million, a 9.4% increase over 2005. How many of the rest of us got a 9.4% raise? Is our labor really worth 411 times less than a corporate CEO?

The AFL-CIO maintains a database of CEO compensation based on SEC filings. Here’s the size of the paychecks for selected CEO’s, including some of particular interest in Chicagoland:

CEO Salaries

These are the guys who Peter Roskam is fighting for. They are the same guys who are are laying us off and outsourcing our jobs overseas while raising their prices for the goods and services we need and, in some cases, making fat profits off the war in Iraq that is killing and maiming our sons and daughters, the war that Peter Roskam refuses to stop. And Peter Roskam wants to make it possible for them to have no accountability regarding what they pay themselves. Meanwhile he is working to limit the wages of ordinary workers.

Peter Roskam is out-of-touch with the needs of his constituents. We need a Congressman who will fight for the needs of ordinary people and will not just do the bidding of the President and of large corporations.