Category — Middle Class

“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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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.

Our own fierce anti-tax warrior Peter Roskam just met a tax cut he didn’t like. Kind of freaky until you understand whose taxes would be cut.

On Friday, November 9th, the House voted, pretty much along party lines, to pass H.R. 3996: Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007. Peter Roskam and the Republicans voted against passage.

The purpose of the bill is to prevent 23 million middle class families from being subjected to the Alternative Minimum Tax. Tax law normally puts me right to sleep but here’s what I understand about this one. The AMT was introduced in 1969 and was designed to ensure that wealthy individuals and corporations who were escaping tax liability completely through the use of deductions and loopholes beforced to pay some tax: 26-28% for individuals, 20% for corporations. The problem is that the threshold for the AMT was not indexed to inflation, and now some not so wealthy people may become subject to the AMT, perhaps 20% of all taxpayers by 2010.

The Democrats, in introducing this bill, aimed to make the AMT back into what it was intended to be: a minimum tax for the wealthy. Democrats believe in progressive taxation, that is, that the very wealthy, whose fortunes are built on the labor of all of us, should have a greater tax responsibility in proportion to their greater resources.

Peter Roskam, who normally loves a tax cut, voted against this one because it wasn’t designed to help his wealthiest constituents, but rather to help ordinary folks like you and me. Peter believes in regressive taxation - taxes that fall most heavily on those of modest means, taxes that help the rich get richer and the rest of us get poorer.