Peter Roskam’s Big Flip Flop on Bonuses

On January 21, 2010, in Economic Justice, Executive Compensation, Peter Roskam, Peter Roskam's Corporate Agenda, by RSR
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I originally published this on May 29th, 2009. In April 2009, Peter Roskam had voted against legislation, H.R. 1664, that would have limited bonus payments to executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Today, apparently sensing political opportunity, Roskam introduced legislation to do that which he voted against:

Today, Congressman Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), Deputy Whip and member of the Ways & Means Committee, introduced The Protecting Taxpayers From Excessive Compensation Act, calling for new pay accountability rules for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Roskam’s proposed legislation would prohibit any employee of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, while the entities are under conservatorship or receivership, from being compensated more than any member of our Armed Forces.

“With historic federal spending and debt on one end, and unprecedented taxpayer exposure to Fannie and Freddie on the other, now is the time to take a step toward restoring accountability and the public trust in the use of taxpayer funds,” Roskam wrote in a letter to Financial Services Chairman Frank and Ranking Member Bachus prior to the Committee’s Employment Compensation Hearing being held this Friday. “There are few government personnel that perform a more solemn and vital duty to our country than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So long as Fannie and Freddie are effectively owned by the government, there is no reason any of their employees should be compensated more than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”

Of course this time around, Roskam is making sure that the legislation won’t affect any of the big banks and investment houses that bankroll his campaigns and enable him to continue his project of making life better for big corporations. So sadly, this won’t help your 401K. Publicly traded companies will remain free as ever to spend your retirement money on bonuses and golden parchutes for their top executives.

Guess Peter Roskam thinks we are all pretty stupid.

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Peter Roskam’s been going to a lot of trouble to publicize his media appearances lately on his House website. Of course they consist mostly of clips from Fox News, Don Wade & Roma, and Big John & Cisco. Roskam doesn’t like to talk to anyone who might ask him a serious question. He just wants a friendly outlet for his talking points – designed to keep his base in a lather about the Dems so that they won’t realize that he’s screwing them in Washington. But I appreciate the time he’s taken to organize this material so its easy for me to find.

This video was interesting and Roskam seems to be pretty proud of it. Its a clip from Fox News back in March around the time the House voted on H.R. 1586, the measure that would have imposed a 90% tax on bonuses received in 2009 by high-paid employees of companies that received TARP bailout money. Roskam voted with the majority of House members (including about half of the Republicans) to approve the measure. And then he went on Fox News to play the outraged populist while smearing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Obama administration for a mess they inherited from President Bush. I don’t think the measure ever went anywhere – just died in the Senate after AIG’s Chairman urged his employees receiving more than $100,000 to return at least half.

So was this a new Roskam we were seeing? Concerned all of a sudden about the outrages committed by big corporations at the expense of the little people back home in his district? Not so much. This was just Roskam the politician taking advantage of the moment.

Roskam showed his true colors on April 1st, when H.R. 1664, the Grayson-Himes Pay For Performance Act of 2009, came up for a vote. This was a more serious and comprehensive measure to address the issue of excessive compensation, not just for AIG but for other companies receiving bailout money as well:

The Pay for Performance Act of 2009 prohibits the payment of “unreasonable or excessive” compensation, including bonuses that are not based on performance, by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the federal home loans banks, and firms that have received funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The Treasury Secretary must define “unreasonable or excessive” compensation and outline what constitutes an appropriate performance-based bonus using criteria including the stability of a financial institution, ability to repay taxpayer funds, and adherence to appropriate risk management requirements. The prohibition only applies while government payments to the firms are outstanding. Firms subject to the Pay for Performance Act must report their compensation practices to the Treasury Secretary. Finally, the legislation applies bonus prohibitions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to all employment contracts.

When Roskam figured the folks at home were no longer paying attention, he dropped his faux outrage and voted against the measure. But you won’t see him promoting that fact on his website.

This was not the first time Roskam had stood up for outrageous executive pay. One of Roskam’s few floor speeches during his first term was to fight against a measure that would have given shareholders a voice in limiting the excessive pay of corporate executives. But I bet you’ll never see that video on his website.

That he uses his office to fight for unlimited executive pay is particularly sad given that Roskam has been an opponent of any efforts to raise the minimum wage for people who actually work for a living and voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act earlier this term.

Interestingly, we understand that Peter’s new Press Secretary,Daniel Conston, is an A.I.G. alum. He also worked on the failed campaigns of Fred Thompson and John McCain. Let’s hope this endeavor goes better. But what happened to Matt? Did we convert him?

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Roskam Votes to Aid Predatory Credit Card Companies Rather Than Consumers

On November 10, 2009, in Economic Justice, Peter Roskam, Regulatory Reform, by RSR
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Back on May 22, 2009, President Obama signed into law the Credit CARD Act of 2009, a major reform credit card reform bill designed to protect consumers from the worst abusive credit practices of the banks and credit card companies. The bill had passed in the House with overwhelming bipartisan support. Peter Roskam voted against the bill, siding with the predatory lenders over consumers in his district. I wrote about that vote here.

Some of the protections afforded to consumers in this law were not set to become effective until as late as August 2010 to allow lenders time to prepare for the changes. But rather than make good faith efforts to begin to bring their practices into compliance with the new law, credit card companies went engaged in an orgy of rate hikes at the worst possible time for consumers already suffering because of the economic crisis and high unemployment rates. A study begun by the Pew Health Group beginning in July 2009, found that median advertised interest rates on bank credit cards had increased by 13 – 23 percent over rates measured in December 2008.  The study also found that unfair or deceptive practices remained just as widespread as before Congress passed the new law and some practices had even become more common.

As it became clear that the lenders were not using the allotted time to make changes but rather to gouge consumers while they still could, the House Financial Services Committee drafted new legislation to accelerate reform.  The new bill, H.R. 3639  - Expedited CARD Reform for Consumers Act of 2009 – calls for the immediate enactment of certain key provisions in the original legislation including:

  • Prohibits arbitrary interest rate increases and universal default on existing balances;
  • Prohibits issuers from charging over-limit fees unless the cardholder elects to allow the issuer to complete over-limit transactions, and also limits over-limit fees on electing cardholders;
  • Requires payments in excess of the minimum to be applied first to the credit card balance with the highest rate of interest;
  • Prohibits issuers from setting early morning deadlines for credit card payments;
  • Prohibits interest charges on debt paid on time (double-cycle billing ban);
  • Requires issuers extending credit to young consumers under the age of 21 to obtain an application that contains: the signature of a parent, guardian, or other individual 21 years or older who will take responsibility for the debt; or proof that the applicant has an independent means of repaying any credit extended;
  • Requires penalty fees to be reasonable and proportional to the omission or violation.
  • Requires that creditors periodically review all interest rate increases since January 2009 and reduce rates when a review indicates that a reduction is warranted.

The bill was brought to the House floor for a vote on November 4th and voting was similar to that for the original bill: it passed 331-92 with 83 Republicans voting “Aye”.

Peter Roskam again voted to help the predatory lenders rather than to protect his constituents from their abusive practices. No surprise here. Roskam receives a huge proportion of his campaign contributions from the financial sector and routinely uses our vote in Congress to tend to that industry’s interests.

The bill now goes to the Senate where hopefully it will be voted on without delay and sent to the President.


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As Unemployment Rises, Peter Roskam Votes to Eliminate Food Programs

On October 19, 2009, in Economic Justice, Peter Roskam, Poverty, Unemployment, by RSR
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Even as the overall health of the economy shows signs of improvement, the unemployment rate in Illinois rose to 10.5 in September, the highest rate since 1983, and Illinois lost over 14,000 non-farm jobs. That’s in addition to over 306,000 jobs lost since August 2008 due to the Bush recession.

With so many families in trouble, we might expect our Congressman to be taking action to provide aid to those hit by job losses. Here in the 6th District, our Republican Congressman, Peter Roskam has been gleefully citing these statistics to make political trouble for President Obama. But utterly devoid of empathy for those who are suffering, Roskam hasn’t lifted a finger to help those families. In fact, he’s been doing his best to make things worse.

We have already written about Peter Roskam’s vote in September against the extension of unemployment benefits for those whose benefits are about to end.

This month, Peter Roskam voted to eliminate a number of key federal food assistance programs.

The vote came on October 7 on the conference report for HR 2997, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. Peter Roskam voted no.

In voting against the conference report, Roskam voted to eliminate the following programs which are critical to meeting the nutritional needs of those experiencing economic hardship:

Child nutrition programs. The child nutrition programs included in S. 1406 provide funding for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program, Summer Food Service Program, and Child and Adult Care Food programs. These programs serve nutritious lunches and breakfasts to children attending school or residing in other institutions. The purpose is to improve the health and well-being of the nation’s children. H.R. 2997 would provide $16.85 billion in mandatory budget authority for child nutrition programs, which is $58 million more than the President’s budget request and $1.9 billion more than the enacted Fiscal Year 2009 level.

Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The WIC program provides assistance to pregnant, breast-feeding and post-partum women and infants, and children up to age five who are at nutritional risk because of inadequate nutrition and inadequate income. H.R. 2997 would provide $7.25 billion in discretionary budget authority for this program, which is $525 million less than President’s budget request and $392 million more than the enacted Fiscal Year 2009 level, excluding emergency appropriations. Additionally, it is important to note that $487 million in contingency funds will be available in Fiscal Year 2010 making a total of $7.7 billion available for the WIC program.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamps). The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provides assistance to needy persons and families to alleviate hunger and malnutrition and increase their food purchasing power. H.R. 2997 would provide $58.2 billion in mandatory budget authority for this program which is $3.07 billion below the President’s budget request and is $4.3 billion more than the enacted Fiscal Year 2009 level.

Commodity Assistance Program. The Commodity Assistance Program provides supplemental food to infants and children as well as prepared meals to low-income households. H.R. 2997 would provide $248 million for this program, which is $14.6 million more than the President’s budget request and is $17.2 million more than the enacted Fiscal Year 2009 level.

I really find it hard to fathom how a man with any conscience at all could choose to play political games at a time like this and ignore the suffering of his brothers and sisters. Fortunately, the measure passed without Roskam’s vote and is expected tobe signed into law shortly by President Obama.

I’d encourage you to contact Roskam to register your displeasure, but quite frankly that would be useless. This man is unconcerned with anything but political advancement and aiding his corporate campaign donors. He is blind to the suffering and hardship that exists amongst his constituents.

Ellen in the 10th has a good post with some stats fleshing out the degree of economic hardship here in Illinois.

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Peter Roskam’s Conduct in Honduras Is Treasonous

On October 9, 2009, in Foreign Policy, Honduras, Peter Roskam, Peter Roskam's Corporate Agenda, by RSR
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Foreign Policy’s The Cable published this piece on Peter Roskam’s recent trip to Honduras to meet with Roberto Micheletti and other members of the right-wing junta that overthrew Honduras’s Democratically-elected president in June. Roskam was interviewed for the article:

Congressman Peter Roskam, R-Ill, also spoke with The Cable just after returning from Tegucigalpa to talk about his delegation and the strategy behind the GOP’s controversial engagement approach…

Although the State Department tried to prevent the delegation from going, U.S. consular officials did assist the delegation logistically, but did not participate in the meetings, Roskam said. The delegation also had a tense meeting with U.S. Amb. Hugo Llorens, in which Roskam described him as being “very defensive.”

“The very consistent theme that was coming across was a sense of bewilderment from all the Hondurans we were meeting with at their treatment by the United States,” Roskam related.

Micheletti acknowledged to the group that he did not have the authority to physically remove Zelaya from the country, but he seeks communication with the U.S. government and was not pleased that the State Department had cut him off.

The conclusion Roskam drew from the trip was that the problem in Honduras won’t be solved until the Nov. 29 election, in which neither Micheletti nor Zelaya is running — that is, if it can meet reasonable standards of freedom and fairness.

U.S. trade with Honduras is at stake, Roskam argued, and is needed to counter the expanding regional influence of anti-American forces such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.

This is unbelieveably arrogant, and, I believe, treasonous.

First off, the Republican Party is not entitled to conduct an alternative foreign policy. They lost the Presidential election in November, in no small part because of the horrible mess they made of  U.S. relations  with the rest of the world. They are neither competent to or empowered with conducting foreign policy. That is the role of President Obama.

Second, the policy of the United States of America,  as defined by the President, is that Manuel Zelaya was illegally deposed from power and that the government of Roberto Micheletti is illegitimate and must restore Zelaya to power.  Micheletti admitted to Roskam that he lacked authority for his actions. This policy is shared by the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the European Union. The men Roskam met with constitute a criminal regime and consequently are enemies of the United States.

Third, since Roskam is clearly not acting on behalf of the United States, on whose behalf is he acting? Well, clearly, the criminal dictator Micheletti, who seized power and then terminated the constitutional rights of the press and the people of Honduras. But Roskam told us who he was really acting for when he said this was about trade. He is acting on behalf of the huge U.S. based corporations that do business in Latin America and don’t like the democratically-elected governments because they are supportive of higher wages and better working conditions for those who they employ, endangering their obscene profits.

So Roskam’s project in Honduras is to subvert the legitimate foreign policy of the United States, and give aid and comfort to its enemies, the criminal junta in Honduras, on behalf of another power, the multinational corporations.That sounds like treason to me.

And he complains that the U.S. ambassador is defensive??

Fortunately, in this country, we have the possibility of free and fair elections, at least while the Republicans remain in the minority. 6th District voters should overthrow the treasonous Roskam at the polls in 2010.

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Peter Roskam Receives Contributions from Lobbyists Acting for Libya

On October 1, 2009, in Foreign Policy, Friends of Peter Roskam, Libya, Lobbyists, Peter Roskam, by RSR
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6th District Congressman Peter Roskam and members of his staff were contacted numerous times during 2008 by a Washington lobbying firm acting on behalf of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, that is the government of Libya, and Roskam received 3 campaign contributions, totaling $1500, from one of the lobbyists involved. This according to information provided by the new Foreign Influence Lobbying Tracker produced in a joint venture by ProPublica and the Sunlight Foundation. The tool uses Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) disclosures filed by foreign governments and their representatives to document the influence foreign governments may have over our legislative process.

The lobbying firm involved is the Livingston Group, LLC., founded by former Republican representative and speaker-elect Bob Livingston after he resigned from Congress in 1999 having acknowledged an affair during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.  According to the disclosures, the contacts concerned the possibility of amending a statutory provision against U.S. trade with Libya.  It is not known from the disclosures what commitments, if any, may have been received from Roskam.  The full list of disclosures may be viewed here.

Roskam’s willingness to receive campaign contributions made on behalf of any foreign government is appalling to me as a constituent. That the government involved was that of Libya is outrageous.

Libya has been much in the news in recent weeks. In August, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, convicted of 270 counts of murder in the 1988 bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was released by the Scotish Government on humanitarian grounds because of a reported terminal illness. He was returned to Libya and given a heroes welcome by the Libyan government. Then, earlier this month, Moammar Gadhafi, “Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”, came to New York to address the 64th United Nations General Assembly. Livingston Group was reportedly involved in negotiations surrounding the Libyan strongman’s plans to visit Englewood, New Jersey and erect a bedouin tent.

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Roskam’s Medi-Fraud Alert Highlights Obama’s Vigorous Efforts to Combat Medicare Fraud

On July 1, 2009, in Barack Obama, Economic Justice, Healthcare, Peter Roskam, by RSR
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In his address to a joint session of Congress on February 24, 2009, President Obama, at the very outset of his administration, promised to “root out the waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier.” In recent days, we have begun to see the President’s promise become a reality.

Obama’s  F.Y. 2010 budget proposal, released on May 10, included a $1.7 billion increase over five years to the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program. That program, under the joint direction of the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services, was established in 1996 by The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), under President Clinton.

On May 20, new Attorney General Eric Holder and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a new interagency effort, the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), to combat Medicare fraud. HEAT will build on efforts begun with significant success under the Bush administration:

The HEAT team will include senior officials from DOJ and HHS who will build upon and strengthen existing programs to combat fraud while also investing new resources and technology to prevent fraud, waste and abuse before it happens. Efforts will include the expansion of joint DOJ-HHS Medicare Fraud Strike Force teams that have been successfully fighting fraud in South Florida and Los Angeles. Established in 2007, these teams have a proven record of success using a “data-driven” approach to identify unexplainable billing patterns and investigating these providers for possible fraudulent activity. The Medicare Fraud Strike Force team operating in South Florida has already convicted 146 defendants and secured $186 million in criminal fines and civil recoveries. After the success of operations in South Florida, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force expanded in May 2008 to phase two in Los Angeles, where 37 defendants have been charged with criminal health care fraud offenses. To date in the Los Angeles cases, more than $55 million has been ordered in restitution to the Medicare program.

“We know these strike forces work. I believe a targeted civil and criminal enforcement strategy in these locations will have a substantial impact on deterring fraud and abuse, protecting patients and the elderly from scams, and ensuring that taxpayer funds are not stolen,” said Attorney General Holder.

Republican Congressman Peter Roskam recently established his “Medi-FraudAlert” blog on his Congressional web site as a “forum to discuss the massive waste, fraud and abuse in the current Medicare and Medicaid systems”. Roskam absurdly states these costs could reach $500 billion annually. (The total cost of Medicare is only about $450 billion.) But the costs of fraud are significant – 3% or more of total health expenditures, 10.5% of federal Medicaid expenditures by one estimate. Roskam’s blog does a good job of highlighting some of the Obama administration’s early successes in combating fraud:

June 25:  A day after a $100 million fraud was exposed, yesterday, 53 people were indicted in a $50 million Medicare fraud scheme spanning from Detroit to Miami. The scheme involving patients, doctors, medical assistants and company owners, focused on Medicare claims submitted for unnecessary or never delivered treatments mostly for HIV-related drugs and physical therapy treatments.

June 29: Friday, eight Miami-area residents were arrested and charged with attempting to defraud Medicare for $22 million – having already paid out $15.3 million of those claims from Medicare. The Miami Herald reports that this was the prosecutors’ “first crackdown on home healthcare offenders in a decade.” In this case, two firms were raided, had their bank accounts frozen, and stand accused of filing bogus claims mostly for homebound diabetic services. ABC Home Health Care submitted $17 million in false claims since January 2006, and has already been paid $11.3 million in taxpayer money. Florida Home Health Care Providers filed $5.5 million in false claims since October 2007, being compensated with $4 million of taxpayer money.

June 30: Yesterday, a Miami doctor was sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay more than $9 million in restitution for his part in a Medicare fraud scheme where he ultimately filed $20 million in false claims. The physician, Roberto Rodriguez, billed for fake HIV infusion services at six Miami-area HIV infusion clinics.

But Roskam, of course, has not created this blog because he wants the public to know how effective the administration has been so early in combatting fraud. Rather, Peter Roskam is using the existence of Medicare/Medicaid fraud as an excuse to subvert Democratic efforts to make quality healthcare coverage available to all American citizens, something to which he is ideologically opposed.

Roskam appeared this morning on WBIG 1280 AM this morning promoting his blog. He bemoaned the fact that physicians are reimbursed at such a low rate by Medicare and Medicaid due to the excessive expenditures on fraud and abuse and reiterated that he thought it unwise to pursue universal coverage with fraud so rampant. Roskam offered no solutions however for the 45 million Americans who have no health coverage. He did not even acknowledge them. Under the Roskam plan, they are on their own. You can listen to Roskam here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I think Roskam’s focus on Medicare fraud is a lame excuse for not doing what basic justice and decency require – that we provide healthcare to every American. If you agree with me, I encourage you give Peter Roskam a call and demand universal coverage now.  Tell him we’ve got blogs aplenty, we need a health plan. (You can attempt to post a comment on his blog but I expect that will be a waste of time as they are screening out unfavorable comments).  You can reach Peter Roskam at (202) 225-4561 in Washington or at (630) 893-9670 in Bloomingdale.

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