Lunchtime with George Carlin:
Category: Class War
Bless their thieving hearts!
When the Georgia legislature passed a private school scholarship program in 2008, lawmakers promoted it as a way to give poor children the same education choices as the wealthy.
The program would be supported by donations to nonprofit scholarship groups, and Georgians who contributed would receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits, up to $2,500 a couple. The intent was that money otherwise due to the Georgia treasury — about $50 million a year — would be used instead to help needy students escape struggling public schools.
That was the idea, at least. But parents meeting at Gwinnett Christian Academy got a completely different story last year.
“A very small percentage of that money will be set aside for a needs-based scholarship fund,” Wyatt Bozeman, an administrator at the school near Atlanta, said during an informational session. “The rest of the money will be channeled to the family that raised it.”
A handout circulated at the meeting instructed families to donate, qualify for a tax credit and then apply for a scholarship for their own children, many of whom were already attending the school.
“If a student has friends, relatives or even corporations that pay Georgia income tax, all of those people can make a donation to that child’s school,” added an official with a scholarship group working with the school.
The exchange at Gwinnett Christian Academy, a recording of which was obtained by The New York Times, is just one example of how scholarship programs have been twisted to benefit private schools at the expense of the neediest children.
Woo hoo
Lawsuit against Comcast re: locking up installation subcontractors and carrying out predatory pricing to avoid competition.
Oopsie
Arrogance eventually trips people up:
MADISON — Did Gov. Scott Walker lie to a congressional committee under oath? That’s the latest explosive question in an already charged political atmosphere, and three congressmen are seeking answers.
No one – not even Walker’s opponent in the recall race, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, is ready to call it perjury — but this is the same congressional committee that questioned disgraced baseball player Roger Clemens, who is now facing a perjury trial.
Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly of Virginia has raised serious concerns about the truthfulness of Gov. Walker’s testimony under oath before a congressional committee.
The controversy centers on two pieces of videotape. The first is from April 14th, 2011. Walker was asked to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about his budget.
Walker was asked by Congressman Connolly: “Have you ever had a conversation with respect to your actions in Wisconsin in using them to punish members of the opposition party and their donor base?” Walker’s response was “no.”
Two weeks ago, video surfaced that was recorded three months prior to Walker’s congressional testimony as part of a documentary called “As Goes Janesville.” Walker speaks to a billionaire businesswoman, and the largest single donor to his campaign, Diane Hendricks.
Puhleeze
The Wisconsin State Journal calls the wahhmbulance over the Walker recall.
Mixed emotions
About this. What do you think?
Nope
Yep
Back in the USSR
If I were the queen of the universe, every time a member of the one percent opened his or her piehole to defend exploiting workers, they would be sentenced to work six months at a minimum wage job, find an affordable apartment, apply for Medicaid and food stamps and be monitored closely by a social worker. Because when Mayor Mikey says crap like this, I can only think of a Yiddish word that rhymes with “nuts”:
To a few hundred New York workers laboring for $8 or $9 an hour, a living wage bill recently passed by the city council means a raise, a few dollars more a week to help feed their families.
To billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg, it’s a wedge to open the door to communism. That’s right — the mayor told a local radio program that requiring businesses that get taxpayer subsidies to pay their workers a little bit more is just like a centrally planned economy. “The last time we really had a big managed economy was the USSR, and that didn’t work out so well,” Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg is just fine with handing over millions of New Yorkers’ dollars in taxpayer subsidies to companies that threaten to flee the city — no complaints about “free market” capitalism when it’s wealthy real estate developers getting the dough. Requiring those businesses that are happily slurping at the public trough to pay their workers a dollar or two more an hour, though, is just opening the door to Stalin.
In addition, Bloomberg has been willing to support a statewide minimum wage increase — so it’s not really that he opposes workers making a little bit more as much as he’s opposed to admitting that businesses that get public money have an obligation to the public. He’s opposed to admitting that there’s nothing “free market” about any of it.
No wonder a rally in support of the living wage bill was interrupted by a heckler calling him “Pharoah Bloomberg”—the reference to “Pharoah” making workers labor for low wages on taxpayer-funded projects seems apt, as the world’s 20th richest man has vowed to sue to prevent the living wage ordinance from going into effect.
“Mayor Bloomberg is in fact taking the position that the immense buying power of the city as well as its prominent role in economic development should be used to milk private sector workers,” Mark Price, a labor economist who testified in 2009 before the New York City Council over a prevailing wage bill, told AlterNet. “The idea that the government can be used to do this to workers is a throwback to the Gilded Age when robber barons ruthlessly accumulated wealth and power at the expense of workers.”
But as the economy remains stalled and companies that pay poverty wages continue to get huge subsidies from cities and states (like New York’s FreshDirect, which we recently reported is pocketing $129 million in handouts and is exempt from the new living wage rule), activists around the country are pushing for living wages in cities, on college campuses, and in tandem with pushes to raise the minimum wage.
Cory and the money men
It’s no secret in my part of the world that Cory Booker is a very ambitious man, whose horizons stretch far beyond New Jersery. (Until the election of Barack Obama, many observers thought he would be the first black president.)
This might explain his fondness for Bain Capital – their employees were among his earliest financial backers:
A ThinkProgress examination of New Jersey campaign finance records for Booker’s first run for Mayor — back in 2002 — suggests a possible reason for his unease with attacks on Bain Capital and venture capital. They were among his earliest and most generous backers.
Contributions to his 2002 campaign from venture capitalists, investors, and big Wall Street bankers brought him more than $115,000 for his 2002 campaign. Among those contributing to his campaign were John Connaughton ($2,000), Steve Pagliuca ($2,200), Jonathan Lavine ($1,000) — all of Bain Capital. While the forms are not totally clear, it appears the campaign raised less than $800,000 total, making this a significant percentage.
He and his slate also jointly raised funds for the “Booker Team for Newark” joint committee. They received more than $450,000 for the 2002 campaign from the sector — including a pair of $15,400 contributions from Bain Capital Managing Directors Joshua Bekenstein and Mark Nunnelly. It appears that for the initial campaign and runoff, the slate raised less than $4 million — again making this a sizable chunk.