Tag: taxpayers
'Abuse Of Taxpayer Dollars': Sinema Facing Senate Ethics Complaint

'Abuse Of Taxpayer Dollars': Sinema Facing Senate Ethics Complaint

If you are hired to work in Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema‘s office on Capitol Hill there is a 37-page memo you’ll want to read detailing all the responsibilities her staffers are required to perform, from getting her groceries, calling Verizon and going to her D.C. home to wait for a repair person if the internet goes out, scheduling massages, and ensuring her very detailed airplane requirements are met.

“It is your job to make her as comfortable as possible on each flight,” the memo says, as The Daily Beast first reported in December.

But now a group of 13 non-profit organizations have joined to file an ethics complaint against Sinema (I-AZ), a new Daily Beast report revealed Friday, including details from that 37-page memo which the newly-independent lawmaker directed to be drawn up. Dated Thursday, the complaint is titled: “Letter to Senate Ethics Committee Regarding Reports of Sinema Abusing Taxpayer Dollars.”

“Senate Ethics guidelines stipulate that staff should not be asked to perform personal errands for members. This is an unambiguous ethical boundary,” the group’s complaint reads.

It also points to that 37-page memo, which it says, “indicates that staff are required, as a condition of their jobs, to carry out numerous tasks that are outside the scope of public employment, including doing personal errands for the Senator, carrying out household tasks at her private residence, and advancing their own funds for her personal purchases. It makes unreasonably precise scheduling demands, and former staff have confirmed some of the allegations.”

The allegations continue.

“And, most troubling, it calls on staff members, who are employed and paid by the public and explicitly barred from campaign activity, to schedule and facilitate political fundraisers and meetings with campaign donors, presumably during the workday while they are on the clock and physically on federal property.”

“Senate staff are prohibited under your guidelines from engaging in political activity ‘on Senate time, using Senate equipment or facilities.’ While you have not prohibited campaign activity outside work hours, the plain language of the memo clearly implies that Sen. Sinema expects her staff to carry out these scheduling tasks during the workday. And these tasks may separately violate Senate Rule 41.1, which explicitly prohibits Senate employees from ‘solicit[ing]’ campaign funds.”

The complaint also alleges that “Sen. Sinema required her staff to schedule three physical therapy and massage sessions a week related to her training for athletic competitions, and to tightly manage her dietary schedule — while allotting only a 30-minute period on Wednesdays for meetings with the constituents she represents.”

The carefully-worded complaint adds, “the allegations paint a picture of a Senator who is not only unresponsive to her constituents, but also disrespectful and even abusive to her employees and wholly unconcerned about her obligations under the law.”

The Daily Beast has posted a copy of the complaint here.

You can read the Beast’s full report here.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

House Republicans Waste $185 Billion To Protect Wealthy Tax Evaders

House Republicans Waste $185 Billion To Protect Wealthy Tax Evaders

House Republicans voted on Monday to cut funding for the Internal Revenue Service's efforts to crack down on tax evasion by wealthy individuals and large corporations. An estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts the bill would cost the government more than $185 billion in lost revenue over the next decade — all money that the Treasury Department is owed by individual and corporate taxpayers.

The Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, which passed the House along party lines, 221-210, would cancel $71 billion in funds over 10 years. The funding, already appropriated in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to modernize and boost enforcement by the IRS, is expected to be more than offset by the additional collected revenue. In total, the CBO estimates the GOP cuts would actually result in the government ending up $114 billion poorer.

The $71 billion is set to allow the cash-strapped agency to replace retiring staff, modernize systems, and improve enforcement of existing tax laws. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ordered in August that the funds not be used to audit anyone making under $400,000 a year.

But Republican lawmakers unanimously opposed the Inflation Reduction Act, with many falsely claiming that its IRS funding would be used to hire an "army" of 87,000 new agents to "spy on" and target the middle class and small businesses with audits. In reality, much of the money would go to replace the 50,000 IRS employees eligible to retire within five years.

After the GOP won a narrow majority in the midterm elections, incoming Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that his caucus' first priority would be to "repeal the 87,000 IRS agents."

The vote to cut funding to the IRS came just days after McCarthy, as one of his concessions to far-right critics within his own party whose votes he needed to become speaker, agreed to push a 10-year plan to balance the federal budget. Such a plan would require draconian spending cuts, likely including a reduction in spending on safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Enactment of the legislation would make that job even more difficult, requiring another $114 billion in cuts to federal programs to offset the cuts in federal tax revenue. Republicans have pushed to protect defense spending, meaning these cuts would likely have to come from discretionary spending on domestic programs.

The Center for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscally conservative nonprofit, warned Monday that passage of the bill "would increase deficits by more than $100 billion over the next decade while encouraging tax cheating, expanding the tax gap, and undermining a policy supported by every President since Ronald Reagan, including Donald Trump." The annual tax gap is the difference between what is owed to the IRS and what is actually paid on time.

Chuck Marr, vice president for federal tax policy for the progressive Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, also blasted the bill, calling it "a misleading gambit to protect interests of wealthy tax cheats."

"A key element of a healthy, functioning democracy is a transparent tax system that is fairly enforced so that people and corporations pay what they owe and the well-heeled and powerful cannot flout their responsibility to pay their taxes," Marr wrote. "Efforts to protect wealthy tax cheats and purposely undermine the IRS's ability to enforce tax laws are anti-democratic and should be resoundingly rejected."

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain retweeted media coverage of the CBO's scoring on Monday, observing that the GOP bill was "Good for tax cheats, bad for the economy."

President Joe Biden said he plans to veto the legislation, though it's unlikely to reach his desk with a Democratic-controlled Senate.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

DeSantis

Florida Residents Sue DeSantis For Inflicting ‘Damage’ On Taxpayers

When Disney spoke out against Florida’s blatantly anti-gay and anti-trans “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Gov. Ron DeSantis retaliated by ending the special tax/business arrangement that Disney has had in the Orlando area for 55 years. DeSantis’ act of revenge, according to some economists, will cause economic hardship for residents of Osceola County and Orange County — as those counties will have to absorb Disney’s bond debt and can expect to pay higher property taxes (possibly, 25 percent higher). And three residents of Central Florida have filed a lawsuit against the state because of the economic pain DeSantis is inflicting on them.

DeSantis is insisting that Disney will pay the bond debt, not property owners in Osceola County and Orange County. But the three Florida taxpayers who filed the lawsuit, one from Orange County and two from Osceola County, obviously don’t believe him. And their lawsuit challenges the Florida bill that was signed into law by DeSantis and ended the Reedy Creek Improvement District and dissolved Disney’s special tax/business arrangement with the Sunshine State.

“In a lawsuit filed in federal court,” ClickOrlando’s Christie Zizo reports in an article published on May 4, “the plaintiffs say the bill should be declared unconstitutional because it violates taxpayers’ federal constitutional rights, and say the bill will lead to ‘significant injury to taxpayers.’ (In April), the Florida Legislature passed a law dissolving six special districts in the state, including the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The RCID governs Disney property, handles utilities, fire and EMS services, writes permits and takes out bonds to finance infrastructure projects.”

Zizo adds, “The lawsuit cites media reports featuring experts and political officials who say RCID’s $1 billion to $2 billion in bond debt will have to be absorbed by local governments, along with the cost to maintain utilities, infrastructure and other services that the RCID provides the area. That could mean higher taxes for county residents without the approval of those residents, which the suit alleges is a violation of Florida’s taxpayer bill of rights.”

The lawsuit describes DeSantis’ actions against Disney as an act of revenge and specifically mentions the Parental Rights in Education Act of 2022, a.k.a. the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which will go into effect on July 1.

The lawsuit reads, “It is without question that defendant Governor DeSantis intended to punish Disney for a 1st Amendment protected ground of free speech. Defendant’s violation of Disney’s 1st Amendment rights, directly resulted in a violation of plaintiffs’ 14th Amendment rights to due process of law.”

DeSantis, who narrowly defeated Democratic nominee and former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum in Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial race, is up for reelection in the 2022 midterms —and polling from the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Cherry Communications released in early April indicated that he is likely to be reelected. That poll found that in hypothetical head-to-head matchups, DeSantis enjoyed double-digit leads over his potential Democratic challengers, including Rep. Charlie Crist (a former Florida governor and ex-Republican), Florida Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried, and Florida State Sen. Annette Taddeo.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

#EndorseThis: How Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Trips Fleece Taxpayers

#EndorseThis: How Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Trips Fleece Taxpayers

Like many politicians who complain about government “waste,” Donald Trump doesn’t stint on spending taxpayer funds for his own benefit. In his case, the stench of hypocrisy is even stronger because he used to complain so loudly whenever Barack Obama took a trip on Air Force One.

As this NBC News report reveals, Trump’s constant weekend golfing visits to Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach estate and private club, have cost us tens of millions of dollars already — and are projected to cost far more, depending how long he remains president. In the meantime, the grifting Trumps are actually profiting from his use of the “Southern White House” for high-profile meetings with heads of state from Japan and China. So he is fleecing the public in at least two ways simultaneously.

Draining the swamp? Nope, he’s draining the Treasury for his own benefit. It’s so great to have a businessman as president, isn’t it?