From: The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer
Organizations, Inc. (FCTO)
Contact: Susan
Kniep, President
Website: http://ctact.org/
email: fctopresident@aol.com
860-841-8032
Tax Talk
May 24, 2010
Whistle Blower Wants Government Probe of BP http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/05/24/tsr.west.bp.oil.spill.cnn?hpt=T1
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From the Federation of CT Taxpayer Organizations: Congress
needs an Intervention. Their addiction
to bailouts will ultimately bankrupt America. The latest proposal is a $165 Billion bailout
for under funded union pensions. This
$165 Billion elephant in the room should not be put on life support by
taxpayers. Instead Congress should kill
this bill.
CALL YOUR CONGRESSMEN TODAY AND TELL THEM
TO JUST SAY NO TO UNION PENSION BAILOUTS!
Telephone Fax
Read what others are saying ……. Moody’s
rating service has found that large multi-employer pension funds are
underfunded by $165 billion. This includes funds that either pay or secure the
retirement for many Teamsters, AFL-CIO and SEIU members, and other large,
politically connected unions.
Rick Manning: ‘No’ to union
pension bailout By Rick Manning The writer is director of communications for
Americans for Limited Government, a conservative advocacy group based in Fairfax, Va.
He is the former public affairs chief of staff for the U.S. Department
of Labor. Just when you thought Congress might have run out of bailout ideas
for politically favored groups, along comes a bill from U.S. Sen. Robert Casey,
D-Pa., to bail out union pension funds.
Operating under the benign- sounding title “Create Jobs and Save
Benefits Act of 2010,” Casey’s bill is actually nothing more than a transfer of
approximately $165 billion in labor-union pension debt over to the U.S.
taxpayers. Article is continued at
…. http://www.omaha.com/article/20100524/NEWS0802/705249995
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Padded Pensions Add to New
York Fiscal Woes By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH and AMY SCHOENFELD May 20, 2010
In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and
firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were
working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of
about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year. Continued at …. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/business/economy/21pension.html
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U.S. Supreme Court Nears
Ruling on Honest Services Law
Posted by Michael Connor • May 23, 2010 A highly anticipated decision by the U.S.
Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the federal honest services law,
expected within weeks, could have major implications for hundreds of criminal
cases involving public officials and business executives convicted or charged
with fraud. Continued at …. http://business-ethics.com/2010/05/23/1819-u-s-supreme-court-nears-ruling-on-honest-services-law/
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10 Tax Breaks Likely to be Extended, U.S. News & World Report
Most of the legislative action in Washington has been focused on health and
financial reforms. But a major catch-all bill dealing with tax issues is
expected to be enacted this week. Sporting the catchy title of the American
Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act, the bill provides one-year extensions to a
number of tax rules that expired at the end of last year. The extenders are
retroactive to the beginning of 2010. Numerous provisions apply directly to
businesses and could have indirect benefits for consumers by lowering product
costs. For example, builders and contractors will continue to enjoy a range of
tax credits for energy-efficient homes.
http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-best-life/2010/05/24/10-tax-breaks-likely-to-be-extended.html
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THE FEDERATION CONTINUES TO
CRUSADE FOR CAP THE TAX IN CONNECTICUT– HERE’S ONE EXAMPLE WHY…..
N.J. property tax cap
proposal gets boost from study of Massachusetts taxes By Lisa
Fleisher/Statehouse Bureau
May 24, 2010,
TRENTON --
A study of the Massachusetts tax cap held up as the solution for New Jersey's
escalating property tax woes said educational standards can stay strong even
while governments spends less on students.
The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research study released today found
the cap, which limits property taxes to 2.5 percent annual increases unless
voters approve higher spending, helped Massachusetts towns slow the growth of
property-tax increases without forcing other taxes to rise to keep up. Continued at …. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/nj_property_tax_cap_proposal_g.html
Read the Study: http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_62.htm
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Article from The Institutional Investor worth reading
in its entirety
Trillion-Dollar Pension Crisis Looms Large Over
America
What’s the difference between
General Motors and California? California hasn’t gone bankrupt. At least, not
yet……
California’s $20 billion financial crisis — just the latest
in a series, like a Hollywood horror movie with endless sequels — makes it
Exhibit A of the pension funding predicaments looming over many state and local
governments in the U.S. And as it happens, these crises have a lot in common
with the pension overhang that helped sink General Motors last year.
EXCERPT ON CONNECTICUT: Connecticut stands as another prime example
of the damage caused by the unholy combination of optimistic investment
assumptions and liberal retirement provisions. The Connecticut Teachers
Retirement Fund uses an 8.5 percent projected rate of return. But in fiscal
year 2008, the fund’s investment portfolio lost 4.77 percent; in 2009 it
dropped 17.14 percent.
Generous smoothing wouldn’t help the picture much — Connecticut uses a
five-year smoothing formula to measure its returns. But even over ten years,
the state teachers pension fund’s annualized return is just 3.12 percent, far
below the assumed rate. As of fiscal 2009, the state’s employee and teachers’
plans combined were just 58.5 percent funded, which translates to a deficit of
$15.8 billion. Add in other postemployment benefits ($24.6 billion)
and bond obligations ($18 billion), and Connecticut’s debt equates to $17,628
for every man, woman and child living in the Nutmeg State.
In 2008, trying to prevent an even-worse pension shortfall, Connecticut —
borrowing from the GM and New Jersey playbook — issued $2.3 billion in pension
obligation bonds for its teachers’ pension plan. Then last year, to cope with a
general budget crisis, the state approved the Retirement Incentive Plan, with
the unfortunate acronym of RIP.
Connecticut negotiated a deal giving certain unionized employees, including
some part-timers, an additional three years’ credit toward retirement.
The idea was to cut the state’s payroll: The governor’s office projected budget
savings of $700 million if 3,000 employees took the offer. In fact, 3,856 did
so, which increased the savings. The price, however, was adding to the burden
on the state’s already underfunded pension system.
As part of the negotiations, the unions allowed the state to forgo pension plan
contributions of $50 million in 2009 and $64.5 million in 2010. Again, in
easing its immediate budget woes, Connecticut added to the pressure on its
pension plan.
The moves helped prompt Moody’s to change its view on the state’s financial
picture last October. “With the sale of the $2 billion in pension obligation
bonds on top of the state’s normal annual sizable debt issuance,” Moody’s said
in a ratings report, “Connecticut’s debt ratio will likely remain among the
highest in the country.”
What’s more, if the state were meeting actuarial requirements for retiree
health insurance, “it would at least double the fixed costs . . . which were
budgeted at $1.78 billion in fiscal year 2008,” Moody’s wrote. The ratings
agency says Connecticut’s postemployment benefits obligation now exceeds the
state’s annual operating budget.
Complete article at
….. http://www.iimagazine.com/article.aspx?articleID=2442415
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Union criticized as 'out of
touch' A
group of business people is taking issue with the Omaha fire union's lawsuit against
the city. Rick Bettger, a spokesman for the Omaha Alliance for the Private
Sector, called the lawsuit over fire staffing levels "ridiculous."
The group held a press conference Monday to discuss its concerns. "It shows how out of touch this fire
union is," Bettger said. Fire Union President Steve LeClair could not immediately
be reached for comment. The union is taking the city to court because fire
staffing has fallen below the levels spelled out in its labor agreement. http://www.omaha.com/article/20100524/NEWS01/100529816/1015#union-criticized-as-out-of-touch
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The Unbelievably Rampant
Corruption On Wall Street
Just consider some of the recent revelations of Wall Street
corruption that have come out recently.... *Bloomberg is reporting
that a massive network of big banks and financial institutions have been
involved in blatant bid-rigging fraud that cost
taxpayers across the U.S. billions of dollars. The U.S. Justice
Department is charging that financial advisers to municipalities
colluded with Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers,
Wachovia and 11 other banks in a conspiracy to rig bids on municipal financial
instruments. Apparently what was going on was that it was decided in
advance who would win the auctions of guaranteed investment contracts, which public entities purchase with the
proceeds from municipal bond sales, and then other intentionally losing
bids were submitted in order to make the process look competitive.
The U.S. Justice Department claims that this fraud has been industry-wide
and has been going on for years. In fact, at least four financial
professionals have already pleaded guilty in this case. This article is continued at ….
http://www.benzinga.com/10/05/291641/the-unbelievably-rampant-corruption-on-wall-street
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Vallejo's Painful Lessons in
Municipal Bankruptcy
Two years after going broke, the California city still isn't
free of its crushing pension obligations.
http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?t=54583
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Immigration Reform? Let's Try Mexico's Immigration Law! Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an
illegal alien in Mexico. Continued at ….. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2515743/posts
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Surprise jump in jobless
claims
By Annalyn Censky, staff reporter May 20, 2010: 11:35 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of first-time filers
for unemployment insurance rose last week for the first time in a month,
according to a weekly government report released Thursday.
There were 471,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week
ended May 15, up 25,000 from an upwardly revised 446,000 the previous week,
according to the Labor Department's weekly report. http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/20/news/economy/initial_claims/index.htm
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Bill for Afghan War Could Run
Into the Trillions, Eli Clifton, Inter Press
Service: "The U.S. Senate is moving forward with a 59-billion-dollar
spending bill, of which 33.5 billion dollars would be allocated for the war in
Afghanistan. However, some experts here in Washington are raising concerns that
the war may be unwinnable and that the money being spent on military operations
in Afghanistan could be better spent."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51468
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Gulf Oil Spill May Be 19
Times Bigger Than Originally Thought
Renee Schoof and Lauren French, McClatchy
Newspapers: "The latest glimpse of video footage of the oil spill deep
under the Gulf of Mexico indicates that around 95,000 barrels, or 4 million
gallons, a day of crude oil may be spewing from the leaking wellhead, 19 times
the previous estimate, an engineering professor told Congress Wednesday." http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/19/94489/gulf-oil-spill-may-be-19-times.html
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How Bush's DOJ Killed a
Criminal Probe Into BP That Threatened to Net Top Officials http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/How-Bush-s-DOJ-Killed-a-Cr-by-Jason-Leopold-100519-660.html
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Should federal workers be
asked to take pay cut, too? The full-time
federal civilian work force — excluding postal service employees — is expected
to top 2.1 million in fiscal year 2010, and more than 560,000 new workers will
be hired in the next four years, said John Palguta, the vice president for
policy at the Partnership for Public Service.
For a nation battered by layoffs, plant closings and double-digit
unemployment, Uncle Sam's hiring largesse should be a source of hope and
inspiration. However, 98 percent of working Americans aren't federal employees,
and many are wondering aloud why federal civil servants haven't faced the wage
freezes, layoffs, furloughs, pay cuts and hiring freezes that many in the
general work force have endured.
Continued at ….. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/19/94466/should-federal-workers-be-asked.html#storylink=omni_popular
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Improving schools by paying
teachers to leave That is one of several
provocative suggestions made by Hanushek on Education Week's [bias alert-I am
on their board] latest back page commentary, "Cry Wolf! This Budget Crunch Is for Real."
Continued at …. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/05/improving_schools_by_paying_te.html
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Sen. Scott Brown, Republican
of Massachusetts Votes for Wall Street Reform Bill - Wall Street Reform Clears
Key Vote WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- Wall
Street reform cleared a crucial test vote on Thursday, all but assuring final
Senate passage of the most sweeping regulatory overhaul since the New
Deal. The Senate voted 60 to 40 to meet
the threshold to overcome filibusters and send the measure to a final vote
within days. Three Republicans voted for it, and two Democrats voted against
it. Continued at …. http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/20/news/economy/Wall_Street_reform/index.htm?hpt=T2
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Should The U.S. Bail Out Europe? May 20, 2010
http://blogs.forbes.com/beltway/2010/05/20/should-the-u-s-bail-out-europe/
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Governor Rell: Latest OPM
Analysis, Projects Slight Improvement in Surplus Governor M.
Jodi Rell today announced that her budget office – using the most up-to-date
figures from the deficit mitigation plan and budget adjustments the Governor
negotiated with the Legislature – now projects a budget surplus of $166.9
million for the fiscal year that ends June 30, a slight improvement from the
bottom line projected after the budget was finalized May 5. The Governor noted that the budget
surplus – which is $26.9 million higher than the projected surplus in the
budget she signed May 7 – must be transferred to Fiscal 2011 to balance that
year’s budget or reduce planned borrowing.
Continued at ….. http://www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?A=3872&Q=460440
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News on Gulf Oil Spill from
ProPublica
Ø Abrahm Lustgarten on How the EPA Could Sanction BP http://www.propublica.org/ion/podcast/item/propublicas-abrahm-lustgarten-on-how-the-epa-could-sanction-bp
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Health Care Reform: What It
Means for Retirees Changes to
Medicare and to the individual insurance market will affect retirees. Here are
key details that you need to know. By Susan B. Garland, Editor, Kiplinger's
Retirement Report http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/krr-health-care-reform-what-it-means-for-retirees.html