Wednesday, March 31, 2021

This is one of the most interesting sentences I have seen in a long time:

 The ambition of the infrastructure and jobs plans leave no doubt about his 

"Biden's" desire for transformation in an economy that has further enriched the most wealthy in the last 40 years but left the working class as roadkill.

end partial quote

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/31/politics/joe-biden-infrastructure-plan-donald-trump/index.html

The main reason this sentence is so true is that CEOs of large companies got greedy and stopped sharing the profits with the working class who worked for them. 

So, the working class started to be slaves to the CEOs. This began around 2000 AD for some reason.

No good reason just CEOs got greedy and no one stopped them like they would have in other more physically violent eras of the 20th century.

So, now for 20 years CEOs have been raping the working classes in America in more ways than one.

 

Posted by at No comments:

Writing

 If you like to write one of the ways to develop this skill in a creative way is to take a "Creative Writing" Class (usually at a city college "2 year") where they offer something like this. I think I took 2 creative writing classes, one in the late 1980s and one in the early 2000s after I retired. Often this is a nice idea because you get to meet other people interested in creative writing too, especially if your teacher is any good at all during your creative writing class. One of the things we did in our last creative writing class I took was for each of us to  write a page or more and we combined something each of us wanted to include and we printed all of them out sort of like a magazine and we each took one or more copies home from this.

So, in this sense each person in the class could sort of say that they had published something through the college that we all did together which was a good idea too.

However, if you have a blog you are publishing online and I presently have copies online of much I have written since 1980 now either here or at dragonofcompassion.com which is where I put most of my longer writings.

But, even I was scared to publish what I wrote for a variety of reasons because it was all very personal what I tended to write. I particularly like the style of writing in the book "Eat, Pray, Love" because it tends to be more honest and deep than the way most things you see are written. There is this attempt at complete honesty with herself that the author attempts in this book that I find fascinating to read.

Most writers it seems like they are water skiing over the top of things and you never really get to know them. But, in "Eat, Pray, Love" you get down to the raw honesty of living in the real world instead of a fantasy one that most writing tends to be about instead.

Because if you can't even be honest with yourself what you are experiencing then you are going to spend your whole life in PTSD states that aren't worthy of your attention in the first place.

We are all traumatized in various ways by what we experience growing up and sometimes even more traumatized by what we experience in our 20s depending upon what are decisions of what to do with our lives are too.

But, if your choices make you so traumatized that you cannot easily survive your 30s then for the most part your life might be over before it really is beginning that much.

Luckily, I didn't have to be in the Viet Nam War so I could work through my traumas enough to get married and have a family and start businesses and move to Mt. Shasta first in 1976 to start really healing the traumas of my life. So, by my 30s I had been to college and figured things out enough to actually be happy in my life.

By God's Grace

Posted by at No comments:

Business world divided on whether to fight corporate tax hike in Biden’s infrastructure plan

 

POLITICS

begin quote from:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/31/biden-infrastructure-bill-companies-split-on-whether-to-fight-corporate-tax-hike.html

Business world divided on whether to fight corporate tax hike in Biden’s infrastructure plan

Brian Schwartz@SCHWARTZBCNBC
SHARE
KEY POINTS
  • The U.S. business community is trying to figure out how to address President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan, which calls for higher corporate taxes to help pay for it. 
  • Lobbyists and other D.C. influencers told CNBC that they have received calls from anxious corporate clients eager for guidance on the path forward.
  • While several prominent business groups oppose the tax hikes, behind the scenes, some companies are considering whether to put up a fight at all because of the demand for an infrastructure bill.
President Joe Biden speaks during his first press briefing in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 25, 2021.
President Joe Biden speaks during his first press briefing in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 25, 2021.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images

The U.S. business community is trying to figure out how to address President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, which calls for higher corporate taxes to help pay for at least $2 trillion in government spending. 

Several prominent business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, oppose the proposed tax hikes. Behind the scenes, though, some companies are considering whether to put up much of a fight because of corporate America’s demand for an infrastructure overhaul, according to people familiar with the matter.

Lobbyists and other D.C. influencers told CNBC that they have received calls from anxious corporate clients eager for guidance on the path forward. Some of the people declined to be named in this story in order to speak freely about ongoing private conversations.  

WATCH NOW
VIDEO04:35
President Biden unveiled his $2 trillion infrastructure plan — Here’s what’s in the proposal

The White House unveiled the plan Wednesday, and Biden discussed it in remarks in Pittsburgh later in the day. It calls for raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%. “No one should be able to complain about that,” Biden said during his remarks when discussing any possible concerns with raising the corporate tax rates.

In some cases, corporate clients discussed with lobbyists potentially negotiating with the White House and congressional Democrats potential tradeoffs for raising the corporate rate to 28%, according to a lobbyist who represents tech giants and Wall Street banks. One of the ideas being floated behind the scenes is to persuade Congress to find a middle ground on global intangible low-taxed income, or GILTI.

CNBC Infrastructure

President Joe Biden has proposed spending more than $2 trillion to fix and update America’s infrastructure, including roads, bridges, ports and green energy technology. Read more of CNBC’s infrastructure coverage here:

According to the Tax Policy Center, GILTI is the “income earned by foreign affiliates of US companies from intangible assets such as patents, trademarks, and copyrights.” The minimum GILTI tax is set at 10.5%. Biden wants to raise the minimum rate to 21%. 

Other corporations have told their lobbyists to persuade moderate Democrats in Congress to back a 25% corporate tax rate instead of 28%. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who represents GOP-friendly West Virginia and is a crucial swing vote in the evenly split Senate, has called for raising the corporate rate to about 25% instead of 28%.

One lobbyist told CNBC that several of his clients appeared to be divided on whether they will push back on the tax increase proposal because corporate America has long hoped for a massive infrastructure bill.

“I think they’re all over the place because I think there’s a lot of money being spent in ways that will be attractive to a lot of companies,” another corporate lobbyist told CNBC. “If you are involved in broadband, electric vehicles, you go down the list, there’s a lot of positive spending that corporate America will like.” This lobbyist represents auto and airline giants, along with large private equity firms.

“On the other side, nobody likes a corporate tax increase,” this lobbyist added.

Other lobbyists said their clients would defer to business advocacy groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the RATE Coalition.

The RATE Coalition lists on its website a slew of corporate giants as its members, including FedEx, Capital One, Altria, Lockheed Martin and Toyota. The group advocates keeping the corporate tax rate at 21%. A person familiar with the matter told CNBC that the group is “prepared to spend what’s needed” against Biden’s corporate tax rate proposal.

Former Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., a leader of RATE, pushed back on Biden’s proposed new corporate rate and called on Congress and the administration to focus on closing tax loopholes instead.

“I urge my former colleagues in Congress and friends in the administration to eliminate the loopholes that enable profitable companies to pay little or nothing in taxes,” she told CNBC.

FedEx later told CNBC that, while they were in favor of raising gas and diesel taxes, they opposed the increase in the corporate tax rate as a way to pay for infrastructure reform.

“FedEx supports federal investment in infrastructure through both increases in gasoline and diesel taxes and – in the future – user-style fees on the beneficiaries of the system,” Isabel Rollison, a company spokeswoman, told CNBC. ”We do not believe increasing the corporate tax rate and broadening the base is the right strategy for infrastructure funding since such changes impact the country’s economic competitiveness and have a more detrimental impact on U.S. GDP.”    

The Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable also publicly criticized the idea of raising the corporate rate. This comes as many other outside groups were preparing for an all-out war against Biden’s tax concepts.

A business advocacy group, which declined to be named because it is still in its campaign planning stages, had already been in the process of conducting TV ad buys that will, in part, push back on Biden’s corporate tax rate.

The fossil fuel industry is targeted in the Biden plan. The administration said it would fund part of the spending by eliminating tax credits and subsidies for fossil fuel producers. 

The American Petroleum Institute, which is the oil and gas industry’s largest trade group, opposes using taxes to pay for the plan.

“Targeting specific industries with new taxes would only undermine the nation’s economic recovery and jeopardize good-paying jobs, including union jobs,” said API’s senior vice president of policy and regulatory affairs, Frank Macchiarola. “It’s important to note that our industry receives no special tax treatment, and we will continue to advocate for a tax code that supports a level playing field for all economic sectors along with policies that sustain and grow the billions of dollars in government revenue that we help generate.”

API has dozens of members including energy giants such as Chevron, BP and Shell.

API previously endorsed a price on planet-warming carbon emissions, marking a major shift after it long resisted regulatory action on climate change.

Posted by at No comments:

House Democrats Eye July 4 Deadline to Pass Infrastructure Bill

 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has signaled that she hopes to pass President Biden’s big infrastructure bill as early as July 4 — even as Republicans lined up on Wednesday in near-lock-step opposition to the tax hikes planned to fund the $2 trillion measure.

a man wearing a suit and tie: Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to move President Biden’s infrastructure legislation through the House as quickly as possible.© Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to move President Biden’s infrastructure legislation through the House as quickly as possible.

The ambitious timetable could slip as debate intensifies over aspects of the plan, particularly since Democrats hold such a slim majority and cannot afford to lose many votes in the House. But in a statement, Ms. Pelosi called Mr. Biden’s big proposal a “a visionary, once-in-a-century investment in the American people” and promised to move it through the House as quickly as possible.

Even before the president was expected to unveil the package during a speech in Pittsburgh, Democrats were beginning to rally around the plan with statements of effusive praise. The measure includes a massive upgrade of the nation’s bridges, roads, water treatment facilities, green energy programs, housing initiatives and improvements to the power grid.

Republicans have begun weighing in, and mostly negatively, on Mr. Biden’s proposal to hike taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.

At an event in Kentucky on Wednesday, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said Mr. Biden had called him about the proposal on Tuesday, but suggested he was unlikely to support the package, calling it a “Trojan horse.”

“Inside the Trojan horse is going to be more borrowed money and massive tax increases on all the productive parts of our economy,” Mr. McConnell said at the event.

White House officials hope to pick off a few moderate Republicans, in part to nominally assert that the bill has bipartisan support. But G.O.P. operatives were already working Wednesday to keep their troops in line.

“When you are talking about tax hikes of this magnitude, I don’t see there being any Republican support on the Hill,” Marc Short, a longtime aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, said in an interview.

Mr. Short, a veteran of anti-tax campaigns who worked for the Koch Brothers’ political network, has launched a new group, The Coalition to Protect American Workers, that is planning to raise between $25 to $50 million from conservative donors to fight Mr. Biden’s plan.

He said that “if the White House succeeds in enlisting any Republican support for the bill,” his group “would be messaging in those districts.”

All of this foreshadows a partisan battle on an issue that Mr. Biden had long touted as an area for unifying and bipartisan work.

It now seems likely that Democrats will have to resort to budget reconciliation, the tactic used to ram through Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief pandemic bill, which leaves party leaders no room for defections.

For the moment, no prominent Republicans have offered support for the plan, although many have withheld their criticism of it, pending the official release of its details.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who has been at the center of negotiations over similar bills for decades, told a local radio station this week he is waiting to see the specifics of the tax provisions before weighing in on the proposal. “The tax policy probably isn’t as important to me as the spending policy,” he said.

And Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana, the senior Republican on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, told Reuters he was keeping an open mind — although he warned he would not support a broad expansion of social welfare programs.

“If they’re just going to encapsulate a cow pie in a candy shell, then I’m not there,” said Mr. Graves.

Posted by at No comments:

COVID-19 cases among unaccompanied migrant children spark concern

 

A startling number of unaccompanied migrant children have tested positive for COVID-19 after being transferred out of border stations, sparking concern over cramped and overcrowded facilities that may allow the virus to spread.

On Location: March 31, 2021

Customs and Border Patrol facilities at the border are severely overloaded and do not conduct their own COVID-19 testing, officials said.

The agency told ABC News: "On-site medical personnel can provide basic assessment and supportive treatment, but suspected COVID-19 cases are referred to local health systems for appropriate testing, diagnosis and treatment."

Advocates say this poses a danger to all migrants, and creates a threat of outbreaks when youth migrants are moved. As of a Tuesday report, there are 17,641 unaccompanied migrant minors in government care -- 5,606 children are in CBP custody and 12,035 in the care of the Department of Human and Health Servies, CBP told ABC News.

© Dario Lopez-Mills/Pool via Reuters

At the San Diego Convention Center, which opened as a temporary shelter for migrant teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 on Saturday, 32 out of 247 girls who arrived Monday night tested positive for COVID-19, HHS said to local ABC affiliate KGTV.

In total, 82 migrant teens at the convention center have tested positive for COVID but none needed to be hospitalized, HHS said.

Migrant children rest inside a pod in the Donna Department of Homeland Security holding facility, the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley run by the CBP, in Donna, Texas, March 30, 2021.© Dario Lopez-Mills/Pool via Reuters Migrant children rest inside a pod in the Donna Department of Homeland Security holding facility, the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley run by the CBP, in Donna, Texas, March 30, 2021.

The girls will be housed at the center until social workers connect them with relatives or sponsors in the U.S.

HHS officials said those who tested positive were brought to San Diego on a separate plane and their intake was separate from the others. The girls who have tested positive are separated from those who tested negative, and are stationed on a different floor. Those who tested negative are tested for COVID-19 every three days.

Unlike the Trump adminstration, which under public health code "Title 42" removed unaccompanied minors from the U.S., the Biden administration is allowing them to stay until their cases are processed. Now the pandemic poses an even bigger threat as fewer people are being turned away and facilities become more overwhelmed.

From March 1 to March 30, there has been a total of 647 COVID-19 cases in 40 out of 50 Texas HHSC Office of Refugee Resettlement operations, Texas HHS told ABC News. These are self-reported positive COVID-19 cases in migrant children in care, Texas HHS also said.

MORE: 1st news media allowed inside overcrowded migrant facility under Biden

At the Carrizo Springs, Texas, facility for migrant children, 10% to 11% of kids have tested positive for COVID-19, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News Wednesday. There were 766 unaccompanied migrant minors stationed at the site, which has 952 beds, at the time.

The source said the site's contractor is a nonprofit that provided emergency coronavirus response resources to Texas this year and requested that COVID-19 positive teens be sent to the facility.

a man standing in front of a building: Police stand outside the San Diego Convention Center shelter for unaccompanied teen girls seeking asylum in the United States, March 30, 2021, in San Diego.© KGTV Police stand outside the San Diego Convention Center shelter for unaccompanied teen girls seeking asylum in the United States, March 30, 2021, in San Diego.

Late Tuesday 500 unaccompanied minors were brought to Fort Bliss, Texas, which will house boys between 13 and 17. The facility can house as many as 5,000 children. It's not yet clear how many children there have tested positive for COVID-19.

Advocates say the number of COVID-19 cases points to negligence by border facilities, which detains migrants coming from the border before handing unaccompanied children off to agencies like HHS. Once at HHS facilities, those centers work with local hospitals to provide medical attention and testing.

MORE: Accused of drug trafficking, Honduran president a critical challenge for Biden's immigration plans

"It's not surprising then, that girls who are legally not supposed to be held for more than 72 hours and are being held for a much longer period of time at those facilities are contracting the disease," Pedro Ríos, the director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program with the American Friends Service Committee, which aids migrants in San Diego, told ABC News.

He described those facilities as "horrendous or ill-equipped to handle any type of medical emergency or any situation where there could be a spread of communicable disease."

a group of people standing in front of a crowd: Unaccompanied immigrant children walk surrounded by staff members through the Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, March 24, 2021.© Pool via Reuters Unaccompanied immigrant children walk surrounded by staff members through the Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, March 24, 2021.

"They don't have the medical supplies there to handle any type of outbreak or treat anyone with any serious illness. That's what we've seen children die in the past," Ríos said. "It's urgent that anyone, especially unaccompanied minors, are removed so that they're not placed in greater harm."

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which operates under HHS, oversees more than 200 shelters in 22 states for unaccompanied minors, according to the department. Altogether, the network has capacity for 13,500 beds, but officials say more is needed to manage COVID-19 and the influx of unaccompanied minors.

On Tuesday reporters were given a first look inside a CBP-run facility under the Biden administration, which revealed severe overcrowding. A temporary tent facility in Donna, Texas, meant to hold 250 migrants had a population of more than 4,100 crammed inside on Tuesday.

Of those, 3,400 were unaccompanied minors and more than 2,000 waited beyond the legal limit of 72 hours, per Customs and Border Protection Tuesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told ABC News: "CBP facilities are currently housing increasing numbers of individuals, including children, and this is contributing to increased risk for COVID-19 outbreaks in these congregate settings," adding that HHS facilities are "more suitable for child-focused care with appropriately trained staff."

ABC News' Quinn Owens contributed to this report.

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)