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Politicians are like diapers. They should both be changed frequently and for the same reason.

This is a periodic newsletter on election and health care reform. If you wish not to receive it please unsubscribe at the bottom and accept my apologies for the intrusion.
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In this issue:

1) Economic Policy Institute

2) The state of the state

3) Have you stopped beating your wife?

4) Tidbits

5) Voters First Pledge

6) Give me a Break!

7) Book recommendation

8) Contact Information

9) Removal instructions
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Please do not respond to this email address. It is used for cleanup purposes only. Please use jelohman@gmail.com

From Economic Policy Institute
(How about pay at $4228 per hour?)

CEO pay-to-minimum wage ratio soars

In 2005, an average Chief Executive Officer (CEO) was paid 821 times as much as a minimum wage earner, who earns just $5.15 per hour. An average CEO earns more before lunchtime on the very first day of work in the year than a minimum wage worker earns all year.

The chart below shows the ratio of the average annual compensation of CEOs—including all bonuses, incentives, and so on*—to the annual compensation of a full-time, full-year minimum wage earner (assumed to receive an average amount of benefits).

Source: http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20060627

Other sources:

EPI's CEO-to-worker comparison.

See sfgate.com's: A call for curbs on CEO pay

And CNNmoney.com's The real CEO pay problem

Thanks to Lee Drutman at Citizen Works for providing the above links.

From billionaire Warren Buffett, who has consistently fought against the repeal of the estate tax, told reporters last week “I can’t think of anything that’s more counter to a democracy than dynastic wealth. The idea that you win the lottery the moment you’re born, it just strikes me as outrageous.” (courtesy www.TooMuchOnline.org)

The state of the state

Doyle and ethics: The Republican assembly voted to kill SB1 Ethics bill, and Governor Doyle seems to like that just fine. While he has the option to force a special session to take up the bill, he refuses to do so claiming that the Republicans will just gut the enforcement provisions anyway. So what? Let them do it and face the consequences at the polls in November. But at least Doyle should do his job correctly. But perhaps he (and other Dems) likes the weak ethics laws just as they are. Can anyone say "Travelgate?"

Fall Horror Show or a Remarkable Comeback? (By Rolf Lindgren): The clock is ticking. By July 11, we’ll know who the Wisconsin candidates are for Governor. Many are grimacing at the prospect of a fall dual between Democrat Jim Doyle and Republican Mark Green. The Republicans nominated Mark Green, the former Assembly Republican Caucus Director. Of all the people who live in Wisconsin, and in the wake of the Caucus Scandal, the Republicans chose the former leader of an organization deemed criminal to lead them..... But there’s hope on the horizon. Libertarian Ed Thompson could still collect 2000 signatures by July 11 to get on the ballot. If so, Ed has a remarkable chance to be elected Governor of Wisconsin. (See complete article at: http://www.wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=4597)

Has Wisconsin Lost Its Ethics? (By Bill Lueders, editor of Madison's Isthmus newspaper)

Have you stopped beating your wife?

It was one of those kinds of questions. In a right wing poll released by the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, they worded a question in much the same way and got heat from Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Common Cause and yours truly. You should know about this because some of our more unsavory politicians will try to use it as an excuse for not voting for reform.

Stacking the Deck
By Jack Lohman

We all know that you can get poll numbers to say virtually anything you want them to say, as was recently demonstrated in the poll by the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

If that was the intent, the public deserves better than a disingenuous effort to tilt the playing field toward a right wing political system that relies on corporate cash, special interest funds and outright corruption to keep its politicians in office. WPRI should go stand in the corner.

WPRI claims that -- by a margin of 65% to 26% -- respondents opposed replacing the current system of private campaign contributions with one financed by taxpayers.

Duh!!! Of course you would get this response if you ask a random set of 600 uninformed people “Would you favor or oppose using tax dollars to finance Wisconsin political campaigns?” By its own numbers, WRPI showed that people don’t trust politicians. Why would they want to fund their elections?

But ask 600 people who know that the true cost of the current political system -- i.e., that the method of financing the public electoral system with private dollars -- is costing $1300 per taxpayer per year in state assets being given to the special interests who fund the elections, compared to a bottom line cost of $5 per taxpayer under a publicly funding system that would level the playing field between all candidates, and you will instead get an honest answer that is exactly opposite of what WPRI published!

WPRI got the numbers that they knew (or should have known) they would get with a loaded question. Unfortunately, asking uninformed people also got an answer the politicians will now use to justify their current system of payola.

For informed taxpayers that know they are paying for the elections anyway – through back door government giveaways and at hundreds of times more than if they paid for them up front -- the choice for public funding is a no-brainer. There are only two types of campaign money, public and private, and the only difference between them is that the latter too often requires a quid pro quo.

Good businessmen usually don’t give money unless they get something in return, and the government giveaways can result in a return-on-investment of about 100-to-1. Good legislation does not require political money to change hands, but bad legislation does. Thus if bad legislation can only be had with money changing hands, that’s the process special interests will turn to. What is it about back-door money that conservative poll-takers don’t understand?

In Mexico or Italy we’d call our system corrupt, but America’s politicians like to call it “freedom of speech.” But speech is not free when only the rich can afford it. Our state legislature should be ashamed that they have allowed this corruption to continue, but it keeps them in office so what else can we expect? The real shame of this poll is that it gives them cover to leave it the way it is.

The same poll showed that 62% of the people think that we need new blood in the capital, and an informed set of 600 respondents would have shot that number through the roof. That’s why we’ve started the web site www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org. It is time for the entrenched politicians to find another job, and voter-initiated term limits are the way we can help them move on to a new career.

Opinion Source: www.wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=4614

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From Wisconsin Democracy Campaign......

2006 is not shaping up to be a good year to be a state office holder seeking re-election. According to the most recent poll by the right-wing Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, 62% of state residents think it is important to elect new people to office.

Only 6% of those surveyed by WPRI in mid-June think that elected officials represent the interest of voters, a finding that exactly mirrors an earlier poll conducted late last year. Only 3% of residents surveyed for the most recent poll trust state government to almost always do the right thing.

A whopping 81% believe that lobbying groups have more power than voters, and 73% say campaign contributors are more powerful than voters. All this led the La Crosse Tribune to editorialize again in support of action on ethics reform.

There is no remaining doubt that Wisconsin citizens know there is an ethics problem in state government and they know that campaign contributions are at the heart of the political corruption. But citizens also appear doubtful that there is a solution. When asked by WPRI whether they favor using tax dollars to finance Wisconsin political campaigns, 65% said no.

What is most sadly striking about the leading question WPRI asked and the public sentiment it evoked is the apparent lack of awareness that taxpayers will always foot the bill for political campaigns, one way or the other. Taxpayers either can pay directly for campaigns through a system of public financing of elections or they'll pay indirectly for them by having to pick up the cost of government favors that go to big campaign donors.

Publicly financing state election campaigns would cost each taxpayer between $5 and $10 annually. Democracy Campaign research shows that the cost of tax breaks, pork barrel spending and government contracts given to wealthy campaign donors exceeds $1,300 a year for each and every taxpayer in the state.

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Common Cause Interview

In a WPR radio interview Steve Miller, the president of WRPI attempted to defend the question's wording and Jay Heck of Common Cause quite adequately exposed the tactic. Listen to the re-broadcast at: http://clipcast.wpr.org:8080/ramgen/wpr/jca/jca060707b.rm. If RealPlayer is not already installed on your computer you can download it free (and safely) at www.real.com.

Interestingly, Miller called Common Cause a lobbying group, which they are. But they lobby for the best interests of the public.

It would appear that the writers of the poll like the tax breaks and subsidies that result from the bribery and payola that goes on at the state level. Perhaps Miller would be willing to tell us who funds WPRI. Is it special interest groups that support the current corrupt system? (Nothing could be found on the www.wpri.org website listing its funders).

As well, would Miller and WPRI be willing to allow Common Cause to inform the original 600 people as to the true costs of the current system, and then ask the same people the same question again?

If I were one of those 65% whose answer was used to discredit the real public attitude on political reform, I'd feel pretty duped.

Tidbits

Finally, Richard Scrushy, the former CEO of HealthSouth, was convicted of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud and faces up to 10 years in jail. All while Kenneth Lay took the easy way out. He died on July 5th while awaiting sentencing, though some conspiracy theorists are now claiming his death was staged and he's really alive. Give me a break.

The web site Too Much has an excellent series called The World's Richest 1 Percent at http://www.cipa-apex.org/toomuch/articlenew2006/June26a.html, and don't miss the links in the right column.

Also don't miss their "Good Books for your bookshelf," which features Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality That Limits Our Lives by Sam Pizzigati, which I recommended in eNewsletter #9.

For those interested in the handicap access issue and the corruption thereof in Milwaukee County, there's a new blog by Daniel at http://www.WhatIBelieveToBeTheTruth.blogspot.com/. His email is dapprdan@yahoo.com.

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On corporate taxes, let’s think outside of the box.

By Jack E. Lohman

Globalization has greatly changed the playing field for US corporations, and to remain competitive we must reset to zero on many key business issues.

First, let’s cut corporate taxes to zero. I am not a fan of greedy CEOs, but this is the right thing to do. The public is paying their corporate taxes anyway when we buy product at the cash register. It’s built into the product prices, like consumption taxes would be, and are thus regressive. Let’s eliminate the middlemen -- the high-cost accounting firms that finagle the corporate tax breaks -- and have the public pay all taxes up front. At the very least for those corporations whose CEO-to-worker salary ratio is less than 100-to-1; then let the boards of directors decide whether zero taxes or high CEO salaries are more important to the company.

Then we must start our personal taxes at zero for low income earners, add a flat tax for the middle wage earners beginning at $25,000, and finish with a progressive tax for all earners over $150,000 per year. What could be fairer? These tax changes will attract new business to the state and keep old businesses here, and greatly simplify tax preparation for all except those who can afford their own accountant.

But we can’t stop there. We must also get corporations out of the business of providing health care. Again, the public pays for all health care costs anyway, regressively, in the prices at the cash register. So let’s eliminate the 30% administrative costs and profits of the 400 statewide insurance companies, and retrain their people for badly needed nursing jobs. For what health care is costing us today, we could cover 100% of the people under a Medicare-for-all system. Doctors and hospitals would remain independent and well paid; quality would remain the same, and the wait times would remain what they are today. But we’d then also cover the 15% of the population who now has no insurance, and eliminate the added payroll costs which are 15% or more of payroll in most companies.

Both of these proposals would attract business to the state and not cost the public a penny. And they’d make Wisconsin corporations more competitive with foreign imports.

But then we’d have to tackle the reason why government expenditures (and taxes) are so high in the first place, and that is the direct result of our moneyed political system, where politicians are obligated to give taxpayer assets to the industries that fund their elections. That hidden cost easily adds 10% to our state budget, or about $1300 per taxpayer per year. On top of that the special interests add their political costs to the price of their product and, well, you know the story from here.

So again, taxpayers are paying for the state elections through the back door, regressively, when we could be paying with public funding of campaigns at a cost of about $5 per taxpayer per year.

That’d be a bargain at 200 times the price. Arizona and Maine have implemented this and over half of their politicians have sworn off the private-money influence. In Wisconsin, over $1.4 million transferred last year from health care interests to state politicians, so you can easily understand why universal health care has not gained traction thus far. These people like things just as they are, and they are willing to share their profits with the politicians that make it all happen.

Like all government decisions, I’d feel a lot better if I knew these were being made without money changing hands at the political level. But today’s politicians like the moneyed political system they have, so November is the time to change the dynamics and vote out them out. Only then will we be able to fix the other problems.

A version of this was published at: www.wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=4653

Voters First Pledge

Reformers Launch National “Voters First” Pledge to Build Support for Public Funding of Congressional Campaigns

WASHINGTON, DC – Backed by bipartisan public opinion research showing voters weary of pay-to-play politics, four major national campaign reform organizations on Wednesday launched a campaign to build public and political support for comprehensive public financing of congressional campaigns.

Common Cause, Public Campaign Action Fund, Public Citizen, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) unveiled their “Voters First” pledge that they will ask all congressional candidates to sign. The pledge includes specific policies to make elections fair for all, restore congressional accountability, and protect voters’ right-to-know. Activists will use the pledge in congressional districts across the country to press candidates for federal office to support a comprehensive agenda to clean up Congress.

See the complete Common Cause press release here.

Give me a Break!

If you haven't heard the real-life guy trying to cancel his AOL account, click here.

The YouTube Skeleton Gig (Rated G)

See this moving puzzle (Okay, so I had fun with it.)

Book Recommendation

See other reviews on Amazon.com

Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media
by Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols (ISBN: 1583225498)

Jack Lohman: This is a must-read for campaign reformers. The authors have demonstrated well that there is absolutely no business entity that our trusted congressmen cannot penetrate and control, and the most important to them has been our national media. While other corporations have just given campaign cash in return for taxpayer assets, sometimes even policies affecting national security, politicians have sealed the deal with media cash PLUS the ability to control their lifeline to the voting public. Not only do they get Big Media cash with this deal, they get a media that is not very likely to report on the daily corruption by them or their party. Sure, the Tom DeLay campaign's $500,000 payments to his wife and daughter will get reported (how can they cover that up?), but the meat of our corrupt moneyed political system will sit on the shelf. Why? Because Big Media is now a major player in the political system. With the blessing of congress (in return for cash), big media conglomerates have been able to acquire most of the local broadcasters and press with a hands-off policy by the FTC, and there are no longer checks and balances. Our free press is now free only to those who control it.

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Contact information

Lohman is a retired business owner in Colgate WI and volunteers’ time on the issues of Election reform and Universal health care -

Contact: Jack E. Lohman
jelohman@gmail.com or jelohman@charter.net
Phone 414-477-8686 (cell)
www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org
www.WiCleanElections.org
www.wi-cfr.org

www.SmokeFreeDining.net (A searchable database)

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