Don Michak, writing in the Manchester Journal Inquirer, has done a terrific job of analyzing the contributions to the campaigns of the Republican candidates:
Out-of-state conservatives fund Simmons campaign against Dodd
Robert R. Simmons…accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in the second quarter from hard-line conservatives, most of whom live outside of Connecticut.
The former 2nd District congressman’s latest report to the Federal Election Commission shows that his supporters included at least 20 individuals affiliated with conservative organizations, foundations, research groups, and politicians. They include the group that attacked Sen. John Kerry’s war record in the 2000 election — Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — and another that last year linked President Obama to a former Weather Underground member — the American Issues Project.
Others include the Club for Growth, which has challenged Republican moderates such as Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine and former Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island…
State Sen. Sam S.F. Caligiuri of Waterbury — the least known of the three Republicans seeking to challenge U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd — reported collecting significantly less than his opponents in the second quarter.
Caligiuri’s.. benefactors included a group of 37 lawyers like himself, including Jack E. McGregor of Bridgeport and Martin L. Budd of Stamford, who each gave him $2,400…
Nearly all of the $534,030 in campaign contributions collected in the second quarter by Republican Thomas C. Foley — the Greenwich businessman seeking to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd — came from 159 donors who gave at least $1,000, including 78 who each made the maximum allowable individual contribution of $4,800.
Moreover, about a third of all 178 of Foley’s contributors — 61 individuals — are identified in his latest report to the Federal Election Commission as various types of bankers, money managers, venture capitalists, financial advisers, private equity executives, and “investors.”
While it’s not unusual for big donors to federal candidates to be wealthy or to hold high-paying jobs, the number of donors described as working in the financial services industry is extraordinary…
4. In addition, Michak reported on the efforts of Peter Schiff to raise enough out-of-state Libertarian funds to run a Republican primary campaign:
Schiff says he’ll run for Dodd seat if enough contribute
Peter Schiff, the Darien stockbroker who could become the fourth Republican candidate out to unseat U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, says he’ll enter the contest if enough people contribute to his campaign over the next week.
In a video posted on a “Schiffathon” Web site, the 45-year old potential candidate says he has done research, conducted polling, and acquired a “political consultant” in preparation for a Senate bid…
But he suggests his decision is likely to rest on the outcome of the weeklong fundraising promotion, which the Web site indicates will include a telethon featuring “many great guests well known to the patriot movement.”
The term patriot movement most often has been used to describe advocates who object to government “encroachment” on their Constitutionally guaranteed “unalienable rights.” Many were involved in the Tea Party events held around the country to protest the Obama administration’s tax policy and stimulus programs…
It’s outrageous that Governor Rell, with all of her department secretaries, deputies, press people, and budget experts, took six months to admit that our budget woes are actually far worse than she first announced and that increasing taxes will have to be part of the measured solution to fix this mess. We have programs and services suffering without adequate funding, we have cities and towns trying desperately to make ends meet, and she’s on the cusp of signing her second executive order to keep the state running without a budget.
After six months of protesting, she’s just now decided to admit what we all knew – and she knew – to be true? We could have had a budget months ago if not for her political gamesmanship. Instead, she chose to show a profound lack of leadership.
Economist Farid A. Khavari, Democratic candidate for Florida Governor, announced his economic plan to revitalize Florida’s economy, replace over 700,000 lost jobs, stabilize the housing market, and regain over $50 billion in losses suffered by the State Board of Administration (SBA) in the past two years, without higher taxes. “This plan will put hundreds of thousands of people back to work as fast as possible,” said Khavari.
A key part of Khavari’s plan is creating The Bank of the State of Florida (BSF). “Using the fractional reserve regulations that govern all banks, we can earn billions per year for Florida’s treasury, while saving thousands of dollars per year for Florida homeowners,” Khavari said. “After we cover the $50 billion in SBA losses, we can reduce taxes.”
“For $100 in deposits, a bank can create $900 in new money by making loans,” Khavari said. “So, the BSF can pay 6% for CDs, and make mortgage loans at 2%. For $6 per year in interest paid out, the BSF can earn $18 by lending $900 at 2% for mortgages.
“The BSF can be started at no cost to taxpayers, and will be a permanent engine driving Florida’s economy,” Khavari said. “We can refinance state and local projects at 3%, saving taxpayers billions and balancing state and local budgets without higher taxes. We can make Florida immune to future recessions.”
The state would earn $15,000 per $100,000 of mortgage, at a cost of about $1,700, while the homeowner would save $88,000 in interest and pay for the home 15 years sooner, according to Khavari. “Earnings on credit cards with 6% interest would be much greater, while consumers would pay off debt years sooner with big savings,” Khavari added.
“Our bank will save people about seven years of their pay over the course of 30 years, just on interest costs,” Khavari said. “We should work to support ourselves and our families, not the banks. Creating this bank is not Socialism, it is General Capitalism, which benefits everyone. What we have now, Elite Capitalism, makes everyone work for a few greedy fat cats.”
Currently, North Dakota is the only state that owns a bank. North Dakota has a growing economy and a budget surplus, in stark contrast to Florida and most other states.
Farid A. Khavari, Ph.D., is the author of several books, including Environomics: The Economics of Environmentally Safe Prosperity. His latest book, Toward a Zero-Cost Economy, is available for free download at the website. This is his first run for any office. “I’m an economist, not a politician,” Khavari said. “Politicians caused the mess we are in, along with banks and Wall Street. This election is not about politics, it’s about economics.”
Good for Senator McCain, who, perhaps uniquely among Republicans, recognizes that there is a differnce between campaigning and governing.
Here’s Senator McCain’s presidential campaign statement:
John McCain strongly supports the development and deployment of theater and national missile defenses. Effective missile defenses are critical to protect America from rogue regimes like North Korea that possess the capability to target America with intercontinental ballistic missiles, from outlaw states like Iran that threaten American forces and American allies with ballistic missiles, and to hedge against potential threats from possible strategic competitors like Russia and China. Effective missile defenses are also necessary to allow American military forces to operate overseas without being deterred by the threat of missile attack from a regional adversary.
Senator McCain also stated in a 2007 Republican Presidential debate:
“And the first thing I would do is make sure that we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and I don’t care what his objections are to it.”
Senator McCain, while recently in Tokyo, gave the following remarks regarding the April North Korean missile test:
“I believe there is no more compelling argument for missile defense capability than what just happened with the North Korean launch.”
But Senator McCain has had a change of heart. The United States Senate Armed Services Committee, which authorizes the policies and the expenditures of all U.S. military programs, and is chaired by Senator Carl Levin (MI) and co-chaired by Senator McCain, did not authorize, add amendments, nor bring to a public vote by the whole committee, subcommittee or to the floor of the U.S. Senate any requests to challenge President Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gate’s position to reduce our nation’s only proven long-range missile defense by 32.5 percent as well as an overall reduction of $1.2 billion dollars on missile defense spending.
A recent article in The Day reported on the checkered background of a Republican candidate for City Council in New London:
When Andrew Lockwood introduced himself to a gathering of New London Republicans this week after being nominated as one of their candidates for City Council, he said he’s had many careers in his life, including one as a lawyer…
When I asked Lockwood about the reference he made this week to a law career, he said he is entitled to call himself a lawyer because he has a law degree. He said he graduated from the Massachusetts School of Law five years ago and has come close to passing the bar exam twice. He plans to take it again later this month….
Perhaps Lockwood feels like he’s a lawyer because he’s been sued so many times, for allegedly not paying his taxes in New London and Groton, for allegedly not paying a contractor, for allegedly not paying Lawrence & Memorial Hospital for his medical care and for allegedly not making payments on mortgages on properties in Ledyard and New London…
The most worrisome allegations that I turned up against Lockwood, in a routine search, were contained in a story The Day published about 10 years ago.
It reported on a lawsuit in which three separate plaintiffs claimed Lockwood was part of a “racketeering” scam that duped them into buying overpriced properties and securing mortgages for them with phony appraisals and credit applications. The suit also named two lawyers, a mortgage broker and an appraiser.
One of the plaintiffs, who the lawsuit said could neither read nor write and functioned at a “noticeably low intelligence level,” was enticed into buying a house for $63,500 that Lockwood had paid only $20,225 for the year before, according to the litigation.
Lockwood helped him fill out a credit application that erroneously reported that the plaintiff was a general manager of the car dealership Lockwood owned at the time and made $60,000 a year, the lawsuit said. The two other plaintiffs in the lawsuit had similar stories.
CT Blue, whose post alerted me to this story, has more details:
My clients had no business buying houses. The “general manager” of the car dealership, (as well as his wife) was on SSI due to the fact that he was mentally retarded. He certainly didn’t knowingly lie about his source of income. He could barely read. I had two other clients in the same case, each of which had similar stories, though they weren’t retarded. The common thread was poverty and Lockwood….
So this case had all the elements. Inflated home prices. Corrupt brokers. Crooked appraisers. Deceptive loans (all of the loans had balloon payment requirements the clients could never have made) and creditors who passed the risk to deluded investors.
As remarkable as this story is, the most incredible part is the candidate’s response, as posted on The Day’s website:
…i have had 20 years of management experience, a realtors licence, a contractors licence, educational experience and a juris doctrine degree. it is impotant in life to take life experieces learn from them and grow. i went back to college in 1999 and earned 210 college credits to get my doctrine degree…
It’s a Juris Doctor degree, NOT doctrine – and as far as the other 9 mistakes in these 3 sentences – well, no comment.
The Massachusetts School of Law is not an accredited law school. However, the Connecticut bar examining committee currently recognizes two law schools not accredited by the ABA: Massachusetts School of Law, approved in 1997, and Southern New England School of Law, approved in 2001.
Still, questions have to be raised about the quality of the education at least one graduate received there. Here’s how the school describes itself:
The law school’s mission is to make practical, affordable, high quality legal education, and resulting social and economic mobility, available to persons who have been traditionally excluded from the legal profession. Massachusetts School of Law employs the “medical school” model in its approach to legal education. Interested recent college graduates and working professionals learn to write and speak effectively, and to successfully advocate for clients. Of all the law schools in New England, MSLAW, places the most emphasis on the acquisition of the professional skills necessary to practice law immediately upon graduation. LSATs are not required for admission, as Massachusetts School of Law considers an applicant’s entire record in selecting appropriate candidates to enter the legal profession.
For some background on the requirements of the Connecticut bar examining committee, read this interesting article about the efforts of a name many bloggers will recognize to be allowed to take the bar exam:
Derby, Conn., resident Mel Thompson believes he has what it takes to pass the Connecticut Bar Exam. The fact that he earned his law degree over the Internet, he asserts, shouldn’t prevent him from putting his gumption to the test.
After six months of substantially low-balling the size of the state’s projected budget deficit, Governor M. Jodi Rell finally agreed to a new budget deficit estimate of $8.558 billion, which amounts to $2.558 billion more than her original estimate of $6 billion. The agreement between the legislature and Governor Rell comes after the legislature passed, and re-passed by a veto-proof margin last week, the consensus revenue forecasting bill that Governor Rell originally vetoed.
“While I’m pleased the Governor has finally agreed to a more realistic budget deficit number that accurately reflects the true fiscal pain Connecticut is going through right now, taxpayers in this state shouldn’t have had to wait until Governor Rell was forced to do so by law,” said Democratic State Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo. “If she had come to the table months ago with a real number, and not one concocted purely for political points, we could have had a budget agreed upon, or at least be substantially further along in negotiations than we are at this time.
“Connecticut residents are hanging in the balance and last week’s Quinnipiac Poll confirms what we already know to be true – we need a measured approach to solve our fiscal crisis, and everyone – including the wealthy – must pay their fair share. Now that we know truly the kind of trouble we’re in, Governor Rell must commit herself to this process, and put aside any political posturing.”
Small businesses play an important role in the U.S. economy and are a strong driver of job growth and innovation. But small businesses are severely disadvantaged by the current U.S. health care system relative to their larger counterparts. A new report by the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) examines the challenges faced by smaller firms under the current health care system, and the likely impacts of health care reform on small businesses and the workers they employ. Key findings of the report include the following:
Small businesses are crucial to the economy.
* Small businesses are an important source of job growth in the United States. Firms with fewer than 20 employees accounted for approximately 18 percent of private sector jobs in 2006, but nearly 25 percent of net employment growth from 1992 to 2005.
* Small businesses account for a large majority of jobs in start-ups, a key source of innovation and economic growth.
The current health care system is not working well for small businesses and their workers.
* The U.S. health care system imposes a heavy “tax” on small businesses and their employees. Due to high broker fees, fixed administrative costs, and adverse selection, small businesses pay up to 18 percent more per worker than large firms for the same health insurance policy. Some of these higher costs are passed on to small firm employees in the form of lower wages, and some eat into the profits of small businesses that could otherwise be used for research and development and for much-needed investments. This implicit tax disadvantages small firms in both the market for the best workers and the market for their products.
* Because of their higher health care costs, small businesses are far less likely to provide health insurance for their workers than larger businesses. Only 49 percent of firms with 3 to 9 workers and 78 percent of firms with 10 to 24 workers offered any type of health insurance to their employees in 2008. In contrast, 99 percent of firms with more than 200 workers offered health insurance. Consistent with this pattern, 29 percent of non-elderly adult workers at firms with fewer than 25 employees were uninsured in 2007. In that same year, just 10 percent of workers in firms with 500 or more employees were uninsured. Workers at small firms that do offer health insurance also tend to have less generous plans than workers at large firms.
* The fraction of small firms offering health insurance has been declining in recent years. From 2002 to 2008, the fraction of firms with 3 to 9 employees offering health insurance to their workers declined from 58 to 49 percent.
Health care reform as envisioned in current draft legislation would reduce the current burdens on small firms and their workers.
* Small businesses that meet certain criteria would be able to purchase health insurance through an “insurance exchange” – allowing them to choose among a multitude of plans that would provide better coverage at lower costs than they could find in the current small group market.
* Many small businesses that provide health insurance for their employees would receive a small business tax credit to alleviate their disproportionately higher costs and encourage coverage. The tax credit would be targeted to those firms with employees whose average wages fall below a certain threshold.
* The current reform options include financial incentives for medium- and large-sized firms to provide health insurance coverage through so-called “pay-or-play” provisions. Firms with payrolls or employment levels below a certain threshold, which would include the vast majority of small businesses, would be exempt from the pay-or-play provisions.
* The creation of an insurance exchange would also provide better and lower-cost options for workers in small businesses that do not offer health insurance. Low-income individuals and families would receive sliding scale subsidies to help them purchase insurance. Additionally, health insurers would not be allowed to screen potential enrollees for pre-existing conditions.
* The proposed reforms could help spur entrepreneurial activity by increasing the incentives for talented Americans to launch their own companies, and could increase the pool of workers willing to work at small firms. Further, successful reform would reduce the phenomenon of “job lock,” in which workers are reluctant to leave a job with employer-sponsored health insurance out of fear that they will not be able to find affordable coverage. Small firms that are unable to provide health insurance for their employees bear the greatest cost of this phenomenon.
* Reductions in absenteeism and improvements in worker productivity resulting from better health outcomes because of expanded coverage would particularly benefit small businesses.
