Be INFORMED

Monday, May 07, 2012

Senator Marco Rubio: Another Republican Thief

 From the Atlantic:

“Rubio's political committee has also "spent more than $40,000 for investigators to research for negative attacks that could surface against him." This month, he asked the Florida State Ethics Committee to "closeout a complaint that he misused Republican Party and campaign money" to run up excessive food and travel bills on GOP credit cards”
From  Politico :
“In a negotiated settlement finalized last month but only publicly released now, Marco Rubio for Senate acknowledged taking in more than $210,000 in “prohibited, excessive and other impermissible contributions” during his Senate campaign and failing to refund or “redesignate” the funds within the allowed time frame.

Even after an internal audit, the Rubio campaign failed to identify more than $83,000 in improper or incorrectly characterized contributions, according to a March 19 agreement between the campaign and the FEC.

…A spokesman for Rubio could not be immediately reached for comment.”

More issues from CREW and the Tampa Bay Times:

1.  Rubio and his staff charged personal expenses unauthorized party credit cards including car repairs, and grocery purchases. Mr. Rubio’s chief of staff racked up thousands of dollars in expenses on behalf of Mr. Rubio on his card including dinners and a Rubio family trip to a Georgia resort.

2. Rubio also admitted he double-billed both the Republican Party and state taxpayers for eight flights totaling about $3,000 in 2007.

3. While preparing to leave his position in the Florida House of Representatives, Rubio accepted an “unadvertised” part-time gig at FIU that paid $69,000 per year. Maybe that’s because of the $29 million he steered their way which led to FIU”S president saying that Rubio was “worth every penny.

4. He was hired as a consultant for Jackson Memorial Hospital after he earmarked $20 million for them. They paid his firm $8,000 per month and hired his former aid.

5. Rubio’s wife was listed and paid as treasurer over a committee that paid $51,000 in unidentified travel expenses. Another Rubio political committee listed $14,000 in payments to family members, at least one of whom had a non-existent address.

6. Rubio, routinely charged personal expenses to his party-issued credit card from 2006 to 2008.

7. He billed the Republican Party of Florida 4k for a rental car in Miami and repairs to his family minivan, which he said was damaged by a valet at a political event.

8. As a Florida House Rep, Rubio started two political committees and raised nearly $600,000. He failed to disclose tens of thousands of dollars in expenses and concealed others by lumping them in credit card charges, the Times/Herald reported.

In one of the complaints filed against Rubio, this is how he was described:

"It appears that Mr. Rubio believes that PAC stands for 'personal access to cash,' " Ryan said in the complaint, calling it a "fraud upon his donors whose donations were solicited for political purposes, not to subsidize his lifestyle."

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Tax Lie # 1: U.S. Taxes to High…

… if you ask those people in the top of the income bracket ( 1% ) or their Republican butt kissers.  But is it true? No. In fact the United States was ranked the 26th out of 28 OECD  countries in total federal, state, and local taxes as a percent of GDP. The countries with the lower rates where Mexico and Chile.

    As far as those taxpayers in the 1% are concerned, the tax burden has dropped dramatically over the years, which is no surprise to you, is it?

   When a corporation can make billions of dollars, or an individual can make hundreds of millions of dollars and then live with paying little or no taxes, then the claim that taxes are to high goes right out the window.

   So what about the middle-income taxpayers?

Income taxes:  A family of four in the exact middle of the income spectrum will pay only 5.6 percent of its 2011 income in federal income taxes, according to a new analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. [3]  Average income tax rates for these typical families have been lower during the Bush and Obama Administrations than at any time since the 1950s, as Figure 1 shows ( Center on Budget and Policy Priorities )

   Oh hell, it gets worse.

Most stunning is the shift in taxpaying responsibility from corporations to workers over the years. For every dollar of workers' payroll tax paid in the 1950s, corporations paid three dollars. Now it's 22 cents.       Common Dreams

   What is really pathetic is that many of those Republican voters who make less than even middle income ( hourly workers ) will still go out and vote for con men like Mittens Romney, thus cutting their own throats once again if this chump is elected. If you are going to be stupid, at least don’t do it on a national stage.

   I believe that it will take much voter-fraud for that to happen at the current time. Remember though that is how George Bush was elected. Republican’s still cannot win a fair election.