Progressive Breakfast: Must Watch – Warren's Warning About The Coming Corporate Tax Giveaway

MORNING MESSAGE

If there was ever an Elizabeth Warren speech to see, it is this one. Warren began by describing how lobbyists and corporate CEOs are swarming Congress and saturating the media with a pitch that says corporations are paying too much in taxes, that this is forcing corporations to flee abroad and the solution is to slash corporate tax rates. This story of overtaxation is told and retold. Warren says there is just one problem with this: “It’s not true.”...

Dueling Democratic Speeches

Sanders delivers speech on democratic socialism today at 2 PM ET. NYT: “…Mr. Sanders plans to position himself as the political heir to one of the Democratic Party’s great heroes, F.D.R … building on his descriptions of the Roosevelt-backed Social Security program as a ‘socialist’ endeavor, [he] will call for the United States to adopt the so-calledsecond Bill of Rights that Roosevelt proposed in his 1944 State of the Union address to Congress…”
Clinton delivers speech on terrorism at 10:30 AM ET. NYT: “…Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver an in-depth speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York about her national security proposals and how she would combat the Islamic State … Mrs. Clinton will probably use the speech on Thursday to differentiate herself from Mr. Obama in subtle ways …”
W. Post investigation four decades of Clinton fundraising: “The grand total raised for all of their political campaigns and their family’s charitable foundation reaches at least $3 billion … The Post identified donations from roughly 336,000 individuals, corporations, unions and foreign governments in support of their political or philanthropic endeavors …”

Safety Issues Complicate Transportation Bill

Transportation bill negotiations intensify. The Hill: “Supporters of increased transportation funding and the Ex-Im Bank pressed lawmakers to find ways to boost federal spending … Safety groups, meanwhile, sought to convince Congress to take trucking provisions they argued would make U.S. roads less safe out of the highway bill…”
Trucking lobby besting safety advocates. Politico: “Among the most eye-catching is the provision in both the House and Senate bills to start pilot programs to allow teenagers, possibly as young as 18, to drive big trucks and buses across state lines … The House bill would also cut funding for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the automobile safety watchdog … Another provision tacked onto the House bill shortly before passage would allow car dealers to loan out vehicles with potentially deadly defects …”

Breakfast Sides

House votes to weaken mortgage protections. The Hill: “The Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act, which was introduced by Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), passed by a 255-174 vote. The bill extends a federal exemption meant for small and rural banks to all banking institutions.”
Treasury to issue new rules on corporate inversions. WSJ: “Treasury Secretary Jack Lew informed lawmakers of the coming announcement in a letter on Wednesday, which provided no details on its intentions. The administration previously has said it was examining ‘earnings stripping,’ a practice by which companies load up their U.S. operations with deductions and effectively push profits to low-tax countries.”
Bipartisan Senate bill aims to support carbon capture from coal plants. NYT: “Under a bill set to be introduced on Thursday, carbon capture projects … would qualify for tax-exempt private activity bonds, which helped clean up air pollution in the 1970s and 1980s … Some experts question the use of tax-exempt bonds for private development in general. Others caution that state limits on bond issues each year could keep some projects from going forward.”
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