August 30, 2010--GOP Largess
He controls a hedge fund with $17 billion, with a b, in assets but still wants more. So he has taken to railing against Barack Obama's, to him, moves to "take over and run" the economy. All, he sees, threatening to "ruin the United States' standing as the world leader in finance." (See linked New York Times article.)
It is no wonder that he has become one of the leading bankrollers of all things Republican. He knows that if they return to the congressional majority later this year and retake the White House in 2012 things will be even better for him. He knows that the GOP's true constituency is the nation's top 1 percent of earners (who received more than 95 percent of the Bush tax cuts) and that Republicans have the uncanny ability to get many, many Americans of much more modest means to see it to be in their own best interest to get out and march and then vote for the likes of Daniel Coast in Indiana (for whom Singer raised $135,000); Dino Rossi in Washington State (also $135,000); John Boozman of Arkansas($134,000); Marco Rubio in Florida ($132,000); Pennsylvania's Pat Tooney ($131K); and Rob Portman of Ohio (just $120,000). All of whom, if they become senators, will vote to protect the privileges of that top 1 percent and slash programs that benefit the rest.
He is Paul Singer who has also thus far contributed nearly $2.0 million to the Republican Governors Association. Strategically a smart thing since congressional districts will be redrawn next year based on the 2010 census and the more GOP governors there are the more House seats will be turned into safe Republican ones through gerrymandering.
Singer knows what's in his best interest but he doesn't know much about American history. What little history he does know appears to have been taught to him by Glenn Beck, who now sees himself as a messianic leader and Martin Luther King's perverse successor.
What he doesn't know is that from the beginning of the republic active government involvement in all aspects of the economy have contributed mightily to the amassing of many American fortunes. Including his.
It was the early federal government that manipulated tariff policy to protect American manufacturers and thereby enabled 18th century entrepreneurs to begin to accumulate wealth. In the next century the federal government gave away public lands to railroad tycoons so that they could not only lay tracks but also own the land adjacent to the tracks that as a result of expanding rail lines became invaluable. There would be no Harrimans without this governmental largess.
When strikers threatened Andrew Carnegie's Homestead steel mills it was the government who dispatched and paid for troops and agents to break that strike and many strikers' heads. U.S. Steel had seen its profits rise 60% but only offered to raise workers' pay by less than half that amount. Seeing the "unfairness" of the situation the government decided Carnegie needed its largess.
Then the federal government built the interstate highway system which, at no cost to the trucking industry, has been an extraordinary taxpayer gift to it. Through many decades the government has served as funding partner to thousands of R&D projects that would have been beyond the capacity of companies to fund but the resulting profits went to the corporations and the taxpayers were never reimbursed for their generosity. The products and technologies derived from the federally-funded space program are a 20th century a case in point. Then since the American Revolution the highly profitable military-industrial complex has been an extraordinary public works program. And, closer to where Paul Singer lives, federal tax and regulatory policy has been a boon to the financial industry, especially to Singer's own business--hedge funds.
Without the stunning tax breaks and loopholes that have been specifically crafted to aid and abet hedge fund managers Singer would be no billionaire and would not have the cash he has to spread around or the platform from which to speak myopically about history and the American economy.
Fund managers are allowed to treat most of their compensation as capital gains, meaning they are taxed at only 15% rather than the 35% rate that applies to ordinary income such as wages and salaries, which fund managers' fees in truth are. They are the result of the work that they do (and thus wages), not the investments they make (which would count as capital gains).
Not a bad deal at all.
As a result of this largess, Singer and his colleagues should be great fans of big government.
It is no wonder that he has become one of the leading bankrollers of all things Republican. He knows that if they return to the congressional majority later this year and retake the White House in 2012 things will be even better for him. He knows that the GOP's true constituency is the nation's top 1 percent of earners (who received more than 95 percent of the Bush tax cuts) and that Republicans have the uncanny ability to get many, many Americans of much more modest means to see it to be in their own best interest to get out and march and then vote for the likes of Daniel Coast in Indiana (for whom Singer raised $135,000); Dino Rossi in Washington State (also $135,000); John Boozman of Arkansas($134,000); Marco Rubio in Florida ($132,000); Pennsylvania's Pat Tooney ($131K); and Rob Portman of Ohio (just $120,000). All of whom, if they become senators, will vote to protect the privileges of that top 1 percent and slash programs that benefit the rest.
He is Paul Singer who has also thus far contributed nearly $2.0 million to the Republican Governors Association. Strategically a smart thing since congressional districts will be redrawn next year based on the 2010 census and the more GOP governors there are the more House seats will be turned into safe Republican ones through gerrymandering.
Singer knows what's in his best interest but he doesn't know much about American history. What little history he does know appears to have been taught to him by Glenn Beck, who now sees himself as a messianic leader and Martin Luther King's perverse successor.
What he doesn't know is that from the beginning of the republic active government involvement in all aspects of the economy have contributed mightily to the amassing of many American fortunes. Including his.
It was the early federal government that manipulated tariff policy to protect American manufacturers and thereby enabled 18th century entrepreneurs to begin to accumulate wealth. In the next century the federal government gave away public lands to railroad tycoons so that they could not only lay tracks but also own the land adjacent to the tracks that as a result of expanding rail lines became invaluable. There would be no Harrimans without this governmental largess.
When strikers threatened Andrew Carnegie's Homestead steel mills it was the government who dispatched and paid for troops and agents to break that strike and many strikers' heads. U.S. Steel had seen its profits rise 60% but only offered to raise workers' pay by less than half that amount. Seeing the "unfairness" of the situation the government decided Carnegie needed its largess.
Then the federal government built the interstate highway system which, at no cost to the trucking industry, has been an extraordinary taxpayer gift to it. Through many decades the government has served as funding partner to thousands of R&D projects that would have been beyond the capacity of companies to fund but the resulting profits went to the corporations and the taxpayers were never reimbursed for their generosity. The products and technologies derived from the federally-funded space program are a 20th century a case in point. Then since the American Revolution the highly profitable military-industrial complex has been an extraordinary public works program. And, closer to where Paul Singer lives, federal tax and regulatory policy has been a boon to the financial industry, especially to Singer's own business--hedge funds.
Without the stunning tax breaks and loopholes that have been specifically crafted to aid and abet hedge fund managers Singer would be no billionaire and would not have the cash he has to spread around or the platform from which to speak myopically about history and the American economy.
Fund managers are allowed to treat most of their compensation as capital gains, meaning they are taxed at only 15% rather than the 35% rate that applies to ordinary income such as wages and salaries, which fund managers' fees in truth are. They are the result of the work that they do (and thus wages), not the investments they make (which would count as capital gains).
Not a bad deal at all.
As a result of this largess, Singer and his colleagues should be great fans of big government.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:19 AM
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