In March, Vice President Joe Biden floated a tax proposal known as the global minimum tax while campaigning in Iowa. The proposal, a feature of President Obama’s budget aimed at companies that use offshore tax havens to reduce the amount they pay in income taxes, would force multinational corporations based in the United States to pay a minimum tax rate, thereby adding trillions in lost revenue that is shifted to individual taxpayers and small businesses.

At the time, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney slammed Biden’s proposal. “Instead of promoting pro-growth tax policies that provide businesses with the economic freedom to grow and prosper, he is backing a ‘global tax’ that would harm American competitiveness,” Romney said. At a campaign stop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire yesterday, however, Romney feigned ignorance of the proposal:

ROMNEY: And the vice president says he wants to do a global tax on multinationals. Not sure what that is, but it doesn’t sound very good.

Watch it:

Under the global tax plan, the 26 corporations that haven’t paid taxes in the last four years would actually have to pay taxes. So would Apple, which used offshore tax havens to dodge $2.4 billion in taxes last year. Romney’s plan, by contrast, would cut corporate taxes and the tax on profits corporations bring from overseas. His justification: America’s high corporate tax rate hurts competitiveness, and the lower repatriation rate will boost job growth. In reality, American corporations pay one of the world’s lowest tax rates, and the last repatriation holiday was a complete failure.

It’s no secret why Romney doesn’t want to talk about the global minimum tax. While his plan would provide a massive giveaway to American corporations, the plan Biden floated would actually raise corporate tax revenues — something a vast majority of Americans support.

After a series of protest actions, activists and demonstrators from all over the country gathered in midtown Manhattan’s Bryant Park under the shadow of Bank of America Tower to mark the Occupy Wall Street movement’s May Day general strike. Remaining cognizant of May Day’s roots in a Chicago labor movement 130 years ago — though May 1st went global with International Workers’ Day — demonstrators nonetheless maintained a light spirit, singing, meditating, eating free food and discussing politics and policy. The morning events went down largely without incident, as organizers encouraged protesters to keep moving to avoid arrest. But later in the afternoon, reports and photographs of arrested protesters at a downtown action flooded Twitter.

Here are some photos from Bryant Park:

Income inequality in the United States has skyrocketed over the last several decades and especially since the Great Recession, so much so that it is now worse than in Ivory Coast and Pakistan. It may even be worse than it was in Ancient Rome, a society built on slave labor.

That income inequality is crushing the middle class and its political power. But don’t tell that to Edward Conard, a top donor to presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney who gained notoriety during the campaign as a million-dollar mystery donor who set up a shell company to shield his identity. Conard, a former director at the Romney-founded Bain Capital, is working on a new book in which he argues that income inequality is a good thing, and what the U.S. really needs is more of it, the New York Times’ Adam Davidson reports:

Unlike his former colleagues, Conard wants to have an open conversation about wealth. He has spent the last four years writing a book that he hopes will forever change the way we view the superrich’s role in our society. “Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong,” to be published in hardcover next month by Portfolio, aggressively argues that the enormous and growing income inequality in the United States is not a sign that the system is rigged. On the contrary, Conard writes, it is a sign that our economy is working. And if we had a little more of it, then everyone, particularly the 99 percent, would be better off. This could be the most hated book of the year.

Conard instead argues that income inequality helps everyone because investors grow wealthy by creating products that benefit the 99 percent. Though that is certainly true to an extent, Conard’s line of thinking leads to the supply-side policies that are proven failures at “growing the pie” for everyone. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, for instance, were supposed to create jobs and spark economic growth for everyone. They did neither, instead saddling the nation with unsustainable debt and deficits that Republicans are now using to justify massive budget cuts to programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes.

And while investors like Conard made luxuries available to some Americans, they also bankrupted companies and left workers without jobs, pensions, or health care. Bain Capital, in fact, made billions of dollars for people like Romney and Conard while bankrupting nearly a quarter of the companies in which it invested.

Further, Conard believes the financial industry — the same financial industry that sold “shitty deals” and purposely exploited consumers — isn’t to blame for the financial crisis. Instead, it was investors who created an “old-fashioned run on the bank” that created the crisis. That’s a view that, as Davidson notes, “is not shared by many analysts.” It is, however, a view that is shared by Conard’s favorite presidential candidate, who has admitted that he is “not concerned with the very poor” and has promised to repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act that aimed at preventing another such crisis.

Nearly eleven years after terrorists brought down the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center can again boast of itself as New York City’s tallest building. One World Trade Center, built to replace the towers, surpassed the Empire State Building yesterday afternoon, and by the time it is finished sometime next year, it will be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the third tallest in the world.

The reconstruction of the World Trade Center was done almost entirely with union labor. More than 3,200 workers were involved in the reconstruction effort, and as American Rights At Work notes, labor unions have been connected to the site since 9/11:

It’s fitting: union members were among the first responders; union members served in the immediate cleanup; and now union members are part of the rebuilding.

When One World Trade Center is completed, it will stand exactly 1,776 feet tall to mark America’s independence. Its roof, at 1,368 feet tall, will match the height of the original World Trade Center’s North Tower.

“The latest progress at the World Trade Center is a testament to New Yorkers’ strength and resolve, and to our belief in a city that is always reaching upward,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement. “This building has been a labor of love for many, and I congratulate the men and women who have worked together to solve the challenges presented by this incredibly complex project. Today our city has a new tallest building, and a new sense of how bright our future is.”

The Office of Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) gleefully announced yesterday that the outside Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) board voted 6-0 against recommending an Ethics Committee investigation into allegations that Bachus engaged in insider trading. But the unanimous vote may say more about the permissive House rules than about Bachus’s ethical compass.

Last November, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a report — based on Peter Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out — accusing several members of Congress of profiting from stock trades made after receiving private briefings. In that report, the news program said that in 2008, one day after receiving a private briefing from the nation’s chief economic officials on the extent of the financial crisis, Bachus bet that the stock market would tank:

While Congressman Bachus was publicly trying to keep the economy from cratering, he was privately betting that it would, buying option funds that would go up in value if the market went down. He would make a variety of trades and profited at a time when most Americans were losing their shirts.

Bachus, now chairman of the powerful House Financial Services committee that oversees Wall Street, apparently made a $30,000 profit. But, as the report noted, members of Congress have long been considered exempt from anti-insider trading laws. Despite the exemption, the OCE opened an investigation into whether the Bachus trades violated any rule.

While the investigation was in progress, Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. The bill tightened some of the rules, but thanks to significant Wall Street lobbying, House Republicans successfully watered down the stronger Senate version. The final product left significant loopholes. Members of Congress can still own stocks in the industries they regulate and can still sell secret “political intelligence” to investors.

Friday, the OCE ended the inquiry. In a press release Bachus celebratedthe end of what he called a “destructive and disruptive, media generated assault,” saying:

It has been a long, painful, and frustrating experience to have a reputation built over many years sullied by untrue accusations. I also appreciate former SEC Chairmen Harvey Pitt and Roderick Hills and Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin for reviewing the allegations, determining they were false and meritless, and publicly coming to my defense. Perhaps the most gratifying aspect is that my constituents who know me best recently reaffirmed their faith in my character and my ability to serve their interests, and my personal commitment to them is to continue to serve with the highest level of effectiveness and accountability. Finally, I want to thank the OCE staff for their professionalism and the OCE Board for unanimously coming to the right conclusion. While their review and report should never have been necessary, I am pleased that they have helped clear my name.

Given that the rules in 2008 were not even the slightly tougher STOCK Act provisions, it is little surprise that the OCE found there was “not substantial reason to believe that a violation of House Rules and Standards of Conduct occurred.” Even if it did not violate the House’s permissive rules — and even if, as he claims, his behavior was not technically insider trading — the OCE’s action hardly has cleared his name. Significant questions remain about whether his dealings were ethical.

This ruling serves as a reminder of the gaping holes in Congressional ethics rules. And with unseemly — but unpunished — trading practices all too common, it is little wonder that Congress currently sports an approval rating in the low teens.

The 99 Percent Movement is bringing May Day, the worldwide annual celebration of labor, to the United States today with protests in over 135 cities. The theme of the protests is “A Day Without the 99 Percent,” and occupiers are encouraging people to spend the day outside of the U.S. economy. According to the May Day organizing site for New York, “It’s a day to recognize the value of our work, and the power we have to collectively change our working conditions and our world.”

It’s true that the 99 percent make up the majority of workers in all the industries for which America is known. Farming, manufacturing, and transportation, to name just a few, wouldn’t survive without the working people who carry the burden of productivity in those fields. Manufacturing alone makes up 20.3 percent of the labor force. But rewarding those workers is a different question. Currently, there seems good reason for workers to feel they are being under-recognized. Just take a look at these three charts:

1. The 99 percent are extremely productive workers, but aren’t compensated for their productivity. While productivity has been on the rise among workers, average wage and compensation has remained nearly flat. That means while workers are producing more, they’re being compensated the same. This chart from the Economic Policy Institute details the change:

2. Corporations don’t notice income inequality, but workers sure do. The 99 percent may be pivotal in the productivity of a company, but they aren’t reaping any of the benefits of success. This chart from the New York Times illustrates exactly how companies profit while workers do not:

3. Workers who don’t organize are getting the short end of the stick. While productivity goes up and wages stay flat, the middle class sees itself shrinking. This income inequality is in direct correlation to union participation. As union membership falls, the middle class shrinks.

Protesters gathered last week outside the California home of Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Tim Sloan, where one homeowner was arrested while trying to deliver her mortgage payment directly to Sloan.

Ana Casas Wilson, a California homeowner who has cerebral palsy that forces her to use a motorized wheel chair, waited on Sloan’s front porch so she could hand him a payment on her foreclosed home. Casas Wilson has lived in her home for 27 years, but fell behind on her payments during a hospital stay. Wells Fargo, she said, has been unwilling to negotiate a modification, even though she is again able to make regular payments. After police allowed her to remain on Sloan’s porch for 15 minutes, she was arrested when she refused to leave, the Los Angeles Times reports:

Just before 8 p.m., about 90 minutes into the demonstration, police formed a line around the home, declared the assembly illegal and ordered the group to move 75 feet up the street.

Casas Wilson refused to go and was taken to San Marino police headquarters with the assistance of San Marino Fire Department paramedics.

Casas Wilson isn’t alone. Banks have used shady foreclosure processes throughout the housing crisis, and Wells Fargo has been one of the worst offenders. It has used fraudulent practices like robo-signing, foreclosed on homes over clerical errors, and used a process known as dual-tracking — in which it advises customers on loan modifications while also pursuing foreclosure. Wells Fargo was part of a $25 billion mortgage fraud settlement with state attorneys generals and the federal government and has had to pay multi-million-dollar settlements when homeowners took the bank to court.

The practices have hit homeowners who are struggling for various reasons, whether because of unemployment, rising health care costs, or disability. In March, Bank of America foreclosed on a homeowner who took out a loan to make her house more accessible to her disabled daughter, even after the bank offered a modification. “I’m doing this because people need to see what the banks are doing. It’s awful. It has to stop,” Casas Wilson told the Pasadena Sun. “When I was down and out in the hospital they took my house.”

Since taking control of the House, Republicans have pushed to offset the costs of everything from emergency disaster relief to unemployment benefits and tax cuts for the middle class. Their singular goal, they have said, is to cut the deficit and debt, and they’re willing to gut social safety net programs, including Medicare, to do it.

When it comes to the budget-busting Bush Tax Cuts, however, the story changes. Both the 2001 and 2003 versions of the Bush Tax Cuts expire at the end of 2012, and when the House GOP attempts to permanently extend the cuts later this year, they won’t offer a plan to pay for them, The Hill reports:

House Republicans say they have no plans to pay for the extension of the Bush-era tax rates, a move that could erase the deficit reduction they have achieved since winning their majority in the chamber in 2010.

The lawmakers also said that Republicans had always intended for the rates on income and capital gains, enacted during former President George W. Bush’s first term, to be permanent.

“From my perspective, you’re setting tax policy on a permanent basis, long-term basis,” said Rep. Tom Reed (N.Y.), a freshman Republican and member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. “It’s not a pay-for situation. It’s just strong policy that needs to be adopted.”

As The Hill notes, “It is Republican Party orthodoxy that tax cuts do not need to be offset because of the additional tax receipts they spur through economic growth.” As history has shown us, the Republican Party orthodoxy is wrong. The Bush tax cuts — at a 10-year cost of $2.5 trillion — did not inspire economic growth and instead blew a massive hole in the federal deficit, adding trillions of dollars to the debt. Without the Bush tax cuts, the dire debt situation Republicans insist is their top concern would actually be sustainable:

Aside from the debt, the economic costs of the Bush Tax Cuts were astronomical. With the money spent, the U.S. could have provided better health care, more student aid, and hired more teachers and public safety officials — thousands of which lost their jobs when federal and state budgets were crunched during the Great Recession. Even top Republicans have admitted that the GOP’s justification for the cuts — that they would create millions of jobs — was wrong.

Far from learning from their mistakes, though, Republicans are doubling down. The House GOP budget, passed last month, contains tax cuts that are even more heavily slanted toward the wealthy and would blow an even bigger hole in the federal budget.