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On Derby Day, How Republicans Help Millionaire Horse Owners Pay Less In Taxes

By Travis Waldron on May 5, 2012 at 11:29 am

The 138th running of the Kentucky Derby is today, and more than 100,000 fans will pack Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky to see the first leg of the Triple Crown. What they will also see is a select group of horse owners who get to pay less in taxes thanks to a hand-out from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

In a tight race to keep his Senate seat in 2008, McConnell inserted the “Bluegrass Boondoggle” into the Farm Bill. The Boondoggle gave a special tax break to millionaire horse owners, costing the government $126 million over 10 years.

Though McConnell now decries wasteful spending, he publicly touted the millionaire-only earmark in 2008, and the GOP has done everything it can to preserve the tax break since. The House GOP budget, which gives massive tax breaks to the rich that Republicans say will be paid for by closing tax loopholes, doesn’t touch the Bluegrass Boondoggle.

That budget has wide support throughout the party and has been endorsed by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, another fan of humongous, unpaid-for tax cuts for the richest Americans. (Romney is, of course, also a fan of fancy horses.)

Romney has openly touted his friendships with the owners of NASCAR and National Football League teams. Given his support for a budget that gives away tax breaks to millionaire horsemen, he may be making a few friends in the horse industry too.

Clinton Labor Secretary Schools Romney: 4% Unemployment Came After Education Investments, Tax Hikes On Rich

By Judd Legum on May 5, 2012 at 11:28 am

Speaking in Pittsburgh yesterday, Mitt Romney said that “anything over 4% [unemployment] is not cause for celebration.” The United States last achieved a sub-4% unemployment rate in December 2000, the end of President Clinton’s term.

On Twitter, Robert Reich, a Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, reminded Romney how America got there:


Romney, on the other hand, is proposing the exact opposite. His tax plan would give massive tax cuts to the rich. (The top 0.1%, for example, would recieved a $264,000 tax cut.)

Meanwhile, in a closed-door fundraiser, Romney revealed he planned to make massive reductions in education spending. He is also proposing cutting funding for infrastructure, including the possible elimination of the Department of Housing and Urban development.

Romney’s comments also don’t reflect well on Ronald Reagan, who Romney now says he wants to emulate. The average yearly unemployment rate exceeded 7% for most of his presidency and never dropped below 5.5%.

Election

Anti-Bailout House Candidate Lobbied For Bank That Took Bailout Money

By Josh Israel posted from ThinkProgress Election on May 5, 2012 at 9:30 am

Lobbyist and Former Rep. David McIntosh (R-IN)

Lobbyist and Former Rep. David McIntosh (R-IN)

Former Rep. David McIntosh (R-IN) is campaigning to return to Congress. On Tuesday, he will face several other Republicans in a primary for the GOP nomination to fill the open seat of retiring Rep. Dan Burton (R). A registered federal lobbyist, he hopes to spin through the revolving door back into the House. One lobbying client reveals a disturbing contradiction between his rhetoric and his actions.

McIntosh, a co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society and the executive director of then-Vice President Dan Quayle’s infamous Council on Competitiveness in first President Bush’s administration, left Congress in January 2001. That year, he became a registered lobbyist at the firm of Mayer Brown LLP (rules now require a one-year “cooling off” period), using his access and connections to advance the interests of a wide array of corporate interests including Pfizer, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Lockheed Martin.

In 2011, he registered as a lobbyist for the Royal Bank of Canada and, over the course of the year, the bank paid McIntosh and his Mayer Brown colleagues $300,000 to represent its interests.

Now, McIntosh is focusing much of his campaign message on his opposition to bailouts for banks such as President George W. Bush’s 2008 Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP). He attacks two opponents for supporting “federal bailouts” and promises he’ll “never vote for a bailout.”

In one spot, he focuses on what he calls “really bad ideas” after the 2008 economic meltdown such as “bailing out companies, bailing out Wall Street with taxpayer dollars.” Watch the video:

The only problem: the Royal Bank of Canada’s American subsidiary, RBC America was among those banks receiving bailout funds. According to TARP records, RBC USA received a commitment of $270,000 in Incentive Payments for Home Loan Modification. At least $43,500 has already been given to the bank.

Either McIntosh is being insincere with his fiery anti-bailout bluster…or he was just happy to profit from that which he finds reprehensible.

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