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Climate Progress

After Being Thanked by Big Oil for Backing Tax Breaks, Pat Toomey Blasts Loans to Cleantech with “Commercial Success”

By Stephen Lacey on Nov 9, 2011 at 3:19 pm

As the political jostling over Department of Energy loan guarantees to clean energy companies continues, the hypocrisy keeps getting worse.

The latest is from Republican Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, who co-wrote a letter to the Inspector General on Monday urging him to investigate a conditional commitment for a $730 million loan guarantee to a high-strength steel producer under the DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program.

His argument? That this high-strength, lightweight steel technology is too mature to need subsidies:

“Given the tremendous fiscal crisis that we find ourselves in today, it does not seem appropriate for the program to subsidize technologies that have already achieved commercial success through private-sector means.”

That’s quite a noble fiscal mission. However, this is coming from a Senator who has repeatedly voted to maintain tax breaks to the most profitable and commercially successful oil and gas companies in the world.

In the first three quarters of 2011 alone, the top five oil companies have brought in a staggering $101 billion in profits. But Senator Toomey, who says he’s against funding companies that have “achieved commercial success” due to the “tremendous fiscal crisis” has voted against repealing $21 billion in tax breaks over 10 years that could be used to close the deficit or fund clean energy.

In fact, Senator Toomey’s record has been so consistent, the American Petroleum Institute just issued a new ad praising him on his record:

Read more

Health

Pat Toomey: Religious Employers Need Additional Exemptions From Offering Coverage For Contraceptives

By Igor Volsky on Sep 26, 2011 at 12:45 pm

On Friday, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) fired off a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services expressing concern about the conscience protections in a new rule requiring insurers and employers to offer contraception services without additional co-pays. A press release from Toomey’s office admits that the rule does exempt “those religious employers who primarily serve and employ individuals who share their religious tenets,” from offering the services, but argues that “this narrow exemption would prove impossible for Catholic hospitals, universities, colleges, nursing homes and charities given the diverse population that they serve and their workforce.” From the letter:

This regulation requires that a Catholic institution either violate its fundamental beliefs by providing coverage that includes contraception and sterilization or, per the new requirements of PPACA, potentially pay a heavy financial penalty for failing to provide what PPACA deems adequate health coverage to their employees. The myriad of existing regulations generated by PPACA and other federal laws already impair the work of Catholic institutions across Pennsylvania. If this additional federal regulation is imposed as promulgated, it may prompt some Catholic institutions to close their doors, adversely impacting the tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians these entities serve. The aggressive nature of this regulation threatens religious freedom and is unacceptable.

But Catholic universities and organizations already provide contraceptive coverage for their employees — the HHS rule, issued as a result of the Affordable Care Act, simply requires that they offer these services without co-payments or deductibles.

In fact, Catholic Charities has challenged state contraceptive equity laws in both New York and California, but lost “on the basis of a 1990 Supreme Court decision, Employment Division v. Smith, which barred most religion-based exemptions from laws that are neutral, generally applicable and that do not single out religion for special burdens.” The states argued that “the organizations were not being placed in the position of approving birth control, any more than any other employer that provides health coverage is deemed to express ‘approval of every medication or treatment used by the employees.’” The California Supreme Court has also rejected a challenge by Catholic Charities to that state’s similar law.

Last month, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011,” Senate Bill 1467, “to allow health care providers and pharmacists to deny birth control to women if it conflicts with their religious or moral convictions.” An identical bill was also introduced in the House.

Economy

Sen. Toomey: ‘I Do Agree’ That Hurricane Aid Needs To Be Offset First

By Pat Garofalo on Sep 1, 2011 at 11:50 am

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA)

Over the last two days, two Republican governors — Govs. Chris Christie (NJ) and Bob McDonnell (VA) — have publicly rebuked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) call that aid to areas affected by Hurricane Irene be first offset by budget cuts. “Our people are suffering now, and they need support now. And they [Congress] can all go down there and get back to work and figure out budget cuts later,” Christie said. “My concern is that we help people in need,” McDonnell said. “I don’t think it’s the time to get into that [deficit] debate.”

However, there are still plenty of Republicans moving into Cantor’s corner. During a town hall meeting yesterday, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) said that he agrees with Cantor that disaster aid needs to be offset by budget cuts:

Toomey, after a public town hall in Coudersport, was asked whether he agreed with comments made by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor about offsetting federal funding in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.

“I do agree with that,” Toomey said. “It’s not as though we’re unprepared for this situation. We know that at any time in this great country of ours there are storms, there are floods…” Toomey said it is “reasonable” to have a federal response, but that it should either be budgeted up front or offset by other spending cuts.

Thousands of Pennsylvania residents are still without power from the storm, while 13 counties in the state have been approved for federal aid. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency said that it’s “far too early to know” an exact damage figure.

Along with Toomey, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) agreed yesterday that disaster aid should be offset so that “it’s just not adding willy-nilly to the national debt.” Previously, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) said that budget cuts must be a prerequisite for disaster aid in order to reassure “the business markets,” while Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) opined that the days when disaster relief could be funded without offsetting budget cuts “are gone.”

Economy

Unemployed Man Pickets Pat Toomey Events To Ask The Senator To Meet With Jobless Pennsylvanians

By Zaid Jilani on Aug 24, 2011 at 2:50 pm

Will Toomey meet with unemployed constituents?

Pennsylvania resident Dan Haney has been unemployed since February when his job at Express Scripts was outsourced. Although he has found some comfort in the fact that his wife is still employed and has health insurance, his family is still struggling.

So Haney decided to seek out one of his U.S. senators, Pat Toomey (R), to talk to him about how to get people back to work. Haney has been protesting outside of events Toomey is holding during the August recess, asking him to host a meeting with jobless Pennsylvanians:

The unemployed Haney lost his job at Express Scripts in February, when he said the company outsourced several hundred jobs. He’s since been picketing outside various Toomey events, asking the senator to hold a town hall meeting with unemployed state residents. Haney said Toomey has agreed to the meeting, but has not responded with a date and place.

“He gives tax breaks to corporations, but I’m on unemployment and I’m still paying my taxes,” Haney said. “These corporations have to step up to the plate and pay their taxes as well and stop jobs from going overseas.”

Haney has uploaded a YouTube testimony for a group called Toomey Watch where he formally requests a meeting with the unemployed and under-employed. Watch it:

Haney says Toomey has agreed to a meeting, but has yet to specify a time and place. Responding to an inquiry from ThinkProgress, Toomey’s staff said he will announce a slew of new constituent meetings on his website by Friday.

Economy

The GOP’s Not-So-Super Committee

By Alex Seitz-Wald, Pat Garofalo and Tanya Somanader on Aug 10, 2011 at 4:34 pm

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced today their picks for the fiscal super committee created by the debt ceiling deal, naming Sens. Jon Kyl (AZ), Pat Toomey (PA), Rob Portman (OH), and Reps. Jeb Hensarling (TX), Dave Camp (MI), and Fred Upton (MI) to the body. The committee is tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction by November, and one of the key issues will be whether revenue increases are included. Basic economics and the American people call for increasing revenues, with a new CNN poll showing 63 percent of Americans want the committee to raise taxes on the wealthy, but several of the GOP picks are hard-right conservatives who likely oppose such a “balanced approach.” Other critical issue will be entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, and whether the committee makes cuts to military spending.

Here’s what you need to know about each of the GOP super committee members: Read more

Economy

Toomey: ‘I Doubt’ That Failing To Raise The Debt Ceiling ‘Would Be Disruptive To The Economy’

By Pat Garofalo on May 18, 2011 at 11:45 am

Politico today profiled the troubling growth in the number of “default deniers,” Republican Congressman who don’t believe, as most economists and analysts do, that failing to raise the nation’s debt ceiling will result in negative economic consequences. “The case has not been made that this is an absolute necessity,” said Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI), for instance. The U.S. officially hit its borrowing limit on Monday, but the Treasury Department can use various measures to stall default until August 2.

One of the leaders of the default deniers is Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), who authored a cockamamie bill that he claimed would prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its debt even if the ceiling weren’t raised. (Treasury called Toomey’s legislation “unworkable.”) Today, Toomey delivered a speech at the American Enterprise Institute where he claimed that failing to raise the debt ceiling wouldn’t have an adverse effect on the economy:

As I’ve said before, if we can get the things that I’m looking for, the spending cuts, the reforms in the process, I’m willing to vote to raise the debt limit because it is very disruptive. I don’t think it’s going to have an adverse impact on the economy for the days or weeks or perhaps even months that this would continue, I doubt that it would be that long, I doubt that it would be disruptive to the economy per se, but it would be disruptive certainly to the people who are accustomed to and relying on the programs that would necessarily be cut.

Watch it:

As former Reagan economic official Bruce Bartlett noted, “failure to raise the debt limit not only threatens a default that could potentially roil the entire world financial system, but would potentially deprive federal workers of their salaries, deny payments to businesses for goods and services sold to the federal government, renege on Social Security benefits to retirees, and shortchange savers who depend on interest income.” Bank of America analysts noted that not raising the debt ceiling “would necessitate politically unpopular and potentially economically crippling budget cuts that would likely push the U.S. into recession and drag down the stock market.” It would also make paying off the debt much more expensive (through higher interest rates). Those sure sound like adverse effects.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) went a step further back in January, saying that failing to raise the debt limit would actually be good for the economy. These Republicans should check in with conservative icon Ronald Reagan, who in 1983 warned of “incalculable damage” to the economy if the debt limit wasn’t raised.

Politics

Sen. Pat Toomey’s Budget Includes The Medicare Cuts Candidate Toomey Opposed

By Igor Volsky on May 11, 2011 at 11:10 am

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) released a budget proposal yesterday afternoon that would lower federal spending to 18.5 percent of gross domestic product and reduce federal debt to 52 percent of GDP by 2021. The proposal, however, does not significantly reform Medicare, handing a rebuke to Republican efforts in the House to privatize the program.

At a press conference unveiling the document, Toomey insisted that he would vote for the House budget — offered by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) — if it came to the Senate floor, but said that his proposal focused on balancing the budget over the short-term. “The focus of this budget is to demonstrate that we can reach a balance in 10 years, in part to buy us the time for the structural reforms that these other programs will need,” he said.

Still, Toomey may be doing more to Medicare than he lets on. Republicans have stressed that the proposal would not cut the program — in fact it would increase funding thanks to a provision that would address the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR). But as The Hill’s Julian Pecquet has written, this would mean that the $500 billion in cuts from the Affordable Care Act would remain in place. The GOP has repeatedly condemned these cuts throughout the health care reform debate, despite voting for them as part of Paul Ryan’s budget. During the 2010 election, Toomey even ran ads against Democratic challenger Joe Sestak for supporting reductions to the Medicare program. A press release accompanying the ad included the following facts about Sestak’s record:

– The health care bill includes $500 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade [CBSNews.com, 3/21/10]

– The health care bill will “slice an additional $60 billion from Medicare, with the privately run program known as Medicare Advantage targeted for particularly deep cuts, bringing the total reduction in projected spending on the program to more than $500 billion over the next decade” [Washington Post, 3/19/10]

Watch the ad:

Lifelong Democrat from Pat Toomey on Vimeo.

Toomey has been a long time supporter of entitlement reform — i.e. making cuts to the Medicare program — and has accused President Obama of failing to lead on the issue. “To make matters worse, the president’s budget increases taxes and completely ignores the drivers of the country’s deficit problem—the entitlement programs. As we approach the statutory federal debt limit, it’s unfortunate that the president wants Congress to increase it without any budget reforms,” Toomey said.

Health

Sen. Pat Toomey’s Budget Includes The Medicare Cuts Candidate Toomey Opposed

By Igor Volsky on May 11, 2011 at 10:00 am

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) released a budget proposal yesterday afternoon that would lower federal spending to 18.5 percent of gross domestic product and reduce federal debt to 52 percent of GDP by 2021. The proposal, however, does not significantly reform Medicare, handing a rebuke to Republican efforts in the House to privatize the program. At a press conference unveiling the document Toomey insisted that he would vote for the House budget — offered by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) — if it came to the Senate floor, but said that his proposal focused on balancing the budget over the short-term. “The focus of this budget is to demonstrate that we can reach a balance in 10 years, in part to buy us the time for the structural reforms that these other programs will need,” he said.

Still, Toomey may be doing more to Medicare than he lets on. Republicans have stressed that the proposal would not cut the program — in fact it would increase funding thanks to a provision that would address the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) — but as The Hill’s Julian Pecquet has written, this would mean that the $500 billion in cuts from the Affordable Care Act would remain in place. The GOP has repeatedly condemned these cuts throughout the health care reform debate, despite voting for them as part of Paul Ryan’s budget. During the 2010 election, Toomey even ran ads against Democratic challenger Joe Sestak for supporting reductions to the Medicare program. A press release accompanying the ad included the following facts about Sestak’s record:

- The health care bill includes $500 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade (CBSNews.com, 03/21/10).

- The health care bill will “slice an additional $60 billion from Medicare, with the privately run program known as Medicare Advantage targeted for particularly deep cuts, bringing the total reduction in projected spending on the program to more than $500 billion over the next decade” (The Washington Post, 03/19/10).

Watch the ad:

Lifelong Democrat from Pat Toomey on Vimeo.

Toomey has been a long time supporter of entitlement reform — i.e. making cuts to the Medicare program — and has accused President Obama of failing to lead on the issue. “To make matters worse, the president’s budget increases taxes and completely ignores the drivers of the country’s deficit problem—the entitlement programs. As we approach the statutory federal debt limit, it’s unfortunate that the president wants Congress to increase it without any budget reforms,” Toomey said.

Economy

Pat Toomey Releases Intentionally Vague Plan To Increase Middle Class Taxes

By Pat Garofalo on May 10, 2011 at 8:30 pm

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) today released a budget proposal, alongside a slew of ultra-conservative senators, including Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). Toomey’s budget document, unlike the budget proposed House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and passed by the House Republican caucus, does not touch Medicare or Social Security.

However, Toomey did elect to co-opt Ryan’s tax “reform” plan, which involves lowering marginal rates, consolidating brackets, and supposedly paying for it all by getting rid of loopholes and deductions. (According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Toomey envisions a top marginal tax rate of 25 percent, though he doesn’t lay out specific rates in his budget.)

In Ryan’s case, as CAP’s Michael Linden pointed out, the catch is that preserving the Bush tax regime, but cutting rates (including the top rate), and having it all come out revenue-neutral necessarily implies a big middle-class tax increase:

For Ryan to cut the top rate by nearly one-third and still keep revenue the same as it would have been under the Bush tax cuts regime, he has to raise taxes somewhere else. And though he pointedly refuses to tell us where those tax hikes will come from, we can make an educated guess.

For one thing, the basic math makes a middle class tax hike unavoidable. The rate cut at the top, of course, benefits only those in the top brackets (the richest 2 percent of Americans), but to pay for it, Ryan says he will “broaden the tax base.” Broadening the tax base means removing some tax expenditures that currently benefit the middle class – the rich too, but they’re getting a huge rate cut.

Toomey’s budget is designed in exactly the same way as Ryan’s, hiding the tax increase under pleasant sounding talk of reform. Toomey actually settles on a revenue-level of 18.5 percent of GDP, below the level of revenue raised the last time the budget was actually balanced. Since he exempts Medicare and Social Security, nearly all of Toomey’s savings comes from draconian cuts to the non-defense discretionary budget and Medicaid, which Toomey turns into a block-grant system.

Adding insult to injury, Toomey — like Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) did last night — endorses changing the corporate tax code to allow corporations to never pay taxes on overseas profits, which, as Citizens for Tax Justice pointed out, gives companies a huge incentive to both move jobs offshore and employ tax havens to hide profits earned in the U.S. Of course, this isn’t all that surprising coming from someone who thinks its “not clear” that tax cuts reduce revenue.

Health

Toomey And The GOP Hypocrisy On Employers Dropping Health Coverage

By Igor Volsky on Feb 22, 2011 at 12:35 pm

At a Monday meeting with the Bucks County Courier Times editorial board, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) claimed that many companies were dropping their health insurance coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act and promised to provide a detailed list of employers contemplating the change. “I think there have been actual drops,” Toomey said, when pressed on how companies have reacted to the law.

But Toomey is now conceding that he is unable to provide such a list, claiming that he “misspoke” last week when he claimed that the law is forcing “many” businesses to eliminate coverage:

When asked again for the government list Toomey referenced to the editorial board, [Toomey spokesperson] Soloveichik said it appeared no such list exists. “This is partly because the law is not fully in effect yet and a lot of the consequences remain to be seen,” she said in an e-mail.

Early Wednesday evening, Toomey contacted the Courier Times to say he “misspoke” when he said that such a list existed.

Toomey added that “quite a number” of organizations had requested waivers from the law, “but not a whole lot have dropped coverage,” though he added that he expects it will happen.

Toomey’s logic is hard to follow: he’s warning of a mass erosion in employer insurance, while condemning a mechanism that is designed to prevent companies from dropping coverage.

Some businesses have claimed they would drop coverage if forced to comply with the new regulations that prohibit employers from placing lifetime and annual caps on coverage (among other provisions), even though the number is difficult to quantify. In fact, the Affordable Care Act seeks to mitigate potential coverage drops by granting temporary waivers that would provide employers (insurers and states) with additional time to comply with the law. But Toomey opposes such flexibility, even though the overwhelming majority of employers are indicating that they’re willing to comply with the law by 2014.

As Bucks County Courier Times’ Jo Ciavaglia points out, “Mercer LLC’s November survey of 2,800 U.S. employers found that 20 percent of employers with between 10 and 499 workers stated that they’d likely drop coverage in 2014.” Just 6 percent of businesses “with at least 500 employees and 3 percent with at least 10,000 employees stated they’re likely to drop their plans once key provisions of the law take effect in 2014.” Similarly, “Crain Communications’ online survey of nearly 3,700 business executives in April found that 52.5 percent ‘strongly disagreed’ that it would be better for their companies to stop offering health care benefits and pay a fine under the new law.”

Mercer’s Tracy Watts explained, “Employers are reluctant to lose control over a key employee benefit.” “But once you consider the penalty, the loss of tax savings and grossing up employee income so they can purchase comparable coverage through an exchange, dropping coverage may not equate to savings.”

Indeed, a June 2010 study of how the far more rigid Massachusetts employer mandated affected coverage in the state found that “enrollment in employer plans in Massachusetts grew during the four years many of the reforms on which the federal law is based have been in place.”

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