Harkin, T

===

retiring :(

=<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-foodlobby-idUSBRE83Q0ED20120427">http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-foodlobby-idUSBRE83Q0ED20120427</a>James H. Davidson believes in the First Amendment. The former college newspaper editor turned lawyer turned Senate aide is now one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington.For two decades, Davidson has been the point man for the advertising industry in free speech issues. More recently his clients have also included food and beverage companies in alliance with advertisers. They have joined forces to lead the fight against the proposed government guidelines on sugar, salt and fat in food marketed to 2- to 17-year-olds.Davidson also says there is no proof that food marketing causes obesity, and without it, there is no legal basis for restricting the ads."The First Amendment protects this type of speech," he said.Other lobbyists pointed to the role of potentially unlimited political donations in explaining how industry has been able to so thoroughly defeat the proposed salt, sugar and fat guidelines.In 2009, Congress passed a measure proposed by Harkin and Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) to ask the FTC and three other agencies -- the CDC, the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration -- to draft voluntary nutrition standards for children's food marketing. The two senators were motivated by studies showing that children develop lifelong preferences from watching ads that target them with saltier, sweeter foods than adults.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We are calling on the food industry to tackle this threat and boldly reinvent the food marketplace,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said at a hearing in December 2009. As for kids’ marketing, he noted, not only Congress but some companies wanted government guidance. “We will have such a uniform framework in place, we expect, by this summer,” Leibowitz said.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Summer came and went. Brownback left the Senate at the end of 2010. When the draft guidelines were finally published in April 2011 — to praise from health groups — business interests say they were shocked by the low sugar and salt suggestions.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">“These are voluntary guidelines,” Harkin said. “What’s the industry so afraid of?” The companies said the recommendations could become requirements and kill marketing of 88 of the 100 most popular food products, including Cheerios, whole wheat bread and yogurt.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">The industry mobilized. Food and media companies hired Anita Dunn, former White House communications chief under Obama, to run media strategy. The industry created a group called the Sensible Food Policy Coalition. And it paid for a report that said the restrictions would result in 75,000 lost jobs and $28.6 billion in lost revenue to companies — estimates based on the supposition that the guidelines would cut one in five food ads.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Not true, government officials and public health advocates said, arguing that industry had five years to improve the products. A review of the report by three marketing professors for the website politifact.com and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution termed its findings “false.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nonetheless the report was widely circulated in Washington and repeatedly cited in letters to the administration signed by about 200 members of Congress from both parties. As the effort gained momentum, congressional staff members and lobbyists described calls and visits from chief executive officers of companies.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The industry’s campaign, lobbyists say, focused on Representative Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) and Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who chaired the appropriations subcommittee in each chamber that funded the FTC.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Emerson knew Davidson, who had attended college in Missouri and who had worked for Senator Stuart Symington (D-Mo.). In an interview, Emerson said she opposed the food guidelines because they would inevitably become mandatory. She said she learned how that could hurt business while working for the National Restaurant Association in the early 1990s. “I felt very passionately about anything that’s voluntary,” she said.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last December, Emerson wrote the budget bill provision that stopped the guidelines, and she insisted on keeping the language as the bill moved through a House-Senate conference committee. It was a 55-word sentence in a 130-page omnibus budget bill, requiring the agencies to do a cost-benefit analysis of their recommendations before finishing the report. The agencies said such a requirement was unprecedented for a voluntary guideline and would prove far too expensive.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the Senate, a lobbyist involved with the issue told Reuters, Durbin simply needed to stay quiet so as not to make it a partisan issue and eventually nudge Harkin into accepting Emerson’s House provision. A Durbin spokesman, Max Gleischman, said the senator agreed to the House language because the industry was moving to regulate itself.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Durbin’s home state of Illinois is home to Kraft. Its political action committee has been a regular contributor to his campaign committee, donating $14,000 since 2007.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“There was an outcry across the spectrum of the business community,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers. The proposal was too extreme, Jaffe said, and in the end, “It fell of its own weight.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Said Jeff McIntyre, policy director for the advocacy group Children Now: “We just got beat. Money wins.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Harkin also pointed to the power of corporate money. “They’ve scared some Democrats,” he said in an interview. “It just shows you how heavy the lobbying is on the part of the industry.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px 63.8906px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.52; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[val J etc meet w/ food corps, Micele gets too chummy, pivot to exercise]

tiny tax on transactions:  <a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/untaxed-americans-speculators-hustlers-and-freeloaders-wall-street">http://www.alternet.org/economy/untaxed-americans-speculators-hustlers-and-freeloaders-wall-street</a>

==

<h1 class="headline" style="margin: 0px 0px 0.4em; padding: 0px 0px 4px 15px; word-wrap: break-word; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.3em; word-spacing: 5px;">23. Transaction Tax Helps Civilize Wall Street and Lower the National Debt</h1>

In February 2013, United States senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) introduced a bill to implement a new tax of three basis points (that is, three pennies for every hundred dollars) on most nonconsumer stock trades. If made law, the tax could generate $350 billion in federal revenues over the next ten years.

Describing the proposed tax as a “simple matter of fairness and fiscal sanity,” Senator Harkin elaborated, “We need the new revenue generated by this tax in order to reduce deficits (after sequestration) and maintain critical investments in education, infrastructure, and job creation. . . . Wall Street (investors) can easily bear this modest tax.”

Because the tax is percentage-based, large transactions would be harder hit; most middle-class investors would see minimally increased charges. The tax would also help curb overzealous market speculation by discouraging the large-sum, short-term, risky trading that tends to put the economy in a fragile state.

This bill has been proposed in previous congressional sessions, yet it has been underreported in the corporate media, making it hard to gain public support.

France recently became the first country in Europe to pass such a tax. French finance minister Pierre Moscovici said the law marks “the first step toward fiscal reform and a move toward justice.” Ten other European countries are discussing similar laws. For the US, the Harkin–DeFazio transaction tax would be a major step in civilizing speculative investment, stabilizing the economy, and reducing the national debt.

Censored #23

Transaction Tax Helps Civilize Wall Street and Lower the National Debt

George Zornick, “Financial Transactions Tax Introduced Again—Can It Pass This Time?,”Nation, February 28, 2013, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/173134/financial-transactions-tax-introduced-again-can-it-pass-time" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">http://www.thenation.com/blog/173134/financial-transactions-tax-introduced-again-can-it-pass-time</a>.

“Lawmakers Introduce Targeted Wall Street Trading Tax,” Albany Tribune, February 28, 2013, <a href="http://www.albanytribune.com/28022013-lawmakers-introduce-targeted-wall-street-trading-tax" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">http://www.albanytribune.com/28022013-lawmakers-introduce-targeted-wall-street-trading-tax</a>.

Gregory Heires, “As the Misguided $1.4 Trillion Cuts Begin, a Wall Street Tax Looks Like a No-Brainer,” Reader Supported News, March 7, 2013, <a href="http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/16370-as-the-misguided-14-trillion-cuts-begin-a-wall-street-tax-looks-like-a-no-brainer" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/16370-as-the-misguided-14-trillion-cuts-begin-a-wall-street-tax-looks-like-a-no-brainer</a>.

Helene Fouquet and Adria Cimino, “French Lawmakers Pass Trading Transaction Tax,”Bloomberg Businessweek, August 1, 2012, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-31/french-lawmakers-pass-budget-bill-including-transaction-tax" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-31/french-lawmakers-pass-budget-bill-including-transaction-tax</a>.

Student Researcher: Marisa Soski (San Francisco State University)

Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)

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===

In 2009, Congress passed a measure proposed by Harkin and Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) to ask the FTC and three other agencies -- the CDC, the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration -- to draft voluntary nutrition standards for children's food marketing. The two senators were motivated by studies showing that children develop lifelong preferences from watching ads that target them with saltier, sweeter foods than adults.

"We are calling on the food industry to tackle this threat and boldly reinvent the food marketplace," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said at a hearing in December 2009. As for kids' marketing, he noted, not only Congress but some companies wanted government guidance. "We will have such a uniform framework in place, we expect, by this summer," Leibowitz said.

Summer came and went. Brownback left the Senate at the end of 2010. When the draft guidelines were finally published in April 2011 -- to praise from health groups -- business interests say they were shocked by the low sugar and salt suggestions.

"These are voluntary guidelines," Harkin said. "What's the industry so afraid of?" The companies said the recommendations could become requirements and kill marketing of 88 of the 100 most popular food products, including Cheerios, whole wheat bread and yogurt.

The industry mobilized. Food and media companies hired Anita Dunn, former White House communications chief under Obama, to run media strategy. The industry created a group called the Sensible Food Policy Coalition. And it paid for a report that said the restrictions would result in 75,000 lost jobs and $28.6 billion in lost revenue to companies -- estimates based on the supposition that the guidelines would cut one in five food ads.

</div>