“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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New York Times Editorial Board: Pfizer’s Ploy and the Porous Tax Laws
Pfizer’s $119 billion offer to buy AstraZeneca, the British drug company, is driven largely by its desire to cut its tax bill. It is a ploy made possible by porous tax laws in the United States that encourage corporate tax avoidance and by laws in Britain and elsewhere that abet it. [..]
The Pfizer move is called an inversion, in which an American company is able to incorporate abroad by acquiring a foreign company. The buyer, in effect, becomes a subsidiary of a foreign parent – even though American shareholders own most of the merged company and the company’s headquarters and top executives stay in the United States. Incorporating in one country and being based in another creates opportunities to play the tax laws of one nation off against another’s; conceivably, profits might not be taxed in any country. Some 25 companies have used inversions since 2008.
The White House wants to block the practice, and legislation to do so has been introduced by Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan. But until Congress actually changes the law, inversions will continue, reducing revenues and undermining the whole notion of tax fairness.
Heidi Moore: Jamie Dimon’s charm offensive may rub struggling customers the wrong way
JP Morgan has to prove that it’s doing business in a way that it can be proud of, not just donate money to good causes
Can you buy better karma? JP Morgan wants to give it a shot with a money-backed charm offensive of late – including a $100m package of support to the City of Detroit and a pledge of $20m over the next five years to help military veterans and their families.
The residents of Detroit and those military families may not want to look a philanthropic gift horse in the mouth, and understandably so. But is JP Morgan just doing public relations? Perish the thought – says JP Morgan.
“The cynic would be wrong,” CEO Jamie Dimon told the Today Show’s Matt Lauer about anyone who would see the Detroit investment as merely good PR for his bank. “We invest and develop communities around the world. And we’ve been doing this since our heritage started 200 years ago. So that’s what banks do.”
It is unlikely that Dimon’s sense of largesse will challenge that of Pope Francis.
The sham continues.
Back in the fall of 2009, in the wake of criticism that it was failing to prosecute executives of the companies that had brought the financial system to the brink of disaster, the Justice Department established the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. Its purpose, said Justice, was “to hold accountable those who helped bring about the last financial crisis.” It promised to “prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, recover proceeds for victims” and so on. [..]
Now comes the Justice Department’s latest exercise in public relations: the Credit Suisse settlement that was announced earlier this week. The Swiss bank’s crime was systematically setting up, well, Swiss bank accounts, allowing Americans to evade taxes. According to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the bank had 22,000 private accounts for American customers worth as much as $12 billion as of 2006. In meting out the punishment, the Justice Department, for the first time since the financial crisis, demanded that a major financial firm plead guilty to a criminal count. That is what the headline writers highlighted – and what Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. stressed. [..]
Fourteen months ago, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder said that “the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them” without endangering the economy. This became known as “too big to jail.”
In attempting to use the Credit Suisse guilty plea as proof that it is tough on financial crime, Justice has done just the opposite: It has shown, yet again, that big financial firms are too big to jail.
Gail Collins: It’s No Picnic in the Senate
Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Time for summer fun! So let’s discuss Congressional gridlock.
Really, what did you expect? If you want a barbecue, go light some charcoal.
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about Congress. Do you remember when we used to complain all the time about how our legislators can’t get things done? Now we can go for weeks – months! – without even wondering what the little devils are up to. [..]
In the Senate, which is always the more interesting spot, the Republicans say they have to stall things because they’re protesting the way the majority leader, Harry Reid, bullies them around and won’t let them offer amendments.
It is definitely true that Harry Reid is not the most adorable personality on the planet. If Congress was a school, he would be the teacher nobody wants for homeroom. However, the Republicans’ complaint isn’t actually that they can’t propose any changes. They’re demanding their historic prerogative to propose changes that have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject at hand.
George Zornick: Politicizing the VA Isn’t the Answer to Scandal
The ongoing scandal into extensive problems at Veterans Affairs hospitals erupted briefly on the Senate floor Thursday, when Senator Marco Rubio asked for unanimous consent to pass a VA “accountability” bill that cleared the House by a wide margin a day earlier. Senator Bernie Sanders blocked the request, and it’s worth unpacking why.
At first blush Sanders’ objection seems unreasonable-the bill is not opposed by the White House, and got 390 votes in the House from legislators on both sides of the aisle. Only thirty-three members voted against it. So why did Sanders, with the implicit backing of Senate Democrats, object to quick passage?
The legislation, which is only three pages long, is straightforward: it gives the VA secretary the power to fire anyone in senior executive service at the department. These are the highest-ranking civilian federal employees, who normally enjoy a great deal of job protection under federal civil service rules. But this bill would give the VA secretary the power to dismiss them hastily, as the Defense secretary can do with generals, or as a CEO in the private sector could do to his or her employees.The ongoing scandal into extensive problems at Veterans Affairs hospitals erupted briefly on the Senate floor Thursday, when Senator Marco Rubio asked for unanimous consent to pass a VA “accountability” bill that cleared the House by a wide margin a day earlier. Senator Bernie Sanders blocked the request, and it’s worth unpacking why.
At first blush Sanders’ objection seems unreasonable-the bill is not opposed by the White House, and got 390 votes in the House from legislators on both sides of the aisle. Only thirty-three members voted against it. So why did Sanders, with the implicit backing of Senate Democrats, object to quick passage?
The legislation (pdf), which is only three pages long, is straightforward: it gives the VA secretary the power to fire anyone in senior executive service at the department. These are the highest-ranking civilian federal employees, who normally enjoy a great deal of job protection under federal civil service rules. But this bill would give the VA secretary the power to dismiss them hastily, as the Defense secretary can do with generals, or as a CEO in the private sector could do to his or her employees.
Eugene Robinson: GOP Still Swallowing the Tea
What’s happening in the Republican primaries is less a defeat for the tea party than a surrender by the GOP establishment, which is winning key races by accepting the tea party’s radical anti-government philosophy.
Anyone who hopes the party has finally come to its senses will be disappointed. Republicans have pragmatically decided not to concede Senate elections by nominating eccentrics and crackpots. But in convincing the party’s activist base to come along, establishment leaders have pledged fealty to eccentric, crackpot ideas. [..]
Nothing I’ve seen in the primary results so far suggests the Republican Party is tempering its views or weakening its implacable opposition to anything the Obama administration proposes. To the contrary, the GOP slate promises to display a remarkable degree of far-right ideological purity. Republican candidates simply cannot risk being called “moderate.”
Democrats can, though. The Republican Party’s move to the right opens political space for Democratic incumbents and challengers trying to win in red states. Candidates such as Grimes and Nunn can emphasize local issues while maintaining some distance from Washington-and, in the process, make Republicans play defense.
Democrats must not let voters be fooled. Yes, tea party candidates are going down. But the tea party’s extremism and obstructionism live on.
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