Romney’s Firm Instructs American Airlines to Sack 13,000 Workers

Addicting Info
February 5, 2012
By Emine Dilek

On Wednesday, February 1st, American Airlines announced that it will take the advice of Mitt Romney’s firm, Bain Capital, and lay off 13,000 workers -15 percent of its workforce- replacing their pension plans with 401(k) plans and ending company-paid retiree healthcare.

The lay off announcement came only seven days after American Airlines hired Bain Capital to guide it through a bankruptcy procedure for which the airline had filed last November.

American Airlines spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal, the cost of hiring Bain – hourly fees of up to $1,100- as “a usual and necessary part of the Chapter 11 process. We will be reviewing these costs carefully to ensure that they are monitored and managed appropriately.”

Bain Capital is a private equity firm, which was founded by a group of Bain & Co. partners including current Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney. Romney formally retired from Bain Capital in 1999 but still continues to receive a portion of Bain Capital profits as Romney’s 2010 tax returns show an “obligation to continue to provide services to Bain.”

Joshua Gotbaum, director of The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) – the federal agency that helps secure failed pension plans – said “before AMR takes such a drastic action as firing 13,000 workers and killing the pension plans of 130,000 employees and retirees, it needs to show there is no better alternative. The company had failed to provide even basic financial details.”

James Little the President of Transport Workers Union (TWU), which represents 24,000 workers said “We’re going to fight this. I have a hard time sitting back when American Airlines is taking hard-earned money to pay $525,000 a month to have Bain come in and tell them how to cut heads.”

Little also mentioned Mitt Romney, “He’s talking about creating jobs. He’s not a job creator. He’s a job cremator.”

AMR plans to purchase hundreds of new aircrafts to replace them with more fuel efficient ones to cut fuel use.  U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane has not yet approved the new jet order but temporarily approved AMR’s proposal to retain Bain and 11 other firms for bankruptcy counsel, but withheld final approval.

Unions are outraged that the airline would order hundreds of new aircrafts but claim it is in severe enough financial distress to sack employees and cut pension plans.

SOURCE

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GOP + Tea Party = Box Of Hammers

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SuperPAC Super Payday: How Rich Donors Could Get Billions from Taxpayers

Crooks and Liars

February 05, 2012 07:00 AM

By-  Jon Perr

Federal Election Commission filings released this week showed that conservatives groups are amassing an ocean of cash for the 2012 presidential campaign.  Thanks to the likes of the Koch brothers, the Walton clan and other of the usual suspects on the right, in 2011 conservative SuperPAC’s outraised their liberal counterparts by more than seven to one.  But if they win, rich Republican donors could more than get back the millions they invested.  As it turns, just one law they are trying to buy – the elimination of the estate tax – could put billions of dollars back into their families’ bank accounts.  Of course, that gaping hole would have to be filled by all other American taxpayers.

As Mother Jones reported, as of December 31, 2011 conservative SuperPAC’s reaped $60 million of now-unlimited contributions, compared to just $8 million for liberal groups.  That tidal wave of corporate cash and play money from the wealthy has filled the coffers of Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, Mitt Romney’s Restore the Future, Newt Gingrich’s Winning the Future and a litany of other right-wing SuperPACs.  And as Amanda Terkel detailed, at a secret conclave last week, the Koch brothers pledged to raise much more to defeat President Obama:

At a private three-day retreat in California last weekend, conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch and about 250 to 300 other individuals pledged approximately $100 million to defeat President Obama in the 2012 elections.

A source who was in the room when the pledges were made told The Huffington Post that, specifically, Charles Koch pledged $40 million and David pledged $20 million.

But that figure is chump change compared to the eye-popping return on investment the Kochs can expect if their side wins in November.  Ending the estate tax, a policy endorsed by Mitt Romney and every other Republican presidential candidate, would literally be worth billions of dollars to the heirs of Charles and David Koch.  As ThinkProgress explained last year:

According to a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, the Koch brothers’ heirs’ would save a combined $17.4 billion in estate taxes thanks to Romney’s plan.

Each of the Koch brothers — Charles and David — is worth about $25 billion. They are each married, so they would receive an exemption on the first $10 million that they pass down, and then theirs heirs would pay a 35 percent tax, or $8.7 billion, on the rest of their vast fortunes.

Now, this is an exceedingly rough calculation, as it’s almost certain that the Koch’s have engaged in extensive estate planning and would pay nowhere near that amount. But 35 percent is the rate on the books, and Romney’s plan to eliminate the estate tax entirely would undeniably save the Kochs a boatload of money.

Here’s why.  Despite Republican mythology about family farms and businesses being lost to the so-called “death tax,” by 2009 only 0.24 percent of estates even paid the levy. And that was before the December 2010 compromise President Obama inked with Congressional Republicans extending the Bush tax cuts further slashed the estate tax. The reduced 35 percent tax is now applied only to couples with estates greater than $10 million, a change which will cost Uncle Sam roughly $15 billion a year. Now, the Tax Policy Center calculated, only 0.1 percent of estates are impacted. Only 50 family farms and small businesses will be affected, and they contribute “less than one tenth of 1 percent point of the total revenue the tax will collect.” Who pays the estate tax?

TPC estimates that 8,600 individuals dying in 2011 will leave estates large enough to require filing an estate tax return (estates with a gross value under $5 million need not file a return in 2011). After allowing for deductions and credits, an estimated 3,270 estates will owe tax. Roughly 90 percent of these taxable estates will come from the top ten percent of income earners and nearly half will come from the top one percent alone./em>

Estate tax liability will total an estimated $10.6 billion in 2011. The top ten percent of income earners will pay 98 percent of this total. The richest 1 in 1,000 will pay $5.4 billion or 51 percent of the total.

Among that richest 1 in 1,000 are the Koch brothers and the family behind Walmart, the Walton clan.

MORE HERE

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