BILL ALLISON
Co-author of The Cheating of America: How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions — and What You Can Do About It, Allison is managing editor at the Center for Public Integrity.
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SCOTT KLINGER (via Betsy Leondar-Wright)
Co-director of Responsible Wealth and a chartered financial analyst, Klinger is the author of United for a Fair Economy’s new report “Titans of the Enron Economy: The 10 Habits of Highly Defective Corporations.” He said today: “Enron’s profits in the five years ending in 2000 were $1.8 billion, which would mean $625 million in corporate income taxes at the federal rate of 35 percent. Instead, Enron got $381 million in rebate checks from the U.S. Treasury, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Could this cushy deal have anything to do with Enron’s $1.1 million in Congressional campaign contributions from 1989 to 2001, or their millions of dollars spent on lobbying? Unfortunately, these practices are widespread; Enron is not the worst offender on tax avoidance, campaign contributions, or lobbying for legislative favoritism.”
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DAVID SCHWARTZMAN
A professor at Howard University, Schwartzman is coordinator of the tax and budget working group for the D.C. Statehood Green Party. He said today: “Not only do the residents of Washington, D.C. not have real voting representation in the House or Senate, we don’t have control over our budget, judiciary or local legislation. D.C. should be a state as soon as possible…”
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ED HEDEMANN
Author of the book War Tax Resistance, Hedemann said today: “For over 30 years, I have taken the money that would be due to the IRS and re-routed it to community groups. I object to military spending and I don’t want to take part in it. During the Vietnam War, I refused to join the military. It seemed inconsistent of me to refuse to join, but to pay for others to do so as well as for the munitions.”
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JOHN C. BERG
Director of the graduate program at the department of government at Suffolk University, Berg said today: “On tax day, we send the government our money. On election day, we choose the people who will spend that money. But we only get to choose between candidates pre-selected in the ‘Wealth Primary.’ In the few cases a candidate like Ralph Nader, not funded by big money, gets on the ballot, we are told that votes for him will be ‘wasted.'” On Thursday, the Senate passed legislation on “Election Reform.” Berg commented: “The Senate bill solves technical problems of vote counting. It does nothing about the systemic problems of the two-party monopoly….”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
