Former Romney Campaign Chairman Turned Bank Lobbyist: Banks Should Regulate Themselves

By Pat Garofalo/Think Progress

Former Minnesota Governor and unsuccessful presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty announced yesterday that he was stepping down as co-chairman of the Romney campaign in order to take over the top spot at the Financial Services Roundtable, a lobbying group that represents the largest financial services companies in the country. Pawlenty assumed the role as a top bank lobbyist despite his tough words for Wall Street during his campaign.

As head of the FSR, one of Pawlenty’s key roles will behelping banks water down the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. And he got started during his first press conference by calling for banks to do more self-regulation, choosing “voluntarily” to stop doing “stupid things”:

In his first press conference since being named head of the Financial Services Roundtable, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he would seek a “refinement” of the Dodd-Frank Act, but also added that banks need to do more to regulate themselves.

The one-time Republican presidential hopeful, who is stepping down as co-chair of Mitt Romney’s campaign, said he was asked while interviewing for the Roundtable job about how financial institutions can regain the public’s trust.

“I said, ‘Stop doing stupid things,’” Pawlenty said while sitting in the Roundtable’s Washington offices.

“These are large organizations with tens of thousands of employees in many cases. There is always going to be some individual doing something that’s off track. That’s human nature. But the obligation and the opportunity of the organizations is to put controls in place and a culture in place that minimizes the likelihood of that, but does it voluntarily.”

Of course, the anticipation that banks would self-regulate — rendering federal regulations unnecessary — was part of what caused the financial crisis in 2008. Romney has pledged torepeal the Dodd-Frank law.

40 Percent Of The Benefits Of Pawlenty’s Tax Plan Go To The Richest One Percent Of Americans

By Michael Linden

Recently, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (R) proposed a set of huge new tax cuts that would cost more than three times as much as the Bush tax cuts. His plan to reduce the top individual income tax to the lowest rate in post-war history, cut the corporate tax rate by more than half, and completely abolish taxes on capital gains, dividends, and massive estates would mainly benefit the extremely wealthy. In fact, these tax changes would be even more skewed towards the rich than the Bush tax cuts were.

Using analysis from the Tax Policy Center, we put together the accompanying chart showing just how tilted the Pawlenty tax cuts would be. Nearly 40 percent of the entire benefit of Pawlenty’s plan would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans. The next richest 9 percent would enjoy 25 percent of the total benefit. In other words, under the Pawlenty plan, the richest 10 percent of Americans would reap significantly more than the bottom 90 percent combined:

This distribution is even more slanted toward the very top and away from the middle than the Bush tax cuts were. While the Bush tax cuts delivered 27 percent of their total value to the richest 1 percent, Pawlenty’s plan would give them about 40 percent. The middle 60 percent of Americans got about one-third of the total value of the Bush tax cuts, and would get less than one-fourth of the value of Pawlenty’s.

The Bush tax cuts were an utter failure at promoting economic growth, job creation, or shared prosperity. They succeeded only in turning a budget surplus into a huge deficit. You might think that after such a colossal failure, conservatives would be forced to admit that tax cuts for the rich aren’t a magic economic elixir. Perhaps they’d even start coming up with some new ideas for boosting the economy. But if Pawlenty’s plan is any indication, conservatives seem intent on repeating the mistakes of the past – only bigger.

Pawlenty Promises To Appoint ‘Conservative Justices’ Who Will Ignore The 14th Amendment

By Ian Millhiser

The Constitution guarantees that all persons born in the United States are U.S. citizens withonly a handful of very rare exceptions. Nevertheless, in last night’s GOP candidate’s debate, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty criticized the Supreme Court for following the Constitution’s unambiguous language and promised to appoint justices who would strip many Americans of their citizenship:

This issue of birthright citizenship, again, brings up the importance of appointing conservative justices. That result is because the U.S. Supreme Court determined that that right exists, notwithstanding language in the Constitution. I’m the only one up here — I believe I’m the only one up here — whose appointed solidly, reliably conservative appointees to the court.

Watch it:

Pawlenty would do well to actually pick up a copy of the Constitution before he pretends to know what it says. Under the 14th Amendment, “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” This language is unambiguous; it grants citizenship to all persons born in the US unless they are not subject to American “jurisdiction” — a very narrow exception that applies only to children of foreign diplomats and a handful of other people.

Moreover, the first Supreme Court decision recognizing birthright citizenship was hardly the product of excessive liberalism. The Court first acknowledged this right in an 1898 decision called U.S. v Wong Kim Ark. Three of the justices who joined the majority in Wong Kim Ark also voted with the majority in Lochner v. New York, an infamous Supreme Court decision holding that essential laws protecting workers from exploitation violate the Constitution. Five of the justices in the majority in Wong Kim Ark also voted to uphold Jim Crow in Plessy v Ferguson. So when Pawlenty promises to appoint justices who are more conservative than the ones in Wong Kim Ark, he is essentially calling for a Supreme Court that will immunize sweatshops from the law and uphold segregation.

Sadly, Pawlenty was not the only person on the stage to come out against the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. When asked whether he thinks the children of undocumented immigrants “should be considered a citizen of the United States,” former pizza executive Herman Cain replied, “I don’t believe so.”

Pawlenty’s Economic Plan Cuts Taxes For Millionaires By 41 Percent

By Pat Garofalo

2012 presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty (R) yesterday laid out his economic “plan,” which is based around huge tax cuts that Pawlenty claims will spark a decade of 5 percent GDP growth, even though growth staying at that rate for that long has literally never occurred in America. As Michael Linden noted, Pawlenty’s tax plan would cost $7.8 trillion over ten years, triple the size of the Bush tax cuts.

During his speech introducing the plan, Pawlenty excoriated President Obama as “a champion practitioner of class warfare.” “I come from a working class background. I didn’t grow up with wealth. But I’ve never resented those who have it,” Pawlenty said. But as a new analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice shows, in addition to being outrageously expensive, Pawlenty’s tax plan is based on the Republican brand of class warfare — giving millionaires huge tax breaks:

– Taxpayers with incomes in excess of $1 million would enjoy an average cut in personal income taxes of $288,822, a 41.4 percent cut.

– Taxpayers with incomes in excess of $10 million would enjoy an average cut in personal income taxes of $2.4 million, a 46.3 percent cut.

– The cost of the personal income tax cuts just for taxpayers with incomes in excess of $1 million would be $141.8 billion.

And that’s just for Pawlenty’s income tax plan. He has also proposed eliminating the capital gains and estate taxes entirely, two moves which would overwhelmingly benefit the very richest Americans.

Pawlenty likes to point to his middle-class background while giving his economic pitch, but his tax plan implies either a huge tax shift, requiring the middle-class to pay for his massive tax cuts for the wealthy, or sky-high deficits in perpetuity. As part of the plan he introduced yesterday, Pawlenty also endorsed a spending cap that would require deeper cuts than the radical House Republican budget, as well as a cockamamie “Google test” that, if taken literally, implies that Pawlenty would be okay with eliminating the Pentagon.

Tim Pawlenty wiped a serial child molester’s record clean in 2008

By Kase Wickman

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty formally announced his campaign seeking the GOP nomination for the presidency Monday morning, but by midday, his political past had already caught up to him. Reporting by Minneapolis City Pages' Nick Pinto brought to attention a pardon then-Gov. Pawlenty granted to a sex offender in October 2008, which is sure to haunt the candidate throughout his campaign: the man Pawlenty pardoned was later arrested again for molesting his daughter more than 250 times in an eight-year span, including six years prior to his pardon.

Jeremy Giefer served 45 days in prison in 1994 after being convicted of statutory rape. However, because he married the then-14-year-old girl and stuck around to father the child they conceived together, he begged the state for an extraordinary pardon, which would no longer require Giefer to report himself as a sex offender.

The board — which includes the Minnesota attorney general, the chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and the governor (Pawlenty, at the time) — voted unanimously to pardon Giefer.

The damning details came in November 2010, when Giefer was again arrested on counts of sex with an underage girl — this time with the daughter he had conceived with Susan before his first rape charge. According to the complaint his daughter, identified in court documents as C.G., filed, Griefer would often make her have sex with him or perform oral sex on him as a favor before he would give her permission to do things, and that he put her on birth control when she was 15 years old so that she wouldn't get pregnant when he raped her without a condom. The abuse started when she was 9 years old.

Pawlenty soon proposed cracking down harder on sex offenders, and said he would never have granted Griefer pardon if he had known he was molesting his daughter.

Pawlenty's fledgling presidential campaign has already seen drama, when Benjamin Foster, a campaign consultant for Pawlenty, was arrested for trespassing and public intoxication when he vomited in an Iowa voter's yard and woke up the family's teenage daughter by banging on the back door.

Another campaign staffer, campaign manager Nick Ayers, brings a boozy whiff of controversy as well: It's widely known that he was arrested for drunk driving in 2006.

Running a presidential campaign ensures that skeletons will come tumbling out of closets left and right, but it's too early to say which past missteps may ultimately prove damning for candidates.

Motor City Liberal Comment: I guess right wingers can no longer play that game of who Bill Clinton pardon now.

Pawlenty Dodges Question About Paul Ryan’s Medicare Cuts

By Igor Volsky 

Earlier this afternoon, House Republicans approved Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget framework that would reduce federal spending by $5.8 trillion over the next decade and dramatically alter the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Ryan’s Medicare proposal would eliminate $30 billion from the program by forcing seniors to purchase private coverage beginning in 2022 and by retaining many of the Medicare savings that are part of the Affordable Care Act.

During a Tea Party rally in New Hampshire, likely presidential candidate and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (R) endorsed the Ryan proposal, saying, “as a general matter and directionally, I think Paul Ryan’s plan moves in the right direction.” But when I pressed him over whether he supports maintaining some of the Medicare cuts that are part of health care reform, Pawlenty demurred, and took another question:

PAWLENTY: I like Paul Ryan’s plan directionally. I don’t think it’s fully filled out in terms of the fact that we still have to address Social Security and when we issue our plan later in this process, it will have some differences. [...]
VOLSKY: Do you support the Medicare cuts in his plan that he keeps from Obamacare?
PAWLENTY: Anybody else have a question besides this guy?

Watch it:

Ironically, Republicans attacked the Medicare cuts in the Affordable Care Act throughout the last two years, arguing that such reductions would ration care for seniors and would drive providers out of the program. In an executive order prohibiting Minnesota from implementing the ACA, Pawlenty referred to the cuts as “unrealistic assumptions regarding purported future cost-savings.”

Tim Pawlenty Says He Would Reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

By Igor Volsky

Right Wing Watch’s Kyle Mantyla points out that former governor and potential presidential contender Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) has moved to the right of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on his support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, telling anti-gay radio host Bryan Fischer yesterday that he would support reinstating the ban:

FISCHER: One last question, got about forty five seconds left, put you on the hot seat one more time: we just saw the ban on homosexual service in the military repealed, overturned. Conservatives will be working over the next couple of years to see that that ban is reinstated. If you become president in 2012, will you work to reinstate the prohibition on open homosexual service in the military? Would you sign such a prohibition if it got to your desk?

PAWLENTY: Bryan, I have been a public and repeat supporter of maintaining Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. There’s a lot of reasons for that, but if you look at how the combat commanders and the combat units feel about it, the results of those kinds of surveys were different than the ones that were mostly reported in the newspaper and that is something I think we need to pay attention to. But I have been a public supporter of maintaining Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and I would support reinstating it as well.

Watch it (starting 4:05):

Pawlenty’s position is surprising since even McCain — who led the Republican opposition to lifting the ban in the Senate — has said he would support implementation of repeal since it’s now the law of the land. “I think I have to do everything I can to make sure that the impact on the morale, retention, recruitment and battle effectiveness of the military is minimized as much as possible,” McCain said on Fox Business. “It is a law and I have to do whatever I can to help the men and women who are serving, particularly in combat, cope with this new situation. I will do everything I can to make it work.”

It’s also unclear how reinstating the policy would work operationally. Bringing back the policy would require gay servicemembers who come out after repeal is certified to suddenly go back into the closet or face discharge. Straight soldiers would also have to pretend they did not know about the sexual orientation of formerly-out gay members.

Pawlenty: Gays Shouldn’t Have The Power To Decide What To Do With The Body Of A Deceased Partner

By Amanda Terkel If you’re straight and your husband or wife dies, you have the power to decide what to do with your loved one’s body and how to carry out their wishes. However, if you are a gay man or woman in Minnesota — a state that doesn’t recognize marriage equality — you won’t have that option, thanks to Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R). Explaining his veto of the bill, Pawlenty simply said there “is no actual need” to give same-sex couples equal end-of-life rights. From his official statement on Saturday:

The bill addresses the categories of individuals who under the law shall be given priority for purposes of determining the disposition of the remains of a deceased person. Currently a person can, by executing a will, designate who shall be empowered to control final disposition of his or her remains. The bill therefore addresses a nonexistent problem.

Marriage — defined as between a man and a woman — should remain elevated in our society a special level, as it traditionally has been. I oppose efforts to treat domestic relationships as the equivalent of traditional marriage. Accordingly, I am opposed to this bill.

Ann Kaner-Roth, executive director of LGBT advocacy group Project 515, responded that Pawlenty’s “comment that the proposed legislation is unnecessary shows he is out of step with the experiences of real Minnesotans. … The language in this bill reflects closely language already used by Minnesota’s leading businesses.” Additionally, a person in a heterosexual marriage is not required to have a living will in order for his or her spouse to carry out end-of-life wishes, so it’s unclear why one should be necessary for same-sex partners. The bill would also have given “surviving partners the right to sue those responsible should their partner be killed.”

As a new Center for American Progress report on the needs of LGBT elders finds, Minnesota is considered a “legal stranger” state, where “same-sex partners (or members of families of choice) in these states effectively have no chance to be designated as surrogate medical decision makers for their incapacitated partners/loved ones.” LGBT elders therefore generally need an advanced health care directive (AHD), which includes a living will and a health care power of attorney:

In practice, to protect themselves, LGBT elders must remember to carry their AHDs with them at all times — if an individual is rushed to the hospital without these documents, a loved one can still legally be denied access (see sidebar on page 40). Finally, problems may arise when an elder travels out of state, as one state may not always recognize the health care directive of another state.

Additionally, obtaining an AHD can be difficult, since many elders are unaware or do not have the means to secure one, and “medical providers and long-term care facilities often ignore or challenge the AHDs of LGBT people.” (HT: Joe Sudbay at AMERICAblog)

Update In Rhode Island last year, Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) vetoed a similar bill.

Despite His Stimulus Bashing, Almost A Third Of Pawlenty’s Budget Relies On Stimulus Money

By Matt Corley In December, Fox News’ Eric Bolling presented Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty as an example of a conservative politician making tough choices to balance his state’s budget. “A big hole and a simple plan to dig out of it, stop spending,” said Bolling while introducing Pawlenty. “Sounds simple enough. Hold the line on taxes, live within your means. That is how my next guest aims to close his state`s billion-dollar-plus projected budget gap.”

During the interview, Bolling asked Pawlenty about whether he would seek federal stimulus funds to help close his budget gaps. Pawlenty criticzied the idea, claiming that it would “delay the inevitable” by “just sending some cash out as a Band-Aid“:

BOLLING: Governor, what about tapping the federal government? What about tapping the administration, saying, hey, you know, there`s $550 billion in stimulus there we could sure use, about a billion now, to close that budget gap?

PAWLENTY: All that does is delay the inevitable for most states. Forty-eight of 50 states are in the red. Only North Dakota and Montana are escaping for the moment.

Just like the federal government, most states have these structural spending commitments that are not justified by the revenues. It`s just like General Motors. The management and the labor ran up the costs over time to unsustainable levels. The revenues don’t justify it, and the model is broken. And so the model has to be adjusted. It has to be reformed.

And just sending some cash out as a Band-Aid is not going to solve the problem. You are seeing that in California. What you`re seeing in California now and New York, it`s a preview of coming attractions for many states if they don`t change their ways.

Yesterday, Pawlenty revealed his proposal to balance Minnesota’s budget. The proposal would cut “$250 million from aid to cities and counties and $347 million from health and human services programs” while lowering taxes for businesses. The Minneapolis Star Tribune notes that “nearly one-third of the governor’s budget fix would rely on $387 million in federal stimulus money. That money isn’t yet in the bank and, if it doesn’t come through, the cuts could be far deeper.”

This isn’t the first time that Pawlenty’s actions have contradicted his words regarding the stimulus. Last August, Pawlenty told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that most of the stimulus money was “misdirected” and “largely wasted” on projects that won’t create jobs. But weeks before Pawlenty’s comments, his own economic development director went on a 10 city road show titled “Advancing Economic Prosperity” touting the benefits of the stimulus. “Communities and job-seekers throughout Minnesota are seeing tangible results from this funding,” said Dan McElroy, Pawlenty’s “point man on jobs and economic development.”

Disregarding Tea Party Principles, Dick Armey Touts Pawlenty For 2012

By Lee Fang In an interview with CBS News, corporate lobbyist and FreedomWorks leader Dick Armey mused about the direction of the GOP and the future of the tea party movement that his group has cultivated. Armey extolled conservatives for having “clarity” in their positions, yet hedged on whether his strict conservative beliefs would mean fighting to abolish Medicare, Social Security, or other programs not explicitly authorized in the Constitution. “Let’s at least clear up the transgressions of the institutions that are there,” remarked Armey.

Repeatedly, Armey mentioned the name of Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) as someone who is “really leading the Republican Party these days.” Asked who has a “central stake” in touting “fiscal conservatism” and an ability to “limit government,” Armey again surprisingly named Pawlenty:

Q: You said that the central stake should be fiscal conservatism. But the Republican Party ran up trillions in deficits, spent hundreds of billions on TARP and a Wall Street bailout, bailed out GM, created the Department of Homeland Security and No Child Left Behind, and published about 700,000 new pages of federal regulations in eight years. Do Republicans have any credibility about claiming to limit government?

ARMEY: … I think Pawlenty is the person standing on the safest possible ground.

Armey, whose tea party movement is already shedding its non-partisan veneer to officially support Republican candidates, is attempting to “purify” Pawlenty’s record to make him more palatable to the base. But given that Pawlenty has violated so many tea party principles, Armey’s declaration of support is all the more perplexing:

– Pawlenty endorsed the Wall Street bailout package in 2008. Tea party groups often trace their interest in activism to the beginning of the bank bailouts.

– Pawlenty proposed his own cap and trade system and signed an ambitious law cutting carbon emissions. Tea party groups regularly deride both ideas as a “government takeover.”

– Pawlenty’s top economic adviser has toured his state, touting its success and the “tangible results from this funding.” Tea party groups angrily opposed the stimulus.

– In 2007, Pawlenty signed an anti-predatory mortgage law crafted in part by representatives from ACORN. Armey and other tea party leaders have attacked similar laws on the national level as “unnecessary regulation” and that the free market should “address concerns about sub-prime mortgages.” In addition, ACORN is one of the leading bogeyman of the tea party movement.

Hate radio talkers like Glenn Beck have jettisoned Pawlenty for his past transgressions, like pushing for cap and trade. To Beck, Pawlenty and other politicians who have supported the bailouts “sound like Democrats.”

But for veteran Republican leaders like Armey, Pawlenty is apparently worth purifying for the tea party base. Given Pawlenty’s short-lived attempt to purge Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), he seems interested in morphing into a tea party candidate. And even though Armey claims Pawlenty is a break from Bush-era conservatism, Pawlenty has aggressively courted key Bush political operatives for his national campaign.

Pawlenty Says He Would Lead A Campaign To Opt Out Of The Public Option In Minnesota

By Ben Armbruster

Reports surfaced today that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is considering a proposal to include the public option that would allow states to “opt-out” of the program.

Today on ABC’s Top Line, co-host David Chalian asked Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) if he would “opt-out” of the public option for his state if the measure passed. Pawlenty dodged: “Well, I don’t know if we would opt out but I personally would like to opt out because I don’t like government run health care.” But Chalian persisted, and ultimately, Pawlenty said that he would oppose the public option for Minnesota:

CHALIAN: But you would lead a charge in your state to opt out if that was an option available?

PAWLENTY: I think so because I don’t like government run health care.

Watch it:

However, Pawlenty has said that he supports “government run health care” in the past — in fact, just as recently as last September. “I support Medicare and Medicaid,” Pawlenty declared.

Regardless, the Wonk Room’s Igor Voskly notes that the opt out provision won’t lower costs like a stong public option will:

But a state-based approach won’t have the ability to significantly lower health care costs or change delivery patterns. Progressives point to existing state-based employee public options or Medicaid programs that contract out to private insurers and thus don’t provide a meaningful alternative or competition. A state triggered public option, would lead to the same outcome, they argue.

To avoid this scenario, the White House needs to stop sending clarification statements to Sargent and stake out a firm position — they will never find the votes if they don’t whip them. Why not start on higher negotiating ground and embrace the HELP bill’s (relativley) strong public plan.

Pawlenty’s not alone. Unfortunately, Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, Creigh Deeds, said this week that that as governor, he would “certainly consider opting out” of the public option “if that were available to Virginia.