Read Blog for Arizona | Politics from a Liberal Viewpoint for more about Fraud

Paul Ryan’s bait-and-switch sales campaign for the GOP tax bill

November 7, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

Last week the GOP’s alleged boy genius and Ayn Rand fan boy, Paul Ryan, “the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin,” rolled out the GOP’s tax bill with this sales campaign: that a typical family of four will save $1,182 under the GOP tax bill.

“I don’t envy the partisans tasked with messaging against giving middle income families (family of four making $59K) $1,182 back,” AshLee Strong, Ryan’s press secretary wrote on Twitter, adding the hashtag #1182more …

… said the shameless GOPropagandist. Well defenders of truth, justice and the American way have no fear of soulless GOPropagandists, lady.

Dylan Matthews at Vox.com explains how Ryan’s example is a bait-and-switch campaign that will actually raise taxes on middle-class families. Paul Ryan’s poster family for middle-class tax cuts would ultimately get a tax hike:

The problem with selling the bill this way is that the claim is only partially true.

It is true that the average household in 2016, which the Census Bureau estimates makes made $59,039, would get a tax cut worth about $1,100 in the first year. (A more technical quibble with the claim is that many households aren’t families, and the average household size is 2.53, not 4.)

But after the first year, that claim looks much shakier. As NYU tax law professor and former Obama adviser David Kamin explains in a Medium post, the plan would actually result in a sizable tax increase for such a household over time:

Evil GOP bastards vote to gut Dodd-Frank banking regulations

June 9, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

Remember those terrifying days in September 2008 after the housing bubble had collapsed, the world’s financial system teetered on collapse, and the economy was in a free-fall?

Yeah, Tea-Publicans in Congress hope you suffer from short-term memory loss and that you have forgotten all about those dark days.

The evil GOP bastards want to return to what they view as those halcyon days when the banksters of Wall Street ran wild in unregulated casino capitalism — speculation, fraud and theft — that nearly destroyed the world’s financial system. Not one bankster of Wall Street was ever convicted for the greatest financial crime in history, but the GOP is OK with that … the banksters are the “masters of the universe” whom the lickspittle servants of the GOP serve in Congress.

While You Were Paying Attention To Comey, House Republicans Voted For Everything Big Banks Want:

While much of the political world was watching the fallout from former FBI Director James Comey’s Senate testimony Thursday, House Republicans were jamming through a bill that would largely gut the financial regulations in Dodd-Frank, the landmark banking legislation passed in 2010 after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

But instead of quietly sneaking the legislation through, Republicans were loudly touting the bill ― which passed, 233-186, with all Democrats and one Republican (Walter Jones of North Carolina) voting no ― as a major victory.

Arizona’s school voucher program is a scam for the wealthy

March 31, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

Arizona’s school voucher program, known as the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, is a scam for the wealthy according to this new analysis.

The Arizona Republic reports, Arizona taxpayer-funded vouchers benefiting students in more-affluent areas:

As Arizona’s school-voucher program has expanded rapidly in the past year, students using taxpayer aid to transfer from public to private schools are abandoning higher-performing districts in more-affluent areas, according to an Arizona Republic analysis.

This year, more than 75 percent of the money pulled out of public schools for the Empowerment Scholarship Account program came from districts with an “A” or “B” rating, the analysis showed. By contrast, only 4 percent of the money came from school districts rated “D” or lower.

The findings undercut a key contention of the lawmakers and advocacy groups pressing to expand the state’s ESA program: that financially disadvantaged families from struggling schools reap the benefit of expanded school choice.

Critics, meanwhile, argue the program is largely being used by more-affluent families to subsidize their private-school tuition bills. The ESA program allows parents to take 90 percent of the money that would have gone to their school district and put it toward private school, home schooling and other educational programs.

House Speaker Paul Ryan maligns the CFPB days after it discloses major fraud scandal at Wells Fargo Bank

September 14, 2016 by AZ BlueMeanie

So the GOP’s alleged boy genius, Ayn Rand fanboy Paul Ryan, “the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, ” recently posted this on Twitter.

Note the date of this tweet: September 12, 2016. Matt O’Brien of the Washington Post mocks, And now, a case of really bad Republican timing.

Ryan’s tweet is just days after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) scored one of the biggest consumer fraud victories in its short history against a bankster of Wall Street. 5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired over 2 million phony accounts:

Everyone hates paying bank fees. But imagine paying fees on a ghost account you didn’t even sign up for.

That’s exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide.

On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts — without their customers knowing it — since 2011.

The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money.

“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.

The anatomy of a con, part 2: Trump Institute

July 5, 2016 by AZ BlueMeanie

I have already posted about The anatomy of a con: Trump University.

In case you missed it, the New York Times recently reported on another Trump con game, the Trump Institute. Trump Institute Offered Get-Rich Schemes With Plagiarized Lessons:

In 2005, as he was making a transition from developing real estate to capitalizing on his fame through ventures like a reality show and product-licensing deals, Donald J. Trump hit upon a two-pronged strategy for entering the field of for-profit education.

He poured his own money into Trump University, which began as a distance-learning business advising customers on how to make money in real estate, but left a long trail of customers alleging they were defrauded. Their lawsuits have cast a shadow over Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.