Romney's cash from Bermuda firm is secret

WASHINGTON -- For nearly 15 years, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's financial portfolio has included an offshore company that remained invisible to voters as his political star rose.

Based in Bermuda, Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd. was not listed on any of Romney's state or federal financial reports. The company is among several Romney holdings that have not been fully disclosed, including one that recently posted a $1.9 million earning -- suggesting he could be wealthier than the nearly $250 million estimated by his campaign.

The omissions were permitted by state and federal authorities overseeing Romney's ethics filings, and he has never been cited for failing to disclose information about his money. But Romney's limited disclosures deprive the public of an accurate depiction of his wealth and a clear understanding of how his assets are handled and taxed, according to experts in private equity, tax and campaign finance law.

Sankaty was transferred to a trust owned by Romney's wife, Ann, one day before he was sworn in as Massachusetts governor in 2003, according to Bermuda records obtained by The Associated Press. The Romneys' ownership of the offshore firm did not appear on any state or federal financial reports during Romney's two presidential campaigns. Only the Romneys' 2010 tax records, released under political pressure earlier this year, confirmed their continuing control of the company.

The mystery surrounding Sankaty reinforces Romney's history of keeping a tight rein on his public dealings, already documented by his use of private email and computer purges as Massachusetts governor and his refusal to disclose his top fundraisers.

The Bermuda company had almost no assets, according to Romney's 2010 tax returns. But such partnership stakes could still provide significant income for years to come, said tax experts, who added that the lack of disclosure makes it impossible to know for certain.

"We don't know the big picture," said Victor Fleischer, a University of Colorado law professor and private equity expert who urged corporate tax code reforms during congressional testimony last year. "Most of these disclosure rules are designed for people who have passive ownership of stocks and bonds. But in this case, he continues to own management interests that fluctuate greatly in value long after his time with the company and even the end of his separation agreement. And the public has no clear idea where the money is coming from or when it will end."

Named for a historic Massachusetts coastal lighthouse, Sankaty was part of a cluster of similarly named hedge funds run by Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded and led until 1999.

The offshore company was used in Bain's $1 billion takeover of Domino's Pizza and other multimillion-dollar investment deals more than a decade ago.

A Children’s Treasury Of Wingnut Remembrances Of Communist Traitor Andy Griffith, Who Burns In Hell

Happy Independence Day, U.S. Americans! Iconic actor Andy Griffith, who played Iconic Sheriff Andy “Lonesome Rhodes” Matlock on the Iconic Teevee, died July 3 at the age of 86, and Wingnut America honored his memory with an outpouring of patriotic fervor, remembering how the late actor embodied decent small-town values, common-sense parenting, and destroying America by supporting the Illegal Alien Marxist Usurper Barry “Goober” Soetero. While most blog posts on Griffith’s death merely noted that he appeared in a Ron Howard ad for Barack Obama in 2008 (he was onscreen for about 46 seconds) and released a 32-second PSA in support of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the commenters made certain to put those particular 78 seconds of screen time, out of a 59-year career, into their proper perspective. From The Blaze:

Progressive POS. Have fun burning in Hell for eternity. — Red Meat READ MORE »

Romney’s London Money Party Imperiled By Impending Enron-Style Disaster

What is LIBOR, you might be wondering? And who has messed with it? And how exactly will a banking scandal in London have something to do Mitt Romney? Well, what wouldn’t it have to do with Mitt Romney? First things first: LIBOR stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate, and according to the BBC, it is one of the “most crucial rates in finance” because it underpins trillions of dollars in loans and financial contacts, including (OF COURSE!) American mortgages and student loans. And because a bunch of derivatives traders at Barclay have been playing around with this rate and trying to rig it since 2005, your mortgage payments or student loan payments might have been affected this entire time. (Evidence for this rate rigging includes the message “”duuuude… what’s up with ur guys 34.5 3m fix… tell him to get it up!” sent via one trader to another via unknown means. Yes, apparently they talk like this in the U.K. too.) Anyway, this scandal MIGHT (but probably won’t, knowing how these things usually go) lead to the resignation of Barclay’s CEO Bob Diamond, but in the meantime, it has led him to pull out of a Romney fundraiser.  Because surprise surprise, the corrupt CEO of a disgraced financial institution was such a big Romney fan that he was going to host a London fundraiser for the candidate. But it’s cool, Romney understands. Also, lots of other Barclays bankers have donated craploads of money to his campaign and even served as his policy advisers, so it’ll all work out.

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Deadbeat Congressman Joe Walsh’s Simply Cannot Stop Mocking Double Amputee Tammy Duckworth’s Military Service

Oh yeah, he’s at it again. At what again? Paying his rent? Or his child support? HAHA DON’T BE RIDICULOSE! No, deadbeat congressman Joe Walsh is once again sneering at his opponent, Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs flying a helicopter in Iraq and now works in Veterans Affairs.

Here’s what Walsh said last time: “She’s been the one working in Washington. She’s a bureaucrat. I’m a fighter. [...] I have so much respect for what she did in the fact that she sacrificed her body for this country,” said Walsh, simultaneously lowering his voice as he leaned forward before pausing for dramatic effect. “Ehhh. Now let’s move on.” But has Walsh taken his own impeccable advice? Maybe no! READ MORE »

Erin Burnett Thinks You Are A Loser, Lies About It

OMG you guys, what was it like to wake up on Thursday and have less liberty? Did you know right away, or were you in so much shock that it took awhile to hit you? Because these are the kinds of questions your grandkids will ask about the Day That Justice Roberts Took Freedom Away, or alternatively, as CNN’s Erin Burnett put it, We All Became Losers. Well, au contraire mon soeur, SOME of us were ALREADY losers, ha. Also, Erin Burnett is making things up as she goes along, which is only surprising because her lies and obfuscations are usually in service to gargantuan financial institutions, not Mitt Romney. So this is something new and different!

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Is Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Really The Largest Tax Hike In The History Of The World? (CHART)

TPM

Before the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, the principal GOP lines of attack against the law were hyperbolic, but subjective: government takeover of health care, unconstitutional overreach, etc.

From the moment the Court determined the law stands as an exercise of Congress’ taxing power, though, Republicans have gone empirical. They now say that if the mandate is a tax, then it’s one of the greatest tax hikes in history.

In the wake of the decision, Rush Limbaugh said, “what we now have is the biggest tax increase in the history of the world.”

But when you compare the projected revenue effect of the individual mandate to the actual revenue effects of other, actually large tax increases, the claim becomes laughable. 

We used the Treasury Department’s four-year data on the revenue effects of large tax increases signed by Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; along with CBO projections of the revenue effect of the mandate adjusted for its GDP projections during the mandate’s first four years.

The mandate is tiny by comparison. Not, as Scott Walker warned, a “massive tax increase on the people of Wisconsin and America.”

As others have noted, even if you include the sum total of all the revenue-raising provisions in the ACA — and there are many taxes in it — it’s still smaller than the Reagan, Bush and Clinton tax increases

Wildfire Tests Police Force in Colorado Anti-Tax Movement’s Home

By Amanda J. Crawford

 As Colorado Springs battles a rash of burglaries after a wildfire that still licks at its boundaries, it does so with fewer police and firefighters

The city where the Waldo Canyon fire destroyed 346 homes and forced more than 34,000 residents to evacuate turned off one-third of its streetlights two years ago, halted park maintenance and cut services to close a $28 million budget gap after sales-tax revenue plummeted and voters rejected a property-tax increase.

The municipality, at 416,000 the state’s second-largest, auctioned both its police helicopters and shrank public-safety ranks through attrition by about 8 percent; it has 50 fewer police and 39 fewer firefighters than five years ago. More than 180 National Guard troops have been mobilized to secure the city after the state’s most destructive fire. At least 32 evacuated homes were burglarized and dozens of evacuees’ cars were broken into, said Police Chief Pete Carey.

“It has impacted the response,” said Karin White, a 54- year-old accountant, who returned home June 28 to a looted and vandalized house, with a treasured, century-old family heirloom smashed.

“They did above and beyond what they could do with the resources they had,” she said. “If there were more officers, there could have been more manpower in the evacuated areas.”

Taxpayer Revolt

Since the start of the 18-month recession in December 2007, U.S. cities have faced shrinking revenue and diminishing state support, leading to budget cuts and reductions in services and workforces. Cities faced a fifth-straight year of revenue declines in 2011, according to the National League of Cities, which estimated that municipalities would have to fill budget gaps of as much as $83 billion from 2010-2012.

Colorado Springs, which depends on sales tax for about half of its revenue, was hit harder than most. The city -- the birthplace 20 years ago of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which later passed statewide and has been pushed around the country to restrict government spending -- became a high-profile example of cost-cutting. The law restricts government spending to the previous year’s revenue, adjusted only for population growth and inflation.

“People are going to be looking at the aftermath of this disaster to see what is possible,” said Josh Dunn, an associate professor of political science at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. “How far can you go in cutting the size of city government?”

Pre-Tea

The city, home of the evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family, is known for being conservative and libertarian. It “was the Tea Party before the Tea Party was cool,” Dunn said.

Six of the nine candidates in last year’s nonpartisan mayoral election, including the victor, Mayor Steve Bach, signed the no-tax pledge pushed by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Richard Skorman, one candidate who didn’t, was flooded with angry e-mails after saying in a debate why he opposed such a pledge. What, he asked, if the city got hit by a major wildfire?

“Resources have been very stretched, and we were always worried,” Skorman, a 60-year-old small business owner and former city councilman who lost to Bach in an April 2011 run- off, said in a telephone interview.

On Edge

The costs of rebuilding combined with lost revenue from business closings and tourism could again push the city to the point where it doesn’t have money for essential services, he said.

“It is really going to make it difficult to deal with these things and all the reconstruction and things that are going to have to occur in this community,” Skorman said.

Bach said the city is on the path toward financial implosion anyway because of overly generous pensions and too many parks.

“Forget the fire,” said the mayor, whose office has an easel with a chart depicting Colorado Springs’s financial status, after a briefing on the blaze June 30. “At our current cost curve, we’ll be insolvent in eight years.”

Bach said the financial situation “certainly has affected our ability to take care of other things like parks and keeping the streetlights on.”

It hasn’t affected the handling of the wildfire, he said.

Heading Home

The Waldo Canyon blaze has killed two, engulfed a 29- square-mile (75-square-kilometer) area the size of Manhattan, has cost $11.1 million to fight so far and is now 55 percent contained. All but 3,000 residents have been allowed to return home, according to the Incident Information System, an interagency effort to track and provide wildfire information.

Such emergencies are why Bach’s administration has focused on increasing the city’s unrestricted general fund balance, which is now at 17 percent, said Steve Cox, the city’s chief of economic vitality and innovation.

Carey and Fire Chief Rich Brown said they are facing the same kind of cuts and budget restrictions as public-safety forces across the country. The reduction in manpower hasn’t affected their ability to respond to the wildfire, they said in interviews this weekend.

On June 26, when near-hurricane force winds caused a firestorm that swept into the city, “I don’t care if we had 2,000 people, there’s nothing we could have done,” Brown said. The city has 413 firefighters and recently graduated its first new class of recruits in five years, he said.

Working Together

Carey said the reduction in manpower has forced police to work more closely with the fire department and other agencies.

“That’s the emerging trend of public safety,” Carey said. “We can’t afford to have a surge capacity, maximum capacity every day for these kinds of situations. You have to think meaner and leaner, and have a plan that includes asking for outside help.”

The city has been aggressive in applying for federal grants, too, which have funded wildfire mitigation efforts, said Bret Waters, emergency management director.

Dunn notes that the city, where there is strong anti- federal government sentiment, is now turning to the U.S. for assistance. Before visiting Colorado on June 29, President Barack Obama declared the state a disaster area, which frees aid for communities affected by the wildfires.

“Ironically, Colorado Springs is going to rely heavily on federal funds for rebuilding,” Dunn said. “But it won’t cover everything.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Amanda J. Crawford in Colorado Springs at acrawford24@bloomberg.net

Conservatives Meltdown After Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare [Funny]