Newt Gingrich: Just a Corporate Whore

A super-wealthy Zionist finances the candidacy of a man who was the son of a Lutheran woman (a man who was once a Baptist, but became a Catholic in 2009 to marry his third wife), and is being supported by Southern Evangelists to beat Obama for the Presidency in 2012. Meet Newt Gingrich.

Sheldon Adelson, who is a Las Vegas casino mogul and the eighth wealthiest person on the Forbes 400 list (worth over $21 billion) has a special relationship with Newt Gingrich.

Besides being a major contributor to The Zionist Organization of America (Read: The Brass Ring: A multibillionaire’s relentless quest for global influence), since 2006 Sheldon Adelson has contributed millions of dollars to Newt Gingrich’s fundraising entity American Solutions for Winning the Future (which recently went bankrupt.)

The American Solutions website (now down) had failed to cover the disclosure by Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands, that it is being investigated by both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Justice Department for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Nevada Gaming Control Board is also said to be looking into the matter. (Read: Sands FCPA Probe Sheds Light on Macau’s Murky Gaming)

A New Yorker article also described how Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democratic Party congresswoman who had worked for Adelson in the nineties as vice-president of legal and governmental affairs, quoted Adelson as saying that “old Democrats were with the union, and he wanted to break the back of the union, consequently he had to break the back of the Democrats.”

The Boston Globe also noted that Adelson has "waged some bitter anti-union battles in Las Vegas". Congresswoman Berkley also claimed in the New Yorker article that Adelson "seeks to dominate politics and public policy through the raw power of money."

Adelson has also been an apologist for the repressive Chinese government, which allowed him to build his lucrative casinos in Macao.

And then there's this from Reuters: High-rollers, triads and a Las Vegas giant - "The murder-for-hire case sheds light on the links between China's secretive triad societies and Macau's booming gambling industry. It also raises potentially troubling questions about one of the world's largest gaming companies, Las Vegas Sands."

At times Adelson has been called the Right’s answer to George Soros. The difference is that Adelson’s political views serve his financial self-interest, especially when it comes to paying taxes. According to a 2008 profile of the gambling magnate in The New Yorker, Adelson once said to an associate: “Why is it fair that I should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than anyone else?”

On the Las Vegas Sands website, the 2010 annual report states: "Our effective income tax rate was 8.7% for the year ended December 31, 2010. The Company received a 5-year income tax exemption in Macau that exempts the Company from paying corporate income tax on profits generated by gaming operations. The Company will continue to benefit from this tax exemption through the end of 2013." (The corporate tax rate is supposed to be 35% in the U.S.)

It’s amazing that Adelson, whose only higher education came from a stint at the tuition-free City College of New York, can forget that progressive taxation (or what’s left of it) is what pays for the public institutions and infrastructure that help people like him succeed.

Even more dismaying than billionaires’ deluding themselves into thinking that they are completely self-made is the fact that they can now use large amounts of their under-taxed wealth to promote policies that make life ever more harsh for the rest of us.

Also, looking at Las Vegas Sands, adding stock-based compensation expense back to cash flows is questionable when a company hands out a lot of equity to employees and uses cash in later periods to buy back those shares. (Read: Why Las Vegas Sands' Earnings May Not Be So Hot)

CEOs only “earn” bonuses when their company “performs.” One measure of that performance is “earnings per share,” or company income divided by outstanding shares of stock. Execs have figured out that they don't have to actually boost earnings to hit their per-share targets. They simply reduce the number of company shares - by having their companies “buy back” shares of their own stock off the open market. (Read: How the 1% bilks the 99%)

Then CEOs like Sheldon Adelson can pay a 15% capital gains tax on their personal earnings. The middle-class pays 25% and the upper income earners are supposed to be taxed at 35% Newt Gingrich wants this tax at ZERO, Herman Cain had wanted 9%.

According to Newt Gingrich' Current web site, he says "eliminating the capital gains tax to make American entrepreneurs more competitive against those in other countries; dramatically reducing the corporate income tax (among highest in the world) to 12.5%; ending the death tax permanently." (The inheritance tax, to keep the 1% from hoarding the money supply).

Note how Newt Gingrich calls billionaires and multi-millionaires "American entrepreneurs", as though he were referring to the mom-and-pop grocery store owners. It's laughable. He could care less about small business owners who don't pay themselves executive compensation packages with stock-options and only pay 15% on their personal incomes. (Read: Tax breaks for billionaires: Loophole for hedge fund managers)

First, regarding the capital gains tax. Since the Bush tax cuts corporate executives and hedge fund mangers are already paying historically low capital gains taxes on their executive compensation packages that are paid as stock options and "pay for performance". They are paying less as a percentage of their personal income than most middle-class taxpayers. Now we have a budge deficit. Newt wants to eliminate capital gains (decreasing tax revenues) to force cuts in Social Security and Medicare, but to also continue the same level of spending for "defense" for corporate profits in the defense industry.

Newt Gingrich wants fundamental reform of entitlement programs such as Social Security "by empowering Americans with the option to invest in personal savings accounts." (e.g. by investing in commercial banks or the stock market.) Presently employees pay a payroll tax that invests in a trust fund backed by U.S. Treasury notes...the safest investment in the world.

Newt Gingrich wants you to give your money to the bankers and hedge fund managers to gamble with instead - - while their executives get huge salaries and bonuses paying only 15% for capital gains. Yet when YOU cash out your 401k, pension, or ROTH IRA, it's taxed as "regular income."

Newt Gingrich also favors repealing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, also know as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act and the Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act. This bill was enacted as a reaction to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals such as Enron. These "scandals" cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of the affected companies collapsed and shook public confidence in the nation's securities markets.

Newt Gingrich also favors repealing the Dodd-Frank law, "which is killing small independent banks, crippling loans to small businesses and crippling home sales." Many legal and financial scholars have been critical, arguing that the reforms didn't go far enough to prevent another financial crisis or additional "bail outs" of financial institutions. Why wouldn't Newt mention repealing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and reinstating the Glass–Steagall Act? (Because he loves the BIG banks and corporate America, and thinks they should do be able to do whatever they please. He could care less about the smaller independent banks or loans to small businesses.)

Two GOP fundraisers close to Gingrich and Adelson said Sheldon Adelson is still firmly backing Gingrich. Adelson is expected to provide solid financial help to a super PAC. Adelson gave more than $7 million (more than any other donor) to American Solutions for Winning the Future. Ron Reese, a spokesman for Adelson and his casino, said Adelson doesn't comment on his political activities but added, "It's no secret they (the two men) have a long standing and deep relationship."

What more proof do you need to realize that Newt Gingrich is nothing more than just a self-serving opportunist and a corporate whore? But then again, aren't ALL the Republican candidates the same?

In all his years lobbying in politics, name me one piece of legislation that Newt Gingrich fervently fought for and pushed to help the abject poor, the working-poor, the working-class and the lower-middle that didn't ALSO exponentially benefit the upper-class, the uber-wealthy, and himself far much more (Comments box below).

He said in his last debate that he "served the country in many ways", but Newt Gingrich has mostly just served himself.

Last year Newt Gingrich told Sheldon Adelson’s Israeli tabloid, “Evading the confrontation with Evil may bring a second Holocaust, the mistakes made by the White House will exact a terrible price.” He told the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. should bomb Iran's facilities to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power as "a step toward replacing the regime." He also said we should start by "cutting off the gasoline supply to Iran" and "sabotaging the only refinery they have."

Sourced:

• The Brass Ring: A multibillionaire’s relentless quest for global influence
• The Billionaires Behind Newt’s ‘American Solutions For Winning The Future’
• Billionaires, Blowhards and Bribery
• Newt Gingrich tied to casino mogul with legal problems
• Gingrich's financial angel — a casino mogul with legal woes
• Sheldon G. Adelson at Muckety

More on Newt:

• Newt Gingrich Worse than Donald Trump
• Newt Gingrich - Enough Can Never Be Enough
• Newt Gingrich Big Spender at Tiffany's Jewelers
• GOP Candidates - Millionaires Representing Billionaires

How people like Sheldon Adelson and Newt Gingrich are faring:

• Subsidies for the Rich and Famous
• Historical Tax Rates on the Rich (1862 to 2011)
• The Second Gilded Age: History Repeats Itself
• Mellon: The Banker Who Rigged the U.S. Tax Code
• The GOP Tax Plan - Ignorance, Insanity, or Greed?
• We have a Revenue Problem, Not A Spending Problem
• 280 Corporations are "Too Big to Tax"
• Trickle-Down Economics: The Cruel 30-Year Hoax
• You Pay Hidden Entitlements for the Rich