Your Call Is Important To Us (30 page)

40  
Armstrong Williams:
See Howard Kurtz, “Administration Paid Commentator: Education Department Used Williams to Promote ‘No Child’ Law,”
Washington Post,
January 9, 2005.

CHAPTER THREE

43  
longest bear market:
See John Waggoner and Adam Shell, “Bear Turns a Baffling 3,”
USA Today,
March 19, 2003.

43  
National Bureau of Economic Research:
The Recession Dating Procedure is available online at
www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html
.

43  
economy remained sluggish:
See Steven Greenhouse, “Looks Like a Recovery, Feels Like a Recession,”
The New York Times,
September 1, 2003.

43  
36 million Americans living in poverty:
See
Income, Poverty and Health Insurance 2003,
from the U.S. Census Bureau. Available at
www.census.gov/hhes/www/income03.html
.

43  
debt, as of January 2005:
See the Bureau of Public Debt’s debt-to-the-penny website for constant updates:
www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm
.

43  
record-breaking trade deficit:
See the Census Bureau’s February 10, 2005 report at
www.census.gov/indicator/www/ustrade.html
.

44  
get some ribs, Stretch:
See
Remarks by the President to the Press Pool, Nothin’ Fancy Café, Roswell, NM,
January 22, 2004; available online at
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/200401225.html
.

45  
Wealth figures:
From Inequality.org, at
www.inequality.org/facts.html
.

49  
Survey of Consumer Finances:
See more on the 1998 survey in a January 2000 government bulletin,
Recent Changes in U.S. Family Finances: Results from the 1998 Survey of Consumer Finances,
at
www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2000/0100lead.pdf
.

51  
Ethical Funds:
There is a press release related to the lawsuit on their website at
www.ethicalfunds.com/do_the_right_thing/about_ef/newsroom/2000_articles/02_02_00.asp
.

51
The Facts on Saving and Investing:
Released by the SEC in 1999. It is still on their website, at
www.sec.gov/pdf/report99.pdf
.

52  
28 percent of Americans owed more:
See Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Economic Inequality Seen As Rising, Boom Bypasses Poor,” survey released June 21, 2001; online at people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=8.

52  
Record number of bankruptcies:
See press release from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, August 18, 2003; at
www.uscourts.gov/Press_Releases/603b.pdf
.

52  
margin debt:
See the Financial Markets Center chart on margin debt, available online at
www.fmcenter.org/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=8fLGJTOyHpE&b=222624&ct=278485
.

54  
CEO pay and stock performance:
See Scott Klinger, “The Bigger They Come, The Harder They Fall: High CEO Pay and the Effect on Stock Prices,” United for a Fair Economy, April 6, 2001; available online at
www.faireconomy.org/press/2001/Bigger_They_Come.pdf
.

55  
Coca-Cola:
See
The Economist,
“Douglas Daft: The New Broom at Coca-Cola,” February 10, 2000, and “Who’s Wearing the Trousers?” September 6, 2001.

56  
CEO pay and downsizing:
See Scott Klinger, “The Bigger They Come,” cited above.

59  
increased by 201 percent:
See The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, “Two Decades of Extraordinary Gains for Affluent Americans Yield Widest Income Gaps Since 1929, New Data Indicates,” Tuesday, September 23, 2003; at
www.cbpp.org/9-23-03tax-pr.htm
.

60  
21 million underemployed:
See John E. Schwarz, “The Hidden Side of the Clinton Economy,”
The Atlantic Monthly,
October 1998.

60  
long boom income increases:
See
www.inequality.org/facts.html
.

61  
pragmatics of tax policy favor the wealthy:
See David Cay Johnston, “IRS More Likely to Audit the Poor and Not the Rich,”
The New York Times,
April 16, 2000.

61  
“real rich people”:
See President Bush’s remarks in Annandale, VA, on August 9, 2004; online at
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040809-3.html
.

62  
13 percent debt service ratio:
See Alan Greenspan’s February 23, 2004 speech, “Understanding Household Debt Obligations,” available at
www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2004/20040223/default.html
.

65  
decline of meritocracy:
See “Ever Higher Society Ever Harder to Ascend: Meritocracy in America,”
The Economist,
December 29, 2004.

65  
mendacious math:
See Paul Krugman,
The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century
(W. W. Norton, 2003).

CHAPTER FOUR

68  
genius of capitalism:
O’Neill quoted in Eric Alterman and Mark Green,
The Book on Bush: How George W. Misleads America
(Viking, 2004).

69  
50 percent in consulting:
See Arthur Levitt’s testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Securities and Banking, September 28, 2000; online at
www.sec.gov/news/testimony/ts152000.html#P49_9309
.

71  
corporate responsibility:
The White House website has not been updated since 2003, but it is still available at
www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/corporateresponsibility/
.

71  
Larry Thompson:
See Anitha Reddy, “Deputy AG Profited Before Stock Fell; Thompson Exercised Providian Options During Transition,”
Washington Post,
August 2, 2002.

72  
corporate fraud task force:
See
Fact Sheet Second Year Anniversary of President Bush’s Corporate Fraud Task Force,
Federal Document Clearing House, Federal Department and Agency Documents, Regulatory Intelligence Data, July 20, 2004.

74  
“very dangerous and very counterproductive”:
Gramm’s remarks are part of the Conference Report in the Senate on Sarbanes-Oxley on July 25, 2002.

74  
super-sweet for accounting firms:
See Mark Jaffe and Peter Robison, “Sarbanes-Oxley Becomes ‘Open Checkbook’ for KPMG, Ernst &Young,” at Bloomberg.com, November 4, 2004; online at
www.Bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aAlUCtlfw9DI&refer=us
.

75–78
corporate personhood:
See Thom Hartmann,
Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights
(Rodale Books, 2004), and Joel Bakan,
The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
(Free Press, 2004).

83  
The Economist:
See “Is Government Disappearing?”
The Economist,
September 27, 2001.

85  
corporate tax revenues:
See Joel Friedman, “The Decline of Corporate Tax Revenues,” Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, October 24, 2003; online at
www.cbpp.org/10-16-03tax.htm
.

85  
$143 billion:
See Jonathan Weisman, “Senate Passes Corporate Tax Bill: Bush Plans to Sign $143 Billion in Cuts,”
Washington Post,
October 12, 2004.

85–86
Paul O’Neill:
See Ron Suskind,
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, The White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill
(Simon and Schuster, 2004).

86  
Enron paperweights:
See Rick Bragg, “Enron’s Collapse: Workers Feel Pain of Layoffs and Added Sting of Betrayal,”
The New York Times,
January 20, 2002.

CHAPTER FIVE

93  
Contract with America:
Text is still available online at
www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html
.

96  
latter-day radical Tom:
See Michael Weisskopf and David Maraniss, “Forging an Alliance for Deregulation,”
Washington Post,
March 12, 1995.

96  
Tom DeLay:
See Lou Dubose and Jan Reid,
The Hammer: Tom DeLay, God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress
(Public Affairs, 2004).

97  
“Gestapo of government”:
See “What’s Next for the EPA?” on
PBS NewsHour Online
, December 21, 1995; at
www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/epa_12-21.html
.

97  
gerrymandering:
See Jeffrey Toobin, “The Great Election Grab,”
The New Yorker,
December 8, 2003.

98  
associates indicted:
See Sylvia Moreno, “Three DeLay Workers Indicted in Texas,”
Washington Post,
September 22, 2004. See also Lou Dubose, “Justice Delayed,”
Mother Jones,
November/December 2004.

98  
ethics complaints:
See Charles Babington, “Ethics Panel Rebukes DeLay,”
Washington Post,
October 1, 2004.

98  
changing their ethics rules:
See Charles Babington, “GOP Pushes Rule Change to Protect DeLay’s Post,”
Washington Post,
November 17, 2004. See also Carl Hulse, “House GOP Acts to Protect Chief,”
The New York Times,
November 18, 2004.

98  
GOP reversed their decision:
See Carl Hulse, “After Retreat, GOP Changes House Ethics Rule,”
The New York Times,
January 5, 2005.

99  
outgoing House ethics chair:
See Mike Allen, “House Ethics Chair Likely to Be Replaced,”
Washington Post,
January 6, 2005.

99  
Project Relief:
See Jan Reid, “Sin of Emissions,”
Mother Jones,
September/October 1996, and Michael Weisskopf and David Maraniss, “Forging an Alliance for Deregulation,” cited above.

100  
K Street Project:
See Nicholas Confessore, “Welcome to the Machine,”
Washington Monthly,
July/August 2003. See also Jim VanderHei and Juliet Eilperin, “Targeting Lobbyists Pays Off for GOP,”
Washington Post,
June 26, 2003.

103  
about twenty-four thousand lobbyists:
See Alex Knott, “Lobbyists Bankrolling Politicians,” Center for Public Integrity, May 6, 2004; online at
www.public-i.org/bop2004/report.aspx?aid=273
.

105  
campaign financing:
See
www.opensecrets.org,
the definitive campaign finance site, sponsored by the Center for Responsive Politics. See also Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity,
The Buying of the President 2004
(Perennial, 2004).

106  
527s:
See “Silent Partners,” Center for Public Integrity, online at
www.public-i.org/527/
.

CHAPTER SIX

115  
200 billion in 2002:
See IMS Health, “World Pharma Sales Growth: Slower but Still Steady,” at
www.imsglobal.com/insight/news_story/0302/news_story_030228.htm
.

115  
17 billion:
See pharmiweb.com, “Going OTC in the USA,” October 18, 2004; online at
www.pharmiweb.com/Features/feature.asp?ROW_ID=508
.

119  
Prairie Plant Systems:
For more details about Canada’s medical marijuana contract, see the Office of Cannabis Medical Access at the Health Canada website, online at
www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hecs-sesc/ocma/bckdr_3-0601.htm
.