BAD MONEY

I was doing some research last night and I learned that Rob Portman got a campaign donation from a PAC, which I traced back to the Netherlands. A PAC (Political Action Committee) can be set up to collect money from its employees, no matter where they work. When the parent company of the entity corporation is registered in the Netherlands for tax purposes (to evade United States taxes), the PAC in the U.S. collects money for various candidates of their choice. The Farmers Group Insurance conglomerate donated through their PAC to Portman, the ONLY Ohio candidate for ANY office. Does that mean he has some insurance companies in his pockets?

Then tonight I read an article that was enough to make anyone just SICK. Now Portman is joining Kasich smoozing with billionaires to raise MORE money, namely New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. There is no good way to summarize the article, so I will just quote it:

Just when you thought you've heard it all, the Ohio GOP candidates come up with a whole new way to make your stomach ill.

In another perfect example of the politically tone deaf world John Kasich and Rob Portman are living in, Trade Czar Portman is jetting off to NYC tonight for a star-studded fundraiser hosted by New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. Johnson, in addition to being a billionaire and NRSC fundraiser extraordinaire, reportedly took advantage of an offshore tax haven on "The Isle of Man" (yes, this is a real place) in the Irish Sea (which is also a real place).

The Washington Post reported on Johnson in 2006 when he was a focus of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on offshore tax scams.

From WaPo:
"The report said that, along with a few others, Saban and Johnson -- a major GOP donor and an heir to the Johnson & Johnson consumer-goods fortune -- were able to buy, for relatively small fees, roughly $2 billion in capital losses that they used to erase taxable gains they garnered from stock sales. The U.S. Treasury lost an estimated $300 million in revenue as a result.

The series of transactions that produced the bogus losses, Levin said, "looks like a bowl of spaghetti" on a chart provided by the committee. In essence, two companies set up on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea traded paper back and forth until it looked like they were selling a portfolio of stocks that had lost value equivalent to the profit Saban and Johnson wanted to eliminate for tax purposes.

And all this moving money out of our economy was done without the help of Trade Czar Portman or Business Relocation Expert Mary Taylor.