Pat_Garofalo
@Pat_Garofalo
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Director of state and local policy at @econliberties . Author: "The Billionaire Boondoggle" and Boondoggle newsletter. #COYS
Washington, D.C.
Joined August 2011
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Trump claims he didn't say other nations should get nukes. "You're not going to find a quote from me."
Here it is:
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There is literally no one who is like, "well I was going to vote for the Democrats until they overruled the Senate parliamentarian's ruling on what can be included in a reconciliation package that is needed to circumvent a filibuster."
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You held a meeting on North Korea in the middle of a crowded dining room. People posted pictures of it on Facebook.
The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc?
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Amazon got $750 million from Virginia for HQ2.
Amazon is donating $1 million to help students in Northern Virginia with at-home learning.
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Just going to say: Tim Walz has the longest list of policy accomplishments of anyone on the VP list, and it's not particularly close.
It's not just him, at all. Minnesota's Democratic leadership in the legislature is great, and very interested in actually governing. But still.
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It was 35% before the Trump tax cuts.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In his remarks on his economic policy,
@JoeBiden
pledges to move the corporate tax rate back to 28% and said “the days of amazon paying nothing in federal income tax are over”
The plan is called "Build Back Better" and Biden described it as "bold" and "pragmatic"
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"At least Voldemort is a leader, unlike what we have in this country. They won't even say his name. Sad!"
#TrumpBookReports
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Stephen Miller today: Trump "ran as a high wage candidate."
Trump in Nov. 2015: "Our wages are too high."
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Lol one year
BREAKING: Amazon announces "a one-year moratorium on police use of Amazon’s facial recognition technology"
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Step 1: Blow up deficit with tax cuts for the rich.
Step 2: Use the deficit as an excuse to cut the social safety net.
Rinse and repeat, it never changes.
(Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the U.S. budget deficit is "disturbing" and spending on entitlement programs must be addressed by both Republicans and Democrats.
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There isn’t a normal voter anywhere whose position is “I support raising the minimum wage, but I am very upset the Democrats circumvented the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling in order to raise it via budget reconciliation, thereby avoiding a filibuster.”
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Elon Musk's Tesla is in line for more massive corporate handouts from Nevada, which the public isn't allowed to know about because of nondisclosure agreements.
This is super corrupt, and should be a scandal.
#BanSecretDeals
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Here's what you need to know about the supposed crime wave threatening our way of life.
#RNCinCLE
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Just let this sentence simmer for a moment: "Facebook will receive 20 years of tax abatements worth a minimum of $71 million in exchange for making annual rent payments on the project."
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Amazon has received more than $4 billion in subsidies from state and local taxpayers. 🚀🚀🚀
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AOC gets that bringing in these giant stores is terrible for the local economy, even if it does make for some cheap goods and a few new jobs. More like this from others please!
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I have a piece in
@nytopinion
today explaining how corporations like Amazon and Google use non-disclosure agreements with elected officials to hoover up tax subsidies in secret.
It's time to straight up ban these arrangements.
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The Minnesota Senate voted very early this morning to ban noncompete agreements for workers, as part of its jobs and labor omnibus bill. Huge!
#mnleg
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This is truly wild: A potential change to the Community Reinvestment Act – the federal anti-redlining law – would allow banks to meet their obligations by investing in sports stadiums in Opportunity Zones.
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I wrote about Trump doing precisely squat to mitigate his conflicts of interest and why it should worry everyone.
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This working draft of the GOP Coronavirus bill is a bad joke.
- No real requirements for bailed out corporations, even regarding layoffs
- A pathetic restriction on executive compensation
- Makes states and cities fight over funds with big corporations
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Trump refused to say he'd concede if he loses. And he's making stuff up about voter fraud. This is dangerous stuff:
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I'm sure all the Republicans who spent years yelling "EMAILS" will make sure to get to the bottom of this.
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I wrote for
@newrepublic
about how and why the Democrats of Western Pennsylvania are doing great stuff
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We taxpayers helped pay to build the hotel where Trump's birther show is about to be staged, fyi.
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Any bonus pay for workers is obviously good, but don't buy that there were widespread bonuses because of the GOP tax bill. Bonus compensation is only up 2 cents per hour since the bill passed.
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Bernie Sanders' plan to help journalism is pretty darn good.
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This “deal” is bonkers. California went from a groundbreaking bill to prevent Big Tech from wantonly profiting off the work of journalists to an absurd framework that will accelerate tech’s destruction of journalism jobs.
“This backroom deal is bad for journalists, publishers, and all Californians, which is why state lawmakers including
@GavinNewsom
should reject it."
Statement from
@LeeHepner
on Google's absurd deal to terminate the California Journalism Preservation Act.
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If all it takes to be presidential is reading a scripted 5-point plan and not insulting your hosts, perhaps the bar is in the wrong place.
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Free idea: Facebook pays for its own necessary infrastructure itself and then pays all applicable taxes and fees to the city and state.
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Still bummed and outraged
@GovKathyHochul
vetoed a ban on noncompetes that had wide-ranging support among labor, small and mid-size businesses, medical professionals, and everyday workers. She let Wall Street’s misinformation and money win the day.
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It's almost like those of us who warned the Amazon HQ2 subsidies were a massive mistake were on to something. 🤔🤔
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Today, the DoJ and DoT announced they are taking steps to block the Spirit-JetBlue merger. Hooray!
A lot of the cited harms centered on Florida, where the two airlines compete intensely.
But the Florida AG supports the deal. So what gives?
Thread incoming. 1/
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There's nothing Democrats love quite so much as making popular things so janky and difficult that nobody likes them.
Sources tell me that White House and Democrats considering attaching means test to a number of key agenda items - from EV rebates and free community college - as a way to shrink reconciliation bill and pacify spending hawks.
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Trump: "They're shooting our police at record levels." Nope. Lie.
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GDP is going up, but wages aren't, so here's a thing I wrote earlier this week on how pay is stuck because corporations have too much power and workers nowhere near enough:
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We interrupt this day off to note that Bernie Sanders' new corporate tax plan is a barn burner.
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Free idea: Be pro-labor by actually being pro-labor and backing the railroad workers fighting for completely reasonable things like not being forced to work when they’re sick 🚂🚂🚂✊✊
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One more time, again: The U.S. does not have high taxes.
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Owning the libs by not understanding how vaccine testing works.
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Hi Twitter! For the record, I am not
@PatGarofalo
and my ability to help you out on Minnesota-related issues is extremely limited.
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I'm sure this will get just as much traction as the original report. Right?
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This is not scandalous. It happens when trying to get money out quickly, which is far more important. And there’s no reason for a news story to editorialize about this making future stimulus payments more difficult to justify. Just ugh.
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The Virginia Senate approved giving $750 million to Amazon and then rejected a minimum wage increase, which really tells you all you need to know about the Virginia Senate.
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Tim Walz has a more extensive list of policy wins than any of the other VP candidates, including several major laws challenging corporate power.
The whole Minnesota DFL deserves serious kudos for taking a slim majority and using it to actually govern.
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Apple is getting more than $845 million from North Carolina to "create" 3,000 research jobs right in the middle of a research hub.
This is totally bonkers.
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Well this is outrageous: "Georgia’s population is approximately 32 percent black, according to the U.S. Census, but the list of voter registrations on hold with [Secretary of State] Kemp’s office is nearly 70 percent black."
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Ivanka Trump can't both work in the White House and play the "I'm just his daughter!" card to avoid hard questions. It's one or the other.
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Corker: I will not vote to add one penny to the deficit.
GOP leadership: This bill adds $1 trillion in deficits and we're not changing it.
Corker: Good enough for me, you've got my vote!
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🚨🚨 The Minnesota legislature just passed HF 402, which includes hugely important new rules to rein in hospital mergers! So many kudos to
@RobertBiermanMN
,
@mhwiklund
,
@mnnurses
,
@SEIUHCMNIA
and so many others who worked on this one
#mnleg
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My newsletter yesterday on Elon Musk trying to scam Midwestern taxpayers into paying for a new Tesla factory made some people feel some feels on here, so of course I’m going to tweet it again.
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Bernie is winning the long game. But will the Democratic Party get on board? I discuss in
@NBCNewsThink
today:
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Here's a crazy idea, I know: Maybe Amazon should just pay for its own headquarters:
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IT’S JUST NEW JERSEY IT’S LITERALLY IN NEW JERSEY IT’S NOT AT ALL NEW YORK
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Elon Musk has a new grift: Getting a Midwestern state or city to subsidize a new Tesla factory.
Joplin, Missouri, has already offered $1 billion in taxpayer funding.
More in my newsletter today:
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#ICYMI
Minnesota passed a bill to rein in hospital mergers yesterday. It’s a huge win on the anti-monopoly front. 👇👇👇
🚨🚨 The Minnesota legislature just passed HF 402, which includes hugely important new rules to rein in hospital mergers! So many kudos to
@RobertBiermanMN
,
@mhwiklund
,
@mnnurses
,
@SEIUHCMNIA
and so many others who worked on this one
#mnleg
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So it's time for some **personal news**: Next week, I'll be joining
@TalkPoverty
as managing editor. Super psyched to work with
@mpellittieri
and the whole
@amprog
poverty team!
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The Astros found a new Boston hotel so they wouldn't have to cross the Marriott picket line, reports
@WhitneyM02
.
The Dodgers did not.
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🚨 The Minnesota State Senate just passed its labor and jobs omnibus conference report, which includes a provision voiding worker noncompete agreements!
Just a vote in the House, and this will be off to the governor.
Huge kudos to
@DrAliceMann
for championing this one. 🚨
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Democrats: Trump committed impeachable offenses by systematically soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election.
Republicans: The moon is made of cheese.
The New York Times: These statements, to us, are the same.
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Oh look, a new reason tax prep corporations are the worst.
NEW: A seven-month congressional probe finds tax-prep companies spent years sharing taxpayer data with Meta and Google in potential violation of federal law — data that in some cases was misused for targeted ads:
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Oh look,
@AnnaForFlorida
has the receipts on all the favors and corporate giveaways Florida legislators gift to Disney. It's a very long list.
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Love how many stories today are going to frame voting for bank deregulation as the "moderate" or "centrist" position, instead of the insanity it is.
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As I note a lot here, Amazon gets billions of dollars in subsidies from state/local governments. It's very bad.
Also not so good is local news coverage of those deals, which often fails to grapple with the effects Amazon has on communities or why it chooses new locations. THREAD
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It's almost like lawmakers applying scrutiny to what happens in these online stores is having positive effects.
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Curing economic anxiety by <checks card> having taxpayers and foreign governments bail out the president's struggling resort.
#MAGA
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Camden residents wanted to know if the corporations receiving huge subsidies to move to their city actually hired local workers. So they pushed through a new disclosure law.
Now, the data show: Lots of public dollars turned into very few jobs.
More here:
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Wait, Trump just said raising interest rates would wreck the economy, and then said the Fed is being political by not raising rates.
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This piece on Turbotax is officially my most read newsletter yet. Lawmakers take note, nobody likes Intuit!
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Let's goooooooo! Great bipartisan set of state attorneys general on this one.
DOJ and 8 states sue RealPage for facilitating price fixing between large landlords around the country.
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This data is only available because the people of Camden forced it to become public.
Huge win for community organizing and a huge blow to the idea corporate tax subsidies create good local jobs.
Companies that got huge tax breaks in NJ's poorest city barely employ its residents via
@gothamist
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Break up Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo admits it made this mistake nearly 900 times over several years. It pushed hundreds of distressed homeowners into foreclosure
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“Why do Congressional Republicans suddenly act as if something they used to support is now socialism?”
It’s because a Democratic President is supporting it. That’s it. That’s the answer. Should be a very short piece.
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This sounds like a lot!
But it really isn't. And fines won't change Facebook's business model, which is the root of the problem.
Facebook expecting to be hit with an FTC settlement charge that could be as high as $3-5 BILLION bucks
story coming
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Good line of questioning from
@RepJayapal
on how Amazon treats small businesses on its platform. Here's our
@econliberties
explainer on all the ways Amazon can leverage its power over other businesses:
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That thing where Republicans love local control until the locals decide they’re fed up with being exploited by big business. 👇👇
After residents in Key West voted to ban giant cruise ships, the Florida Legislature may undo that decision by taking control of Florida's seaports away from local governments. But
@craigtimes
raises an important question about that idea:
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This is pathetic and any California legislator who supports it is bad and should feel bad.
NEW for
@politico
: AI initiatives would get $40M annually in a draft California journalism bill agreement shared with POLITICO.
The draft would see California and Google form a partnership funding “democracy, journalism and AI innovation.”
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As I complain about all the time, corporations use nondisclosure agreements to hide the subsidy deals they make with state and local governments.
Meet the new coalition out to do something about it: Ban Secret Deals.
#BanSecretDeals
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Remember, gun control advocates need to listen to gun owners and treat them with respect, while the NRA gets to say the media likes mass shootings and that everyone to the left of Jim Inhofe is a socialist bent on the destruction of America.
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New study shows what many expected: Trump's big corporate tax cut didn't lead to more jobs or business investment, but did lead to more CEO pay.
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Cuomo (and too many other lawmakers across the country) are letting billionaires and big corporations plan the future.
It doesn't have to be this way, as
@ZephyrTeachout
and I explain for
@GuardianUS
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Huge news out of Arizona, where Attorney General
@AZAGMayes
filed a 🔥🔥🔥 complaint against RealPage and residential landlords for forming a cartel to fix rental housing prices.
Our
@econliberties
statement here:
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Here's Cory Booker being bad on policy and incredibly unfair to Warren, all in the same interview.
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People will continue to pretend the deficit/debt is a salient political issue that moves votes -- all evidence to the contrary -- forever and ever until the end of time.
1. Don’t be socialists
2. Kick Trump’s ass when he calls you a socialist.
3. Remind Americans that Trump’s centralized state is running the biggest debt in the history on the world.
4. Remind Americans that Trump just agreed to another two years of runaway deficits.
5. Win.
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Let's remember that the economic rationale for the Republican tax bill doesn't actually exist:
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It’s a really bad look for a Democratic governor to undermine California officials who are trying to protect workers.
That it’s to the benefit of a grifter like Elon Musk is even worse.
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Reviving "pay-go" is one of the dumbest things Democrats could do.
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Pepsi is getting s 30-year tax break to move a bottling plant 30 miles, within the same state. Absurd.
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