GD stock buybacks
General Dynamics bought back $14.4 billion of their own stocks from 2009-2017 driving up market value. They paid their CEO $21 million in 2016.
They don't need $45 million from Maine.
Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
The collapsing US military & economic empire is making Washington & NATO even more dangerous. US could not beat the Taliban but thinks it can take on China-Russia-Iran...a sign of psychopathology for sure. @BruceKGagnon
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Christine DeTroy from PeaceWorks in Brunswick shows the misleading headline in local paper. Makes it sound like the fight is over - it's not. The local paper has been outsourced to BIW/GD. Just last week the editor of the paper cancelled a twice a month Op-Ed that Peaceworks had for the past three years - done in reaction to the campaign to stop GD corporate welfare bill in Augusta. (Photo by Martha Spiess) |
I was very encouraged by the response to your witness that I saw today in Augusta. Despite what we are told, most of our friends and neighbors who serve in our legislature do want to make things better and have a hard time holding their noses and voting for a bad bill. Regardless of party, there are many up there who oppose crony capitalism (as the R's call it) or inequitable distribution of wealth (the D's). If they engage with each other, they comprise a majority. I hope that continued communications from their constituents will bring them together to vote against the GD tax giveaway. You still can't put lipstick on this pig and call it pretty. Preti, [Flaherty] perhaps, but not pretty.
How ironic that when the give-a-way bill was first heard, we observed the Maine DOT ask for $60 million in taxes to address the overdue infrastructure needs of our large, poor, rural state. Today's irony at Taxation Committee was the hearing scheduled for the Gov's "tax conformity" bill. He is seeking to make Maine tax code mimic the US Congress giveaway to the rich and the corporations at the expense of the rest of us, especially our most vulnerable. It's "do as I say, not as I do" time for the D's; pulling out all the stops to oppose the Trump, Too Tax Code while handing out the same to GD.
But it doesn't have to be this "race to the bottom". Keep the pressure on, keep the cards, emails and LTE's coming--make our representatives do the right thing, because it is the right thing - for Maine, her people and our democracy. Solidarity then, solidarity now and solidarity forever.
Leslie
In response to your question, both major papers got it wrong. The last series of amendments articulated by Rep. Grant shortened the program by five years and left the same dollar per year cap in place. The total amount, barring acceleration due to massive new hiring, is $45mil. Still a hefty price tag.
Just to make sure I sent an email to a reporter from the Portland Press Herald who sat through the entire committee work session and wrote a story saying that the $60 million bill has passed the committee by the 9-2 vote. I wondered if he had heard of the cut to $45 million. This is what he wrote back to me:RT
That certainly wasn’t what I thought they were voting on. And if it’s true then they did an absolutely horrible job of sharing with the public what, exactly, they were voting on.I’ll see what I can find out. Thank you very much for letting me know. Obviously there are a bunch more votes still to come on this.
The Legislature’s Taxation Committee voted 9-2 Tuesday to deliver a controversial $45 million tax break to Bath Iron Works. LD 1781 would provide the company with $3 million in tax incentives per year over the next 15 years on the condition that it keeps current employment levels and invests at least $200 million in the shipyard. The amended bill marks a decrease of $15 million from the original version, which would have renewed the 20-year, $60 million Shipbuilding Tax Credit enacted in 1997. The measure will now go to the House and Senate for a vote.So it is now clear to us that two big things have happened during our statewide campaign to oppose this GD corporate welfare bill here in Maine. First, the largest of four unions at BIW (local S6 Machinists) has declined to endorse the bill which is a huge public relations blow to BIW/GD. Secondly the Taxation Committee rather quietly, and still largely unnoticed, has cut the bill by 25%.
In my tiny, very poor school district our annual budget is roughly $11 million. The superintendent let the board know recently that, due to a shortfall in the contribution from the state for school year '18-19, we need to cut the budget by around $750,000 in order to keep local taxes from going through the roof.
My district has precious little for a tax base besides residential. A few of our towns have a couple of businesses that employ people full time like a wooden flooring mill and a concrete supplier; the town my little preK-5 school is in has a store, a laundromat, two diners, a nail salon and...that's about it.
Last week two teachers came to the principal in tears. A Kindergarten student had announced that she would be unable to come to school the following day because her dad had to work to get money to buy the family some food. Her classroom teacher had told me back in the fall that she thought the child's family suffered from food insecurity. We can address this problem for preK-12 because our district is poor enough to qualify for federal aid that feeds everyone who wants it breakfast and lunch every day.
Another 1st grader has been living all winter in a trailer with a roof that leaks. Her mom has told the teacher the children will be leaving our school soon as they have a chance to move in with an uncle who has a place to live in another town.Thanks for your truth telling Lisa. This is exactly why I continue my hunger strike - in solidarity with those living in poverty and neglect across this state. The children who go to school hungry and those tens of thousands in Maine with no health care need all our voices of solidarity badly right now.
General Dynamics, on the other hand, pays its CEO $21 million a year. It has spent $9 billion buying back its own stocks to build value in the shares its top executives receive fat bonuses for increasing. And things are about to get even better: CEO Novakovich recently told shareholders in a conference call that she regarded the federal tax bonanza for wealthy corporations as "a happy event."
The Maine People's Alliance, a lobbying group for Democrats in Maine, has declined to come out against the bill even though they supposedly stand for funding social needs. Their former executive Ryan Tipping now co-chairs the taxation committee, and he voted ought to pass last week after describing how squeamish he was at doing so.