Hazardous Waits: CPSC Lets Crucial Time Pass Before Warning Public About Dangerous Products

Despite a law requiring manufacturers to provide the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) with "immediate" notification of dangerous products, the agency typically delays nearly seven months after learning of dangerous, defective products before telling the public. A new Public Citizen study, Hazardous Waits: CPSC Lets Crucial Time Pass Before Warning Public About Dangerous Products, reveals that companies fined for tardy reporting took an average of 993 days -- 2.7 years nbsp;-- between learning of a safety defect in their products and notifying the CPSC. Perhaps as shocking, the CPSC then took an average of 209 additional days before disclosing the information to the public -- even though each case concerned a product defect so dangerous that the item was recalled. In response to this discovery, Public Citizen wrote a letter to Chairman Nancy Nord requesting information regarding cases in which the CPSC pursued criminal prosecution of manufacturers that withheld information from the Commission to cover up the discovery of dangerous or hazardous products

Severing the Tie That Binds: Why a Publicly Funded, Universal Health Care System Would Be a Boon to U.S. Businesses

Americans' dependence on employer-sponsored health insurance arose as an unintended byproduct of World War II economic controls. To circumvent wage caps, businesses began offering health insurance and other fringe benefits to attract workers. The federal government provided further incentives in 1943 by permitting tax deductions for employer-sponsored health care, and the custom took hold.Today, about 90 percent of people in the United States who have private health insurance receive it through employer-group plans, with the other 10 percent purchasing their insurance on the individual market. Meanwhile, the health care system that employers largely pay for is staggeringly expensive and way out of proportion with the cost of those of other wealthy countries. Even by a conservative methodology that adjusts for countries' relative wealth (thus taking into account the higher typical compensation in the United States), health care spending in the United States in 2006 was $643 billion more (out of$2.1 trillion in total expenditures) than it should have been if other developed countries were used as a guide, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. More recent data (not corrected for relative wealth) show that the United States spent nearly 1.5 times more on health care as a share of gross domestic product than any other country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2011 (the most recent year for which comprehensive data are available.) On a per capita basis, the United spent two-and-a-half times as much on health care as the average OECD country that year.Not surprisingly, businesses view the cost of providing health care benefits as an enormous burden. In each of eight surveys the National Federation of Independent Business has conducted of its members since 1982 on problems facing small businesses, respondents have ranked the "Cost of Health Insurance" number one.Our system disadvantages businesses that provide health insurance benefits relative to those that do not because they directly and indirectly end up subsidizing the costs of health care services received by people they do not employ. Further, in a circumstance that often afflicts small businesses, employers that offer health care benefits suffer a cost disadvantage against competitors that do not, although they might realize offsetting advantages through improved ability to attract and retain qualified workers. Our health care system also imposes a disadvantage on large U.S.-based businesses because their international competitors do not face nearly as significant of health care costs. For instance, as the U.S. automakers' losses mounted amid the recession of 2007, a study revealed that $1,635 was built into the price of every General Motors vehicle just to pay for health care benefits for GM's employees and retirees. Japan-based Toyota, in contrast, was paying just$215 per vehicle for current employees' health care and nothing for retirees.The tie between employment and health insurance causes numerous other distortions in the economy. Perhaps the most prominent of these is a phenomenon known as "job lock." This widely accepted theory posits that employees are reluctant to switch jobs or, especially, to pursue ventures involving self-employment and entrepreneurship out of fear of losing their access to health care. More broadly, job lock may be slowing the rate of economic growth, thereby reducing businesses' pool of potential customers. A publicly funded, universal health care system in the United States (or, to a lesser extent, within individual states10) would address many of these problems. By snapping the tie between employment and health insurance, health insurance-based job lock would no longer exist. Meanwhile, the overall costs of health care would likely stabilize due to many factors, chiefly that administrative costs would be reduced and abusive pricing would be policed. Additionally, although businesses would likely be called upon to pay for some share of health care costs under a universal care system, that cost would likely be reduced for those that currently furnish benefits, and whatever obligations remained for businesses would be distributed more equitably than at present

Fundraising Central: Majority of Presidential Bundlers and Other Fundraisers Hail from Only Five U.S. Industries: Lawyers and Law Firms, Three Finance Industries and Real Estate

More than half the major fundraisers for the presidential campaigns hail from just three segments of the U.S. economy: lawyers and law firms, representing both corporate and consumer interests; the financial sector; and real estate, according to a joint study released by Public Citizen and Campaign Finance Institute

Rep. Roy Blunt: Unfit to Lead

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who is vying to be House majority leader, is unfit for leadership because he represents more of the same corrupting, big-money politics that the American public has become disgusted with and that many reformers in Congress are trying to clean up, this Public Citizen report shows.The report details how much money Blunt has collected from lobbyists and corporate political action committees (PACs), the favors he has done for contributors, the trips he or candidates he has paid expenses for have taken on corporate jets, and how members of his staff have gone to work for major corporations that later donated thousands of dollars to Blunt's political committees. The report also delves into the unsettling nature of Blunts' ties to the fundraising apparatus of indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and admitted felon and former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff

Beware of a Naive Perspective: A Prebuttal to Possible U.S. Supreme Court Rulings in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (Part 1)

In October 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Shaun McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case that challenges federal limits on the grand total an individual can contribute to federal candidates, political parties, and political action committees (PACs). In Part 1 of this two-part series, we examine several options available to the court and how potential outcomes could transform how candidates and parties can raise money

Beware of a Naive Perspective: A Prebuttal to Possible U.S. Supreme Court Rulings in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (Part 2)

Many believe that U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts will provide the swing vote in the court's decision in Shaun McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (McCutcheon), a case challenging the constitutionality of caps on the total amount of campaign contributions an individual may make to candidates, political parties, and political action committees. Based on his comments during oral arguments, some have speculated that Roberts will vote to strike down limits on aggregate contributions to candidates but will support maintaining limits on contributions to parties and political action committees (PACs).We illustrated in Part 1 of this two-part series that eliminating limits on aggregate contributions to candidates while leaving other aggregate limits intact would enable joint fundraising committees (JFCs) operated by party leaders and elected officials to solicit contributions as large as $2.5 million from a single donor. This report shows that a supposed middle ground that permitted unlimited aggregate contributions to candidates but retained caps on contributions to parties would also likely end up eroding the integrity of limits on contributions to parties.Under a scenario in which only caps on total contributions to candidates were struck down, the party leaders and elected officials who administer joint fundraising committees would likely end up soliciting checks of more than$2.5 million from major donors. The vast majority of these contributions would be distributed to candidates in increments of $5,200 per recipient. However, because candidates could transfer their share of contributions received from JFCs to party committees, leaders of JFCs, would likely pressure candidates, the majority of whom are running in uncompetitive races, to redirect that money to back party committees.Using conservative estimates about the number of major donors that would contribute$2.5 million to a joint fundraising committee if the court eliminated caps on total contributions to candidates, and data on the number of competitive and non-competitive congressional races in recent election cycles, we estimate that eliminating the aggregate limit on contributions to candidates could enable candidates to transfer more than $74 million to the national party committees combined. Each donor would effectively be contributing the equivalent of more than$1.8 million to party committees, or more than 24 times the legal limit

Number of Lobbyist-Fundraisers for Presidential Candidates Already Exceeds 2004 Totals

The number of lobbyists raising money for the 2008 presidential candidates already has eclipsed the total for the entire 2004 campaign. A new Public Citizen study shows that so far, candidates still in the race have recruited 142 federal lobbyists to raise money for their campaigns, compared to 136 lobbyist fundraisers in 2004. It underscores the need to update the presidential public financing system so that presidential candidates wont rely on influence peddlers to fuel their campaigns

Dual Agents: Political Consulting Firms Working Jointly for Candidates or Political Parties and for Unregulated Outside Groups in the Same Elections Received $1.4 Billion in 2018 and 2020

The U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission made it legal for corporations and labor unions to spend unlimited sums from their treasuries to influence elections. Follow-up rulings by a federal court and the Federal Election Commission permitted third-party groups to accept unlimited contributions to pay for electioneering expenditures.The five justices who signed the Citizens United ruling based their decision on a view that political spending by outside entities does not pose a sufficient risk of causing corruption to warrant being restricted. Events soon showed that the court's confidence was misplaced.Shortly after the decision, third-party electioneering entities began springing up. These came to be known as "super PACs." In the 2012 elections (the first full two-year election cycle after the Citizens United decision), Public Citizen found that 52 percent of 143 super PACs active in the election devoted all of their money to assisting a single candidate. This evidence suggested that many super PACs were not truly independent of the candidates whose contests they sought to influence.Meanwhile, other super PACs were created with stated goals of electing Democratic or Republican majorities to the U.S. House and Senate. Federal law deems expenditures made by an outside entity in "cooperation, consultation, or concert" with a national party to be coordinated. A coordinated expenditure would violate the law if it exceeded contribution limits, which super PACs' expenditures usually do.These and other developments demonstrated that the Supreme Court was misguided in its assumption that outside entities would be independent of regulated campaign committees. In reality, the court had created a major incentive for candidates and party leaders to use outside entities to circumvent campaign contribution limits

The Case for Requiring Federal Contractors to Disclose Their Secret Political Contributions

For more than 80 years, those negotiating or performing federal contracts have been prohibited from contributing to federal candidates or parties and from giving to other entities for political purposes.The Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission made the contractor contribution ban relevant again. The decision permitted corporations to spend money to influence elections -- in unlimited sums -- as long they did not coordinate with federal candidates or parties.Although many expected that the decision would spawn political expenditures directly by corporations, most of the new political spending resulting from it has been by third-party entities, such as super PACs and 501(c) nonprofit groups.Contributions to super PACs must be publicly disclosed. But 501(c) groups are not required to disclose their donors. This gap in disclosure requirements has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in "dark money" political spending.The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has generally interpreted the contractor contribution ban as applying to gifts to super PACs, and it has taken several enforcement actions against contractors for giving to super PACs. But the FEC has not deemed the contribution ban to apply to gifts to politically active 501(c) groups. This is arguably inconsistent because some 501(c) groups spend money to influence elections in the same manner as super PACs. Further, some 501(c) groups even transfer their money directly to super PACs that they work in concert with.The public has a particularly profound interest in learning of cases in which businesses seeking taxpayer funds are spending money to influence their votes. A requirement that federal contractors disclose their electioneering efforts would help shine a light on these companies' payments to shape the playing field on which they play and, in the process, might flush out bad actors seeking refuge in the shadows

Bankrollers: Lobbyists' Payments to the Lawmakers they Court, 1998-2006

Lobbyists and their political action committees (PACs) have contributed at least $103.1 million to members of Congress since 1998. This report is the first comprehensive effort to match names of lobbyists with Federal Election Commission campaign contribution data. The result provides details about the biggest lobbyist contributors and congressional recipients of campaign largesse and furnishes a contribution total nearly double the previous estimate.The report details the amounts given to members of Congress since 1998 by the 50 biggest lobbyist money-givers. Twenty-seven percent of lobbyists have contributed an amount to lawmakers large enough to be recognized by the Federal Election Commission ($200 or more), and a select 6.1 percent of lobbyists have contributed at least $10,000 -- totaling 83.4 percent of all lobbyist contributions. Many of the top recipients of congressional campaign money are on appropriations committees that dole out federal money.The report also records the rise of contributions by lobbyists from$17.8 million in the 2000 election cycle to $33.9 million in the 2004 cycle -- a 90.3 percent increase. In the 2006 election, lobbyists and their PACs are already on track to give about 10 percent more than in the previous cycle, not accounting for the expected increase in contributions as Election Day draws nearer.Profiling the 10 lobbyists who have given the most to members of Congress since 1998, the report also provides behind-the-scenes glimpses of some of the most egregious policy-making fiascos in recent years. One prime example is Kenneth Kies, who served as the chief of staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation from 1995 to 1998 and who, along with his wife Kathleen, is the study's fifth-highest lobbyist-contributor to Congress with$292,866 since 1998