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Senate Probe Launched Into Soaring Childcare Costs Driven by Private Equity Takeover
“Private equity firms have increasingly brought their playbook to essential care industries," warns Sen. Jeff Merkley, by rolling local childcare centers nationwide "into large chains, and prioritizing investor profits over the well-being of the families.”
Mar 24, 2026
US Sen. Jeff Merkley announced the launch of a new investigation into the role of private equity firms in making childcare increasingly unaffordable for American families.
Merkley, the Oregon Democrat who serves as ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, sent letters to KinderCare Learning Companies and Learning Care Group (LCG), the two largest childcare companies controlled by private equity firms, seeking information about the impact of the relentless profit-seeking of their owners on day-to-day business decisions.
Among other things, Merkley wants the companies to provide insight into the influence that their private equity owners exert over facility acquisition, expansion plans, staffing levels, employee wages and benefits; and capital investments.
Merkley is also asking the companies to "describe how tuition increases... are determined and whether financial obligations to lenders or owners are considered in pricing decisions." He also noted that both KinderCare and LCG faced serious accusations of mismanagement in multiple states.
KinderCare, which is owned by Switzerland-based private equity firm Partners Group, has been cited by state regulators in Indiana and Wisconsin for maintaining facilities with "inadequate supervision, staff-to-child ratio violations, unsafe or unsanitary conditions, and failures to report or respond appropriately to alleged abuse," Merkley wrote.
LCG, which is owned by private equity firm American Securities, operates facilities that have been reported for health and safety violations in numerous states, including Georgia, Missouri, and Texas, Merkley noted, "with incidents involving children left unattended on buses, supervision failures, and alleged physical abuse by staff."
Merkley said he was concerned that the failings at these facilities were being driven by the profit considerations at Partners Group and American Securities.
"Private equity firms have increasingly brought their playbook to essential care industries," said Merkley, "buying up independent providers, rolling them into large chains, and prioritizing investor profits over the well-being of the families and communities that depend on these services."
The senator urged both the childcare companies and their private equity owners to "fully cooperate with this investigation."
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House GOP Advances Budget After Blocking Amendments to Protect Food Benefits, Medicaid
"Instead of choosing to protect the American people, they chose to protect billionaires and corporations," said the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
Feb 14, 2025
House Republicans advanced their budget plan out of committee Thursday night after a 12-hour markup session during which they rejected dozens of Democratic amendments, including proposed changes that would have protected Medicaid and federal nutrition benefits from the deep cuts the GOP hopes to impose to help finance trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the richest Americans.
The House Budget Committee advanced the Republican resolution, unveiled earlier this week, in a 21-16 vote along party lines. Prior to the vote, GOP members agreed to adopt an amendment offered by Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) that, according to Politico, effectively caps "the cost of the tax cuts at $4 trillion, with a dollar-for-dollar increase in that ceiling if Republicans cut more spending, up to a total of $2 trillion in cuts."
Democrats on the panel offered more than 30 amendments to the budget resolution, all of which Republicans rejected.
"Each of our amendments was a direct effort to shield the American people from the reckless cuts embedded in this proposal, cuts that will hurt the most vulnerable while giving trillions of dollars of handouts to the ultra-rich," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in his closing remarks at Thursday's hearing. "We fought to protect Medicaid and Medicare, ensuring that seniors, low-income families, children, and people with disabilities don't see their healthcare stripped away."
"We proposed amendments to maintain funding for public education, ensuring that schools remain adequately resourced and that teachers don't bear the burden of budget shortfalls," Boyle continued. "And we stood up for veterans who risked their lives for this country and deserve more than empty rhetoric. They deserve fully funded healthcare, food assistance, and the benefits they earned through their service. Yet, despite the clear benefits of these proposals, Republicans oppose all of them."
"Instead of choosing to protect the American people," he added, "they chose to protect billionaires and corporations."
"This isn't government of, by, and for the people; it's government of, by, and for billionaires."
The Republican budget blueprint calls for more than a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provide healthcare and food aid to tens of millions of low-income Americans.
"These aren't just numbers," Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, stressed in response to the House GOP resolution. "The loss of Medicaid means, for example, a parent can't get cancer treatment, and a young adult can't get insulin to control their diabetes. Cuts to food assistance mean a parent skips meals so their children can eat or an older person who lost their job has no way to buy groceries."
In addition to advancing the GOP's far-right ideological project, such cuts would partly offset the costs of Republicans' proposed tax breaks—which would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest people in the country, including the billionaires in President Donald Trump's Cabinet.
"Republicans are cutting Medicaid and SNAP to pay for tax breaks for the richest 1% of Americans," the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness wrote in a social media post on Thursday. "They are literally taking $1.1 TRILLION away from you, and giving it to the wealthiest people in the country."
Thursday's vote marks a first step toward passage of a sprawling, filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package that will include a slew of Republican priorities.
But the House GOP must resolve its differences with Senate Republicans, who are pushing for two bills instead of one. The Senate plan, which Republicans advanced out of committee earlier this week, also calls for major cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.
"This Republican budget opens the door to massive cuts for families," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said Thursday. "Democrats on the committee offered amendment after amendment to protect healthcare, housing, and education—all of the foundations working families need to thrive—and Republicans blocked every single one of them, all to later divert those cuts into massive tax breaks for the richest Americans."
"This is the Great Betrayal," Merkley added. "Trump campaigned on protecting families, but President Trump and Senate Republicans are all about protecting their billionaire friends. This isn't government of, by, and for the people; it's government of, by, and for billionaires."
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US Wealth Gap Report Fuels Call to 'Unrig Our Tax Code'
"This report should add urgency in Congress as the Trump tax scam expires next year and we negotiate future tax legislation," said Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse.
Oct 02, 2024
As a Capitol Hill battle over the "GOP tax scam" looms, U.S. Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse on Wednesday pointed to a new nonpartisan government analysis about soaring wealth inequality as proof of the need for serious reforms.
Whitehouse (D-R.I.) sought the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, which details trends in the distribution of family wealth—including projected Social Security retirement and disability benefits—in the United States from 1989 to 2022.
"Adjusted for inflation, the wealth held by families in the United States almost quadrupled between 1989 and 2022, rising from $52 trillion (in 2022 dollars) to $199 trillion, at an average rate of about 4% per year," the CBO found. "Over that 33-year period, family wealth was unevenly distributed, and that inequality increased."
"In 2022, families in the top 10% of the distribution held 60% of all wealth, up from 56% in 1989, and families in the top 1% of the distribution held 27%, up from 23% in 1989," the office said. "The share of wealth held by the rest of the families in the top half of the distribution shrank from 37% to 33% over the same period. Families in the bottom half of the distribution held 6% of all wealth in both 1989 and 2022."
"By making the wealthy pay their fair share, we can protect Social Security forever and unrig our tax code."
The report comes as Congress prepares for a tax debate due to next year's expiration of policies signed into law in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump, the Republican facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in this November's election.
Throughout the current election cycle, Trump and congressional Republicans have campaigned on extending policies from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and also benefited wealthy individuals.
"This report should add urgency in Congress as the Trump tax scam expires next year and we negotiate future tax legislation," Whitehouse said of the CBO analysis. "Do we want to reward billionaires, who have already captured so much of the nation's wealth, or do we want to de-corrupt the tax code, ensure the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, and reduce the deficit, all while making necessary investments to better the lives of all Americans?"
Whitehouse noted that the report also comes amid concerns about the future of Social Security. Citing the CBO analysis, his office detailed:
- Social Security is essential to the retirement security of low middle- and lower-income families: Without this earned benefits program, the bottom half of families would hold just 3% of overall wealth, while the top 10% of families would control nearly 70%.
- If Social Security were allowed to go insolvent, families in the bottom half of the wealth distribution would lose 10% of their wealth, while the wealth of the top 1% of families would be essentially unchanged.
"Social Security is a bedrock of our retirement system and ensures millions of seniors can retire with dignity," Whitehouse said. "Seniors earned their benefits throughout their working lives, but the program is now facing a looming cash flow problem. By making the wealthy pay their fair share, we can protect Social Security forever and unrig our tax code—exactly what my Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would do."
Whitehouse's bill is spearheaded in the lower chamber by U.S. House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who also recently requested a CBO report. That one focuses on the impact of raising the full retirement age for Social Security from 67 to 69, as various Republican groups have proposed.
The CBO's Social Security analysis, released last week, found that for workers now in their 30s and 40s, the average annual benefit cut would be around $3,500 a year—and the GOP's proposed changes wouldn't even extend the program's solvency.
"This independent, nonpartisan report shows just how devastating Republican plans to rip away hard-earned Social Security benefits would be for American workers," Boyle said last week. "Instead of saving Social Security by making the ultrarich pay their fair share, the GOP is hell-bent on gutting benefits for the middle class."
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Key Senate Panel Launches Probe of Big Oil-OPEC Collusion
Illegal coordination between oil companies and OPEC may have cost U.S. families thousands of dollars in higher costs for gas and other necessities.
Jun 27, 2024
Announcing a probe into potential efforts by fossil fuel companies to illegally coordinate with international oil producers in order to fix prices, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse on Wednesday wrote to 18 oil giants demanding that they turn over communications with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, commonly known as OPEC.
Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote to companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, weeks after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused the former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources Company of attempting to collude with OPEC.
Text messages, WhatsApp communications, and records from in-person meetings showed that Scott Sheffield tried to collude with representatives of OPEC countries to manipulate oil and gas production worldwide and raise oil and gas prices.
The commission made its discovery while reviewing a plan by ExxonMobil to acquire Pioneer in a $64.5 billion deal.
"The FTC's findings indicate that Sheffield and Pioneer may not have been the only individual or entity engaging in such collusive activities," wrote Whitehouse to the 18 oil giants, citing numerous examples.
"We're talking $500-1000 dollars of extra cost per year to Americans through direct and indirect effects of this conspiracy."
"In view of the findings against Sheffield, I seek to understand whether other oil producers operating in the United States may also have been coordinating with OPEC and OPEC+ representatives concerning oil production output, crude oil prices, and the relationship between the production and pricing of oil products," said Whitehouse.
Whitehouse called on the companies to provide communications between and among companies' corporate and affiliate officers and members of the OPEC Secretariat and OPEC+ concerning oil production output, crude oil prices, and the relationship between the production and pricing of oil products, dating from January 1, 2020 through the present.
The companies have until July 12 to provide the materials, the senator said.
Whitehouse noted that efforts by Sheffield and, potentially, other oil executives, to illegally coordinate oil production and prices with OPEC, may have had major, tangible effects on American families. He cited an analysis by the American Economic Liberties Project which found that "crude oil price-fixing schemes may have caused over 25% of the increase in inflation that hurt so many American families throughout 2021 in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic."
"Since the U.S. consumes 7 billion barrels of oil annually, the amount saved by shale oil drillers during their price war with OPEC was $140 billion to $210 billion a year," wrote Matt Stoller, the group's research director.
"Once that price war ended, presumably so did the savings," Stoller continued. "The cost itself is likely a lot higher because pulling shale off the market when demand spiked probably caused prices to increase by much more than $20-30 a barrel. Anyway, we're talking $500-1000 dollars of extra cost per year to Americans through direct and indirect effects of this conspiracy. This cost shows up most obviously in the form of more expensive gas, but higher oil prices increase the price of everything right down to potato chips because of gas being a primary cost in distribution of goods and services. For a family of four, that's two to four thousand dollars a year in higher costs."
Whitehouse wrote in his letter to the oil company that he was "concerned about the possibility that oil and gas companies could be engaging in collusive, anti-competitive activities with OPEC+ that would raise crude oil prices, resulting in higher costs not only for American families, but also for the U.S. government when it acquires crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve."
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'We Should All Be Angry' That Corporations Spent Trump Tax Windfall on Buybacks: Expert
"Corporations took their tax windfalls and spent a trillion dollars of it in 2018 on stock buybacks instead of on worker wages or innovation," said Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies.
Jun 12, 2024
An economic policy expert told the Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday that Americans should be outraged that large corporations funneled their massive gains from the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law into stock buybacks, further enriching executives and wealthy shareholders while skimping on worker pay.
"Whether you were for or against the 2017 tax cuts, I think we should all be angry that corporations took their tax windfalls and spent a trillion dollars of it in 2018 on stock buybacks instead of on worker wages or innovation," Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing titled, "Making Wall Street Pay Its Fair Share: Raising Revenue, Strengthening Our Economy."
Watch Anderson's testimony:
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) noted in an analysis earlier this year that during the first four years after former President Donald Trump's tax cuts took effect, the country's largest corporations collectively spent $2.72 trillion repurchasing their own shares—more than they spent "on investments in plants, equipment, or software that might have created new jobs and grown the economy."
In written testimony submitted to the Senate Budget Committee for Wednesday's hearing, Anderson pointed to data from the Congressional Research Service showing that U.S. corporations spent $1 trillion total on stock buybacks during the first year of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which took effect in 2018. That year, U.S. billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans for the first time in the country's history.
"S&P 500 firms alone spent $806 billion [on buybacks], a massive jump from the $519 billion they spent repurchasing stock in 2017," Anderson wrote. "Spending tax-cut windfalls and other profits on stock buybacks siphons resources from worker wages, R&D, and other productive investments that stimulate long-term growth. Analysts have documented the association between buybacks and worker layoffs, as well as reduced capital investment and innovation and wage stagnation."
In a Wednesday op-ed for Common Dreams, Labor Institute executive director Les Leopold pointed out that John Deere, for example, has spent $12.2 billion on stock buybacks over the last two years alone while simultaneously slashing hundreds of jobs and offshoring production.
Leopold blasted the practice as "a blatant form of stock manipulation that was illegal until deregulated by the Reagan administration."
"For too long, Wall Street lobbyists have wielded excessive power to shape our tax code."
Wednesday's hearing was held following fresh reports that congressional Republicans are gearing up to slash taxes for the rich and large corporations even further if they seize control of the Senate in November and Trump—the presumptive GOP presidential nominee—wins another four years in the White House.
Anderson urged senators to use the looming expiration of some provisions of the 2017 tax law as an opportunity for reforms that target corporations that pay their CEOs excessively, tax Wall Street speculation, and discourage stock buybacks. In her written testimony, Anderson noted that increasing the 1% excise tax on corporate stock buybacks to 4% would generate $238 billion in new federal revenue over the next decade.
"For too long, Wall Street lobbyists have wielded excessive power to shape our tax code in ways that allow this lucrative sector to pay far less than their fair share of all the public services and infrastructure necessary for a healthy economy," Anderson wrote. "Continuing the status quo—or returning to the pre-2017 tax code—will not be acceptable if we are to meet the public investment needs of our time and reverse our country's staggering economic and racial disparities."
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Big Oil Needs to Be Held Accountable for Its Climate Deception
Ultimately, the future of accountability for the fossil fuel industry is up to us.
May 02, 2024
Oil companies knew since the 1950s that their product was causing catastrophic climate damage. The industry never supported the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, despite their many public statements to the contrary. Companies like BP and Shell understood the dangers of methane emissions from ‘natural’ gas, but marketed it as a clean energy solution anyways. Over the last decade, the industry has spent over $700 million on university research to promote a lasting role for fossil fuels in our energy future. ExxonMobil’s security chief is “tracking” climate activists’ whereabouts, while the American Petroleum Institute monitors their social media feeds.
Those are just some of the revelations from a 65-page report released by the Senate Budget committee ahead of a hearing on Wednesday into Big Oil disinformation. The report is the culmination of a three-year investigation into the industry’s “denial, disinformation, and doublespeak,” an inquiry which the industry tried to stymie at nearly every turn, withholding information, resisting subpoenas, and then swamping the committee with over 100,000 pages of meaningless documents.
Despite the industry’s efforts, the report is a damning portrayal of Big Oil’s decades-long crusade to simultaneously block meaningful climate action while extracting more government support for false solutions like ‘natural’ gas (aka methane) and carbon capture and sequestration. Over the course of thousands of emails, top executives, lobbyists, and PR advisors debate how to lobby against important regulations, greenwash the industry’s reputation, shape university research agendas, and mislead the public about the threat of fossil fuels.
The fossil fuel industry isn’t going to give it up willingly. Which means that the next phase of the effort to hold Big Oil accountable is going to have to pursue the industry with sharper teeth.
And that’s all from the content they were willing to share, which begs the question: what did they decide to redact? If these are the documents the industry felt best represent their harmless day-to-day operations, what sorts of bombshells are they covering up? The committee’s report reads like the flickering of a flashlight in a dark basement, giving us a snapshot of the subterranean world of Big Oil deception, while raising the question, what else hides in these dark corners?
Whatever it is, the fossil fuel industry isn’t going to give it up willingly. Which means that the next phase of the effort to hold Big Oil accountable is going to have to pursue the industry with sharper teeth.
At the federal level, that means getting the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into Big Oil disinformation. Twenty members of Congress have already sent a letter to DOJ urging such an investigation and after this week’s hearing and report, pressure will only grow. What’s needed now is for President Biden and the White House to throw their weight behind the idea. Congress can also pay their part by pursuing a more aggressive “make polluters pay” agenda, taking up bills like a windfall profits tax, which would go after Big Oil profiteering, and the Polluter Pays Climate Fund, which would make the industry pay their fair share to deal with climate damages.
At the city and state level, we need to see more lawsuits to prosecute the industry for climate damages and disinformation. Over 30 cities and states have already filed suit, but with thousands of communities already paying the costs of extreme weather, sea level rise and other climate impacts, we could see hundreds of new cases in the years to come. Lawsuits aren’t the only tool at our disposal: five states are now pursuing “climate superfund” bills that would make Big Oil pay for climate impacts by contributing to a fund based on their share of historic emissions. Vermont could pass its version as early as this summer.
Ultimately, the future of Big Oil accountability is up to us. The fossil fuel industry has spent billions on its efforts to lull us to sleep with fairy tales about ‘algae fuels’ or ‘natural’ gas. This week’s hearing was another wake up call to the reality of their deception and lies. Let’s not let it go to waste.
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Senate Hearing Exposes Big Oil's 'Campaign of Deception and Distraction'
"Company officials will admit the terrifying reality of their business model behind closed doors but say something entirely different, false, and soothing to the public," Rep. Jamie Raskin said.
May 01, 2024
The U.S. Senate Budget Committee held a hearing Wednesday morning on the ongoing efforts of major fossil fuel companies and trade groups to delay climate action while deceptively painting themselves as part of the solution.
The hearing was based on an investigation launched by the House Oversight Committee in 2021 into the activities and communications of Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Chamber of Commerce. Both committees released the resulting report, Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil's Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change, on Tuesday.
"Our investigation uncovered compelling evidence of aggressive industry deceit which continues to this day," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said in his Senate testimony Wednesday. "The joint report and documents we discovered show how, time and again, the biggest oil and gas corporations say one thing for the purposes of public consumption but do something completely different to protect their profits. Company officials will admit the terrifying reality of their business model behind closed doors but say something entirely different, false, and soothing to the public."
"Policymakers and prosecutors must act swiftly to hold this rogue industry accountable for the climate chaos it has knowingly caused and bring its days of drill, deny, and delay to an end."
Raskin detailed key findings of the House investigation. The companies and trade groups:
- Made public pledges to abide by the Paris agreement that they internally acknowledged were impossible;
- Shifted from denying climate science to boosting natural gas and lying about being part of the solution;
- Publicized investments in low-carbon technologies that they internally admitted were unlikely to work;
- Depended on trade associations to promote their climate deceptions and lobby against effective climate action; and
- Used partnerships with academic institutes to greenwash their image while also influencing research and gaining access to politicians.
"Big Oil's corruption is even more far-reaching than we feared," Cassidy DiPaola, spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay campaign, told Common Dreams in response to the hearing. "This investigation exposes how these companies have not only lied to the public for decades, but infiltrated the halls of academia to peddle their climate disinformation."
Raskin gave several notable examples of corporate malfeasance from the House investigation. For example, while BP promotes its commitment to the Paris agreement on its website, it admitted in an email that "no one is committed to anything, other than to stay in the game." He also noted that ExxonMobil spent almost 50% of the amount it used for researching and developing algae as a biofuel between 2009 and 2023 on advertising its efforts.
Further, the companies did not cooperate with the investigation: They had to be subpoenaed to provide meaningful information, and they buried substantial documents in a "paper blizzard" of useless files like mass emails.
"If the companies had fully complied in good faith, who knows what else we might have uncovered?" Raskin asked.
In addition to Raskin, the Senate committee also heard testimony from Sharon Eubanks, the former director of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Tobacco Litigation Team; Geoffrey Supran, an associate professor of environmental science and policy and the director of the University of Miami's Climate Accountability Lab; Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and managing director of the Energy, Growth, and Security Program at the International Tax Investment Center; and Michael Ratner, a specialist in energy policy at the Congressional Research Service.
"As a scholar of disinformation, I do not use the word 'lie' lightly," Supran said during his testimony. "But no other word adequately describes the oil industry's brazen efforts to mislead the public about its history of misleading the public."
Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media said the hearing was a "huge deal, not just because of what it's revealing about Big Oil's history of climate deception, but because it's laying the groundwork for Congress to finally hold the industry accountable and make polluters pay."
Both speakers at the hearing and senators outlined various ways the industry might be held accountable. Raskin highlighted the similarities between Big Oil's lies about its products' impact on climate and the tobacco industry's lies about its products' impact on human health.
"More than 20 years ago, the Department of Justice brought a precedent-setting case against the cigarette companies," Raskin said. "That case liberated our minds from the tyranny of Big Tobacco and reverberated across America and the world. As a result, the public learned about the massive disinformation campaign waged by the tobacco industry; the companies were ordered to cease and desist their propaganda and to start telling the truth to the public; and governments and people around the world used the facts uncovered to battle the tobacco industry effectively for financial restitution and defense of the public health."
The possibility that the DOJ could bring a similar case against oil companies was reinforced by Eubanks, who told the Senate: "There exists solid evidentiary basis to move forward with a request to the Department of Justice to investigate the actions of the fossil fuel industry. Just as the Department of Justice investigated the tobacco industry and ultimately filed a civil racketeering complaint against the industry, given the similarities of the fraudulent acts, and the government's successful case against tobacco, there is adequate foundation for building a case."
In response, Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said, "It is time for the Department of Justice to step in and defeat Big Oil's efforts to withhold the truth from the American people."
Another avenue for accountability was laid out by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who spoke up in favor of his Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act, which would use science attributing carbon dioxide and methane emissions to specific companies to then charge those companies for their climate pollution, putting the funds to work for a just transition to renewable energy.
"The idea is simple: The companies who pollute the most, should pay the most," Van Hollen said.
Climate and good governance groups supported the move toward accountability.
"Policymakers and prosecutors must act swiftly to hold this rogue industry accountable for the climate chaos it has knowingly caused and bring its days of drill, deny, and delay to an end," DiPaola told Common Dreams.
David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Climate Program, said of fossil fuel deception, "It's criminal conduct, and our leaders and legal system should treat it as such."
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) pointed out that it is now possible to attribute rising temperatures, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and more frequent and extreme wildfires to the extraction and burning of oil, gas, and coal.
"This joint congressional investigation is an important step toward ending the fossil fuel industry's lies and obstruction of critical climate action," Kathy Mulvey, the accountability campaign director in UCS' Climate and Energy Program, said. "The internal industry documents released to the public and the testimony at this hearing add to the already considerable mountain of evidence illustrating misconduct by fossil fuel corporations and their surrogates. We urge policymakers and public prosecutors to move expeditiously to pursue accountability through every means at their disposal."
"We're getting to the point where it may be politically possible to actually take on the bad guys."
Reflecting on the hearing on his Substack, Bill McKibbenpointed to another important development it represented: a shift in the attitude of senior Democrats toward fossil gas, which both Raskin and Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) noted was not as clean as the industry pretended. In the past, Democratic leaders including former President Barack Obama had promoted the idea that gas could be a bridge fuel because it emits less carbon dioxide than coal when burned. But new evidence revealing how much methane its production leaks belies this claim.
"The fossil fuel industry desperately wants to lock in more dependence on fracked gas while they still can—that's why they reacted with such white-hot anger to the Biden administration's pause on permits for new [liquefied natural gas] export facilities earlier this year," McKibben wrote. "But the hope raised by today's hearing is that—if [President Joe] Biden wins reelection—that pause may become permanent, and the expansion of natural gas will finally be halted, recognized for the deep peril that it is."
While the Biden administration has so far focused on promoting renewable energy rather than reducing fossil fuel production, with measures such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the hearing showed that "we're getting to the point where it may be politically possible to actually take on the bad guys," McKibben said.
Indeed, Raskin did not mince works as he concluded his testimony. He referenced Jared Diamond's book Collapse and its assertion that one contribution to a civilization's demise is "the capture of political and social power by a narrow subset of society, which is committed to its own profit and power rather than the common good of the whole society and therefore refuses to take the steps necessary for collective survival."
"Big Oil's campaign of deception and distraction undermines the efforts we need to mobilize our people and government to save our climate, our habitat, and our species," Raskin said. "Unless the deception ends, and until the industry is held accountable, we are unlikely ever to be able to muster the national political will to effectively tackle climate change."
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Infections and Falls More Likely at Private Equity-Owned Hospitals: Study
Patients at hospitals acquired by private equity firms saw a 25% increase in adverse events, new research shows.
Dec 27, 2023
A study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that patients are more likely to fall or suffer infections at hospitals owned by private equity firms, whose role in the U.S. healthcare system has grown exponentially in recent years.
The study uses Medicare claims data from between 2009 and 2019 to compare patient complications at private equity-acquired hospitals and control facilities not owned by private equity. Dr. Sneha Kannan, a critical care physician and the study's lead author, told The New York Times that she was surprised by the extent of the difference between the two.
Patients at private equity-owned hospitals saw a 25.4% increase in adverse events such as falls and dangerous central-line bloodstream infections in the three years after the acquisition, according to the new study—even though the private equity hospitals analyzed in the paper tended to have younger and lower-risk patients.
"Surgical site infections doubled from 10.8 to 21.6 per 10,000 hospitalizations at private equity hospitals despite an 8.1% reduction in surgical volume; meanwhile, such infections decreased at control hospitals," the study shows.
The results indicate that the quality of inpatient care is significantly worse at hospitals owned by private equity firms, which are notorious for bleeding companies dry for a quick profit at the expense of workers and local communities. Over the past decade, private equity companies have dramatically extended their reach in U.S. healthcare, purchasing physician practices, hospice care facilities, nursing homes, and hospitals.
"It's now a familiar story: Private equity buys out a hospital, saddles it with debt, and then reduces operating costs by cutting services and staff—all while investors pocket millions."
The new study in JAMA offers the latest evidence of the private equity industry's increasingly harmful effects on the U.S. healthcare system, which already leaves tens of millions of people uninsured and vulnerable to medical and financial disaster.
A report released earlier this year by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen notes that "private equity has targeted segments of the healthcare industry since at least the 1990s, with many predictable outcomes."
"Among them, shocking lapses in safety have occurred, prices have risen faster than at non-private-equity-acquired entities and patients have been subjected to price gouging schemes," the report states. "The conflict between providers' obligations to provide the best care and private equity investors' insatiable appetites for maximized provides is clear."
The new peer-reviewed study was published just weeks after the Senate Budget Committee launched a bipartisan investigation into the negative impacts of private equity ownership on U.S. hospitals.
"As private equity has moved into healthcare, we have become increasingly concerned about the associated negative outcomes for patients," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), chair of the budget panel, said in a statement earlier this month.
"From facility closures to compromised care, it's now a familiar story: Private equity buys out a hospital, saddles it with debt, and then reduces operating costs by cutting services and staff—all while investors pocket millions," the senator added. "Before the dust settles, the private equity firm sells and leaves town, leaving communities to pick up the pieces."
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Senate Budget Chair Rips GOP Deficit Hawks Over Trillions in Tax Cuts for Rich
"If not for the Bush tax cuts, their extensions, and then the Trump tax cuts, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio would be declining indefinitely," wrote Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
Dec 08, 2023
The Democratic chair of the Senate Budget Committee rebuked his Republican colleagues on Thursday for demanding action to reduce the U.S. debt after adding roughly $10 trillion to it with tax cuts for the rich and large corporations.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) was responding to a letter he received earlier this week from Republican members of the budget committee, who criticized the chair for dedicating "significant time and attention to climate issues" while purportedly neglecting "the impending budgetary and fiscal crisis facing our nation."
In a written reply, Whitehouse noted that "if not for the Bush tax cuts, their extensions, and then the Trump tax cuts, the U.S. debt-
to-GDP ratio would be declining indefinitely."
The Bush administration's decision to launch the so-called "war on terror"—which received bipartisan support in Congress—also cost the U.S. upwards of $8 trillion, Brown University's Costs of War project has estimated.
Whitehouse described Republicans' proposed solutions, such as their balanced budget plan, as "magical thinking," pointing to the Congressional Budget Office's recent conclusion that the GOP push to balance the federal budget within the next decade would not be possible without cuts to Social Security and Medicare—programs that are currently in the right-wing party's crosshairs.
"That wild notion would zero out all other federal spending and still not completely eliminate the deficit," Whitehouse wrote, observing that the GOP balanced budget plan would require the elimination of Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and other critical programs.
"Some billion-dollar corporations pay no income taxes at all. When you are willing to engage seriously with this problem, let me know."
Whitehouse also defended his decision to focus a significant portion of the committee's work on climate, arguing that "the next fiscal emergencies will be climate-related, and similarly disastrous for the federal budget, with cascading economy-wide 'systemic risks.'"
The U.S. has faced at least 23 billion-dollar extreme weather disasters this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee are currently investigating the climate-induced insurance crisis.
"We presented testimony from leading bankers, insurance CEOs, top corporate advisory firms, mortgage lenders, and scientists about these risks; you responded mostly with mockery, climate denial, and fringe witnesses on the fossil fuel payroll," Whitehouse wrote Thursday.
The Democratic senator's exchange with his GOP counterparts came as Republicans and some Democrats are demanding a "fiscal commission" to craft legislative changes to the nation's trust fund programs, which the GOP has characterized as key contributors to the national debt. (Social Security is not a driver of federal deficits.)
Critics warn the fiscal commission would be a Trojan horse for Social Security and Medicare cuts.
Whitehouse and other congressional Democrats have proposed legislation that would extend Social Security's solvency for more than 75 years by raising taxes on the wealthy. Republicans, for their part, have called for raising the retirement age while working to shield rich tax dodgers.
"As we all know, the tax system is corrupted by special interests, and million-dollar earners can pay lower tax rates than plumbers and firefighters," Whitehouse wrote Thursday. "Some billion-dollar corporations pay no income taxes at all. When you are willing to engage seriously with this problem, let me know. There is a revenue side to the deficit problem, and we can correct injustices at the same time."
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Sen. Ron Johnson Argues Against Rich Paying Fair Share to Ensure Social Security's Survival
The Wisconsin Republican millionaire accused working-class Americans of "getting a lot more in return" from the key social program than rich people who pay disproportionately less into its coffers.
Jul 12, 2023
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson came under fire Wednesday after the multimillionaire Wisconsin Republican asserted during a Senate hearing that Social Security—an economic lifeline for tens of millions of Americans who paid into the system throughout their working lives—unfairly takes from wealthier people to support lower-income retirees.
Speaking during the Senate Budget Committee hearing—entitled Protecting Social Security for All: Making the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share—Johnson said that his Wisconsin constituents "have a basic misconception about Social Security."
Johnson—one of the wealthiest U.S. senators, according to the watchdog OpenSecrets—derided Social Security, a key New Deal program, as a "nanny state" scheme enacted because the government doesn't trust Americans to save for retirement on their own.
"Most people think, 'Well, that's my money,' and, in fact, part of it is," the senator continued. "If you're in a low-income group, you're getting a lot more in return than you invested in... If you're in the high-income, you're not getting what you paid in."
Patient advocate and cancer survivor Peter Morley tweeted Wednesday that "Sen. Ron Johnson is a LIAR and it was clear from today's hearing that he is a defender of the rich and not for the people!"
Johnson previously called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" in one of many attacks on the program upon which around 66 million Americans rely.
Further arguing during Wednesday's hearing that Social Security was not meant to be a "general welfare system," Johnson turned to Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) executive director Amy Hanauer—who testified that "our tax system raises far too little from those with the most"—to ask what he called "a very simple question."
"Out of every $1 of income that any American makes," he queried, "how much should be the maximum amount the government takes out in total?"
"I think we should think about the kind of country we want to have," Hanauer began to reply before Johnson interrupted her to demand an answer as "a percent."
"You know, we had 400 billionaires who paid less than an 8% tax rate, so more than that," she asserted. "It strikes me that in a society where the wealthiest are getting more and more of our income, they can afford to chip in more to maintain the systems that enabled them to build that wealth in the first place."
Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) followed Hanauer's response by opining that "it would make a very big difference to me in how much should be taxed on a dollar of income whether it was the first dollar of income of an individual or their billionth dollar of income."
On Tuesday, the Social Security Administration's Office of the Chief Actuary published an analysis showing how Democrats' Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act could extend the social programs' solvency for generations by increasing taxes on incomes over $400,000.
Another bill introduced earlier this year by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Val Hoyle (D-Ore.) would boost monthly Social Security benefits by at least $200, prolonging the program's solvency for decades by lifting the cap on the maximum income subject to Social Security payroll tax.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has announced the creation of a fiscal commission tasked with finding ways to reduce the national debt, warning last month that he was "going to make some people uncomfortable" by looking at cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
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