Posted on 05/30/2006 11:20:11 AM PDT by boryeulb
The Senate should reject President Bush’s nomination of Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson for Treasury secretary. Under Paulson’s leadership, Goldman Sachs participated in ethically, and perhaps legally, questionable business practices. Paulson also supports the economy-killing Kyoto Protocol and has demonstrated little respect for private property rights.
On the ethical front, Paulson has refused to answer questions about his apparent use of Goldman Sachs’ corporate assets to advance his personal interests. In 2002, Paulson used at least $35 million of shareholder money to help environmental groups stop a “sustainable forestry” project in Tierra del Fuego, Chile. Environmental groups had delayed the project for years—to the point where financial stress on the project developer became acute and forced the sale of the land. Goldman swept in and bought the land, promptly turning it over to Paulson’s environmental allies.
The environmental groups involved in the transaction included The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the actual recipient of the land donation from Goldman Sachs. At the time of the transaction, Paulson was a member of the board of directors of TNC—after the transaction he was elevated to chairman. Paulson’s son is now listed on tax returns as a “trustee” of WCS’.
When I confronted Paulson with these accusations at the March 31, 2006, annual shareholder meeting, Paulson and Goldman Sachs attempted to deny the involvement of TNC in the “land steal.” At a very minimum, however, tax records indicate that Goldman Sachs paid TNC more than $144,000 in consulting fees related to the transaction. Moreover, the TNC acknowledges the WCS as one of its “organizational partners.”
On the legal front, the Washington Post reported just last week that Goldman Sachs participated in transactions with scandal-ridden Fannie Mae that “that improperly pushed $107 million of Fannie Mae earnings into future years. The aim, [said federal regulators], was always the same: To shape the company’s books, not in response to accepted accounting rules but in a way that made it appear that the company had reached earnings targets, thus triggering the maximum possible payout for executives…”
Aside from the potential ethical and legal issues surrounding Paulson, he has decidedly anti-economy and anti-property rights leanings.
Paulson supports economy-killing global warming regulation. Paulson transplanted TNC’s pro-Kyoto position into Goldman Sachs, an investment bank with no known expertise in climate science. Now Goldman Sachs not only supports greenhouse gas regulation, but has said it will lobby for such policies. No doubt this will be much easier, with Paulson as Treasury secretary.
Private property owners should also be unhappy with Paulson’s nomination. Paulson’s TNC is the world’s richest environmental group with $3 billion in assets and is a major opponent of private property rights.
A series of Washington Post articles in May 2003 exposed the Nature Conservancy as more than just a “land bank.” In the past it has also acted as a broker of too-sweet-to-be-true land and business deals for wealthy insiders and corporate supporters, often at taxpayer expense.
In one scheme reported by the Post, “…the Conservancy bought raw land, attached development restrictions and then resold the land to state trustees and other supporters at greatly reduced prices. Buyers then voluntarily gave the Conservancy charitable contributions roughly equivalent to the discounts, sums that were written off from the buyers’ federal income taxes. The deals generally allowed the buyers to build homes on the land.”
As Treasury secretary, Paulson will be in charge of the Internal Revenue Service. Should he be in charge of the government organization that has oversight over any tax problems that TNC might have?
With a Republican administration and Republican-controlled Congress in trouble for abandoning conservative principles and a scandal-ridden Washington, Hank Paulson as Treasury secretary is the wrong choice at the wrong time. Since the politically tone-deaf President Bush is unlikely to withdraw Paulson from consideration, it will be up to the Senate to do the right thing.
Mr. Milloy is executive director of the Free Enterprise Education Institute. He publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
I see your point, but the problem is that he can't seem to be able to keep his separate roles separate. See my link in post 25.
"NEW YORK - Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Henry "Hank" Paulson Friday defended the firm's environmental policy and his role as chairman of the Nature Conservancy, saying they don't interfere with the global investment bank's performance.
Last year, Goldman established an environmental policy, vowing to take steps to protect forests and curb development that boosts emissions of greenhouse gasses. The firm pledged to invest US$1 billion in renewable energy, form an environmental think tank and post research on environmental issues. "
The "Tail-gunner" is one of my favs too!
Venona completely vindicates his crusade against the commies.
FDR's WH was crawling with them.
cLooney wouldn't admit the truth - ney, he has sought to perpetuate Hollywood's lies even today.
I am afraid I have come to the conclusion that W, except for the tax cuts that keep the golden goose in egg laying, er, revenue laying condition, just what else has he done that shrinks Govt one iota? DHS, Katrina, Medicare, Ed w/Ted, NSA? One could argue some of the agendas adressed by them are worthy of consideration, but whole new depts and congress spending on that which was never the Fedl Govt's right?
I voted for W twice, but am beginning to feel more like Bartlett does in being duped. If it's to appease the "Moral Majority"; Hayek, RWR's favorite economist, always claimed conservatives were no less statist than the Dimbulbcrats, just oriented in a slighty different direction, but highly overlapping towards more nanny statism, that we thought we elected W to diminish as a continuation of RWR.
No RWR he.
http://www.worldtwitch.com/citigroup.htm
Corporations (think BP and all their ads for alternative fuels and lowering carbon emissions) often take public positions that lower shareholder value to stave off high-profile boycotts and other negative publicity.
Remember also how many corporations have paid money to jesse jackson's crowd just to deflect public criticism by these same groups.
I don't know too much about this guy, but the fact that Chuck Schumer backed him within a hour of his nomination, is cause for concern.
Sounds like an Al Gore kinda guy ;)
"This place has gone completely looney!!"
With you leading the charge.
You can disagree with the president, sinkspur, the world won't implode.
With all due respect, that's the silliest thing I've heard in a long time. Bush is attempting to get the rates made permanent. Even the Republican Congress won't go along with eliminating the death tax and making cap gains cuts and rate cuts permanent.
I also think that position is very telling.
I'd bet my mother that Paulson will not fight for permanent long-term tax reform, be it a flat tax, NRST, or any other option that limits the preferences to the companies run by his friends in the liberal social world.
That was my reaction. Why didn't the adminstration get someone like Phil Gramm who everyone knew and respected? I can't believe this global warming and private property stuff. What is President Bush thinking? How did this happen? I don't want to overreact. Hopefully Tony Snow will be able to give GOOD reasons why this choice makes sense.
"I don't know too much about this guy, but the fact that Chuck Schumer backed him within a hour of his nomination, is cause for concern."
Senator Schumer is ecstatic with this selection. His words:
"His experience, intelligence and deep understanding of national and global economic issues make him the best pick America could have hoped for."
Reagan never made government smaller. In fact, he grew it, with another cabinet position, that of Veterans Affairs.
No president has reduced the size of government since Coolidge did it in 1925.
The American people don't want smaller government. If they did, they'd elect people to shrink it.
The Congress won't go along because the public is not behind it. The public is not behind it because Bush Sr and Jr have so muddied the issue that higher taxes now sound better than lower taxes to a huge number of Americans.
I do disagree with him, about ridiculous agricultural and ethanol subsidies. In fact, I dislike subsidies of any kind.
You, on the other hand, disagree with Bush about EVERYTHING. You seem to be at the wrong website.
Paulson's a caretaker. Bush couldn't get tax reform pushed through in his last two years if he had a veto proof Senate and 275 Republicans in the House.
Paulson's been an enviroweenie for years and years, no new news here. I had not known, though, that he evidently appropriated shareholders' assets to fund his delusional maunderings. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at all.
Won't stop me from calling for his conduct to be thoroughly aired in the hearing -- but I rather doubt it will be.
Phil Gramm likes what he's doing, teaching economics at Texas A&M and working as a consultant, being on some boards, making some money.
He didn't make $29 million last year, like Paulson, and likely can't afford to go back to work for a government salary in a lame duck administration.
Nacht der langen Messer
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