Liberal in the Land of Conservative

Until all appeals are exhuasted, we should not seat either Franken or Coleman. This has been a contentious election to say the least, with cries of fraud from both sides. Our state election officials, and party leaders both in Minnesota in the Senate, must put public trust above partisan motivations. That means avoiding the appearance of trying to rush the final judgment. The legal appeals will be exhausted soon enough, and we will have sitting Senator.

"They're both at fault," Barkley said. "This meltdown, they both did it. They're both asleep. Democrats wanted everyone to have a house whether they could afford it or not so they looked the other way. And Republicans, their Wall Street buddies were getting rich so they looked the other way. And look what we got. We got a mess."

There are three fundamental flaws in our current system for encouraging retirement savings.

First, it doesn't work effectively for nearly half of American workers who have no employer-sponsored retirement plan – 1.2 million workers in Minnesota.

Second, saving for retirement is far too complicated. Even when workers are given the option of joining employer-based plans, many do not take it because it is incredibly difficult to enroll, let alone to research the details of various plans and investment portfolios. And when they leave a job, they cannot take their retirement account with them.

Third, the system is upside-down and backwards. Because our current savings incentives are based on tax deductibility, a wealthy employee in the 35% tax bracket gets 35 cents for every dollar he or she saves, while an employee in the 10% bracket receives only 10 cents (and an employee who pays no taxes gets nothing). It is therefore no surprise that of the nearly $200 billion a year we spend to encourage retirement savings, about half goes to the top 10% of earners, while 10% goes to the bottom 60%.

Al's plan:

• Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act. Right now, FMLA covers employers with 50 or more workers. Al would extend it to cover firms with 25 or more workers – thereby offering its benefits to 13 million additional workers. In addition, he would support innovations such as expanding it to cover leave to care for aging loved ones and offering parents up to 24 hours of leave per year to participate in academic activities at their children's school.
• Create a State Innovation Fund for family leave. The goal is to ensure that every state has its own paid leave program – tailored to the unique needs of each state – by 2016. To achieve this goal, Al proposes a $1.5 billion per year innovation fund to help states offset start-up costs and costs for employers. This proposal would help the millions of private-sector workers in Minnesota who currently do not enjoy paid family leave.
• Provide paid parental leave for all federal workers to set a good example.

What would it cost?
Al Franken's plan will cost roughly $1.5 billion per year. Franken would pay for the cost of his plan without increasing the deficit by devoting a portion of the revenue raised from ending tax breaks for companies moving jobs overseas.

Al's plan:

• Increase funding through the Child Care and Development Block Grant to help working families make ends meet.
• Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit to cover 35% of child care expenses for families earning up to $100,000 – and make the credit fully-refundable up to $500. More than half of Minnesota families with children would be eligible to take advantage of this more generous credit, and a great many more would be eligible to take advantage of existing incentives.
• Create a $2,000 Caregiver Credit for any individual with substantial long-term care needs or to his or her caregivers – that covers more than a third of the average costs to caregivers. The credit will not require families to engage in any complicated accounting of their out-of-pocket costs. It will be phased out for families earning more than $150,000. This new credit would help more than 100,000 Minnesota residents and families.
• Create a Family Flexibility Credit for the many Minnesota businesses who want to help their employees make ends meet. This credit would reward companies that provide family-friendly benefits, such as child care assistance or the opportunity to telecommute. Al would provide up to $1,200 per employee to cover expenses associated with making these benefits available. The credit could also be applied to company policies that help families address the long-term care needs of aging loved ones.

What would it cost?
The total cost of Al Franken's Kitchen Table Tax Relief Plan is approximately $6.5 billion per year. Franken would pay for the cost of his plan without increasing the deficit by dedicating money from implementing the GAO's recommendations for reducing improper federal payments; by enacting anti-tax-shelter reforms; and by closing the tax loophole that allows investment managers to use offshore tax havens to defer paying taxes on the money they earn.

“The current financial crisis threatens each and every one of us. I am supporting the Senate’s bipartisan financial stabilization package because the cost of inaction is simply too high. Doing nothing would threaten the financial security of every Minnesotan, as credit would freeze, loans would become unavailable, home values would continue to fall, jobs would be lost and retirement accounts would suffer. We must ensure the availability of capital, which is the key to our economy. This bipartisan plan will meet my chief concerns of protecting American taxpayers and holding Wall Street accountable by ensuring no blank checks, limiting executive compensation, ending golden parachutes and increasing needed oversight of the tax dollars being spent. I understand some concern remains over this bill, but I believe this action is needed to ensure our economic strength and vitality in both the short and long term.” Senator Norm Coleman

Norm Coleman has also been working to address the current challenges facing our economy, including high gas prices, the housing crisis and the rising cost of food. These challenges are sending ripple effects throughout our economy and Minnesota families are feeling the squeeze.

Norm was proud to support the bipartisan economic stimulus package in order to put money back into the pockets of working Minnesota families and encourage economic growth through small business tax incentives.

Additionally, Coleman is continuing to lead efforts to reduce our addiction to foreign oil through a number of measures including drastic expansion of domestic renewable fuels, increased mileage requirements, deep-water drilling off of U.S. coasts, and increased production of nuclear, clean-coal and additional domestic energy resources. Click here to read more about Senator Coleman’s work to make the U.S. more energy independent.

He is actively working to address the housing crisis through a number of initiatives, including making mortgage debt tax-free and reforming the Federal Housing Administration to enable more homeowners to obtain safer mortgages. And this past summer he voted for the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, which provided relief to veterans facing foreclosures as well as $4 billion in Community Development Blog Grants to assist communities hit hard by the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

As Mayor of St. Paul, Norm Coleman made it his number one priority to create quality jobs for hardworking Minnesotans. As your U.S. Senator, he's again made it his top priority to create jobs, grow the economy, and help more Minnesota families achieve their American dreams.

After his election in 2002, Norm immediately got down to business and worked to enact landmark tax cuts that provided critical relief to working middle class families and spurred an economic recovery including a record 52 straight months of job growth.

In 2010, many of the President's tax relief provisions are set to expire, resulting in an unacceptably heavy tax burden on Minnesota's hardworking families. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1,000 to $500, couples will be hit again by the marriage penalty, fixed-income seniors will face higher taxes on their retirement incomes, and the dreaded death tax will come back to hit small family-owned businesses.

As your U.S. Senator, Norm Coleman will fight to make the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent so you can keep more of your hard-earned money and help grow the economy.

Since his arrival in Washington, Norm Coleman has worked to help Minnesota taxpayers by supporting critical tax relief and fiscally responsible budgets. In an effort to protect Minnesotans from high taxes and runaway spending, Norm has voted against reckless tax-and-spend budgets, which would result in an unacceptable tax burden on the average taxpayer. He will continue to oppose wasteful Washington spending and the tax increases proposed to pay for it. As the top Republican on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator Coleman has led the way on exposing $81 billion in waste, fraud and abuse of government spending of taxpayer dollars, returning billions to the Treasury already.