Becket Adams @ The Blaze:
Austan Goolsbee, former economic adviser to President Barack Obama, last week deleted a confusing tweet explaining his 2010 claim that Koch Industries pays no corporate income taxes.
The claim against billionaire philanthropists Charles and David Koch “was made at the same time that top Democrats, including President Obama himself, were demonizing Charles and David Koch, the owners of Koch Industries, for giving money to Tea Party groups,” the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack writes.
“Goolsbee’s remark led to a federal investigation, the results of which have never been released,” he adds.
But now that the Internal Revenues Service has come out and admitted to targeting conservative groups during the 2012 election, Goolsbee’s mysterious command of what should have been private tax information has come under scrutiny once again.
Koch Industries lawyer Mark Holden disputed Goolsbee’s smear in 2010, arguing that it simply wasn’t true. But Holden wondered whether someone in the Obama White House was illegally leaking personal tax information.
McCormack provides the details:
The White House never formally explained how it came up with the claim, but an anonymous White House official told Ben Smith, then a reporter at Politico, that the claim was based on testimony to President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and publicly available sources, such as Forbes magazine and Koch Industries’ website.
Koch lawyer Mark Holden said the White House’s explanation didn’t make sense: ”[C]ontrary to the administration official’s statement on what sources were used by the administration, neither the Koch website nor Forbes’ list of private companies has information regarding Koch’s tax filing status. This is confidential information.”
At GOP Senator Chuck Grassley’s request, Treasury inspector general J. Russell George investigated whether the Kochs’ personal tax information had been leaked.
“But after the investigation was completed, George wrote in an October 2011 letter to Senator Charles Grassley that, due to confidentiality provisions of the law, he could not tell Grassley if anyone had illegally accessed Koch Industries tax returns or if the inspector general had taken any actions following his investigation,” McCormack explains.
The only members of Congress who have access to confidential tax information are the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee (Sen. Max Baucus) and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (Rep. Dave Camp). Neither of them has commented on the IG’s Koch report.
So until we see the IG report, the questions remains: Where did Goolsbee get his information?
The former economic adviser tried to answer that question earlier this month by tweeting the following:
@joerepublic1 there was no secret info on koch bros. It came fr/heresptimes.com/2003/12/28/Sta… but was a mistake–one of the other Koch bros.
— Austan Goolsbee (@Austan_Goolsbee) May 14, 2013
But if you click on the link provided in the now-deleted tweet, it takes you to a 2003 story about a different Koch brother who pays no corporate income tax in the state of Florida.
Yeah, it’s not about Charles and David Koch.
Enjoy a different opinion form a masters presentation in theology:
Idolatry: One of the underlying issues that ties in with most of the areas that we may be counseling for is the sin of idolatry. While the likelihood that a counselee will walk in and declare he or she is seeking help because they are worshipping an idol is extremely low, most of the times, this is in fact the case. Why does this pursuit of idols cause depression, anxiety or the other issues that the counselee is struggling with? Proverbs 13.12 tells us, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” If one’s hope is placed in an idol, fulfillment will never come, only the heartbreak of having one’s hope unmet. Therefore a person seeking after an idol will be emotionally, spiritually and possibly physically struggling. It is important to see that their heart is leading them to seek after this idol. This emphasizes the need for the counselor to patiently dig deep into the heart and to point them to the fear of the Lord rather than following the desires of their heart that lead to sin and destruction.
Money: While idolatry is an overriding issue that the counselor is confronted with, this idolatry takes many forms and many of these forms are addressed by the writer of Proverbs. Money is one of the most prevalent idols that we see in life. Proverbs addresses money in over one hundred verses. In drawing the divide between the righteous and the unrighteous, Proverbs 18.10-11 says “the name of the Lord is a strong tower” for the righteous, but “the rich man’s wealth is his strong city…in his imagination”. As the writer continues, he goes on to say that destruction will follow a prideful heart. Later, the writer comments on the fleetingness of wealth (27.24). Here is the principle of hope deferred makes the heart sick. A man that places his hope
in his wealth will never have his hope realized but the man that places his hope in God will have it fulfilled.
Proverbs goes far beyond the idolatry of money as well. We have a whole theology
Another prevalent money issue within our world is debt. The world and the church in most instances have abandoned Proverb’s instruction on debt. Proverbs 22.7b tells us that “the borrower is the slave of the lender.” The worldwide financial crisis is a testament to the truth of this statement. So many, even within the church, are beginning their adult lives with vast amounts of debt. This may include school loans, credit card bills and car payments. As life continues, more credit card bills and a mortgage are added to this debt. While all debt may not be bad, this is an agreement to be entered into with much deliberation. Proverbs says the man who enters into a pledge “lacks sense” (17.18). This debt comes with a heavy price tag. More than anxiety, it is a chain that keeps the believer from being able to follow anywhere. That anywhere is now limited to anywhere there is enough money to pay off the debt burden. The movie “Thank you for smoking” understood this. The main character went through many examples of people that sought money by unethical gains. He contributed it all to the need to “pay the mortgage”. While this is not the sole reason for financial sin, it can be a contributing factor. If a counselee comes in with large amounts of stress and anxiety or with a completely financial outlook, the counselor needs to dig deeper. Debt may be holding the counselee captive. Beyond addressing debt directly, the writer of Proverbs focuses on living within one’s means. In his poetic way, the writer says that it is better to be seen as poor but have money for a servant than to appear rich and be unable to eat (12.9). Living within one’s means includes the view that all belongs to the Lord and is to be used accordingly (3.9-10). Because there are so many different temptations with money, a counselor must be hesitant before drawing conclusions. As we will continue to discuss in other areas, the counselor must ask questions and draw a picture of the true issue before challenging can begin. Often, money may be the symptom but the issue goes even deeper.