SEIU on loopholes and the banks

This post is substantially a re-blog of a post by Hannah Hoffman, who blogs about the state workforce for the Statesman Journal.  She provides this SEIU press release issued on May 22 about a demonstration at the state capital to be held on the following day.

State workers and care providers to Kitzhaber: “Get Oregon’s money back”
Hundreds expected at capitol rally to demand that banks, corporations pay up
SALEM, Ore. (May 22, 2013)—Hundreds of state workers, publicly funded care providers and other concerned Oregonians will march up the capitol mall tomorrow to demand an end to corporate tax loopholes and big bank malfeasance. The march will take place amid one of the more bitter state budget battles in recent memory--a budget fight in which public employee benefits have been a popular scapegoat on both sides of the aisle.
"Our state economy has been dealt a one-two punch, and politicians want to blame it on the guy lying on the mat," said Keary DeBeck, a state worker at the Department of Justice and co-chair of the SEIU 503 bargaining team. "First Wall Street banks threw our economy into recession through fraud and corruption, then corporations stagnated recovery by fighting tooth and nail against paying their fair share of taxes. And how do politicians respond to their unchecked greed? Give away more corporate tax loopholes, turn a blind eye to the banks, overcrowd our schools, underfund vital services, and go after the benefits state workers have sacrificed for."
According to a recent analysis by Service Employees International Union, Wall Street banks have stolen at least $110 million from Oregon by manipulating London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) interest rates. The LIBOR scandal is among the largest financial frauds in history. It has impacted virtually every Oregonian, from kids in overcrowded classrooms, to new graduates suffocating in student loan debt, to seniors retiring into poverty.

Tomorrow, hundreds will march up the capitol mall to demand that the legislature close corporate loopholes, and Gov. Kitzhaber use the full power of his office to go after Wall Street banks and get Oregon's money back.