News Flash: Oct. 1, 2001

How low can they go?

Fiberglass industry keen to tack their corporate-killer-relief legislation onto tragedy-induced economic stimulus package.

Word on the street has it that Owens Corning and other asbestos/fiberglass manufacturers will try to slip their asbestos killers' tax relief bill, formerly known as HR 4543/S 2955, into an economic stimulus package prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist acts which brought so much pain and suffering to New York, Washington and all of the free world.

In technical jargon, this bill extends the carry-back on net operating losses beyond the 10-year limit currently in law, to include all of the years in which asbestos-containing products were sold. In plain English, this bill is a way to get taxpayers to help payoff the billions in asbestos health injury claims faced by Owens Corning and other notable asbestos manufacturers, such as the giant W.R. Grace company and Armstrong World Industries.  These companies have all filed bankruptcy in the last year as the claims from their dying workers and their families piled up.  This bill will bring these moribund companies back to life by giving them a transfusion of money from the public treasury, paid by them in common, lawful business taxes over the past 50 or so years, all at a time when the country's budget surplus has all but disappeared.

These corporate killers are Washington savvy.  They know their bill can never pass on its own.  Their only hope is to slip it into a package which is so popular that only a terrorist sympathizer would vote against it.

"An industry-focused bill like this would not typically pass on its own," explained one insider.  "It has to be attached to a more comprehensive piece of legislation.  Congress is seriously contemplating enacting an economic stimulus package in the next few weeks.  While members of Congress are by necessity focusing on matters arising from the Sept. 11 tragedy that has affected us all so deeply, we are working diligently to have our bill included in that economic stimulus bill."

According to one source, 133 nimrods who got themselves elected to Washington, including 10 Senators, think it's a good idea to tap the treasury to pay off greedy corporations which killed their workers and their customers, and have agreed to co-sponsor the bill.  Can you say "campaign contributions?" 

FIN knows these gigantic companies have the resources to pay their victims.  Instead, they'd rather spend millions on lawyers to fight these cases, to delay cases until the defendants die, and to intimidate the injured. And, they have the nerve to ask for your help in doing this.  FIN says, let them pay their own bills.

HR 4543/S 2955 are some of the most egregious examples of corporate welfare to surface in years.  Be sure to write your elected representative to find out where they stand.  Then, tell them what you think.

Sponsors of the corporate-killers tax relief legislation:

• Senators:  Mike DeWine (Ohio-R), George Voinovich (Ohio-D), Orrin Hatch (Utah-R) and Pat Leahy (Vermont-D) (Coincidence that this is Owens Corning's home state?)
• Representative Henry Hyde and at least 92 other cosponsors from both parties.