John Delaney–Out of Touch
To read Rep. John Delaney’s (D-MD6) campaign materials, you might think the two-term Congressman is a regular guy. But in truth, Delaney and his wife, April McClain- Delaney are the one percent elite, an ambitious political couple making names for themselves in national circles. They made their wealth on foreclosures, nursing homes, small business loans at high rates and healthcare. The Delaneys have used Maryland District 6 as their access to the national elite and as a stepping stone to higher office either in the Senate or the Maryland Governor’s Mansion.
In 2011, former Governor O’Malley re-drew Maryland Congressional lines to favor Democrats, including newly re-drawn District 6 to include small but dense parts of predominantly Democratic Montgomery County, to suppress the influence of larger but more sparsely populated rural, blue collar working class counties, Allegany, Garrett, Washington and Frederick. Not only does Rep. Delaney fail to represent the majority of District 6, but he also lives outside of it, splitting time between a Capitol Hill house in Washington D.C. and his Potomac mansion in Maryland.
There is no doubt that the Delaneys have had an ambitious approach to politics. Redistricting created the opportunity. As Len Lazarick for the Washingtonian reported: “The congressional redistricting spurred them to action, even though their home is two-tenths of a mile outside the 6th District. At one point, April McClain- Delaney says, she told her husband: “If you don’t run for this seat, maybe I will.”
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As her husband fends off speculation that he will run for Governor, Mrs. Delaney serves as Washington Director of San Francisco based Common Sense Media.
Montgomery County Schools has recently accepted a grant from the Delaney Family Fund to allow Common Sense Media to run a middle school program on cyber civility. The program is intended to teach students how to be “better digital citizens” and includes four hours of instructions a year on the following issues: privacy, digital drama, reputation , internet safety and information literacy. For now, MCPS have started with middle schoolers, but the program will extend to grades 3, 4, 5, 9 and 10 next year, and include all grades by 2018. Though the Delaneys have no first-hand experience with MCPS as their daughters attended prestigious private schools in Washington, D.C. area, the program was provided free of charge to MCPS.
Common Sense Media was founded by Jim Steyer. Jim Steyer, and his billionaire brother, Tom Steyer are politically connected players with Clinton ties. Tom Steyer made his money as the founder of the Farallon Capital Management hedge fund and a friend from the 90s of Congressman Delaney. In fact, back then, Steyer financed Delaney’ ventures. Now, Common Sense Media, has partnered with the Clinton Foundation. And Steyer has become the face of a joint project with the Clinton Foundation focused on low-income babies and toddlers called “Too Small to Fail.” “Too Small to Fail” has ties to Univision, the leading Spanish-language network, which pledged to feature its work on its TV and radio shows. Univision is owned by billionaire Haim Saban, who has repeatedly expressed his support for a Hillary Clinton presidency and vowed to work with his “full might” to make that happen.
The Delaneys and Common Sense Media even show up in the Podesta emails recently released by WikiLeaks. A year ago, Mrs. Delaney circulated an invitation and email to her Common Sense Media cocktail party at Delaney’ Capitol Hill home where she invited DNC staff to, “stop by this event at the house and pick up some materials related to this study and also to meet again our CSM team” and she goes on saying, The study focuses on the use of media by Tweens and Teens (*e.g*. differences in technology use between girls and boys, the means by which technology is differently utilized according to social and economic factors.)
Congressman Delaney has been pushing some radical bills that would hurt the American economy, middle class and poor. Just to name a few: Partnership to Build America Act (“money laundering vehicle”) and State Choice Act (taxing air).
The Partnership to Build America Act didn’t move through Congress in 2014, but he re-introduced it again in 2015. Though styled as an infrastructure bill, it didn’t pass because his bill would have major implications on the entire tax system. His “infrastructure” bill would have given even more incentives for major multinational corporations to evade taxes and bring back their earnings through Delaney’s “money laundering vehicle” bill that banks like Delaney’s would benefit. Under Delaney’s bill, an American Infrastructure Fund (AIF) would be created that would be “funded by the sale of $50 billion worth of Infrastructure Bonds which would have a 50-year term, pay a fixed interest rate of 1 percent, and would not be guaranteed by the U.S. government.” According to the Economic Policy Institute, it would require the federal government to grant 70-100 billion of tax breaks to multinational corporations. “To meet the $50 billion funding goal through the bills’ proposed mechanism would require the federal government to grant about $70 billion to $100 billion in tax breaks to multinational corporations.”
In May of 2014, Delaney introduced an innocent sounding “State’s Choice Act” that would have given “states the option of imposing a state-level excise tax on carbon emissions” in order “ to generate new revenue”. Already familiar with high rates from his banking days, he wants to tax the air at the following rate: an “ initial rate of the state excise tax at $20 per metric ton of carbon-dioxide-equivalent emission and increase the fee annually at a rate of 4 percent points above the rate of inflation.”
One thing is clear Rep. Delaney is right at home among the Washington elite. Our public schools are deteriorating from the Common Core program in schools that the elite never send their kids to. It is time to retire this out of touch couple send them back to their choice of homes, either on Capitol Hill or Potomac.
Photo from Zimbio.com website
