Wow. Seriously. If you ever wondered if we are making progress, you must check out Mike Sommers’ Letter to the Editor from the Washington Post HERE.
If you remember, the Patriotic Millionaires introduced you to Mike Sommers earlier this year. Until a few months ago, Mike was the Chief of Staff to Speaker Boehner. Now he is a handmaiden for an industry that spends millions corrupting our country’s public policy process.
In February, Mike took on a new (very lucrative) job as president of the Private Equity Growth Capital Council, THE industry lobbying group in charge of keeping the carried interest loophole open. In a futile attempt to fix their increasingly tarnished image, the PEGCC has changed their name to now be the American Investment Council… But this rose still smells.
Does anyone actually believe that recharacterizing carried interest is “discriminatory and ill-advised”? Does anyone believe that a tax loophole that benefits a few thousand private equity .01 percenters is “encouraging American entrepreneurial risk-taking”?
This argument actually makes me embarrassed for them.
Our Chair Morris Pearl challenged Mike Sommers to a public debate and Mike has not yet responded. If this is the best argument he’s got, that was probably exactly the right decision.