The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Friday, March 20, 2009 - 3 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Friday, March 20, 2009 - 3 NEWS BRIEFS WASHINGTON 13 companies getting bailout money owe back taxes At least 13 companies receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 mil- lion in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said yesterday. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., chair- man of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout, said two companies owe more than $100 million apiece. "This is shameful. It is a dis- grace," said Lewis. "We are going to get to the bottom of what is going on here." The House Ways and Means sub- committee on oversight discovered the unpaid taxes in a review of tax records from 23 companies receiv- ing the most money, Lewis said as he opened a hearing on the issue. The committee said it could not legally release the names. of the companies owing taxes. It said one recipient of bailout money had almost $113 million in unpaid fed- eral income taxes from 2005 and 2006. A second recipient owed almost $102 million dating to before 2004. Another was behind $1.1 million in federal income taxes and $223,000 in federal employ- ment taxes. CAMP BUCCA, lraq Many Iraqis held by U.S. to go free Thousands of Iraqis held with- out charge by the United States on suspicion of links to insurgents or militants are being freed by this summer because there is little or no evidence against them. Their release comes as the U.S. prepares to turn over its deten- tion system to the fledgling Iraqi government by early 2010. In the six years since the war began, the military ultimately detained some 100,000 suspects, many of whom were picked up in U.S.-led raids during a raging, bloody insurgency that has since died down. The effort to do justice for those wrongly held to begin with, some for years, also runs the risk of releasing extremists who could be a threat to fragile Iraqi security. As part of an agreement between the two countries that took effect Jan. 1, Iraqi authorities have begun reviewingthecases ofthe detainees to decide whether to free them or press charges. About 13,300 remain behind barbed wire in U.S. custody in Iraq. DALLAS Dallas school accused of staging fights The Dallas school system was rocked by allegations yesterday that staff members at an inner-city high school made students settle their differences by fighting bare- knuckle brawls inside a steel cage. The principal and other employ- ees at South Oak Cliff High knew about the cage fights and allowed the practice to continue, according to a 2008 report by school system investigators. "More than anything, I'm in shock and disbelief - shocked that this could ever occur and shocked that it would be condoned by a professional administrator," said Jerome Garza, a member of the Dallas school board. The report, first obtained by The Dallas Morning News, describes two instances of fighting in an equipment cage in a boys' locker room between 2003 and 2005. It was not clear from the report whether there were other fights. WASHINGTON Rethinking the math around buying a used vehicle For cash-strapped consum- ers shopping for a car, used would seem like the place to start. Not necessarily. A new one might actu- ally be cheaper. Consider this: The average cost of a used 2008 Honda Accord EX sedan, certified by the dealership, was $21,544 earlier this month, according to Edmunds.com, a car- buying Web site. A new 2009 model cost $80 less. It's simple supply and demand. With new car sales at a 27-year low and desperate dealers piling on rebates and incentives, prices are plummeting. At the same time, demand is up for used cars and their values are rising. - Compiled from Daily wire reports Vets push for more university support An AIG office building is shown yesterday in New York. AfterosesHouSe passes bill1 taxing AIG Bill imposes 90 percent tax on employee bonuses WASHINGTON (AP) - Denouncing a "squandering of the people's money," lawmakers voted decisively yesterday to impose a 90 percent tax on millions of dol- lars in employee bonuses paid by troubled insurance giant AIG and other bailed-out companies. The House vote was 328-93. Similar legislation has been intro- duced in the Senate and President Barack Obama quickly signaled general support for the concept. "I look forward to receiving a final product that will serve as a strongsignalto the executives who run these firms that such compen- sation will not be tolerated," the president said in a statement. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, told colleagues, "We want our money back now for the tax- payers. It isn't that complicated." The outcome may not have been complicated. But the lopsided vote failed -to reflect the contentious political battle that preceded it. Republicans took Democrats to task for rushing to tax AIG bonus- es worth an estimated $165 million after the majority party stripped from last month's economic stimu- lus bill a provision that could have banned such payouts. "This political circus that's going on here today with this bill is not getting to the bottom of the questions of who knew what and when did they know it," said House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio. He voted "no," but 85 fellow Republicans joined 243 Democrats in voting "yes." It was opposed by six Democrats and 87 Republi- cans. The bill would impose a 90 percent tax on bonuses given to employees with family incomes above $250,000 at American Inter- national Group and other com- panies that have received at least $5 billion in government bailout money. It would apply to any such bonuses issued since Dec. 31. The House vote, after just 40 minutes of debate, showed how quickly Congress can act when the political will is there. It was only this past weekend that the bailed-out insurance giant paid bonuses totaling $165 million to employees, including traders in the Financial Products unit that nearly brought about AIG's col- lapse. AIG has received $182.5 billion in federal bailoutmoney and is now 80 percent government-owned. Disclosure of the bonuses touched off a national firestorm that both the Obama administra- tion and Congress have scurried to contain. In a statement issued by the White House late Thursday, Obama said the House vote "right- ly reflects the outrage that so many feel over the lavish bonuses that AIG provided its employees at the expense of the taxpayers who have kept this failed company afloat." "In the end, this is a symptom of a larger problem - a bubble-and- bust economy that valued reckless speculation over responsibility and hard work," he said. "That is what we must ultimately repair to build a lasting and widespread prosper- ity." In his statement, Obama did not explicitly endorse the House bill. Instead, he was careful to take a wait-and-see attitude on the details of the final legislation while making clear that he supports the effort to get the bonus money back for taxpayers. Topic No. 1 raised by Repub- licans during the House debate was the last-minute altering of a provision in Obama's $787 billion stimulus law to cap executive com- pensation for firms receiving gov- ernment bailouts. The measure might have forestalled payment of the AIG bonuses. But Senate Banking Commit- tee Chairman Chris Dodd, a Con- necticut Democrat and the author of the provision, says the admin- istration insisted that he modify his proposal so that it would only apply to payments agreed to in the future. That, critics claim, cleared the way for the AIG payouts. "The idea came from the admin- istration," Dodd said Thursday Dodd said he was not aware of any AIG bonuses at the time the change was made. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner confirmed such conver- sations with Dodd. He said the administration was worried about possible legal challenges to the pro- vision. Student veterans say colleges play central role in return to civilian life By DEVON THORSBY Daily StaffReporter The transition from high school senior to college freshman can be pretty tough - harder classes, moving into the dorms and sepa- ration from parents and family. But for US veterans, who are more used to the rigors of the battlefield than the classroom, the jump is exponentially different. Two student veterans spoke yesterday about the ways in which universities can help those who have served in combat and now must make the quick change to life as college students. The speech was part of the seventh annual Depression on College Campuses Conference, hosted by the Univer- sity's Depression Center. The talk focused on the need for campus organizations to provide student veterans with the emo- tional support and connections to other veterans who have been in and are facingsimilar situations. Bryan Adams, who served as an army sniper in Iraq from 2004- 2005 and is now a junior at Rutgers University, spoke about the dif- ficulty of the transition between military life and college life, which can easily lead to depression. "I would go out and try to have a good time, and one negative thought would pop into my brain," he said. "My whole attitude would change." Adams, who is president of Rut- gers Veterans for Education, added that many student veterans have similar feelings when they transi- tion back to civilian life. "It's a natural reaction to an abnormal circumstance." Adams emphasized the need for cooperation between veterans entering universities and the com- munity as a whole to aid student veterans' success. "There needs to be an under- standing of the nature of the con- flict and the nature of the problem that student veterans are facing," he said. Adams pointed out that many universities lack comprehensive programs that offer guidance for veterans in their shift to college life. Derek Blumke, who served in Iraq as an aircraft electrician and maintenance supervisor in the Air Force and is now an LSA junior, also discussed the diffi- cult switch between active duty and student life and the need for campus-wide understanding of the difference between the mili- tary and college. Citinginsensitive questions from fellow students and professors as a source of difficulty adjusting well to college life, Blumke, co-founder and president of Student Veterans of America, stated that there needs to be a level of sensitivity toward topics concerning military life. "We're not faulting people for being curious, just be aware of the situation," he said. Both Adams and Blumke work in their respective universities as well as on a national level to advo- cate for student veteran groups on college campuses. Their work focuses on bringing student vet- erans together to ensure they do not feel alone in their experiences, something both say they have felt personally in the past. "I need to take my experience and transfer it into a positive thing for myself and my fellow veterans," Adams said. Blumke and Adams added that they hope their experiences in the military will help them to make a difference. "We want to make changes, not just for ourselves, but for society as a whole," Blumke said. In this image reviewed by the U.S. Military, a Guantanamo detainee, seen through a glass window, sleeps ona mattress on the floor of his cell, at Camp 5 detention facility, at the U.S. Naval Base, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Nov. 19, 2008. Ex-Bush administration official: Many at Gitmo are innocent WANT TO DESIGN FLASH GRAPHICS FOR THE DAILY? E-MAIL GRACA@MICHIGANDAILY.COM FOR MORE IN FORMATION. FRIDAYS Domestic Bottles are only -eef¢t to- UosB S70 Ma wdSt -7$4.99b~OWO £ ocdelgd xtotlAe tM wa , I $Stwtufe I S 1 7 1 2 4 5 6 4 8 9 6 4 5 4 3 8 7 9 2 6 27 3 1 1 6 9 9 1 2 3 6 Wilkerson says some Gitmo detainees have been there six or seven years SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncom- batants, a former Bush administra- tion official said yesterday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years." Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communi- cating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were inno- cent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide informa- tion for a "mosaic" of intelligence. "It did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was cap- tured on or near the battle area, he must know something of impor- tance," Wilkerson wrote in the blog. He said intelligence analysts hoped to gather "sufficient infor- mation about a village, a region, or a group of individuals, that dots could be connected and terrorists or their plots could be identified." Wilkerson, a retired Army colo- nel, said vetting on the battlefield during the early stages of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan was incompetent with no mean- ingful attempt to determine "who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation." Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on Wilkerson's spe- cific allegations but noted that the military has consistently said that dealing with foreign fighters from a wide variety of countries in a wartime setting was a complex process. The military has insisted that those held at Guantanamo were enemy combatants and posed a threat to the United States. In his posting for The Washing- ton Note blog, Wilkerson wrote that "U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vet- ting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released." Former Defense Secretary Don- ald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney fought efforts to address the situation, Wilkerson said, because "to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership."