Jim Hightower

Peg CeeCee knows that it's not enough to work hard in these perilous financial times, but you also have to work smart. And that's exactly what she's doing on behalf of American taxpayers.

Well, not us common taxpayers, but uncommonly-rich ones. They are "private equity" hucksters who make fabulous incomes by using other rich people's money to take over corporations, fire thousands of employees, sell off chunks of the entity, and siphon out profits for themselves and their rich investors. Also, Peg CeeCee is not a person, but PEGCC, the acronym for a lobbying group called the Private Equity Growth Capital Council.

PEG is hard at work on Capitol Hill to protect its wheeler-dealer members (including their national poster boy, Mitt Romney) from having their taxes hiked. Incredibly, their tax rate has been a mere 15 percent, lower even than what teachers and factory workers pay. But now, with Congress threatening to whack Social Security and Medicare, these privileged ones can't justify their low rate and are in danger of being treated (oh, the unspeakable horror of it!) like commoners.

PEG knows that last year's exposure of Romney's private equity profiteering and tax dodging has made the continuation of such pampering politically untenable. So, this year, the group is smartly shifting from outright opposition to minimization of any "burden" on their phenomenal wealth. Raise the rate just a little bit, their lobbyists are quietly telling lawmakers, and delay the implementation of the increase so our lawyers can carve out loopholes and build more escape hatches, such as offshore tax shelters and phony corporate fronts.

What's on display here is the raw selfishness of the entitled rich. To keep up with their tax-dodging scams, connect with Citizens for Tax Justice www.ctj.org.