From a rally in Scranton, Pa., Sunday, as reported in a “Morning Edition” segment on NPR today, “Clintons Campaign for Obama in Scranton,” a shouting Senator Biden (.mp3): 

It is unpatriotic to take $100 billion offshore and not pay your taxes. That is UNPATRIOTIC! So I don’t need a lecture on patriotism. I’ve had it to here!

Senator Obama has cosponsored legislation, S. 1945, to designate “Patriot Employers.” Introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and cosponsored by a leading trade opponent and labor ally, Sen. Sherrod Brown, the bill has been summarized by CRS:

Patriot Employers Act – Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a taxpayer certified as a Patriot employer by the Secretary of the Treasury a tax credit for one percent of such employer’s taxable income. Defines a “Patriot employer” as any taxpayer who: (1) maintains its headquarters in the United States; (2) pays at least 60% of the health care premiums of its employees; (3) observes a policy requiring neutrality in employee organizing drives; (4) maintains or increases the number of its full-time workers in the United States relative to its full-time workers outside of the United States; (5) provides full differential salary and insurance benefits for all National Guard and Reserve employees called to active duty; and (6) provides its employees with a certain level of compensation and retirement benefits

In a post last February, we commented on a speech by Senator Brown where avoided talking about some of the tough issues raised by the idea of “Patriot Corporations”: ” We would have liked to hear how following a set of government dictates about business practices, wages and benefits, labor-management relations and investment plans should qualify a company as a ‘Patriot Corporation,’ eligible for income tax breaks. And it would have been very interesting to hear Sen. Brown’s thoughts about designating a company a ‘Not a Patriot Corporation.’”

Well, at least we now have Senator Biden’s thoughts on the matter. If a U.S.-based corporation, i.e., a business operating in the global economy to serve customers all over the world, reacts to the high corporate tax rate and U.S. tax code’s perverse incentives  by keeping some of its earnings offshore, then it is an “Unpatriotic Corporation.”

We appreciate Senator Biden making the implicit so explicit: Some U.S. businesses and executives are unpatriotic and we will use the tax code to punish them while at the same time excoriating them from the White House’s bully pulpit.

Got it.

The Examiner newspaper editorializes today on the tort reform records of the presidential and vice presidential candidates, asking a question of great interest to the business community: “Will either party’s presidential ticket keep a lid on the lawyers’ greed?”

The editorial uses NAM’s “Key Vote” voting records to assess Sens. Obama, McCain and Biden, taking special note of the most striking record — Biden’s. Of the 13 votes on tort reform and legal issues rated by the National Association of Manufacturers over the last four Congresses, Sen. Biden voted with the trial lawyers all 13 times. For business and the consumers, in other words, an 0-for-13 record.

And for the top of the ticket? From the editorial:

Obama’s Senate voting record is briefer but no less worrisome. The only time he voted right was on the Class Action Fairness Act, which makes it harder to move suits from state to state in search of a particularly lenient judge. That bill passed the Senate with a 72-26 bipartisan majority, so Obama’s vote made no difference. Before the final vote, however, he voted three times for “poison pill” amendments that would have eviscerated the bill’s effectiveness.

John McCain voted with the reformers nine of the 13 times cited by NAM, but occasionally sided with the trial lawyers on “patients’ rights.” His record gives evidence of a more balanced, case-by-case approach. Sarah Palin, meanwhile, comes from the state that the Pacific Research Institute ranks as having the second most favorable legal climate in the country. That’s one reason businesses like locating in Alaska — much as they will more frequently choose to come to the United States if we elect a president who understands the need to stop class-action lawsuit abuses while the rest of the world goes the other way.

You can see the NAM voting records legal reform here:

• Obama
• Biden
• McCain

The American Enterprise Institute’s Ted Frank has also written on the subject of Sen. Obama as a tort reformer, examining his votes on the Class Action Fairness Act. From the Examiner, “How bipartisan is Obama?”

Roger Parloff, legal writer at Fortune, posts a seven-part series on State Farm’s pursuit of once-titanic, now-imprisoned trial laywer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, “State Farm v. Scruggs updates.” Scruggs went after State Farm for failing to spend even more money in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but how he did it…

In overview, in the unsettled remnants of the suits against State Farm that were originally brought by Scruggs (now being handled by other counsel, obviously), State Farm now alleges that Scruggs manufactured portions of his case against State Farm; induced State Farm insiders to violate their contractual duties; illegally broke into State Farm’s password-protected computer database; tampered with his own witnesses’ or clients’ computers to destroy evidence; compensated witnesses in unethical ways; violated one court’s injunction; and violated another court’s confidentiality orders….[snip]

While one judge has already found Scruggs in civil contempt for violating an injunction (a ruling now on appeal) and another has found that he did, in fact, compensate witnesses unethically, most of State Farm’s other accusations remain far from proven.

Normally we go to Insurancecoverageblog for Scruggs/State Farm updates, but this looks to be a useful overview. We do see that Sen. Biden’s campaign donated Scruggs-related contributions to charity before the Delaware Senator accepted the vice presidential nomination.

(Hat tip: Walter Olson)