Do you wonder (like I do) what the tax accountants and executives are doing over at GE this weekend? Frantically rushing to fill out their IRS returns like the rest of us?
Hardly. They're taking the weekend off to throw themselves a big party and have a hearty laugh at all of us. It must really crack them up to see us like suckers scurrying around to make sure we report everything to Uncle Sam -- and even send him a check, if necessary.
The joke's on us, folks. GE and tons of other corporations will have a tax bill for 2010 of ZERO. GE had $14.2 billion in profits in 2010. Yet they will contribute NOTHING to the federal government while every last dime is soaked from us.
In the latest budget deal, our politicians could have tackled the deficit by stopping the flow of these ill-gotten billions to corporations. Instead they cut billions from "wasteful" programs that do "wasteful" things, like create new jobs, drive economic growth, and help the needy and our nation's children. It's democracy in reverse and it sickens me.
GE spends $20 million a year to lobby Congress to throw themselves this party. But do you know what speaks louder than $20 million? 20 million votes! 20 million people, and more, standing together and taking to the streets. That starts now, with you.
This coming Monday, April 18th, is Tax Day -- and that's the day when "we the people" will demand our country back from these corporations in events all across the country. You can find the nearest event to you here.
MoveOn members -- along with union, community, and environmental allies -- will gather outside the headquarters and local offices of the biggest corporate tax dodgers to deliver tax bills from the American people. And we'll demand that our leaders make these corporate deadbeats pay.
We're doing this because we don't buy into the Big Lie: that greedy teachers caused the crash on Wall Street! That the selfish firefighters sent millions of jobs overseas! That pregnant woman, infants, and children are sending us into deficit!
No, it was the big corporations that did this. It was the CEOs and the top 1 percent of the country. THEY brought on the mortgage crisis. THEY made off with trillions of dollars from our economy. THEY are systematically destroying the middle class. And THEY have bought and sold the very people elected to represent us!
On Monday, we will have something to say to Exxon, Chevron, and the big banks that crashed our economy and got billions in bailouts, like Citigroup and Bank of America, who pay little or no federal income tax. In fact, the IRS will likely give them a tax REBATE. If that doesn't boggle your mind then nothing will.
The Tax Day events are about sending this message: We are coming after you, we are stopping you, and we are going to return the money, jobs, and homes you stole from the people. This is your tipping point, Corporate America. And I, for one, am glad it's going to happen this Monday.
If you've never been to an event like this before, this is the time. And don't go alone, because none of us can win this fight by ourselves. Plus, it's more fun and exciting to go along with friends and family to be part of real democracy in action -- not the store-bought kind Big Business gets on Capitol Hill.
I really hope you can make it. This is our chance, my friends. Take the time on Monday to make your voice heard. I can guarantee you I will. Please join me.
P.S. In case you missed this story in yesterday's New York Times: "In Financial Crisis, No Prosecution of Top Figures." It exposes how the leaders in both parties made sure no one on Wall Street was going to jail after the collapse of 2008.
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End corporate welfare.
And what "progressives" NEVER own up to is THEY LOVE CRONYISM, IE government manipulation in everybody's face, SO LONG AS THEY RUN THE GOVERNMENT, AND GET THE RESULTS THEY WANT!
And what "progressives" NEVER realize is that, if they're NOT in charge of the government, they cannot get the outcomes they so desperately insist on.
And finally, what "progressives" TOTALLY ignore in their quest for earthly nirvana is COMPETING IN THE OPEN MARKETS, letting us all make choices for OURSELVES, they offer their own menu without cramming it down our throats!
Were "progressives" in the latter mindset, they would ELIMINATE the income tax and all its IRS-enforced crony loopholes; and go for a CONSUMPTION TAX, a national sales tax; tax people when they SPEND, let 'em earn as much as they can and want (say, wouldn't that unleash GROWTH, the main component for raising government revenues, since historically revenues are around 18-20% of GDP REGARDLESS of tax policy?), have a "prebate" given by the government to EVERYBODY annually that equals the national poverty level, so the poor pay NO TAXES, or very little, compared to the evil rich.
Now, doesn't that, or something like it, make sense??
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Lobbying is useful in that it provides elected officials with information that they woud not otherwise receive. It is truly amazing how little some of our elected officials know about some of the issues that they vote on and promote.
Instead lets make this change - any company that receives a contract of any kind from city, state and federal government must pay 90% of all gross profit in taxes. Eliminate the carrot and the hogs will go elsehwere.
Evidence for my argument is all over the place, agree??
Why is it that Democrats are the ones against tax reform?
Every time a Republican floats the idea of a flat tax or a fair tax (both of which would eliminate loopholes), it's Democrats who kill it before it even gets started.
You know what? I'll answer the question for you. The Democrats are against tax reform for two reasons. 1) as it is, the tax code allows them to demonize "the rich" and get people emotionally riled up to vote for them. If there was a flat tax or fair tax, Democrats couldn't use the tax code as a political wedge. 2) as Howard Dean admitted, Democrats are in the pocket of lawyers. That includes tax lawyers. Democrats don't want to reform the tax code because it will eliminate the jobs of some of their biggest and most consistent donors.
Tax reform should not always mean lowering taxes.
A Flat tax does not impact ever tax payer the same; so even though the number is the same it is not equal.
But let's stick with the rich and ask a few questions. Politicians, news media people and leftists in general entertain what economists call a zero-elasticity view of the world. That's just fancy economic jargon for a view that government can impose a tax and people will behave after the tax just as they behaved before the tax, and the only change is more government revenue. From Walter Williams. "Tax the rich good luck with that"
According to IRS statistics, roughly 2% of U.S. households have an income of $250,000 and above. By the way, $250,000 per year hardly qualifies one as being rich. It's not even yacht and Learjet money.
All told, households earning $250,000 and above account for 25%, or $1.97 trillion, of the nearly $8 trillion of total household income. If Congress imposed a 100% tax, taking all earnings above $250,000 per year, it would yield the princely sum of $1.4 trillion. That would keep the government running for 141 days, but there's a problem because there are 224 days left in the year.How about corporate profits to fill the gap? Fortune 500 companies earn nearly $400 billion in profits. Since leftists think profits are little less than theft and greed, Congress might confiscate these ill-gotten gains so that they can be returned to their rightful owners.
Taking corporate profits would keep the government running for another 40 days, but that along with confiscating all income above $250,000 would only get us to the end of June. Congress must search elsewhere.
Along with maintaining modest tax increases, begun by Bush Sr., he also passed a 'regressive' tax increase. He added a small tax to every gallon of gasoline. Democrats were not happy about this, knowing that commuters and working poor were making up a large percentage of this tax base. But it helped our budget. And what did Republicans do after that? We didn't revoke the increase; it didn't stop - Instead we gave $400 billion of it to the super rich. So now we are all chipping in an extra couple cents per gallon of gas ...to give to the wealthy.
Return the tax rates to that of the 1950s.
And reduce the military budget to what Eisenhower would have been comfortable with.
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
And something we always seem to forget as we romanticize the Clinton era...it went out with a recession due to high tax rates and the bursting of the dot.com bubble! Bush lowered tax rates and the worst of the Clinton recession was averted.
Heckuva job there Rubin
Cut the Corporate base tax rate to somewhere between 20-25% (this is the sop to the Conservatives) Create a Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax of 5% of Profits. This would mean GE (for example) would pay $730 Million on their $14.6 Billion profits,
Would like to see a CBO score on this.This'll be great for small businesses.
Do you not comprehend human behavior? If you are BP and the government tries to take an extra 100 million in taxes from you, are you simply going to go to share holders and say "Gee, I'll guess we'll make 100 million less this year." ?? NO you are going to say "that's nice, now gasoline is 4.75 a gallon instead of 4.65"
Get a clue dude! You are living in a dream world! The government will NEVER attain more than 18% GDP. Even when Eisenhower taxed top income earners are 90% the government couldn't breach the 20% of GDP revenue mark, because people are not going to sit back and let the government take their money. It never has worked that way and never will. That's why liberals are musicians and artists and Republicans are business people.
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The "Supply and Demand Economy" appears to have served us well. But has it?
Over the last few decades we've accumulated annual federal budget deficit (1.6 Trillion), and a total federal debt (15.5 Trillion), State and Local debt 3.5 Trillion, and federal govt's unfunded pension obligations (3.5 T) which includes 2.6 Trillion owed to Social Security Trust fund.
Additionally, there's corporate debt and personal debt which alone is 13.4 Trillion. Dollar costs does not factor human (individual/ family) and social cost of buy, borrow and spend. We are like a dog running around a lamp-post trying to catch its tail.
To a stranger, this picture would be asenine. For many the above is a larger version of "Ownership Society" which permitted Americans to own a home on borrowed capital and use the same home to borrow even more. As we know, this collapsed like a 'house of cards' have an estimated 3 Trillion dollar cost both here and abroad.
The "Supply and Demand" is not sound economy. It's a "bubble economy" only sustained (if one can use that term) by "boom and bust cycles."