To the delight of giant corporations these days, the deck is stacked in their favor, and the Republican Party is doing everything they can to stack the deck even further. Republicans want to lower their taxes, protect their subsidies, and allow them to run hog wild, unrestrained by regulations to protect consumers from their predation. For the rest of us, Republicans are sabotaging the economy. Lets see how stacked the deck is and how Republicans are hurting the 99%.
If you needed evidence that corporate tax rates are far too low and large corporations receive far too many tax benefits, look no further than the new study just published by Citizens for Tax Justice.
CTJ undertook a study of the 280 largest companies in the United States to see what they actually paid (or didn’t pay) in taxes. From their press release:
“These 280 corporations received a total of nearly $224 billion in tax subsidies,” said Robert McIntyre, Director at Citizens for Tax Justice and the report’s lead author. “This is wasted money that could have gone to protect Medicare, create jobs and cut the deficit.”
30 Companies average less than zero tax bill in the last three Years, 78 had at least one no-tax year.
Financial services received the largest share of all federal tax subsidies over the last three years. More than half the tax subsidies for companies in the study went to four industries: financial services, utilities, telecommunications, and oil, gas & pipelines.
U.S. corporations with significant foreign profits paid tax rates to foreign countries that were almost a third higher than they paid to the IRS on their domestic profits.
That $224 billion number is really significant. If we were to extrapolate that into a ten-year number to compare with CBO analyses of various revenue proposals, it would be an expenditure of about $750 billion over a ten-year period. Imagine that. We wouldn’t have to worry about Medicare cuts or deep cuts to discretionary spending if those tax preferences were rolled back… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>
I encourage you to click through to the rest of this story.
At the same time Republicans are sabotaging our economy, both by obstructing demand stimulus on the national level and by forcing our government workers, teachers, police and firefighters into the ranks of the unemployed, thereby shedding public sector jobs to offset private sector job growth. Ed Schultz exposes this hypocrisy with Robert Reich.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
That chart Ed used to show how Republicans are gutting public sector jobs is so important that I found it for you to reference. Think how much better off we’d be if Republican Governors and state legislatures not fired these important people to give more money to millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals, like the Koch brothers.
Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!
11 Responses to “A Stacked Deck for Giant Corporations”
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What I’d love to see is a breakdown of these 78 corporations that PAID NO TAXES FOR AT LEAST ONE YEAR showing how many jobs they have shipped overseas.
Nameless, the top linkj in the article will take you to the study page, where you can D/L the full report in PDF format.
Here’s a parody of another bumper sticker that the GOP should understand:
Thou shalt not steal! The Government doesn’t like competition!
Funny, isn’t it, that when the RepublicanTs talk, they don’t mention any of this? They continue to blame our deficit on the middle class, the poor, retirees and disabled.
Their meme is: “Please don’t tax the “job creators, we have to cut entitlements”. They are intent on destroying a once great country with their obstructionism. Do you think they realize they are destroying the entire world’s economy and culture?
Too bad all these corporate “persons” don’t use their tax savings to invest in America’s future. I find it strange that they don’t mind paying taxes to foreign countries and not a dime for the USA.
And to make it worse, they have a $2 trillion pile of cash. Producing more will not help. The problem is demand side, not supply side.
Off topic: I thought that you should know about this though. Another vet was brutally beaten by the OPD and Alemeda Sheriff’s Department this week. If this keeps up all the veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan War are going to be out in force supporting the OWS movement.
I don’t think that these cities and states want to be fighting veterans who can kick some serious *ss if provoked.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/11/5/11548/8319
LINK to KTVU.com video showing the beating and Kayvan Sabehgi with police before he was arrested.
Have a great day TomCat.
Thanks AP. For future reference there is an Open Thread every day specifically for off topic items.
That is shameful!
FOREIGN job creators—-there-now the Republicans can use this corrected version to speak the truth!
Welcome, Anne. 🙂
I could not have said it better.
Karoli, Crooks & Liars —“This report debunks the myth that lower taxes create jobs. If you look at the industries with the lowest taxes, they’re also the industries that have contributed to the unemployment rate, not the other way around. I’m waiting for Republicans to admit that…and I’ll probably wait a long time.”
Something that the rest of us knew all along!
The GOP has selective listening and selective disclosure. They are only going to disclose what will make people madder than hell at Mr Obama, making it a one sided story. Reich is spot on. These corporations are nothing more than blood sucking leaches, draining the life blood of the American economy.
I see that big bolt of lightning from a few weeks ago aimed squarely at some Republican/Teabagger ass and ready to strike!
Quite right, Lynn. They have to know what they are doing, but they only admit it when they think nobody is paying attention.