$137 Billion in Tax cuts for Corporations - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Booboo · 10-22-2004, 12:36 PM

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101604L.shtml

Quote:

A Little Patriotic Sacrifice
By Bill Moyers
t r u t h o u t | Feature

Saturday 16 October 2004

There are moments when you see suddenly crystallized in a particular event, a threat to democracy as ominous as the smoke rising from Mt. St. Helens.

This week it was that enormous payoff to big corporations by their subjects in Congress. I say payoffs advisedly. Business elites provide politicians with the money they need to run for office. The politicians pay them back with a return on their investment so generous it boggles the mind. That legislation enacted this week is worth $l37 billion in tax cuts for corporations. One company alone - General Electric - will receive over $8 billion, despite earnings last year of over $15 billion. Many companies - Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, Eli Lilly, among others - have been parking profits overseas rather than bring them back to America where they are taxed. So Congress has now blessed them with a one-time "tax holiday" during which they can bring home the bacon at about one-seventh of the normal tax rates.

These plums are usually couched in such language they would defy a Delphic oracle to interpret them - all the more to hoodwink us. What's behind those hieroglyphics in Section 713, Subsection A and B, Page 385? Why, a multimillion dollar windfall to Home Depot for importing ceiling fans made by serfs in China. And that little clause written in Sanskrit so tiny it would take a Mount Palomar telescope to read? Nothing less than a $27 million tax present to foreigners who bet at American horse and dog tracks. On and on it goes, the pillaging and plundering by suits with Guccis.

In a time of war, terror, and soaring deficits, you would think the governing class would be asking these corporate aristocrats to make a little patriotic sacrifice like that asked of single mothers or our men and women in Iraq. Instead they're allowed to pass their share of the burden to workers and children not yet born. At the least they ought to be required to remove the flag from their lapels and replace it with the icon they most revere - the dollar sign.

These are the things no one seems to notice with this battle for the Presidency going on and everything
that goes with it.

P.S. this would be considered politics right?

Kalibah · 10-22-2004, 01:05 PM

Its pork
Its always been around

felixn · 10-22-2004, 03:02 PM

When I saw this tucked away in a corner of a newspage this afternoon, I could nto believe it was not the headline story. In this time of war and record deficits, it is the utmost arrogance to enact these ideological tax cuts. It drives me nuts that the administration is guided solely by ideology, not facts and reason. and it gets little to no attention.

Ustwo · 10-22-2004, 03:34 PM

You mean some of the largest providers of employment should have less money for expansion and payroll?

flstf · 10-22-2004, 05:18 PM

I don't believe it makes any difference. Big business don't pay taxes, they either pass it on to consumers or get their ex-IRS consultants to find a way to write them off. Individuals pay all the taxes in this country one way or another.

cthulu23 · 10-22-2004, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flstf

I don't believe it makes any difference. Big business don't pay taxes, they either pass it on to consumers or get their ex-IRS consultants to find a way to write them off. Individuals pay all the taxes in this country one way or another.

I don't undersatnd this argument...because of loopholes in the tax code we shouldn't tax corporations or the wealhiest at all? How about we close the loopholes instead? Doesn't that seem more fair?

Ustwo · 10-22-2004, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cthulu23

I don't undersatnd this argument...because of loopholes in the tax code we shouldn't tax corporations or the wealhiest at all? How about we close the loopholes instead? Doesn't that seem more fair?

You mean like the loopholes that prevent low earners from paying any taxes? Shouldn't everyone pay 'their fair share?'

cthulu23 · 10-22-2004, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You mean like the loopholes that prevent low earners from paying any taxes? Shouldn't everyone pay 'their fair share?'

Your answer is little more than an evasion of my question, but I'll reply anyway.

Tax breaks for the poor are not loopholes....they are intentional, public breaks given to the least fortunate in this country and are supported by most Americans. Equivocating between the two is inaccurate.

Fun fact -Here's the ACTUAL John Kerry quote that seems to be taken out-of-context quite a bit around here:

Quote:

If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act. But until we have properly laid the groundwork and proved to our fellow citizens and our allies that we really have no other choice, we are not yet at the moment of unilateral decision-making in going to war against Iraq.

flstf · 10-23-2004, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cthulu23

I don't undersatnd this argument...because of loopholes in the tax code we shouldn't tax corporations or the wealhiest at all? How about we close the loopholes instead? Doesn't that seem more fair?

Yes, definitely close the loopholes. But the professional polititians never will, that's where they get their power. Otherwise we would have a flat rate income tax or national sales tax. Both ideas are soundly rejected by both parties, they want to offer up loopholes in exchange campaign contributions.

I don't believe taxing large corporations helps us much if at all. The price of bread, gasoline, etc... just goes up and we wind up paying the tax one way or another. Why not get it from the source (us) in the first place.

If anyone knows I am curious just how much taxes are in something like a loaf of bread. I mean after the farmers. farm workers, shippers, truck drivers, packaging, warehouse and all their employees. grocery stores, etc.. all have their taxes added to the price of a loaf, how much is left. I would guess that taxes make up over 90% of the price, but I could be way off.

Flyguy · 10-23-2004, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You mean some of the largest providers of employment should have less money for expansion and payroll?

ARRGH...... You actually believe that corporations would re-invest any money saved back into their employees? In this era of paycuts and layoffs so the execs can increase their personal bottom line??

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You mean like the loopholes that prevent low earners from paying any taxes? Shouldn't everyone pay 'their fair share?'

You're contradicting your own statement. You say that you want corporations to pay less taxes but you want us all to pay our fair share? Please give us a lesson in Bushonomics. And I haven't paid any less in taxes since Bush has been in office, so I've never seen any of these "tax cuts."

Stop buying into the hype

Kalibah · 10-23-2004, 01:19 AM

In this era of paycuts and layoffs?
Common - we just had one of the shortest recessions in history- is there any doubt that it is due to Bush Tax Cuts? Were still down some jobs- but we had remarkable recovery- and when you add in that over a million jobs were lost due to September 11th - things are looking UP.

Just because you are for Kerry/Edwards doesnt mean you cant recognize that Bush *GASP* Might have done something right!

filtherton · 10-23-2004, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalibah

In this era of paycuts and layoffs?
Common - we just had one of the shortest recessions in history- is there any doubt that it is due to Bush Tax Cuts? Were still down some jobs- but we had remarkable recovery- and when you add in that over a million jobs were lost due to September 11th - things are looking UP.

Just because you are for Kerry/Edwards doesnt mean you cant recognize that Bush *GASP* Might have done something right!

If you're going to give bush credit for the "rebound" than you also have to give him credit for the record job losses on his watch. Or you could admit that he has little control on such things.

athletics · 10-24-2004, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton

If you're going to give bush credit for the "rebound" than you also have to give him credit for the record job losses on his watch. Or you could admit that he has little control on such things.

The recession did start before he took office.

host · 10-24-2004, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You mean like the loopholes that prevent low earners from paying any taxes? Shouldn't everyone pay 'their fair share?'

Aren't you ignoring the glaring disparity in U.S. wealth
distribution? Is 2.8 percent (a lil' under 3 percent) of all the wealth in
the country enough for the bottom 50 percent of the U.S. households?
Why should they enjoy a lower tax rate? It just isn't fair for the wealthy!
Thank God that Bush has come along to shift the total tax burden from the
wealthiest Americans and the corporations on to everyone else....including the bottom 50 percent!<center><center><img src="http://me.to/net2001.jpg">
<a href="http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html">http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html</a>
<center><center><img src="http://me.to/worth.jpg">
I also read that as recently as in 1970 the top one percent of wealth holders
only controlled 13 percent of the total U.S. wealth. Now they contol more
than 32 percent. Here's a word or two on this subject from a Princeton Univ.
economist turned nytimes.com columnists. As you can guess, not too popular
with Bush fans......

Quote:

<a href="http://www.faireconomy.org/econ/taxes/KrugmanTaxCutCon.html">5. Second Wind: The Bush Tax Cuts</a>
.........But the most original, you might say brilliant, aspect of the Bush administration's approach to tax cuts has involved the way the tax cuts themselves are structured.

David Stockman famously admitted that Reagan's middle-class tax cuts were a ''Trojan horse'' that allowed him to smuggle in what he really wanted, a cut in the top marginal rate. The Bush administration similarly follows a Trojan horse strategy, but an even cleverer one. The core measures in Bush's tax cuts benefit only the wealthy, but there are additional features that provide significant benefits to some -- but only some -- middle-class families. For example, the 2001 tax cut included a $400 child credit and also created a new 10 percent tax bracket, the so-called cutout. These measures had the effect of creating a ''sweet spot'' that could be exploited for political purposes. If a couple had multiple children, if the children were all still under 18 and if the couple's income was just high enough to allow it to take full advantage of the child credit, it could get a tax cut of as much as 4 percent of pretax income. Hence the couple with two children and an income of $40,000, receiving a tax cut of $1,600, who played such a large role in the administration's rhetoric. But while most couples have children, at any given time only a small minority of families contains two or more children under 18 -- and many of these families have income too low to take full advantage of the child tax credit. So that ''typical'' family wasn't typical at all. Last year, the actual tax break for families in the middle of the income distribution averaged $469, not $1,600.

So that's the story of the tax-cut offensive under the Bush administration: through a combination of hardball politics, deceptive budget arithmetic and systematic misrepresentation of who benefits, Bush's team has achieved a major reduction of taxes, especially for people with very high incomes.

But where does that leave the country?

hammer4all · 10-24-2004, 01:38 PM

I think this is a more telling chart:

10-22-2004, 03:34 PM	#4 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	You mean some of the largest providers of employment should have less money for expansion and payroll? __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

10-22-2004, 01:05 PM	#2 (permalink)
Kalibah Insane Location: Padded Playhouse	Its pork Its always been around

10-22-2004, 03:02 PM	#3 (permalink)
felixn Upright	When I saw this tucked away in a corner of a newspage this afternoon, I could nto believe it was not the headline story. In this time of war and record deficits, it is the utmost arrogance to enact these ideological tax cuts. It drives me nuts that the administration is guided solely by ideology, not facts and reason. and it gets little to no attention.

10-22-2004, 05:18 PM	#5 (permalink)
flstf Easy Rider Location: Moscow on the Ohio	I don't believe it makes any difference. Big business don't pay taxes, they either pass it on to consumers or get their ex-IRS consultants to find a way to write them off. Individuals pay all the taxes in this country one way or another.

10-23-2004, 01:19 AM	#11 (permalink)
Kalibah Insane Location: Padded Playhouse	In this era of paycuts and layoffs? Common - we just had one of the shortest recessions in history- is there any doubt that it is due to Bush Tax Cuts? Were still down some jobs- but we had remarkable recovery- and when you add in that over a million jobs were lost due to September 11th - things are looking UP. Just because you are for Kerry/Edwards doesnt mean you cant recognize that Bush GASP Might have done something right!

10-24-2004, 01:38 PM	#15 (permalink)
hammer4all Insane	I think this is a more telling chart: