Gotta love the status quo. Given the chance between doing what’s best for all Americans or what’s best for their donors, they will choose thier donors every time. Even “liberal” politicians. Even, sadly, our current Democratic President.
We all know Republicans support Big Banks, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Tech, and so on and so forth. What’s sad though, is how many establishment Democrats from President Obama to Hillary Clinton to quite a number of Democratic Senators and Representatives are on the same page as those nasty GOP bootlickers and grifters, when it comes to serving the greater good of multinational corporations (from The Nation):
[T]he big hitters back in Washington politics are working on an ugly surprise not just for the kids but for all of us—another monster tax break for US multinational corporations.
The bad news is that key leaders of the Democratic Party—including the president—are getting on board with Republicans, despite some talk about confronting income inequality. Influential Democrats intend to negotiate with Republican counterparts on the size and terms of post-facto tax “forgiveness” for America’s globalized companies. This is real money they’re talking about a giveaway of hundreds of billions. […]
… Thanks to a loophole in the tax code, the companies do not have to pay US taxes on profits they have earned in foreign countries until they bring the money home to American shores. Altogether, the globalized US companies have accumulated $2.1 trillion in untaxed profits, most of it parked in overseas tax havens.
The multinationals are waiting for Congress to forgive them their debts.
And it seems likely they will get it in the form of a bills proposed by President Obama and/or Republicans in the House that, at a minimum, would reduce the tax liability of these greedy multinationals from 35% to 14% on the profits they have parked in offshore tax havens. Senator Elisabeth Warren rightly calls this budding deal with tax cheats, “a giant wet kiss for the tax dodgers who have already parked $2.1 trillion overseas.” Big tech firms from Apple to Microsoft, and Big Banksters such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, are among the companies that would reap the biggest benefit from this shadowy tax giveaway which is backed by some of the most corrupt politicians from both sides of the aisle.
Indeed, many leading Republicans and Democrats dismiss Obama’s 14% tax gift as not generous enough. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and her good friend(?) Rand Paul (R-KY) have proposed an alternative that woukld cut the tax liability of these corporations to 6.5% of their profits. Quite a deal if you can get it. Somehow I don’t expect to see Republicans or Democrats proposing to cut the taxes of small businesses or ordinary Americans by such a large extent, do you?
Orrin Hatch, on the other hand thinks even that is too much. His proposal would eliminate any tax liability for these multinational tax dodgers. While that is unlikely to pass, we already know that future Senate Leader and my Senator, Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has had friendly discussions with Rob Portman (R-OH) and House Speaker Paul Ryan regarding international tax reform.
In other words, expect the Democratic Establishment to cut a deal, either before the election or shortly afterwards during the lame duck session to get this done. Sure wish I was a massively large corporate person so I could avoid paying taxes on my income. Maybe if ordinary Americans all became shareholders in a single corporation, we could afford lobbyists to get us a cushy deal like Silicon Valley and Wall Street are going to receive, blessed by the establishment of both parties.
Does your vote really matter when whomever you vote for in November is likely to screw you over in favor of Big Business time after time? Ponder that question a while, and also this one: Do we live in a democracy anymore when our politicians are in thrall to the the people with the most money? I know the answers I would give to those questions.
I wonder what Hillary Clinton thinks about this giant wet kiss to Corporate America? Or Donald Trump? Maybe someone should ask them. I have a pretty good idea what Bernie Sanders likely thinks of it – not much. Maybe someone at the next debate or town hall or whatever should ask all of them.
Perhaps people might be open to looking at the effects of neoliberal policies prior to Obama? Lots of links and documentation.
http://links.org.au/node/1056
There has been tax forgiveness before to repatriate overseas profits. 100% forgiveness. The companies doled that out to shareholders as dividends. As I understand current proposals, the tax that would be paid would be used to rebuild infrastructure. Right now it’s legally parked outside the country. If a deal is passed (and look at the percentages as bargaining positions), then the money brought in will recirculate and create infrastructure jobs, and will also be used for cap-ex by companies, and also given to shareholders who will spend it or reinvest it. (Some of those shareholders are your pension payers). This repatriation is something that has been on the table for a long time and should have been done long ago.
Oh, is that the line now? Neoliberals never, ever learn. Or maybe they do. Who knows? From wiki:
Repatriation Tax Holiday Would Lose Revenue And Is a Proven Policy Failure
Man, you guys! What happened to “but we’re trying to be incrementalists!” This is exactly what I was talking about. We have differences in ideology, and don’t believe the same things.
It does boggle the mind, no?
I think you’re right about the previous tax holiday. It was issued with faith in the companies to “do the right thing.” They didn’t. So now the Democrats want strings attached which, I hope you’d see, is a good thing. I guess that’s a compromise … or is that a dirty word?
Any strings attached to such a tax write off could be removed in the next Congress with a compliant Dem Admin. There are no lock on it. I’ve been thinking a while about all the money overseas owned by supposed US corporations. Classic economics would say that the rising profits would be distributed to shareholders and down to increased wages. But with the ease of international flow of Capital, that is no longer the case. Its cheaper to park it overseas. Your major shareholders (large investores) have their own overseas accounts and much of those profits never reach the US.
I think its time to start classifing some of those corporations as NON-US entities and start restricting sales to the DoD. Because you have a PO Box in the Cayman Is. or Dublin for tax reasons, you may no long be a US HQed corporation. You can’t (I think, based on current trade law) deny them rights to bid on US govt contracts, but there are exceptions to Defense Dept. that might force them to reconsider their long term fudiciary policies.
But that is playing hardball, and I doubt a HRC admin would do that. Obama may make a deal for specific spending of the repatriated funds, but you can be sure that would be traded away in the next admin.
Got another solution? Either to the money parked overseas or to the inversions?
Bet Elizabeth Warren has one.
Oh, yes. And here it is:
Deemed repatriation. “Deemed repatriation says bring home the money, but pay only half of what you owe on it. … Think about what this means. All the small business owners who have been paying their taxes in full can keep right on paying in full. But the tax dodgers get a special deal.”
Taxing overseas income at a lower rate than U.S. income. “It’s like holding up a giant sign that says, `Higher taxes if you invest in the U.S., lower taxes if you invest abroad.’ The result would be that every small business and family in America would be subsidizing foreign investments of multinational corporations.”
http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-coalition-applauds-senator-warrens-leadership-on
-corporate-tax-reform/
This is not a plan. This is a critique.
Her plan is don’t do it.
Not a good plan, doing nothing.
Do nothing is often the best plan among the options available. Sure would have been better than 90% of the federal legislation fix something that concerned economic matters since 1981. Most of the “fixes” created bigger and more expensive problems than “do nothing” would have led to. That’s one of Elizabeth Warren’s claims.
Even Daniel Moynihan got it before he died that nothing would have been preferable to the ’82 Social Security structural “fix.”
Adam Smith wrote in the “Wealth of Nations”:
“Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every occasion) is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects than with regard to the latter. Their superiority over the country gentleman is not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”.
Really old truths isn’t it? Much too long since I read Smith back in a freshman Econ course, but I know some of it stuck with me enough that it informed my views.
Simple, clear and unarguable. No wonder they need smoke and mirrors…
Exactly. And demand to see all the fine print.
Who knew that the Charter school movement wasn’t what its top line billing propose? Autonomous public schools that could experiment with innovative and creative approaches for the particular population of students and families. That was something similar to what NYC specialty high schools had done for some time — most famously in music and arts and science.
Whoops — public funds for parochial schools was the first fly in the ointment that I saw. Then “parent” organized private schools with public dollars. Like a “modernization” of the segregation academies that sprung up in the south during the implementation phase of Brown v. Board. With the “modernization” component being public monies to avoid repeating the problem with the segregation academies that turned out a generation of nincumpoops. (TX doesn’t need charter schools — their Bd of Ed can turn out ignoramuses just fine with creation “science” and “corrected” history books.) Was the public ever given the opportunity to weigh in on publicly funded, private schools operated by corporations listed on stock exchanges?
I almost thought of going the Teach For America route after graduation. I had a representative come to my service fraternity to give a talk about how great it is — and the appeal was obvious: we were a co-ed fraternity that did a lot of service projects around the community (as opposed to traditional Greek life). I looked into it and saw what a fraud it was. The next time we had a rep come (the next year), I asked her questions that I’m sure she didn’t expect…
It sounded so high-minded. Unleash all those young, new college grads, that already knew everything anyone needed to know about education and teaching, into new schools not bogged down with rigid educational standards and bureaucracies that were making kids dumb. They’ll show America what motivated young people can do and not demand unions, accept lower salaries, and best of all, no pension plans. Plus whatever health insurance charters have to offer, it won’t cost much because young people don’t get sick and the public schools have all those old teachers that do.
Proportionally, I’d guess that TFA recruited from the lower end of the grad population pool. All the better because they would be less likely to recognize that they were getting screwed.
Proportionally, I’d guess that TFA recruited from the lower end of the grad population pool.
Not so sure this is true. Do you have numbers? The people I know who went into it were nowhere near the bottom. I also know someone who went into it and now teaches at a rich private school where the pols send their kids.
And what you described is why I knew what a fraud it was. I think education certainly should be experimented with, this rigidity that we have towards “STEM” and other rote memorization is suffocating. And these young people then go there, are burned out, and abandon their post 1-2 years in (tops 5). One woman I know did it, and she quit within 6 months; she writes about what a terrible organization it is.
I also see DeRay McKesson continues to try and co-opt BLM for his own purposes: support him in his bid for mayor on the identity/movement politics, and in exchange you’ll have the privatization of Baltimore schools.
Is we cynical enough, yet?
Probably not. I realise this is a generic answer to a specific question but consider negative interest rates as policy:
Sound good to you? Just to insure we feed the rent-extracting siphons already attached (like health care, education, financial services, you know, the little things) and still consume to our last dollars. This is intended to make debtors of us all forever. If we were worried about plans to accept our body parts as collateral we might be cynical enough but I’m not saying it couldn’t happen.
Who went in during the ‘great recession’ was undoubtedly (proportionally) higher than either before after (if we have reached after). Who stays is another metric. In your example, she got out. The teachers at Sidwell Friends do come from the top.
It’s not that they don’t attract smart, well educated people that have an authentic desire to teach. Such people will always exist in every generation (thank goodness), but it’s also about available alternative options. As doors opened to women in law, medicine, science, and to a lesser extent STEM, fewer of the “best and brightest” became teachers.
Exactly. Who knew? Anyone who had lived in the US for the last few decades observing the private sector’s pathological obsession with acquiring any public asset or profit not already claimed by slicker lawyers or the rain-makers for our paid congressional hand-puppets. That’s who.
Not the customer base that was targeted. Parents with school age children. Once outside the demo people don’t pay attention to education issues except to bemoan how bad the schools, teachers, and students are. Slap the word “accountability” onto the promise of charter schools, contrasted with all those public schools where there is no accountability and then tell them it won’t cost more for better and that demo is like where do I sign onto this.
Yeah, I watched them eat sectors one-by-one; junk bonds, hostile takeovers, health care, mortgages, student loans and etc.
Publicly subscribed education was just a free-standing gold mine to these people. It’s just a long con and always was.
Social Security is the last El Dorado. 401K’s have been shown to be shams for extracting rents.
“Shams for extracting rents” describes many of our business models and much of our manipulated polity. Payday loans writ large.
Grrrrrrrrrrr. Don’t even get me started on Arne Duncan and Bill Gates and what they have done to public education and teachers. That profession has been destroyed.
Two things: The first, is there some rule that says we cannot tax a companies world wide income? Why not pass a law saying it is all taxable and if you move out in a tax inversion we will tax your sales. The second has to do with corporate taxation. Why do we tax corporations 35% and then give them all kinds of tax loopholes? Other countries tax at lower rates. Maybe we should lower taxes as well as tax world wide income. Simplify.
The will go an inversion like Walgreen’s and pay nothing because they will be a foreign corporation.
A Progressive Way to End Corporate Taxes
That looks interesting. Do you imagine it’s feasible?
You want more bureaucracy and more lobbyists looking for loopholes? Not me. Lower the tax to be more competitive and close loopholes.
more bureaucracy? yes, to track down those owed taxes. understaffed gov is one of the problems. “do you want more bureaucracy” is one of those questions that is a prelude to more giveaways to the corporations
Always scary to see liberals/DEMs on the anti-bureaucracy bandwagon. As if they don’t comprehend that cutting out financial regulatory oversight was a critical element in the financial meltdown, the S&L debacle, and the ease with which Halliburtion, etc. made a killing off the Iraq War. And hey what about all those high-cost, low-education, for-profit colleges sucking off the federal student loan teat?
I want everyone to have a jobs as good as civil service jobs with their bennies. They actually set the standards for private employment for many years. Look at what has happened with their disappearance. Bye, bye, minority middle class. Bye, bye, defined benefit pensions.
I believe it evolved the other way round: unionized private workers in heavy industries and the trade set the standard for pay and bennies. Civil service jobs paid a lot lower, the bennies were decent, but the big trade-off for lower pay was job security. As private sector union membership began to decline, public employee unions grew (an easier growth opportunity for unionization). As wages declined in the private sector, public employees were able to keep up with their gains (until fairly recently) and enjoyed good salaries and bennies along with job security (including no short-term layoffs). No wonder they’re envied today and view themselves as in a different, and superior, class to that of the working class. That is a difference from back when there was more social mingling between blue and white collar workers which IMO was a preferable social/economic arrangement.
Hm, I was thinking of mid level white/pink collar jobs there.
One of the best financial reforms the president could do without legislation is to demand increased funding for enforcing the laws on the books.
Increased funding comes from Congress;
in the form of legislation.
Asking is not much if they say NO.
Only difference between our ideology/beliefs and theirs is that our are more grounded in factual evidence of effectiveness for the people and theirs remains in some experimental mode (designed in/by some conservative academic/thinktank school) that will surely produce liberal outcomes the next time it’s tried. Don’t get the full bore policies of that ideology here (that get exported to Chile, Russia, Ukraine, Greece); so, here it’s applied sequentially in what we could call it mini-shock doctrines.
Well, someone surely will tweak it and call it fixed. And of course, this will be the LAST TIME EVAH we allow hidden cash to be repatriated. (Wasn’t a lot of this exposed by the Swiss bank blackmail we did?)
Some states are getting a good taste of it.
But I would suggest there is more than a bit of “razzle-dazzle” in their infatuation with experimentation. How come these experiments always seem to enrich some new sector of private enterprise at the expense of the commonwealth? There’s nothing ‘experimental’ about that; it’s a proven strategy with ‘experiments’ merely an audience-member called up on stage to enable the illusionist’s misdirection.
Kansas can’t fill a teaching position, and Louisiana could’t pay a salary IF they could attract a job applicant.
Neither can Chicago, except for charter schools. Board of education tried to close three failing charter schools. Rauner Administration won’t let them. Told CPS to give the charters more money.
Gah!
What are these? “Far more popular than “school choice” or unaccountable charter schools is the concept of community schools, which serve as community hubs, ensuring that every student and their family gets the opportunity to succeed no matter what zip code they live in.”
But voters don’t often get to vote on policy. they just get to vote for “the lesser evil”, ensuring that their governments are evil.
“Innovation” and “creativity” is the bait for the customers. The sellers always know what the real product is.
Modern lexicon:
innovation n. Ways to finagle your money you haven’t figured out yet.
creativity adv. Quality our lawyers and lobbyists have. (see innovation).
Jus’ sayin’.
Oh, thanks.
Perhaps the comment you’re responding to is correct. Perhaps it’s not. The thing is, you don’t offer an argument either way. You just attack the writer. Call him a “neoliberal”. It’s shorthand in this venue for “cannot be trusted”.
Wrong. It is a tax dodge that needs to be fixed.
Hey what is all the complaining about I am sure hidden in the Bill. There will be a hidden tax raise for the rest of Americans by say 50%. See we are no longer a country of We The People. We have change to the We The Companies. Instead of the stars and stripes a new flag with 50 different types of Businesses and Bank logos fill the Blue screen are. The stripes will change to different types of cables.
Welcome to the land of the Tax free Corporations supported by the heavily tax burdened people! Long live the Corporations! May their profits increase ever more! While the average citizen’s ever declines!
I’m surprised you ask what the top candidate propose for corporate taxes = both have it on their issue pages.
The Donald wants to cut the corporate tax to 0% for all corporate profits anywhere, anytime. So yes, he’s with Paul, no taxes on fake-overseas profits.
Clinton only wants to eliminate some tax deductions, so she doesn’t want to rock the boat. Nothing on this particular proposal, but I’d say she’d accept any reform that could pass. Depressingly the general consensus is that corporate income tax rates are too high, so she’s somewhat to the left on this one.
Congress is always up for the regressive taxes and fees, though, it seems. Gas tax, anyone?
Hillary will sign whatever is on her desk when she moves into her office in waiting.
To be fair Trump’s proposal is a 15% corporate tax rate with a one-time 10% to repatriate overseas funds.
Another PermaGov convert. Welcome in, SD.
These people occupy two sides of the same aisle…the aisle down which Big Corp. led the U.S. Government in the JFK/MLK Jr./RFK/Malcolm X shotgun wedding years.
Bet on it.
The current kerfuffle over Loose Cannon Trump? It’s simply further proof of what I have been saying for years. The two parties serve one master.
Big Corp.
Everything else is just blue smoke and mirrors.
AG
P.S.
Yup.
Nuthin’ new, here, just business as usual in the United States of Omertica.
Move along foilks…just moooove right along…
This is so you:
Methinks your time here has been well spent.
I do keep trying.
AG
Just heard Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa collectively referred to as “Cruz country” on Fox.
Add ME to the list.