The non-partisan, Congressional Budget Office just released a report that seriously contradicts the message conservatives have been trying to sell the voting public, that America needs to cut it's corporate tax rate to be competitive.
The report noted American corporations are actually only paying an average of 12.1 percent, a rate much lower than many other industrialized nations and the lowest average tax rate since 1974.
Not only did American corporations report nearly $2 trillion in profits last quarter, but they are sitting on that same amount of cash. But as every Republican knows, we must blame Obama for our weak economic growth, despite these corporations having enough cash on hand to pay all 14 million unemployed Americans an annual salary of $45,000 for the next three years.
Now, never mind the economic revival such an influx of cash would do for our economy, just imagine the increase in tax revenues for our federal government to pay down the deficit.
Instead of only getting an average of 12.1 percent from American corporations or the paltry 13.9 percent Mitt Romney paid or the 17.4 percent Warren Buffet paid, they could be getting 25 percent to 30 percent in combined payroll and income taxes from these 14 million suddenly employed Americans.
Imagine, saving $100 billion in unemployment benefits, perhaps another $100 billion in Medicaid payments and don't forget all the extra tax revenues like sales, gas and excise taxes from all these newly employed "middle class" Americans.
But NO.... it's so much better when we can blame Obama, isn't it?
Rod Livdahl
Mesa
Cerulean posted at 1:17 pm on Sun, Feb 12, 2012.
Dear East Valley Tribune,
I would like to encourage you to consider Rod Livdhal in a position on the ‘Commentary’ section of your publication. His letters to the editor are well written, researched, original and far more thought provoking than either Reagan or Purcell. This author would add balance to the Opinion page; now overly represented by those with political views of the Republican platform.
While I recognize that Rod Livdhal may not want this task, I think his comments improve the paper.
Thank-You
Cerulean posted at 1:32 pm on Sun, Feb 12, 2012.
I apologize – Rod’s name is spelled Livdahl, Rod Livdahl. [rolleyes]
Dale Whiting posted at 2:40 pm on Sun, Feb 12, 2012.
You know, Rod, the tune I keep hearing is that business needs stability. They will not engage in any risky new businesses until they know what the climate in regulation and taxation will be and it needs to be a less burdensome climate.
Implied in all this baloney is that regulation will not become less burdensome and more predictable unless and not until we elect more Republicans. But I seem to recall that it was the unpredictability of Congress under the Bush 43 administration which refused to extend investment tax credits in a timely and advanced manner that sent investments in alternative energy, especially solar, over seas to Europe. When we really could have used it, just where was all this phoney rhetoric when that was going on?
Rational Human posted at 4:54 pm on Sun, Feb 12, 2012.
Amazing, American corporations are paying a much lower corporate tax than many other industrial nations and the lowest average tax rate since 1974 and they still find it cheaper to run their businesses overseas. Must be another problem you haven't touched upon here or perhaps left out on purpose. Could it be that they aren't really American corporations anymore but international corporations? I know, lets charge them more so they move even more jobs out of the country. That should bring in tons more money. Even if your figures were true, which is debatable, it wouldn't amount to a drop in the bucket compared with government spending. Totally kill off the cash cow and you still don't make a dent in what the government spends. All your idea would do is starve people to death. Obviously you have no idea what it takes to generate wealth or manage it properly. You parrot the socialist line of taxing the rich till there ain't no rich no more, and the usual socialist puppets applaud. Surrealean actually suggests that you are such a smart guy you should be on the staff, but unfortunately they already have a staff clown,Jon Beydler. Sorry but you'll have to come up with stuff even more retarded if you want to compete with the complete idiot and official staff clown.
Rational Human posted at 5:07 pm on Sun, Feb 12, 2012.
Dale, what business wants to expand under the uncertainty of this current push towards socialism that the Obamanation and his socialist party have mistakenly taken as a mandate from the people when they were fooled into voting for him and the socialist party? Just knowing that we can't suddenly flip into a nightmarish Soviet Union style dictatorship might be enough to get their attention, but all we see is this slow decline from capitalism to a socialist nightmare. Everyday there are more regulations and more czars and more government spending with no end in sight. I'm afraid John Galt has packed his bags and is getting ready to leave on the next train out of this place.
Rational Human posted at 5:23 pm on Sun, Feb 12, 2012.
The United States actually has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. Topping out at 35 percent, America’s official corporate income tax rate trails that of only Japan, at 39.5 percent, which has said it plans to lower its rate. It is nearly triple Ireland’s and 10 percentage points higher than in Denmark, Austria or China. To help companies here stay competitive, many executives say, Congress should lower it. But by taking advantage of myriad breaks and loopholes that other countries generally do not offer, United States corporations pay only slightly more on average than their counterparts in other industrial countries. And some American corporations use aggressive strategies to pay less than their competitors abroad and at home. A Government Accountability Office study released in 2008 found that 55 percent of United States companies paid no federal income taxes during at least one year in a seven-year period it studied. The paradox of the United States tax code — high rates with a bounty of subsidies, shelters and special breaks — has made American multinationals world leaders in tax avoidance. So you want to do something to make these multinational corporation leave the US altogether?
Cerulean posted at 7:58 pm on Sun, Feb 12, 2012.
Rational, “Even if your figures were true, which is debatable, it wouldn't amount to a drop in the bucket compared with government spending.”
Why then, if you think Republicans are serious about spending (and they are), did Boehner and the Republican House not play when President Obama wanted to cut 4 dollars from the debt for every dollar of tax increase on the wealthy; with an overall 4 trillion debt reduction over ten years. Republicans love to wave the flag – but Republican patriotism fades when you ask them to help pay down the deficit.
I think that Rod presented a hypothetical scenario that would illustrate what could be done if companies put more of their profits into hiring or ‘redistributing’ rather than hording their wealth. Is it not the role of capitalism to encourage economic growth? Or is it NOT capitalism Republicans advocate but rather a form of Plutocracy?
Rational Human posted at 8:35 pm on Sun, Feb 12, 2012.
Hypothetical redistribution of wealth. Doesn't that pretty much sum up your point? I'm not saying the republicans have all the answers, but I'm pretty dang sure socialism will scr3w the pooch every time. International corporations are already encouraging economic growth in countries that offer an economic environment that allows them to make a profit in the international market. America does not do this. The games between the Obamanation and republicans in the house impress me not at all. The mean little more but theatrics.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 11:01 pm on Sun, Feb 12, 2012.
The Liberals are showing their "Communist" Roots again.
Why not ..........NATIONALIZE EVERY CORPORATION, BUSINESS AND COMPANY IN AMERICA.
THEN NO ONE WILL HAVE TO PAY ANY TAXES, EVERYBODY WILL HAVE THE SAME AS EVERYBODY ELSE..........................N.O.T.H.I.N.G.
k33j88 posted at 5:56 am on Mon, Feb 13, 2012.
Rod---The CBO has been hijacked by the present administration. It is not even remotely bi-partisan. It is a tool of the marxist/stalinist agenda. Objectivity isn't in their genetic code. As with all other federal agencies towing the socialist agenda, their stats are skewered and biased. You, and others(which we all know who they are), are so blinded by your set of ideals and perfectionism for what's good for society, that alternate viewpoints are considered invalid and without merit. Time to take the blinders off. Then again, that would expose the marxist-in-chief for what he really is. What a bummer for you---eh!
concernedcitizen posted at 6:00 am on Mon, Feb 13, 2012.
I haven't read any comments, but I wanted to type up my thoughts on this matter.
On one hand, you have the principal of "if someone works hard, they deserve to keep what they've earned."
On the other hand, you have people who have earned so much and who are not giving back that there is now not enough jobs and salary for the average worker to get along.
I don't think we should take away from someone who has honestly earned their money. However, how many bank scandals, corporate scandals, multi-billion dollar profits, etc. have been in the news in the last 10 years? Even homeowners are to blame for their greediness when home prices skyrocketed and so many pulled out equity for a new boat, new car, that vacation they always wanted, etc.
Maybe it is about time we go back to teaching simple principles like honesty, integrity, and helping out your neighbor. So many people are so greedy now, and there are less and less people who are honest and are full of integrity, so unfortunately the rich will get richer unless their is a change of heart in people in general.
We need politicians and community leaders to stand up for principle, not power. We need a return to common virtues that everyone agrees are requisite for a society to function properly. There was a time that when a man gave you his word, you knew he would fulfill it. Now promises are only made to get what one wants, and once that happens the promise is broken.
Rod, I do blame Obama because he has added something like 3-4 trillion in debt, and still plans to add another trillion this upcoming year. I think his idea of communities creating "shovel-ready projects" was a waste of taxpayer dollars. Sure, it put people to work for a few months, but we spent WAY more in tax dollars then the US got in return in taxes. It didn't stir the economy up, all it did was move money from government coffers into the hands of a few corporations.
Rod, I also blame Republicans who lately have shown their true colors in regards to honesty and integrity, particularly in our state. And whether a politician is republican or democrat, they still try to create laws that will help themselves and their business buddies to get their hands on taxpayer dollars. Who wouldn't want access to multi-millions and billions of dollars? But yet again, this is where honesty and integrity come in, where you or I would turn in a wallet with $ in it to the store manager, whereas these guys would take the money (because most people would assume it would be gone anyways, and no one would know it was them).
Last, speaking of integrity and doing good, I wanted to share the following link about Mitt Romney. You don't usually hear of good things like this about politicians, so I believe it is worth sharing, whether or not you agree with him or his beliefs. http://americaneedsmitt.com/blog/2011/11/10/mit-romney-stage/
Rodini posted at 8:17 am on Mon, Feb 13, 2012.
To Dale and others,
You mention uncertainty as a cause for corporate hesitation in hiring?
Do any of you recall Warren Buffet's comments of a few months ago when he said, "I've worked with businessmen from all types of business and I've never, ever watched a businessman turn down an opportunity to make money because of the potential taxes he'd have to pay?"
AND THIS:
"I think that people at the high end, people like myself, should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it," he told ABC's Christiane Amanpour in a clip played on "This Week" on Sunday.
When Amanpour pointed to critics' claims that the very wealthy need tax cuts to spur business and capitalism, Buffett replied, "The rich are always going to say that, you know, 'Just give us more money, and we'll go out and spend more, and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you.' But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on."
Come on, let's get real for a minute!
We could cut taxes to ZERO, and the wealthy and corporations will still cry. It's a disease with NO CURE!
The spending problem....caused by the last 3 Republican presidents who ran up the largest deficits in history, including the UNFUNDED Medicare Part B plan from Bush that also let drug companies continue to charge their highest prices for drugs rather than getting a government discount.
The real problem is the middle class is getting poorer and poorer every year, That means less money to spend, and that means fewer products get produced because demand is dropping annually!
And that all stems back to the attack on America's unions that helped raise incomes across the middle class.
Now corporations and employers hold all the power and what incentive do they have to choose to put money into their workers pockets instead of their own?
NONE, HUH?
It's simple economics....you can't starve the hand that feeds economic growth, and that hand is on the arm of every working class American who has watched their buying power decrease over the past 30 years of Reaganomics!
Let's call it by a better name....ROTTENOMICS!
Cerulean posted at 10:59 am on Mon, Feb 13, 2012.
Concernedcitizen, please cite your source for the 3 - 4 trillion in debt that you claim was created by President Obama. Please follow your own admonition and ‘be a man of your word’ because your answer is “simple and wrong”.
The fact is that much of the deficit you may think comes from President Obama, actually is inherited from the previous Republican administration’s spending.
President Obama has created only $983 billion in deficits; $874 of which came from American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, $620 from a two-year extension on the Bush tax cuts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/column-doing-the-math-on-obamas-deficits/2011/08/25/gIQALDBchQ_blog.html
From your source: “Romney was shooting an ad on a hot day in a staffer’s yard. While the photo shoot was being set up, Romney was asked to bide time in the cooler shade of the staffer’s garage. When the staffer retrieved Romney 30 minutes later, he discovered that the candidate had swept and organized his garage.”
Romney sounds like a nice guy who may be compulsive. I have a relative who has OCD; He cannot stop himself from cleaning and arranging his own and other people’s spaces. He simply cannot relax if he is not fidgeting.
I have no doubt that Romney is a decent human being. Just as I have no doubt that President Obama is a decent human being.
In_God_We_Trust posted at 11:21 am on Mon, Feb 13, 2012.
Surrealean
When the Obamanation began his infestation of the White House, the national debt was $12,311,349,677,512. In only 3 years he raised it to $15,125,898,976,397. Nearly a trillion per year and it ain't over folks. Took Bush baby 8 years to raise it less than 5 trillion and he had to begin and fight a long protracted war in the middle east. I might add that we had a democrat controlled congress for most of that 8 years. The Obamanation wants to raise it even more, but fortunately we got a republican house before he spent us totally into debt. http://www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm
Cerulean posted at 1:58 pm on Mon, Feb 13, 2012.
skymachines? skymachines.com?? Your source tells us that the National debt was launched into the stratosphere at a pace of 16% YoY in the months before Bush left office.
Tell me how Obama created a 3-4 trillion deficit. Be SPECIFIC.
TeaPartyPatriot posted at 4:50 pm on Mon, Feb 13, 2012.
So exactly how many years of the Obamanation's first term is Bush's fault? A 28% in fuel costs had a lot to do with that 16% increase you speak of and that happened in the first half of 2008. Was the 15% in 2009 and 14% in 2010 Bush's fault too? Just when is this failure-in-chief going to start taking responsibility for his actions?
The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama's watch. The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion.
It's the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president, yet the Obamanation continues to blame previous administrations for the debt. The Gross National Debt now stands at 97.6 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product - the total value of goods and services produced by labor and property in the U.S.
Where is the dynamic leadership we were promised if the Obamanation was elected. He made so many promises that he never kept it's a new record on political lies. He said he would end all the wars in the middle east then expanded them to Libya. He said he would close down the Gitmo prison but it still holds people indefinitely. He says he's going to bring all troops out of Afghanistan and if he does everything that was accomplished there will have been for nothing.
Looking over PolitiFact's report card on Obama's campaign promises, that seems to be about right thus far. By my count (and some of this is certainly subjective) of the of the 31 promises the site says Obama has kept thus far, 20 in some way grow or expand the federal government. Just six make the government smaller, more transparent, or more accountable. The remaining five have no effect, or amount to a wash.
Of the six campaign promises PolitiFact says Obama has unquestionably broken, five would have limited his own power, provided tax breaks, or provided more accountability and transparency to the federal government. One was mostly symbolic (recognizing the Armenian genocide). So far, he hasn't broken a single promise that would grow or expand the government, though he has compromised on a few, and many have been stalled.
PolitiFact also gives Obama more credit than he deserves on some promises. For example, Obama's promise that "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes," was broken when he signed a bill raising taxes on cigarettes to pay for an expansion of the SCHIP program. PolitiFact calls this a "compromise." But "not any of your taxes" seems pretty clear. Obama didn't say, "not any of your taxes, so long as you don't smoke" or "so long as you don't have habits the government finds distasteful."
In short, I think it's safe to say that Obama has been willing to spend plenty of political capital on his promises that vastly expand the size and scope of the federal government, and relatively little on promises related to eliminating waste, putting limits on his own power, or making the government more transparent and accountable.
Record increases in the national debt and massive increases in the size of the federal government and Obamanation's power seem to be all he's done.
TeaPartyPatriot posted at 4:55 pm on Mon, Feb 13, 2012.
I might add that the modest increases of 8% in 2011 and in the coming year have more to do with the republicans capturing the house with it's purse strings than on anything this Obamanation has done. Without the constraints placed upon him the debt would probably be well over 16 trillion by now. But of course that would be Bush's fault too, right?
Cerulean posted at 8:53 pm on Mon, Feb 13, 2012.
Speaking of Soviet Czars, I recently watched the film ‘The Last Station’. Hoffman, the director, admits that it is not a film about Tolstoy; it is a story about love. Regardless, the film does touch on Tolstoy, Chertkov and the Communist movement. It is said that, “Many people who were inspired by Tolstoy’s version of Christian morality also set up agricultural communes in various parts of Russia . . .” Wiki
You can see the trailer here:
http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/the-last-station/featurette-studying-tolstoy
Slabside posted at 8:08 pm on Tue, Feb 14, 2012.
Another fact our conservative bashing tool wants to ignore: under Bush, the 2008 corporate taxes paid was $304,346,000,000 and then under the 1st year of Obama, corporate taxes paid was $138,229,000,000 so Obama IS the most corporate connected corrupt President this nation ever had.
www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=203
In_God_We_Trust posted at 7:09 pm on Wed, Feb 15, 2012.
Very interesting info Slabside. Seems the Obamanation is really working for corporations and banks. Man he sure does have everyone fooled. They said they could never get another Bush into office after what he did, but then they figured out that all they had to do was paint Bush's face black and that fooled them all into voting in another one of the boys. Soon this country will be totally broke and you will be all in a virtual cage where they can protect you. And you want to know the funny part of that? The chaos will be so bad when it hits the fan that Joe Public will demand that his government put him in that cage for his own protection.
sockratties posted at 8:19 am on Sat, Feb 18, 2012.
Rod - Somehow there's something wrong with the idea that because someone or some entity has a lot of discretionary funds accumulated, the government should be able to take some of it away.
Using the government to take money from those who have accumulated more than others so they in turn can pay more to the government is punitive. “Fair Share” should not mean take from the rich and give to the poor. Even in English myth, Robin Hood was an outlaw.
Given proper incentive, corporations would hire and invest. The job of corporations is to give a return on the investments of shareholders. There needs to be a market for products if corporations are going to sell something. Hiring people to make a product that no one is going to buy would be fool-hardy. Simply paying people money to stay home would dissolve any incentive for workers to seek employment and increase the number of people who are mired in the welfare culture.
One reason tax receipts are so low is because tax is paid on income. When goods are not being sold income drops and taxes paid follows suit. People aren't going to buy new durable goods, homes and automobiles in an economic climate that is made even more unpredictable by a squabbling congress that is driven by special interests and political greed. Companies aren't going to invest in a phantom market.
One area of the market that is profitable is the financial and investment companies. They are profiting from the shifting of properties and money from the middle class to the rich. Banks and investors at one time had the job of providing money to those who would actually create new wealth. Now they are simply moving money around and taking a slice with each transaction. Look at the number of houses that have become properties of the bank. The government (read that as “tax payer”) took the hit on the loans and the banks took the property. No new wealth was created but the middle class lost the house, the people lost the money and the rich ended up with the wealth.
Therein lies your problem Rod. It's not the corporations, it's the system and it's broken.