Simply Politics & News

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Al Capone was sent up the river for not paying taxes, today corporations are selling this country down the river while doing the same thing. Al employeed lots of people, people who wouldn't have had a job if not for him, "he never got any credit for it":),
he was a bad boy even though he had many city officials and judges, and politicians in his back pocket he was pursued relentlessly by the IRS.

This isn't just the Federal level, for years its been on the State level nationally, corporations using the corporate Vegas loophole which has allowed them to avoid paying taxes in States where they operate. Minnesota, and now Wisconsin has closed this door, "supposedly".

We don't have to look far, maybe just down the street, or turn a corner on the way to work, or cross over a bridge and hit a major pothole or buckle in the road that sends the vehicle into the garage for a broken trans-axle, stabilizer, wheel balance/alignment or blowout for us to see our infrastructure is deteriorating. It encompasses the replacements of electrical grids, sewer, and water problems. Some have been in need of repairs for decades. The real money needed on a national scale reaches $5 trillion, and thats just an estimate.

When Eisenhower was president 12% of tax revenues went toward these very projects, after he left office it began to drop off,today its less than 2%, maybe closer to 1.5%. Like everything else "whose cared?". Where's the money suppose to come from if corporations are allowed to scate, but yet who do they come running to when they need a bailout??

All the while corporations, and banks are getting scandalous bailouts from tax payers for their corrupted roles which brought down world economies, but not one is held responsible, not one indictment, well other than the scapegoat Madoff. What about all the others that played crucial roles in all of this?. Not Ron Cox of the SEC, no one at the FED, not even Henry Paulson has later been made to answer. The Senate Banking Committee gave the Treasury Secretary former Ceo of Goldmans $850b even though he had one foot out the door. The convenience of timing for all of this to have happened was just to good to be true. All at the end of the Bush's 2nd term. It couldn't have been better.

No one at Goldmans, Lehmans, Citibank, Countrywide, not one from the largest to the smallest, no one from Fannie or Freddie. With all this underway we had Senators bartering to get their approval votes to sign on to Tarp. In other words they could be bribed if they could get their earmarks. In turn they would get campaign contributions from the many who would receive money or tax credits, or tax breaks

The House gave in to extortion. It was all about Wall Street, and Publicly traded corporations, which included investment banks, and Goldman being a Hedge Fund, and banks, insurance companies, etc etc.

Today hundreds of millions can be earmarked for bridges to no-where, or given to corporations like Msft at the cost of $11 million for a convenience bridge, or even better so beach goers can more easily get to the beach. Its even more likely the money that could get used for these projects find its way abroad to build the infrastructure in other countries.


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1249465620080812

Corporate taxes paid for more than a quarter of federal outlays in the 1950s and a fifth in the 1960s. They began to decline during the Nixon administration, yet even by the second half of the 1990s, corporate taxes still covered 11 percent of the cost of federal programs. But in fiscal years 2002 and 2003, corporate taxes paid for a mere 6 percent of federal expenses.
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_welfare/real_tax_rates_plummet.php


http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/04/exxon-mobil-paid-zero-income-tax-offshore%20shelter-wal-mart-general-electric-forbes

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html
The company, which tells employees “don’t be evil”
in its code of conduct, has cut its effective tax rate abroad more than its peers in the technology sector: Apple Inc., the maker of the iPhone; Microsoft, the largest software company; International Business Machines Corp., the biggest computer-services provider; and Oracle Corp., the second-biggest software company. Those companies reported rates that ranged between 4.5 percent and 25.8 percent for 2007 through 2009.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/ge_7000_tax_returns/

http://www.billparish.com/20000418microsoftnotax.html