2012 GOPers To Wear Corporate Sponsors on Sleeves like NASCAR Drivers

    

Given the state of the economy today, and the massive national deficit, attention is inevitably focused on tax revenue. One doesn't want to over-tax individuals who are already struggling as it is, but neither do you want to drive up the deficit by decreasing tax revenue. The Republican Party has taken an interesting stand on this issue, advocating for cutting spending on entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security at a time when middle-class and low-income Americans depend on those programs most heavily, and at the same time protecting the wealthiest Americans, corporations, and special interests from tax hikes and closed tax loopholes. By 'interesting' I meant totally, undeniably, irrefutably corrupt. 

     In fact, many corporations have legions of lawyers whose only job is to find loopholes and tax shelters where the companies can avoid paying any taxes at all; Boeing, Bank of America, and GM to name a few. (Yes, taxpayers bailed out two of those three) These multinational companies have reported profits in the billions, yet Republicans have been protecting them from the evil Democratic tax revenue-hunters that threaten them in the current debt-ceiling negotiations waged in Washington. Among those that would protect these corporate tax-dodgers are GOP presidential hopefuls Herman Cain (no surprise there, being the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza) and Newt Gingrich.

     Gingrich, during a campaign stop on Monday in Pella, Iowa, addressed the problem of corporate tax dodgers like General Electric. According to ThinkProgress, Gingrich advocated cutting the corporate tax rate by nearly two-thirds in order to increase corporate tax revenue. Here's how Gingrich rationalizes his fuzzy math: Cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 12.5% and corporations, rather than hire teams of lawyers to figure out how to dodge their obligation and pay no taxes, will simply write a check and hand it to the government. Yeah, Newt, because that's what these corporations do; they write checks and hand them over. They hired teams of high-profile tax lawyers to find a way out of paying 35% of their profits in tax revenue to the government, but if it's only 12.5% they'll send their lawyers away?

     Furthermore, Michelle Bachmann recently revealed that she would support cutting the corporate tax rate to 9%. Perhaps the logic here is that even more corporations would pay their tax obligations if it were only 9%. Why are Republicans and conservative policymakers in Washington so ready to allow our nation's corporations to slide on their civic obligations? When asked why Bank of American and Wells Fargo have been allowed to pay no taxes in recent years, Tim Pawlenty replied "the corporate tax rates in America are too high". Really? What about private American citizens? They ahve the same rates but seem to pay more.

     The truth is that conservatives (Republicans and Democrats) in Washington depend on corporate dollars to fund campaigns, and they turn around and protect those corporate sponsors during their terms.

1) They protect off-shore tax deferral by corporations on profits made overseas. Obama and Senate Democrats passed a bill that would not allow corporations that claimed tax credits on profits made overseas while deferring tax payments on those profits. Republicans blocked the bill.

2) They defund the IRS, who go after sheltered corporate tax revenue.

3) They endorse taxpayer giveaways, letting corporations off the hook by providing subsidies and tax loopholes to corporations. In March House Republicans, along with 13 Democrats, passed oil subsidies for oil companies despite some of the worst ethics abuses in the last year by BP as well as historic profit margins by oil corporations across the board.

     The argument has often been made by individuals in government and private industry that without these massively-scaled leniences built into our system of government for corporations, we would not enjoy the success, cheap goods and services, or freedoms that we enjoy today. I reject that notion. This country was built on the premise of competition, innovation, hard work and equality. There is no competition when a small number of conglomerates control the vast majority of our nation's wealth, political capital, and liberties. There is no innovation when corporations buy out it out, commercialize it, sell it out, and pay nothing back to the country for its profits. And there is no equality when a multi-billion dollar corporation is given the same liberties and legal protections as a single American citizen (even more, really). There's plenty of hard work, but by middle class Americans in suffering the economic repercussions of corporate greed. The conservatives in congress, and those jockeying for the 2012 presidency, are moving us lockstep toward a new feudalism; one in which private citizens are beholden to the agendas and welfare of corporate fiefdoms.