{"id":103888,"date":"2014-01-07T08:07:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T08:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?guid=5c0608b10b431a0985aa035a002a3f3d"},"modified":"2014-01-07T08:07:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T08:07:00","slug":"corporate-taxes-in-america-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/corporate-taxes-in-america-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Taxes in America"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\"><b>Corporate Taxes in America<\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">by Stephen Lendman<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Raising them should be a national imperative. Corporations should pay their fair share. Not according to Laurence Kotlikoff.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He&#8217;s a right-wing economist. He&#8217;s a corporatist writ large. He claims &nbsp;abolishing corporate taxes will create jobs.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Doing so requires dropping money on Main Street. Get it in people&#8217;s pockets directly. Do it by cutting their taxes.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Guarantee a living wage. Support worker-friendly legislation. Restore their bargaining power with management.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Return money creation power to public hands where it belongs. Initiate government jobs creation programs.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">New Deal ones put millions back to work. Doing so reinvigorated the national spirit.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Unemployment was measurably cut. It dropped from 25% in 1933 to 11% in 1937. Doing the right things work.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">In 1961, corporate tax cuts were linked to job creation. Business had to prove they added jobs to qualify.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">No longer. Corporate tax cuts and credits are handed out freely. They&#8217;re not linked to job creation. They&#8217;re standard practice. More are planned this year.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Under Bush and Obama, corporations get tax cuts for overseas investments. Domestic job reductions accompany them. Offshoring is rewarded.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Multiple Bush tax cuts handed corporations around $3.4 trillion. Doing so was hailed as a way to create jobs.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Post-recession jobs creation during the early 2000s was the weakest on record. It took 46 months to recover those lost.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;ll take over a decade now. The so-called 2007 &#8211; 2009 Great Recession continues to take an enormous toll on ordinary Americans. Main Street Great Depression conditions persist unabated.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Low pay\/poor or no benefit part-time jobs replaced higher paying, good benefit full-time ones. It&#8217;s been ongoing for decades. America is in economic decline.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Offshoring millions of jobs exacerbates hard times. According to Paul Craig Roberts, only fools believe doing so is good for America.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Likeminded so-called experts can&#8217;t see the forest through the trees. US corporations are hoarding cash. Bush and Obama tax cuts added $10 trillion or more to their balance sheets.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Much was shifted to offshore subsidiaries. Doing so avoids US taxes altogether. It&#8217;s unknown how much corporate wealth sits in tax havens. Perhaps trillions from generous business handouts.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">During the height of 2008 crisis conditions, $168 billion stimulus legislation was enacted. About $90 billion went to business and rich elites.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Jobs were lost, not created. From July through December 2008, nearly a million a month disappeared. Doing so matched the 1929-1930 rate.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Obama&#8217;s February 2009 $787 billion stimulus bill handed corporations nearly $400 billion in tax cuts. Over $225 billion went for business\/investor cuts.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Through December 2010, zero jobs were created. Part-time ones replaced higher paying full-time jobs.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Hundreds of thousands of federal, state and local public workers were laid off. Current unemployment tops 23%.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Official numbers are fake. They mask the greatest jobs crisis since the Great Depression. Before this one ends, it may be greater.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Bush and Obama benefitted corporations and rich elites hugely. They never had it better. Unprecedented wealth amounts shifted from ordinary people to them.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">The great wealth transfer heist continues. America is being thirdworldized in the process. Employment opportunities are dreadful.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It bears repeating. Tax cuts don&#8217;t create jobs. They could if linked to jobs creation. They haven&#8217;t been since Kennedy&#8217;s mandate.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Democrats and Republicans today are polar opposite. Reverse Robin Hoodism is policy. It created the greatest wealth disparity in US history.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Half or more of US households are impoverished or bordering it. Good jobs are disappearing in plain sight. Nearly 50 million Americans need food stamps to eat.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Hard times are getting harder. Needy households are increasing exponentially. At the same time, corporate profits are higher than ever.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Business taxes are way too low. The top nominal rate is 35%. Obama, Republicans and many Democrats plan cutting it to 28 or 25%.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D. MT) is retiring this year. He favors lower corporate rates. He helped spearhead Obamacare&#8217;s enactment.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Doing so wrecked America&#8217;s healthcare system. It did so to benefit business. The full fallout remains to unfold.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">One of many propagated myths is that US corporations pay too much in taxes. &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/01\/06\/opinion\/abolish-the-corporate-income-tax.html?hpw&amp;rref=opinion\"><span style=\"color: #1255cc;\">Abolish the Corporate Income Tax<\/span><\/a>,&#8221; says Kotlikoff. He wants people to believe what&#8217;s untrue.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;Just ask&#8221; Seattle-based Boeing machinist workers, he said. They accepted major contract concessions. They did so for greater &#8220;long-term success,&#8221; Kotlikoff claimed.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">False! Contract terms substitute largely worker funded 401ks for company-paid pensions, higher healthcare costs, reduced wage increases, and no strikes.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Heavy pressure was applied. Union bosses claimed 51% of International Association of Machinists approved what no workers want. Others claimed vote rigging.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Kotlikoff said Boeing workers acted in their own best interest. How does cutting their standard of living do so?<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;In recent decades, American workers have suffered one body blow after another,&#8221; he admitted.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;What can (they) do to mitigate their plight,&#8221; he asked? Eliminate corporate taxes, what else.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;It&#8217;s not\u2026a giveaway to the rich,&#8221; he maintains. Corporate taxes are &#8220;economically self-defeating.&#8221; They hurt &#8220;workers, not capitalists&#8230;&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He claims America &#8220;may well have the highest effective marginal corporate income tax rate of any developed country.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">As explained above, nominally it&#8217;s 35%. Bipartisan complicity agreed to cut it to 28 or 25%. Most large corporations pay less than half that amount.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Many pay much less. Some pay nothing. Others get rebates in profitable years. Corporate taxes have been in free fall for decades.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">As a percent of GDP and national income, they&#8217;re half what they were two decades ago. They&#8217;re going lower. Obama demands it. He&#8217;s doing so while waging war on ordinary Americans.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He&#8217;s one-sidedly pro-business. He&#8217;s anti-labor, anti-populist, anti-fairness. He wants greater austerity than already. He wants America&#8217;s social contract eliminated.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He wants corporate giants handed trillions more than already. So does Kotlikoff. He supports the great tax giveaway.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He wants corporate ones entirely eliminated. He claims maintaining them gets business to shift operations abroad.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">They do so largely for lower labor costs. They&#8217;re in countries with no worker protections. They&#8217;re free to exploit their workforce for greater profits.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Kotlikoff claims eliminating corporate taxes assures a &#8220;stunningly large&#8221; economic windfall. He&#8217;s for raising personal income tax rates at the same time.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He wants ordinary people to bear the burden. They do so more than ever now. He claims hitting them when they can least afford it &#8220;leads to a short-run inflow of capital.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;ll &#8220;rais(e) (America&#8217;s) capital stock (machines and buildings) by 23 percent, output by 8 percent, and the real wages of unskilled and skilled workers by 12 percent,&#8221; he maintains.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It bears repeating. Corporate tax cuts don&#8217;t create jobs. Clear evidence proves it. Throughout the new millennium, profits shifted abroad tax free.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">They remain on business balance sheets. They went for stock buybacks, dividends, high executive salaries and bonuses, as well as other unrelated non-job creation purposes.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Why else would unemployment exceed 23%? Inflation-adjusted wages have been declining for decades. Benefits workers took for granted are disappearing.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">So are good full-time jobs. Class war rages. Middle America is disappearing in plain sight. Detroit reflects nationwide decline.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Other troubled cities include major ones. Growing millions are on their own sink or swim. Predatory capitalism is malignant. It&#8217;s eating its seed corn. It&#8217;s killing its host.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s been a stunning failure for decades. It hollowed out America. It harms its most vulnerable.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It caused the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. Detroit once symbolized America&#8217;s industrial might. It&#8217;s zombie-like today.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Nothing is done to change things. Kotlikoff wants ordinary people hit harder. He claims raising their tax burden lifts all boats.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He says it does so when coupled with eliminating corporate taxes. He shows a shocking disregard for human welfare.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">His formula assures greater crisis conditions. Millions already can&#8217;t cope. More add to their ranks daily. Raising their taxes will accelerate the process.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">How can destroying the well-being of most Americans be beneficial? Kotlikoff apparently believes doing so will save them. He admits that inflation-adjusted wages are &#8220;10 percent lower today than (in) 1966.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;This is America&#8217;s nightmare, not its dream,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;Turning things around requires getting a lot of things right, starting, (he argues) with corporate tax reform.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">In 2007, his book titled &#8220;The Healthcare Fix&#8221; proposed ending Medicare, Medicaid, and employer-provider insurance.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He wants government-provided vouchers replacing them. He wants their cost maintained at a fixed 10% of GDP.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Well-off recipients could supplement coverage by buying more on their own. Others would be stuck with bare bones care.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Corporations are Kotlikoff&#8217;s concern. Ordinary people don&#8217;t matter. Deepening social inequality is OK.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Human misery is out of sight and mind. Kotlikoff&#8217;s formula assures hard times getting harder for growing millions.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">America already is unfit to live in. Kotlikoff wants impossible conditions for most people. Imagine if it turns out this way. Imagine the worst of all possible worlds.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">His new book is titled &#8220;Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanII.html<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">http:\/\/www.progressiveradionetwork.com\/the-progressive-news-hour<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">http:\/\/www.dailycensored.com\/corporate-taxes-america\/<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div><b>Corporate Taxes in America<\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>by Stephen Lendman<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Raising them should be a national imperative. Corporations should pay their fair share. Not according to Laurence Kotlikoff.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He&#8217;s a right-wing economist. He&#8217;s a corporatist writ large. He claims &nbsp;abolishing corporate taxes will create jobs.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Doing so requires dropping money on Main Street. Get it in people&#8217;s pockets directly. Do it by cutting their taxes.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Guarantee a living wage. Support worker-friendly legislation. Restore their bargaining power with management.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Return money creation power to public hands where it belongs. Initiate government jobs creation programs.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>New Deal ones put millions back to work. Doing so reinvigorated the national spirit.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Unemployment was measurably cut. It dropped from 25% in 1933 to 11% in 1937. Doing the right things work.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In 1961, corporate tax cuts were linked to job creation. Business had to prove they added jobs to qualify.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>No longer. Corporate tax cuts and credits are handed out freely. They&#8217;re not linked to job creation. They&#8217;re standard practice. More are planned this year.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Under Bush and Obama, corporations get tax cuts for overseas investments. Domestic job reductions accompany them. Offshoring is rewarded.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Multiple Bush tax cuts handed corporations around $3.4 trillion. Doing so was hailed as a way to create jobs.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Post-recession jobs creation during the early 2000s was the weakest on record. It took 46 months to recover those lost.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It&#8217;ll take over a decade now. The so-called 2007 &#8211; 2009 Great Recession continues to take an enormous toll on ordinary Americans. Main Street Great Depression conditions persist unabated.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Low pay\/poor or no benefit part-time jobs replaced higher paying, good benefit full-time ones. It&#8217;s been ongoing for decades. America is in economic decline.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Offshoring millions of jobs exacerbates hard times. According to Paul Craig Roberts, only fools believe doing so is good for America.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Likeminded so-called experts can&#8217;t see the forest through the trees. US corporations are hoarding cash. Bush and Obama tax cuts added $10 trillion or more to their balance sheets.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Much was shifted to offshore subsidiaries. Doing so avoids US taxes altogether. It&#8217;s unknown how much corporate wealth sits in tax havens. Perhaps trillions from generous business handouts.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>During the height of 2008 crisis conditions, $168 billion stimulus legislation was enacted. About $90 billion went to business and rich elites.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Jobs were lost, not created. From July through December 2008, nearly a million a month disappeared. Doing so matched the 1929-1930 rate.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Obama&#8217;s February 2009 $787 billion stimulus bill handed corporations nearly $400 billion in tax cuts. Over $225 billion went for business\/investor cuts.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Through December 2010, zero jobs were created. Part-time ones replaced higher paying full-time jobs.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Hundreds of thousands of federal, state and local public workers were laid off. Current unemployment tops 23%.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Official numbers are fake. They mask the greatest jobs crisis since the Great Depression. Before this one ends, it may be greater.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Bush and Obama benefitted corporations and rich elites hugely. They never had it better. Unprecedented wealth amounts shifted from ordinary people to them.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The great wealth transfer heist continues. America is being thirdworldized in the process. Employment opportunities are dreadful.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It bears repeating. Tax cuts don&#8217;t create jobs. They could if linked to jobs creation. They haven&#8217;t been since Kennedy&#8217;s mandate.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Democrats and Republicans today are polar opposite. Reverse Robin Hoodism is policy. It created the greatest wealth disparity in US history.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Half or more of US households are impoverished or bordering it. Good jobs are disappearing in plain sight. Nearly 50 million Americans need food stamps to eat.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Hard times are getting harder. Needy households are increasing exponentially. At the same time, corporate profits are higher than ever.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Business taxes are way too low. The top nominal rate is 35%. Obama, Republicans and many Democrats plan cutting it to 28 or 25%.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D. MT) is retiring this year. He favors lower corporate rates. He helped spearhead Obamacare&#8217;s enactment.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Doing so wrecked America&#8217;s healthcare system. It did so to benefit business. The full fallout remains to unfold.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>One of many propagated myths is that US corporations pay too much in taxes. &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/01\/06\/opinion\/abolish-the-corporate-income-tax.html?hpw&amp;rref=opinion\"><span>Abolish the Corporate Income Tax<\/span><\/a>,&#8221; says Kotlikoff. He wants people to believe what&#8217;s untrue.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Just ask&#8221; Seattle-based Boeing machinist workers, he said. They accepted major contract concessions. They did so for greater &#8220;long-term success,&#8221; Kotlikoff claimed.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>False! Contract terms substitute largely worker funded 401ks for company-paid pensions, higher healthcare costs, reduced wage increases, and no strikes.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Heavy pressure was applied. Union bosses claimed 51% of International Association of Machinists approved what no workers want. Others claimed vote rigging.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Kotlikoff said Boeing workers acted in their own best interest. How does cutting their standard of living do so?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;In recent decades, American workers have suffered one body blow after another,&#8221; he admitted.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;What can (they) do to mitigate their plight,&#8221; he asked? Eliminate corporate taxes, what else.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;It&#8217;s not&hellip;a giveaway to the rich,&#8221; he maintains. Corporate taxes are &#8220;economically self-defeating.&#8221; They hurt &#8220;workers, not capitalists&#8230;&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He claims America &#8220;may well have the highest effective marginal corporate income tax rate of any developed country.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As explained above, nominally it&#8217;s 35%. Bipartisan complicity agreed to cut it to 28 or 25%. Most large corporations pay less than half that amount.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Many pay much less. Some pay nothing. Others get rebates in profitable years. Corporate taxes have been in free fall for decades.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As a percent of GDP and national income, they&#8217;re half what they were two decades ago. They&#8217;re going lower. Obama demands it. He&#8217;s doing so while waging war on ordinary Americans.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He&#8217;s one-sidedly pro-business. He&#8217;s anti-labor, anti-populist, anti-fairness. He wants greater austerity than already. He wants America&#8217;s social contract eliminated.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He wants corporate giants handed trillions more than already. So does Kotlikoff. He supports the great tax giveaway.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He wants corporate ones entirely eliminated. He claims maintaining them gets business to shift operations abroad.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>They do so largely for lower labor costs. They&#8217;re in countries with no worker protections. They&#8217;re free to exploit their workforce for greater profits.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Kotlikoff claims eliminating corporate taxes assures a &#8220;stunningly large&#8221; economic windfall. He&#8217;s for raising personal income tax rates at the same time.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He wants ordinary people to bear the burden. They do so more than ever now. He claims hitting them when they can least afford it &#8220;leads to a short-run inflow of capital.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It&#8217;ll &#8220;rais(e) (America&#8217;s) capital stock (machines and buildings) by 23 percent, output by 8 percent, and the real wages of unskilled and skilled workers by 12 percent,&#8221; he maintains.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It bears repeating. Corporate tax cuts don&#8217;t create jobs. Clear evidence proves it. Throughout the new millennium, profits shifted abroad tax free.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>They remain on business balance sheets. They went for stock buybacks, dividends, high executive salaries and bonuses, as well as other unrelated non-job creation purposes.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Why else would unemployment exceed 23%? Inflation-adjusted wages have been declining for decades. Benefits workers took for granted are disappearing.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So are good full-time jobs. Class war rages. Middle America is disappearing in plain sight. Detroit reflects nationwide decline.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Other troubled cities include major ones. Growing millions are on their own sink or swim. Predatory capitalism is malignant. It&#8217;s eating its seed corn. It&#8217;s killing its host.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It&#8217;s been a stunning failure for decades. It hollowed out America. It harms its most vulnerable.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It caused the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. Detroit once symbolized America&#8217;s industrial might. It&#8217;s zombie-like today.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Nothing is done to change things. Kotlikoff wants ordinary people hit harder. He claims raising their tax burden lifts all boats.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He says it does so when coupled with eliminating corporate taxes. He shows a shocking disregard for human welfare.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>His formula assures greater crisis conditions. Millions already can&#8217;t cope. More add to their ranks daily. Raising their taxes will accelerate the process.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>How can destroying the well-being of most Americans be beneficial? Kotlikoff apparently believes doing so will save them. He admits that inflation-adjusted wages are &#8220;10 percent lower today than (in) 1966.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;This is America&#8217;s nightmare, not its dream,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;Turning things around requires getting a lot of things right, starting, (he argues) with corporate tax reform.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In 2007, his book titled &#8220;The Healthcare Fix&#8221; proposed ending Medicare, Medicaid, and employer-provider insurance.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He wants government-provided vouchers replacing them. He wants their cost maintained at a fixed 10% of GDP.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Well-off recipients could supplement coverage by buying more on their own. Others would be stuck with bare bones care.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Corporations are Kotlikoff&#8217;s concern. Ordinary people don&#8217;t matter. Deepening social inequality is OK.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Human misery is out of sight and mind. Kotlikoff&#8217;s formula assures hard times getting harder for growing millions.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>America already is unfit to live in. Kotlikoff wants impossible conditions for most people. Imagine if it turns out this way. Imagine the worst of all possible worlds.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>His new book is titled &#8220;Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanII.html<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>http:\/\/www.progressiveradionetwork.com\/the-progressive-news-hour<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>http:\/\/www.dailycensored.com\/corporate-taxes-america\/<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-103888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}