The GOP Tax Plan drops the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Republicans say it will bring jobs to American workers. Democrats think it will bring larger dividends to shareholders.
What is remarkable, however, is the changed role of the corporation in relation to its workers.
“The corporate behemoths of postwar America — General Motors, General Electric, DuPont, IBM and the like — behaved in markedly different ways than those of today. They provided pensions for retirees. What they paid workers was a small percentage of what executives got, but it was not an infinitesimal fraction. And they paid a much bigger cut in federal taxes.
The corporations were, or at least aspired to be, part of the American bedrock.
“For years I thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa,” a GM chief famously told Congress in 1953. The Republican tax plan moving toward passage in Congress promises to erase one of the last remnants of that era, pushing the corporate tax rate to its lowest point since the 1930s.
“The higher corporate rate was a holdover from a time when companies not only paid a larger share of taxes but provided more for workers, too. They put a larger portion of corporate income into paychecks and were much more likely to provide pensions.
“The notion of the corporation as a social institution was a defining feature of the mid-20th century — but that has been fading,” said Benjamin C. Waterhouse, a historian of business and politics at the University of North Carolina and the author of “ The Land of Enterprise ,” a history of American business. “These days, the broader trend has been that corporations have experienced an increase in political rights and a decrease in social responsibility.”
Today, the notion of corporations having a sense of social responsibility seems antique.
In the view of Republicans, social responsibility is a cost that corporations can not afford. Nor can they afford pensions. But they don’t blink at the thought of paying their top executives tens of millions of dollars a year.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane In part, this came from a move from national to global economy, and the mentality of corporate people that followed it. (That’s not an excuse, but a partial explanation.)
Also, where is that bill for an increase in infrastructure-spending that the crazy man in the White House promised?
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You probably know more than me, Catherine, but while globalization explains some, it doesn’t explain the huge executive salaries, the tremendous divide between classes. It doesn’t explain those executives completely eschewing social responsibility because as GDP in the U.S. flatlines, there are very socially responsible corporations in European countries with rising GDPs, doing just fine, thank you very much, competing with streamlining developing countries just fine. It seems our wealthy, conservative Milton fans in the U.S. are competing not with streamlined foreign companies, but rather with vivid figments of their imaginations.
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InService That’s why I said “in part.” A loosening of one’s provincial identities (national in this case) makes for a lessening of what would otherwise be a spontaneous sense of responsibility to one’s nation–patriotism is based on that principle. But all the talk here about corporations-as-states, on that score, has some legs. Without the corporation, from which they fulfill their wealth and ambition, they are wanderers of the earth.
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InService Afterthought: You compare European Corporations–but in order to really understand why your observation is correct, again, in part, we’d have to get deep into the differences in our histories. We cannot do that here, of course, but it’s a fascinating arena of study from pretty-much any angle. My earlier note was more about the provincial aspects (national identity) of CEOs’ psychologies–we tend to take care of our families more and first before we take care of others outside of our domains. And global thinking tends to change that spontaneous dynamic. Many DO recover it reflectively and of course global thinking has many good aspects.
I know there are threads of good, reflective, even spiritual thinking that has gone on in corporate training sessions for some years here and abroad, both from morally-sound secular groups, and those that are supported by our various religious communities. But (apparently) it’s lost ground. I don’t see much of its influence, do you?
On today’s headlines, I’ve always had confidence in the themes that come to us from the Federalist Papers, particularly #8 and #10. But Trump and his cronies already have broken through the incremental structure that those papers depict–the systematic washing out of harmful factions–and that WAS the source of my confidence in the power of our Constitution and democracy. It’s going to take us all to keep it from crumbling.
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Corporations today are foreign nations unto themselves. They do not think they should have to pay taxes — seriously, does anyone think they will pay 21%? — they think they should collect taxes, they think they are the government.
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The global economy has resulted in corporations feeling less responsible to their employees and our country. They have markets all over the world so they are less dependent on the well being of our economy than they were in previous decades.
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Sheldon Wolin called the USA’s now defunct democracy Inverted Totalitarianism. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/sheldon-wolin-and-inverted-totalitarianism/
Be sure and take the time to link through to the interview Hedges did with Wolin 2 years before he died. It’s long but well worth understanding the US power structure.
“Unlike the Nazis, who made life uncertain for the wealthy and privileged while providing social programs for the working class and poor, inverted totalitarianism exploits the poor, reducing or weakening health programs and social services, regimenting mass education for an insecure workforce threatened by the importation of low-wage workers,” Wolin writes. “Employment in a high-tech, volatile, and globalized economy is normally as precarious as during an old-fashioned depression. The result is that citizenship, or what remains of it, is practiced amidst a continuing state of worry. Hobbes had it right: when citizens are insecure and at the same time driven by competitive aspirations, they yearn for political stability rather than civic engagement, protection rather than political involvement.
Inverted totalitarianism, Wolin said when we met at his home in Salem, Ore., in 2014 to film a nearly three-hour interview, constantly “projects power upwards.” It is “the antithesis of constitutional power.” It is designed to create instability to keep a citizenry off balance and passive.”
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If our nation seriously plans to compete, in a global economy, we must have corporate tax rates, that are competitive.
And remember, corporations do not pay taxes. Corporations only collect taxes. The final consumer pays all taxes.
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Tax Reform: Why was there no one to stand up for college grads? It will put the cost of college way too high for most of the population. Why did no one stand up for seniors or people who will loose their healthcare? What an evil bunch of people. I feel like throwing up at the thought of the Orange IDIOT’s delight at signing something that will bring him billions of tax dollars. Whatever happened to the threat to close down the government because the deficit was too high? The GOP has a collective long term memory problem. Welcome to the $1.4 trillion addition to the deficit.
Next, when there is no money, welcome to cuts in Medicare, Medicaid,Social Security and every other support program. The expanding military and NSA will bloom because they must ‘keep us safe everywhere in the world’.
We now have the best government that money can buy. Corporations know what to fund.
The Orange IDIOT is working his way to be dictator. His next job will be to reorganize the FBI because it obviously is corrupt.
…………………….
NYT: Republicans’ $1.5 Trillion Tax Plan Appears on Track to Pass Next Week
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This is long but good. It comes from Fareed Zakaria. He explains what is wrong with the proposed tax bill. It is frightening.
…
GOP tax bill would usher in a bleak future
By Fareed Zakaria
Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017
If the Republican tax plan passes Congress, it will mark a watershed for the United States. The medium- and long-term effects of the plan will be a massive drop in public investment, which will come on the heels of decades of declining spending (as a percentage of gross domestic product) on infrastructure, scientific research, skills training and core government agencies. The United States can’t coast on past investments forever, and with this legislation, we are ushering in a bleak future.
The tax bill is expected to add at least $1 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, and some experts think the real loss to federal revenue will be much higher. If Congress doesn’t slash spending, automatic cuts will kick in unless Democrats and Republicans can agree to waive them. Either way, the prospects for discretionary spending look dire, with potential cuts to spending on roads and airports, training and apprenticeship programs, health-care research and public-health initiatives, among hundreds of other programs. And these cuts would happen on top of an already difficult situation. As Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution points out, combined public investment by federal, state and local governments is at its lowest point in six decades, relative to GDP.
The United States is at a breaking point. In August, the World Bank looked at 50 countries and found that the United States will have the largest unmet infrastructure needs over the next two decades. Look in any direction. According to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the United States has almost 56,000 bridges with structural problems (about 1,900 of which are on interstate highways), and these are crossed 185 million times a day. Another industry report says that in 1977 the federal government provided 63 percent of the country’s total investment in water infrastructure, but only 9 percent by 2014. There’s so much congestion in America’s largest rail hub, Chicago, that it takes longer for a freight train to pass through the city than it takes to get from there to Los Angeles, according to Building America’s Future, a public interest group.
There is no better indication of the U.S. government’s myopia than the decline in funding for research. A recent report in Science notes that for the first time since World War II, private funding for basic research now exceeds federal funding. Research and development topped 10 percent of the national budget in the mid-1960s; it is now less than 4 percent. And the Senate’s version of the tax bill removed a crucial tax credit that has encouraged corporate spending on research, though the House-Senate compromise version will probably keep it. All this is happening in an environment in which other countries, from South Korea to Germany to China, are ramping up their investments in these areas. A recent study found that China is on track to surpass the United States as the world leader in biomedical research spending.
When I came to America in the 1980s, I was struck by how well the government functioned. When I would hear complaints about the IRS or the Federal Aviation Administration, I would often reply, “Have you ever seen how badly these bureaucracies work in other countries?” Certainly compared with India, where I grew up, but even compared with countries such as France and Italy, many of the federal government’s key offices were professional and competent. But decades of criticism, congressional micromanagement and underfunding have taken their toll. Agencies such as the IRS are now threadbare. The Census Bureau is preparing to go digital and undertake a new national tally, but it is hamstrung by an insufficient budget and has had to cancel several much-needed tests. The FAA lags behind equivalent agencies in countries such as Canada and has been delayed in upgrading its technology because of funding lapses and uncertainties. The list goes on and on.
There are genuine problems beyond underfunding. The costs of building American infrastructure are astronomical. But during the Depression, World War II and much of the Cold War, a sense of crisis and competition focused America’s attention and created a bipartisan urgency to get things done. Ironically, at a time when competition is far more fierce, when other countries have surpassed the United States in many of these areas, America has fallen into extreme partisanship and embraced a know-nothing libertarianism that is starving the country of the essential investments it needs for growth. Those who vote for this tax bill — possibly the worst piece of major legislation in a generation — will live in infamy, as the country slowly breaks down.
(c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group
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The Orange IDIOT and most of Congress can now pat themselves on the back for doing such a good job to help the middle class.
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Donald Trump And GOP Leaders Could Be Enriched By Last Minute Tax Break Inserted Into Final Bill…International Business Times
The Trump organization and the Kushners (the family of Ivanka’s husband, Jared) have overseen vast real estate empires, and top GOP lawmakers writing the tax bill collectively have tens of millions of dollars of ownership stakes in real-estate-related LLCs. The new tax provision would specifically allow owners of large real estate holdings through LLCs to deduct a percentage of their “pass through” income from their taxes, according to experts. Although Trump, who became famous for his real estate holdings, has transitioned into branding in recent years, federal records show Trump has ownership stakes in myriad LLCs.
The new provision was not in the bill passed by the House or the Senate. Instead, it was inserted into the final bill during reconciliation negotiations between Republicans from both chambers. The provision, said experts, would offer a special tax cut to LLCs with few employees and large amounts of depreciable property assets, namely buildings: rent generating apartment and office buildings.
“This helps people who have held property for awhile, like Donald Trump,” David Kamin,…
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/donald-trump-gop-leaders-could-be-enriched-last-minute-tax-break-inserted-final
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At one point recently, I said something in class that surprised me…you know how words sometimes just come tumbling out: “Corporations are now the dominant life-form on this planet.” We were talking about types of business organization.
Then, I caught myself and thought, now wait a second…I don’t want to be guilty of hyperbole.
But on second thought, maybe there’s some truth to my thought. It’s not only that the U.S. Supreme Court has provided corporations with now expanding rights of “personhood”. The documentary “The Corporation” makes a great point about how people tend to imbue different corporations with unique human characteristics: “General Electric is a kind, old man…..” (“The Corporation” is on YouTube linked below. See at about the 12 minute mark.) Of course, “kind” sure ain’t the first word that comes to my mind when I think of these businesses.
I try to teach my classes that there are plenty of nations today that are using capitalism but that are far from being democracies. If the aim is to have “our” corporations compete with businesses based in places like China and Singapore, what will that competition inevitably do to our political culture here in the U.S.? And, really, how can these multinationals be “good for America” when they’re actually denizens of the world and at the same time beholden to the bottom line?
I find that too many people nowadays confuse being a consumer with being a citizen. Going shopping is not the same thing as participating in one’s government. But here we are, at the end of 2017, having chosen or is it bought (in a truly weird sort of way) a schlocky, bizarre businessman who is now fumbling around at the helm of our colossal ship of state. Trump is not only our own generation’s version of P.T. Barnum, as a candidate he actually embraced that comparison. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/01/17/out-goes-p-t-barnums-circus-in-comes-donald-trump/?utm_term=.0254899131bf
God help us all.
To see the documentary “The Corporation”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y888wVY5hzw
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I will have to watch “the Corporation”…. Tina Packer said : “When Rome fell we were left with the Catholic Church; when U.S. falls, we will be left with only the corporation”…. I guess that qualifies as your “hyperbole” but I think she has a point ….. but , as with climate change, it depends upon what we DO .
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John Ogozalek I’ve heard teachers call their students “customers.” When language (citizenship) leaves the common discourse, and is taken over by other language (customers/business), can the loss of our understanding of ourselves as citizens be far behind?
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This comes from an editorial board opinion from WaPo:
Opinion | The Rubio tax bill saga is a perfect expression of Republican priorities
…In a bill slanted toward the wealthy, Mr. Rubio’s idea to expand the child tax credit for low-income families would make the overall tax plan a bit more progressive, diverting a little more money toward those who could really use the help. By contrast, the GOP plan to lower the top income tax rate to 37 percent would sharply and unexpectedly increase incomes at the top. As with previous iterations of the GOP plan, the overall picture is still of a tax reform that offers little benefit to many ordinary people while handing huge benefits to the rich at the expense of the country’s long-term fiscal health.
A tax cut for corporations would be warranted under different circumstances — particularly if it were paid for. But many of the bill’s provisions are simply unjustifiable. Obamacare’s crucial individual mandate should not be repealed. Wealthy heirs do not require relief from the estate tax. High earners do not need a lower top tax rate.
Republicans claim that the bill’s provisions will spur economic growth and Americans will share broadly in the resulting prosperity. In fact, the growth effects will probably be mild, and the price tag will probably be a trillion-plus dollars in new debt, according to nonpartisan projections. This debt will further burden low- and middle-income Americans in future generations as their government loses the means to invest in research, education, health care and infrastructure.
Independent analysis after independent analysis concluded that the GOP tax framework would exacerbate economic inequality and add massively to the debt — well more than the Obama stimulus Republicans attacked as an irresponsible monstrosity — for relatively little in return. The Republican response has been to ignore the experts, attack the messengers and double down on bad policy.
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“Shareholder primacy” is the ultimate source of the GOP mindset. Here’s a quote from an Alternet article by Ken Jacobsen from 2012:
(The) doctrine, known as “shareholder primacy,” now reigns in the corporate world today, and it has so increased the power of those whom it has benefited that it will not be easy to dislodge. Those who propagate it believe, or would have us believe, that it is based in law; in fact, it is supported by no more than ideology. They believe, or would have us believe, that it reflects incontrovertible and eternal truths; in fact, it is an expression of transient self-interest. They believe, or would have us believe, that it honors long precedent – but, as we have seen, its ascendency is recent, and, rather than honor it undermines precedent. Yet despite these contradictions, corporations and their allies have been exceedingly successful at selling their viewpoint to the American people.
After reading this five years ago, I saw many articles that made connections between this mindset and other education related issues like: pension reform; the movement to break-up public sector unions; the suppression of wages in all fields, including STEM (which was the source of the so-called “STEM crisis” in schools); family leave policies; the off-shoring and outsourcing of employment from the 1970s onward; the offshoring of corporate profits; and, most recently, the movement to privatize public schools in Puerto Rico following the hurricane there.
Unfortunately the donors to both parties want the public to continue believing that shareholder primacy is an “incontrovertible and eternal truth”. If we want to put an end to notion of shareholder primacy, we need to make it clear to students at all levels of schooling that shareholder primacy is an “expression of transient self interest” and not a legal requirement imposed on corporations by legislation or some natural laws of economics. Shareholder primacy is a mental formation developed by and reinforced by the same donors whose “thought leaders” helped the GOP draft the “tax reform” legislation… and they are the same “thought leaders” who helped both parties develop their test-centric education platforms.
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Absolutely agree . It is beginning to be challenged in business schools . And its driving force was the Business Round Table as those CEO compensations were driven by the returns.
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Well stated. Both parties yield to corporate power while the interests of ordinary people are diminished or ignored.
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**retired teacher” That’s why they’re after unions. Unions are the last stronghold of group power for individual workers who have no power as individuals. They know that in a democracy, groups, not individuals, have potential power to change their endless kleptomania.
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CBK, exactly right. Crushing unions is about stifling any voice for working people
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GOP = Global Offshore Plutocracy
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Global Offshore Plutocracy = YES!
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The modern corporation is attractive in that it is set up to limit the liability of its owners . Therefore it’s share holders are limited in the losses they can experience to the amount of shares they own and if a corporation goes bankrupt or is sued for more than the amount of assets they own ,nobody is going into their bank account to make up the difference. But corporations are not the problem here . They are not people they don’t eat sleep or drink . They don’t buy or consumer goods other than what is needed for their day to day functioning of the corporation ..
The problem here is the people who own these corporations from the pensionaire to the billionaire. As those owners saw their returns rising they saw the role of the corporation changing from one of doing what was good for GM to doing what was good for the owners of GM . Share holder value became tantamount which among other things changed the view of management teams from one of long term growth to one of short term return . If the goal is long term growth then you invest in the things that grow the corporation. You invest in its infrastructure, in product development (R&D) in training human resources . You view your employees as human capital and their health and welfare as important as keeping the plant and machinery in good operating order. When you view your role as maximizing shareholder value(returns) then your outlook lessens the importance of your capital stock and your human stock . The only stake holder that counts is the stockholder . .
The management team, the boards of directors and CEOs are compensated by how much they deliver for the shareholders so it becomes in their interest to deliver . The shareholders have no interest in the corporation other than as a vehicle to deliver gains .
They do not walk down the factory floor and say look at what I built. Their only connection is the value of their shares for as long as they own them and in modern markets , that can be as little as a nanosecond. Investors in pension funds and mutual funds may not even know which companies their shares are invested in . . The management team also may not have a connection to the company. Many brought in solely for their expertise in delivering shareholder value . Thus we had the specter of Chainsaw Al Dunlap who would go from corporation to corporation deciding how to cut waste and maximize value. Al would throw a dart at a dart board with plant names on it ,to decide which
which plant to close. So growing the company lost its tie to investing in its capital stock physical or human and it became a matter of cutting costs to increase share value . The person driving the value being the CEO. The more the value the larger the CEO compensation . Mergers and acquisitions and vulture capitalism subsidized by tax advantage becomes common place as companies stop seeing building a better mousetrap as a road to profits and see buying out their competition as a faster way to value . The efficiencies of scale are than achieved by reducing human and physical capital.
The newly merged company being able to meet their sales demand with less people than the two competitors .
But if corporations no longer have a need to insure the well being of their human capital than whose role is it to do so . Somewhere around the turn of the last century it was decided that it was Governments role to do it using taxes and regulation to do so . Culminating in FDR’s new deal and Johnson’s great society and 40 years of growth for the middle class . But that redistribution was seen as cutting into the profits of corporations and thus the returns to shareholders and perhaps they are right it does .. Pensions and healthcare were not corporate responsibly they were Government subsidized wages negotiated in the contracts with unions, enabled by regulations . Benefits in place of wages those non union companies that adopted them did so in competition for labor and to keep unions out. Educating the workforce becomes a role corporations want government to do to spare corporations the burden . Educations role then focuses on career training. College and community college seen as a ticket to careers …….
But we as a people have to decide are we shareholders or people. The 401k once a corporate perk pension became a vehicle to broaden stock ownership as workers for the first time started thinking of themselves as investors cheering every market rise, many times built on the backs of other workers .Workers whose jobs would be eliminated as companies merged or shipped production overseas maximizing share value. . Government taxes and regulations then come under assault as they hurt profits and shareholder returns But the corporation is not the problem here we the people are the problem . We have to decide what role it is that we want government to play.
Tax corporations at zero if you please . They are merely a pass through to the shareholders who own them including their CEOs. The reason to lower corporate taxes is to pass profits through to investors who can then take them out at the lower rate on Capital Gains. An option not available to share hoder pensions and 401ks . Eliminate the gains rate and tax all gains as personal income raising the rates so that it reflects the share of national income and wealth . We hear that the wealthy pay the bulk of taxes, we seldom hear that it is a fraction of the wealth they control. One tenth of one percent controlling 90% of the wealth . If we can not correct this through the political process rest assured one day it will be corrected with pitchforks and burning torches,
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The New World Order. Multi-Nationals don’t feel any responsibility to any nation. Regardless of their country of origin.
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Does Bannon have a permanent address?
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Unfortunately the supporters of both parties want the public to continue believing:
A change of the puppet’s costume (red or blue), is the cure.
Changing the puppet doesn’t change the puppeteer.
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I remember reading that individuals have to sign a contract prior to incorporating, in which they pledge to pay taxes and create jobs for United States citizens. Basically; a promise to be a positive force for our economy and it’s work force.
Am I mistaken?
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Good idea to avoid a romantic view of corporate history. Corporations emerged as massive forces in American life and politics in the Gilded Age of Robber Barons just after the Civil War. They treated workers and the environment in toxic, profit-driven ways from the start, only limited by the amount of mass worker militance against them in the form of strikes and occupations, some notable as armed insurrections against corporate domination like the great railroad strike of 1877, the Homestead Steel Strike of 1894, and the famous Battle Mountain coal miner’s revolt of 1921. Progressive legislation in first decades of 20th made a difference but corporate venality and violence did not stop, leading to the Great Crash of 1929 and another labor uprising in the 1930s. American corporations have never been “good citizens” in this nation and never will be; they will be limited in their violence and predation only to the extent there are large militant mass movements fighting them.
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We have many superfund sites that attest to corporate irresponsibility and our legacy of deregulation.
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This just came out in an email from the WH. (Talk about garbage from the top.)
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‘On tax cuts, Trump is the modern JFK’
– CNN
Stephen Moore, a CNN economic analyst, writes about the ways that President Trump “seems to share JFK’s wisdom” when it comes to tax cuts. Moore explains that when tax cuts were enacted following President John F. Kennedy’s death, “America experienced one of the greatest periods of prosperity in our history.”
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UGH! Stephen Moore is the worst, he’s a corporate lackey and shill and that’s an understatement. Just seeing Stephen Moore makes me want to vomit. JFK lowered the top marginal tax rate from 91% to 74% and he closed many of the tax loopholes. I wish we had a top marginal tax rate of 74%. The top marginal tax rate stayed in the low 70% range until Reagan came to power; he slashed taxes on the rich and tripled the national debt. Later Reagan had to raise taxes 11 times because of the initial loss of revenue from his massive tax cut (for the rich) of 1981.
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I took the pledge at NotOnePenny.org. He has a video on FaceBook but I am not a FaceBook person. It is refreshing to realize that at last one CEO realizes that this ‘tax reform’ is a scam. Here is the email minus the video:
…….
I’m David Mendels, former CEO of a public company in Boston. I’m writing today because, like so many other Americans, I’m outraged by what I’m hearing about the tax bill Republicans are rushing to pass early next week.
In particular, I was provoked by something Gary Cohn, Chief Economic Advisor to Donald Trump, said recently:
“The most excited group out there are big CEOs, about our tax plan.”
Well, I’m here to set the record straight.
Watch and share the video of my conversation with the Not One Penny campaign about the real reason CEOs are excited about the Republican tax bill — and why the middle class shouldn’t be.
Trump and Republicans in Congress are arguing that massive tax cuts for corporations will somehow translate into higher wages and more jobs for working people. At best, they’re wrong — at worst, they’re blatantly lying.
I’ve hired and determined salaries for thousands of people throughout my 25-year-long career in the tech industry, and so I know firsthand that demand and labor markets determine when we hire and how much we pay — not tax rates.
The truth is simple: Tax cuts for corporations will benefit the owners of corporations, not the workforce.
We’ve already seen this play out time and again in the broader economy. Record corporate profits have driven up the stock market and made investors even richer, while wages have stagnated.
Putting more money in the pockets of CEOs and top executives like me who have already done plenty well is the very last thing our economy needs.
That’s why I’m personally pledging that if this bill passes, I’ll donate 100% of any tax cut I receive to groups fighting to make our society more equal and just.
I hope more CEOs, executives, and investors will join me in doing so — but in the meantime, I hope you’ll help spread the word about the lies at the heart of the Republican tax plan.
Thanks so much for reading — and for being part of this incredibly important movement.
David Mendels
Former CEO of Brightcove
Boston, MA
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I just received this:
…………………………….
Thanks so much for adding your name to say NOT ONE PENNY in tax cuts for the rich.
We know President Trump is going to do everything he can to slash taxes for his wealthy friends, so we need as many people as possible to make their voices heard.
Forward this email and ask your friends to join you in taking the Not One Penny pledge here:
http://notonepenny.org
Thanks, and more soon!
-The Tax March Team
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I joined. Posted it to my FB page, too. This s*#t is just getting way too out of control.
I know a couple of guys from high school who I’m friends with there who I’m sure will say how every time we’ve done trickle down initiatives we’ve seen incredibly positive results. I don’t get it. The arguments against this bill are just too compelling. The corporations and wealthy are doing so well. Why do they need more?
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When companies started creating their Offices of Corporate Responsibility, it was in response to the consumer rights and environmental movements of the 1970’s.
I was working as bicycle messenger in NYC at the time, and was often wandering around the hallways of companies – much easier to do then – and, invariably, the Office of Corporate Responsibility was right next door to the Public Relations department.
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Facebook has just reminded me of something I wrote on this day six years ago —
Jonny Cache
December 17, 2011 ·
It’s true that Empire once again rules the world — but when I examine its character there is something more British than American in its underlying mercenary spirit, so I suggest that it’s really the ghost of the East India Company Re-Incorporated that has re-possessed its former possession, the American Colonies, and is using that semi-continent as its latest base camp to stuff the whole globe, once more time, where the sun don’t set.
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edit: one more time
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Jon Awbrey Though it’s resonant of the negative past of the British Empire, there’s a deeper principle at work that we see in all struggles for power and existence in all cultures throughout history. What I mean is that to identify Britain as the culprit, and stop there in your analysis, rather than to understand it as resonant, but also as manifest distortions and extremes of the human spirit as such, would be somewhat short-sighted and wrong-headed.
Or, as the rockers of the eighties said: “Everyone wants to rule the world.”
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Yes, corporations do not pay taxes — the US citizen pays all taxes. It is the bloated US government that should not need to be paid for by anyone,
Some say that the Income Tax Amendment was not legally ratified by the States. If so, then the US Government has been stealing money from the people.
The Revolutionary War was fought over the fact that we had to use the Bank of England to finance things at interest. That is why we fought so hard to keep Federal Banks out of the US. That is what the Federal Reserve is. The Congress borrows money from it at interest. It has not followed the US Constitution because Congress is supposed to coin money. Congress is supposed to regulate the money supply,
Ever since the creation of The Federal Reserve and the Income Tax our National Debt has grown. Income Taxes goes to pay down the interest on that debt and it is not enough, obviously. It truly does not pay for necessary services or any services at all (most of which are not necessary because the Federal Government is into so many areas that it is not supposed to be into as I stated above).
We need to get rid of the Fed and get the Federal government out of most things it is into and get rid of the Income tax altogether.
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Schlitz3 I know a school you can attend, to find you what you are talking about.
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Schlitz3 That’s “I know a school you can attend, to find out what you are talking about.” (For me, I’ll learn to read more thoroughly before I post.)
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