Corporations Get Tax Refunds, the Wealthy Get Tax Breaks
Two quick hits here on how the rich aren’t like you and me.
From 2008 to 2010, a sample of major corporations showed they earned $173 billion in combined profits—yet not only did they not pay taxes, but they actually got money back from the federal government in the form of tax benefits. In the study, Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) looked at a dozen major corporations and analyzed their profits and their effective federal corporate income tax rates between 2008 and 2010.
Next, 10 years after Bush tax cuts kicked in, the top 1 percent of earners (making more than $620,442) received 38 percent of the tax cuts, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The lowest 60 percent of filers (making less than $67,715) received less than 20 percent of the total benefit of Bush’s tax policies.
Meanwhile, really rich lawmakers are trying to cut the federal budget on the backs of working people, so they and their rich coporate cronies can keep raking in the tax benefits at the expense of the rest of us.
The Truth About Taxes
In this cross-post from Our Fiscal Security, Tamara Draut, vice president of Policy & Programs at Demos, gives us a quick list of the top 10 tax stats.
1. The government collected less in taxes in 2010 than it has in over three generations, and tax rates are at historic lows.
2. The Bush tax cuts added $1.7 trillion to the nation’s debt over 2001-2008, which is more than it would cost to send 24 million kids to four-year public universities.
3. Corporate income taxes totaled about 1 percent of GDP this year, 60 percent lower than 40 years ago.
4. General Electric, which reported $5 billion in U.S. profits, paid ZERO taxes this year. Exxon Mobil, the most profitable corporation in history, paid ZERO federal taxes in 2009.
5. The Bush tax legacy means we currently tax wealth less than work: middle-income paychecks are taxed at 25 percent compared to stock dividends and capital gains for the wealthiest, which are taxed at a top rate of only 15 percent.
‘Absolute Insanity’ to Keep Bush Tax Cuts for Wealthy
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Republicans on Capitol Hill want to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich, which are set to expire at the end of the year. President Obama and congressional Democrats want to extend the cuts for middle- and lower-income families, but not for persons making $250,000 or more.
The Bush tax cuts never came close to living up to the promise that they would create jobs—we actually lost private-sector jobs under the Bush administration. Extending the tax breaks for the wealthy also would add billions to the national deficit.
In a statement today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said it is “absolutely insane” that in these tough economic times some people want to continue the “tax give-aways to millionaires while working families are losing their jobs, their benefits and their homes.”
We need to focus on creating jobs by giving tax breaks only to middle-class families and investing in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and green technologies. Millionaires and Wall Street already had their party, which tanked our economy and left Main Street stuck paying the bill.
Beware: Job Killer Candidates Lurk in Ohio
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Andy Richards, AFL-CIO Field Communications assistant in Ohio, sends us this report.
Beware of the Ohio Job Killers lurking among us. Outsourcing our jobs have been their agenda for years. And now, they are asking voters to disregard their job-killing record and put them in charge of some of Ohio’s most important political positions. Who are these job killers?
Job Killer #1: John Kasich: “If it’s in the Yellow Pages, outsource it.” This is the mantra of gubernatorial candidate and former Lehman Brothers executive John Kasich. But it doesn’t end there. There is no doubt John Kasich interests lie with Wall Street. Kasich worked for years as a managing director at Lehman Brothers, one of the Wall Street firms that helped create the economic crisis that caused the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in Ohio.
During his time there, he helped to move Ohio pension fund investments to Lehman Brothers. Lehman went bankrupt in 2008 and, as a result, the Ohio pension fund lost hundreds of millions of dollars. For his work at Lehman, Kasich was paid more than $1 million in salary and bonuses in 2008 alone. Click here for videos on Kasich’s job-killing record.
247,000 Jobs Lost in July; Without Recovery Package, Would Be Far Worse
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U.S. jobs lost in July totaled 247,000, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data out today, with the unofficial unemployment rate now at 9.4 percent compared with 9.5 percent in June, the first improvement in the pace of job loss since June 2008.
The July jobless rate, while much better than economists predicted, still means 14.5 million U.S. workers are without jobs. And if the underemployed or those who want a job but have given up looking are counted, the broader U.S. unemployment rate stands at 16.3 percent, more than 25 million Americans who need jobs or full-time work but cannot find it. Jobs were lost in all sectors, except for education, health care, leisure and government, which all experienced small gains.
More frightening, the July job figures would have been far worse without the economic recovery package, which has helped to slow the pace of job loss to less than half of what it was just six months ago. From May to July, job losses averaged 331,000 per month, compared with losses averaging 645,000 per month from November to April.
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
Behold, the winner of the World Press Photo of the Year 2008 award.
For those outside the United States, this is the image of our nation:
U.S. Economy in Crisis: Following eviction, Detective Robert Kole must ensure residents have moved out of their home in Cleveland, Ohio, 26 March 2008.
600,000 Jobs Lost: How Bad Does It Have to Get for Republicans to Act?
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With today’s unemployment report showing nearly 600,000 jobs lost in January—worsening the U.S. unemployment rate from 7.2 percent to 7.6 percent—will obstructionist Republicans in Congress finally move the economic recovery bill?
From Bloomberg:
“Last month’s losses mark the first time since records began in 1939 that job cuts exceeded half a million in three consecutive months.”
While the official unemployment rate of 7.6 percent is really bad, the unofficial rate—which includes underemployed workers and those who have become too discouraged to look for work—is 13.8 percent. Some 21.5 million workers are either unemployed, working part time for economic reasons or dropping out of the labor force because they can’t find work.
Bush Deals Last-Minute Insults to Workers’ Rights
The Bush administration couldn’t resist taking a final slap at human rights. In Bush’s final hours in office, he implemented on Friday a trade agreement with Peru despite calls by Congress, unions, environmental and human rights groups to delay action to ensure that Peru’s laws meet its commitments before the agreement enters into force.
The new “reforms” passed by Peru’s Congress last week are inadequate to protect the environment, promote worker rights and ensure access to affordable medicines, as required by the agreement.
At the same time, the Bush Labor Department’s Office of Trade & Labor Affairs rejected a petition, the first of its kind, under the labor provisions of the Central America Free Trade Act (CAFTA) The petition, filed in April by six Guatemalan unions, with the support of the AFL-CIO, involved five cases where employers suppressed, sometimes violently, workers’ efforts to form a union, and the government failed to protect worker’s internationally recognized rights.
AFL-CIO Policy Director Thea Lee says these two actions:
….were a parting shot of disrespect by the Bush administration.
In a last-ditch effort to avert criticism and secure implementation of the agreement before Bush left office, the Peruvian government approved a series of legislative reforms Jan. 13 that exacerbate current environmental problems, such as mass deforestation, and do not adequately address labor rights, labor and human rights groups say.
Here is Susan Ellsworth, associate representative with the Sierra Club:
The U.S. Congress voted for an FTA that members believed represented a new day for environmental protection and worker rights on trade agreements. This is not what will happen if Peru rushes through flawed laws at the eleventh hour.
Many members of Congress, including President Barack Obama, supported the U.S.-Peru agreement in 2007 because it included new and stronger provisions to promote worker rights and protect the environment. But the rush to certify the FTA now threatens to undercut these advances and lock inadequate laws into place.
Lee adds:
Peru’s labor laws still fall far short of meeting International Labor Organization standards, and we were deeply disappointed with the Bush administration’s decision to rush implementation without first securing compliance with the agreement’s provisions. This represents a wasted opportunity and shows poor faith on the part of our own government.
The Bush administration refused to even consider the Guatemalan unions’ complaint even though four union leaders and/or their family members were murdered in that country since the agreement was approved by Congress and many others have been victims of attempted murder or have received death threats. Workers who attempt to form or join a union, bargain collectively or conduct a strike still are routinely fired illegally, the unions say.
A Quick Tour of the Bush Legacy
* In the Laugh-if-it-Didn’t-Hurt-So-Much category:
In an interview with The Associated Press, Vice President Dick Cheney also said that President George W. Bush has no need to apologize for not foreseeing the economic crisis.
“I don’t think he needs to apologize. I think what he needed to do is take bold, aggressive action and he has,” Cheney said.
* Laugh and Hurt, Part II: Bush took such “aggressive action” on the economy, he must have worried a lot about it. NOT. In fact, when asked by People magazine about which moments from the past eight years he revisited most often, Bush talked passionately about the pitch he threw out at the World Series in 2001:
“I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency, curiously enough.”
Obama Economic Plan: Create Made-in-America Jobs
President-elect Barack Obama today laid out some of the details of his economic recovery plan. While the current President focuses on giving the Medal of Freedom to the leader of a country that has the highest number of trade union murders in the world and on spending nearly $600,000 on new china for the White House days before leaving office, Obama is moving to clean up the Bush economic mess. Giving the Democratic radio address this morning, Obama said:
Our first job is to put people back to work and get our economy working again. This is an extraordinary challenge.
