A Tax Holiday Wouldn’t Create U.S. Jobs
With Big Business pushing Congress to pass legislation granting a “tax holiday” for hundreds of U.S. corporations, a new study shows that despite a similar tax holiday in 2004, corporations slashed nearly 600,000 jobs through layoffs even as they collectively saved $64 billion from what they otherwise would have owed in taxes. Under a tax holiday, corporations could bring trillions in overseas proft back to the United States in exchange for a hugely reduced tax rate on that profit.
The Institute for Policy Studies report shows the 2004 tax holiday enabled 843 companies to reduce their tax rate from 35 percent to just over 5 percent. These companies repatriated $312 billion in profits—and avoided $92 billion in federal taxes. The corporations include Big Banks like Citigroup and Bank of America.
Wall Street firms currently are lobbying for another tax holiday on an up to $1.5 trillion in overseas profits. Legislation in the Republican-controlled House would let them repatriate Read the rest of this entry »
Kasich’s Ohio Budget Bill Would Kill 51,052 Jobs
Yet another Republican governor is killing jobs. This time, it’s John Kasich in Ohio.
A study out today shows his proposed two-year budget could mean a direct loss of 51,052 jobs in that state. The study by Innovation Ohio shows that such job losses would be more than double the 22,000 jobs created since Kasich took office. This blow to Ohio’s economy is in addition to the Kasich-backed bill passed by the Ohio Legislature gutting collective bargaining rights for public employees, a drastic move that limits workers’ ability to attain or maintain middle-class jobs.
Innovation Ohio Communications Director Dale Butland puts it this way:
School districts and local governments will, of course, do everything possible to avoid laying people off. But they’ve already made the easy cuts and pared their budgets dramatically. So when the Governor proposes to cut school funding by $3 billion and local government funding by 50 percent, firing workers or raising local taxes are the only realistic choices they have left. But attacking workers — whether through a job-killing budget or the unfair Senate Bill 5 — will not fix Ohio. It will only destroy the middle class. And that’s not what Gov. Kasich was elected to do.
In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker already has racked up quite a record as a job killer, after only a couple months in office. In Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott turned away federal high-speed rail project, costing the state much-needed jobs, his hand-picked department heads are being paid special salaries—unabashed cronyism costing the state’s taxpayers a bundle.
New Plant Closing Bill: ‘FOREWARNED’ Is Better Armed
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The WARN Act, passed in 1988, was supposed to require employers to give workers and the surrounding community a 60-day advance notice of mass layoffs, providing workers a head start in preparing to find another job and communities a chance to brace for the economic impact.
But loopholes, exceptions and weak enforcement have undermined the act, say a group of lawmakers who have introduced new legislation (S. 1734 and H.R. 3042) to strengthen the WARN Act—the Federal Oversight, Reform and Enforcement of the WARN Act (FOREWARN).
Says Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the chief sponsor of the bill, along with Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.):
Mass layoffs send shock waves through individual households and entire communities. This bill is about protecting workers and helping communities respond to mass layoffs. The WARN Act was supposed to give employees time to find a new job. Unfortunately, fair notice has become the exception not the rule.
