The Nation has an article that details half a dozen accounting tricks that corporations use to avoid paying federal income taxes. Those techniques are so successful, and the forms of corporate welfare in the tax code so generous, that corporations are paying less in taxes now than they have in the last four decades.
Category Archive: Budget and Taxes
Feb 26 2013
Rush Limbaugh Hates America!
Rush Limbaugh, showing all of the moral myopia that afflicts not just the right wing but most Americans, says that the sequestration deal has, for the first time, made him ashamed of his country. Because of all the things our government has done, budget negotiations are the one thing that can cause him shame.
Feb 25 2013
Lower Capital Gains Taxes Drive Income Inequality
A new study from the Congressional Research Service concludes that keeping the tax rate on capital gains far lower than the taxes on regular income for the wealthiest taxpayers is the primary thing that is driving income inequality in this country. The abstract:
Feb 25 2013
Boehner’s Dishonest Sequester Blame Game
John Boehner and his fellow Republicans have been furiously trying to pin all the blame for the sequester on President Obama, despite the fact that it was Congress that passed the law. But John Avlon of the Daily Beast shows a Powerpoint presentation from Boehner to his caucus explaining why they should vote for the …
Feb 20 2013
Facebook Paid No Taxes Last Year
ThinkProgress cites a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice that shows that not only did Facebook not pay any state or federal income taxes last year, it actually got almost half a billion dollars back from the federal government by using a tax loophole while paying their executives huge amounts of money.
Feb 16 2013
Dumbass Quote of the Day
While everyone else seems to want to focus on Sen. Marco Rubio’s ill-timed drink of water, the thing that I noticed when reading his response to the State of the Union (I read it rather than watched it) is how completely vapid it was. It was just a list of tired platitudes like this:
Feb 13 2013
Pelosi is Right About Federal Spending
Nancy Pelosi went on Fox News on Sunday and said that federal spending is not the primary cause of the deficit, lack of revenue is. “It is almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem that we have to address,” she said. Jim Hoft at Gateway …
Feb 12 2013
Reed Suddenly Opposes Subsidizing Church
Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition has suddenly decided that it is opposed to government subsidies for religion, if it means funding a church that performs same-sex weddings. The National Cathedral, which received a $700,000 federal grant for restoration in 2011, decided to host same-sex weddings and Reed is now demanding that they lose that …
Feb 08 2013
GOP Senators Want to Scuttle Defense Cuts
Three of the allegedly moderate Republicans in the Senate — John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Kelly Ayotte — are working to make sure not one dollar comes out of the defense budget. Because it will harm our national security, so be afraid, be very afraid.
Feb 07 2013
Kasich Finds Sane, Smart Alter Ego
John Kasich of Ohio is one of the most conservative governors in the country. In many ways, he’s been absolutely abominable, including trying to ban collective bargaining for unions and lots of different voter suppression tactics. But he seems to have found rationality, at least momentarily:
Feb 04 2013
The Real Welfare Queens
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, almost certain to be the Republican nominee for governor later this year, is putting out a book in which he claims that the Democrats use Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and other forms of assistance to get them elected and gain power:
Jan 31 2013
GOP Congressman Offers Bizarre Constitutional Amendment
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), one of the Republican congressmen swept into office by the Tea Party movement in 2010, might want to read that constitution he claims to revere so much. He’s proposing a constitutional amendment that allows the impeachment of the president if the budget is not balanced.
Jan 25 2013
Kansas May Drug Test Welfare Recipients Too
Continuing a trend seen in several other states, most prominently Florida, after Republicans take over the legislature, there’s a bill in Kansas to institute drug testing for welfare recipients. The bill is currently in a House committee and you can be sure that Gov. Sam Brownback would sign it:
Jan 23 2013
Washington DC Hides the Homeless on Inauguration Day
ThinkProgress has a disturbing report that the city of Washington, DC made sure that the city’s growing homeless population was out of sight during the two days of the presidential inauguration, when hundreds of thousands of people will be in town and the TV cameras would be on:
Jan 13 2013
Newsmax’ Highly Dishonest Article on Fiscal Cliff Deal
Newsmax is one of the many conservative news sites that routinely distort reality. Here’s a perfect example, David Patten’s analysis of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA), aka the fiscal cliff deal struck last week. The distortions come fast and furious.
About the Author
Recent Comments