DesideriScuri
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Edwynn
quote:
ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
quote:
ORIGINAL: Edwynn
Just for the adventure;
Has the press ever mentioned anything about ExxonMobil or Monsanto, the regular and timely truckloads of US Treasury cash to those and other corporations, in any of their reporting on this "financial cliff" thing? Has the Congress mentioned them at all?
What, no?
Hard to imagine the absence of something so obvious in such discussion, wouldn't you think?
I haven't read the 2014 budget, but one of the summary points I read said that Obama was reducing the amount of farm subsidies, so, maybe?
What cash does the Federal Government send to ExxonMobil?
If Obama were to succeed in cutting farm subsidies (which are, truth be known, agro-chem subsidies) to any appreciable degree, that would be a minor miracle, especially considering that Monsanto's Michael Taylor lurks in the background as Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the FDA (and of recent 'fame,' under this administration, as "Food Safety Czar," almost succeeding in killing the organic produce industry and outlawing all farmer's markets in one fell swoop). That guy slides in and out of every administration (in either the FDA or USDA) between stints at his Monsanto home base for about thirty years now.
As for my lazy assertion about government checks to Exxon, it was just that, a lazy assertion. I'm not sure about that as fact. It's just that it ticks me off that a corporation that consistently sets new records for total profits every three years or so, twice the profit of #2 Microsoft in almost any year, gets any tax breaks and credits at all (which are in any case quite substantial).
I was likely conflating that with the $3.2 Billion check that the Treasury in fact sent to GE for tax year 2010.
That little morsel sort of snuck under the radar in the midst of Geithner sending a couple or three trillion to the banks and AIG, n'est-ce pas?
But the mechanics and the particulars are only of curious consequence. If your mortgage monthly payment requirement is $1,200 a month, but you are in fact sending $800 a month, then someone else is forced to make up the difference, no escaping that. The lobbyists have succeeded quite well in getting congress to shift the shortfall to taxpayers in almost every case. The bank is going to get its $1,200 and they aren't picky about the particulars.
Any 'depletion allowance,' any tax credit to corporations, has everything to do with the amount deducted from your and my paycheck.
No escaping that.
2012 tax breaks for "fossil fuels" totaled <$5B.
Forbes Top 5 Oil Exploration Facts
You seem to be making the assumption that current spending levels are acceptable, so that any tax break to anyone will need to be covered by someone else. That is absolutely true. But, you aren't covering it. I'm not covering it. No one is really covering it...yet. Your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren might be called upon to actually cover for the profligate spending of today, but the way our current crop of elected elite are operating, it won't be us.
Your GE comment seems to show that you want to treat all income, regardless of where it was made, needs to be taxed as domestic income. That's all fine and dandy. If an international company HQ'ed outside the US isn't taxed on all non-US income, what is the carrot being pushed? Won't that provide incentive for a US international business to pull up stakes and move their base out of the US? It's not a huge distance from Fairfield, CT to Toronto. How are you going to determine who has to pay what? Chrysler is no longer a US international company. They are majority owned by Fiat. How will that work?
I support closing almost all loopholes across the board. By "almost all," I still support charitable organizations maintaining tax exempt status. I also have come to see income tax brackets as nothing more than a series of loopholes. As an example, if we have a 10%/20%/30% system, the tax rate is 30% with a 20% tax break (loophole) for the first $X of income and a 10% tax break (loophole) for the next $Y of income. The rest is taxed at 30% (no loophole). Personal exemptions and child tax credits are loopholes, too. I still support the existence of the progressive tax bracket system we have, and the personal exemption and child tax credit system we have in place. Outside of that, close all the loopholes.
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What I support:
- A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
- Personal Responsibility
- Help for the truly needy
- Limited Government
- Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)
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RE: All Your Kids Belong To Us. - 
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I did like the Lean Forward part
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