The biggest "takers" and societal parasites are the rich, not the working class or poor.

[Maraya1969]

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17960-the-biggest-takers-and-societal-parasites-are-the-rich-not-the-working-class-and-poor

In the past twenty years, corporate profits have quadrupled while the corporate tax percent has dropped by half. The payroll tax, paid by workers, has doubled. In effect, corporations have decided to let middle-class workers pay for national investments that have largely benefited businesses over the years. The greater part of basic research, especially for technology and health care, has been conducted with government money. Even today 60% of university research is government-supported. Corporations use highways and shipping lanes and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business.

=========================================

Turning Taxes Into Thin Air

Corporations have used numerous and creative means to avoid their tax responsibilities. They have about a year's worth of profits stashed untaxed overseas. According to the Wall Street Journal, about 60% of their cash is offshore. Yet these corporate 'persons' enjoy a foreign earned income exclusion that real U.S. persons don't get.
Corporate tax haven ploys are legendary, with almost 19,000 companies claiming home office space in one building in the low-tax Cayman Islands. But they don't want to give up their U.S. benefits. Tech companies in 19 tax haven jurisdictions received $18.7 billion in 2011 federal contracts. A lot of smaller companies are legally exempt from taxes. As of 2008, according to IRS data, fully 69% of U.S. corporations were organized as nontaxablebusinesses.

There's much more. Companies call their CEO bonuses "performance pay" to get a lower rate. Private equity firms call fees "capital gains" to get a lower rate. Fast food companies call their lunch menus "intellectual property" to get a lower rate.
Prisons and casinos have stooped to the level of calling themselves "real estate investment trusts" (REITs) to gain tax exemptions. Stooping lower yet, Disney and others have added cows and sheep to their greenspace to get a farmland exemption.

[Octafish]

1. Amen.

I've had it with welfare for the rich. After 32 years of trickle down economics, America has had it, too.

[el_bryanto]

2. Completely accurate

It's baffling to me how this country wants to blame people who have no power for everything that's wrong, while ignoring those who do have power.

Bryant

[JDPriestly]

20. That's why Fox News and the Republicans are resorting to making

up fantasy scandals out of thin air -- like the IRS scandal and Benghazi and, of course, the one they have admitted that they created with their hyper-paranoid fear of spying by the "wrongdoers" -- the subpoenas of press phone records.

[HiPointDem]

3. +1

[deutsey]

4. Two Bums

The bum on the rods is hunted down as an enemy of mankind
The other is driven around to his club, is feted, wined and dined

And they who curse the bum on the rods as the essence of all that's bad
Will greet the other with a willing smile and extend a hand so glad

The bum on the rods is a social flea who gets an occassional bite
The bum on the plush is a social leech, bloodsucking day and night

The bum on the rods is a load so light that his weight we scarcely feel
But it takes the labour of dozens of folks to furnish the other a meal

As long as we sanction the bum on the plush the other will always be there
But rid ourselves of the bum on the plush and the other will dissappear

Then make an intelligent organised kick get rid of the weights that crush
Dont worry about the bum on the rods get rid of the bum on the plush

http://unionsong.com/u099.html

[Maraya1969]

22. I like that.

[smallcat88]

23. Amen!

Love that; short, poetic and says it all!

[abelenkpe]

31. Love that!

Thanks for posting!

[Starry Messenger]

5. k&r

[deutsey]

6. If you haven't seen "Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream", it's a must-see

http://video.pbs.org/video/2296684923/

Also, "The One Percent" by Jamie Johnson is on YouTube, I believe. I don't have access to YouTube on the computer I'm on, but you should be able to find the documentary there.

[BlueCaliDem]

7. Yep. It's what I come back with every time some TeaBagger begins a tirade about people on welfare.

I then point out that the biggest welfare queens are the rich, like Mittney, and corporations, and that they're the ones who support it through voting for Republicans.

[Just Saying]

8. Committing facts to memory

To combat the next idiot who tells me the rich pay too much in taxes!

[Martin Eden]

9. How is this possible in a functional representative democracy?

The answer of course is that our democracy is highly dysfunctional and in the pocket of the deep pocket special interests.

[maddezmom]

11. Did you read any of the replies

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022924006#post5

It was complete bullshit.....

[gtar100]

12. It's the new business model.

Think of the oil industry. It's the most profitable business probably in human history. Each year they make record profits. And yet, what do they complain about? Failing infrastructure. They choose to pocket the earnings rather than invest in maintaining their operations. They continue to get deep discounts on public lands and they excel at getting tax breaks any way they can. Absolutely no sense of responsibility beyond their bottom line. So they shove any expense they can back on us.

[mountain grammy]

13. In times of crisis or shortages, hoarding goods is scorned and often illegal

but money hoarding while the nation starves is ok?
The rich want to control how their wealth is distributed (or not.) In our tourist town, rich second homeowners ponied up a few million to build a repertory theater that's only open three months of the year and sits empty all winter while we locals struggle to make a living, but our elementary school recently closed due to budget constraints. Maybe the school could have been kept open with the taxes from the tax exempt millions "donated" to the theater capital fund?

[SoapBox]

14. +100

[The Magistrate]

15. Very True, Ma'am

[smallcat88]

24. At the risk

of giving away my age - Right On!!!

[midnight]

33. Toche!

[xtraxritical]

16. Payroll taxes have not doubled, the SS deduction was restored after a moratorium.

[noiretextatique]

19. the article says payroll taxes have doubled over the past 20 years

i don't know if that includes income taxes, but the reference is not about the so-called tax holday. fica rates alone increased 30% in the last 20 years.

[HiPointDem]

35. they've been the same since before 1990.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/taxRates.html

[HangOnKids]

25. Wrong Again

[bulloney]

17. How many cities have sports stadiums/arenas that were constructed with public funds?

Billionaire owners employing millionaire players. Yet, the venues in which their teams play are often at least partially funded by taxpayers. In the case of NFL stadiums, they're used 8 games a year during the regular season and maybe a couple of times during the preseason. Occasionally, these places may host a few college or high school events, or a political or social event in which the facility is grossly under-utilized based on seating capacity. These places may get used 20-25 days out of the year.

Don't get me started on the ticket prices for the said sporting events.

To me, that's one of the biggest examples of the rich saddling their lifestyle onto the working class.

[blkmusclmachine]

18. Aww, come on. They're just "savvy businessmen," dontchaknow?!

[Electric Monk]

21. Let's declare war on the Cayman Islands, then invade and plunder it. Easy quick money.

Makes more sense than attacking Iran, doesn't it?

[Egalitarian Thug]

36. Even simpler (although the repercussions would be interesting ro say the least), declare the USD

void and replace dollars only within U.S. borders. Every dollar in the world would have to be repatriated, and subject to taxation, or it is lost. Almost instantly the dollar would dwarf every other currency on earth and our government would receive a huge, one time infusion of revenue. Enough to wipe out our entire debt, if that's what we really want.

[tclambert]

26. Yeah, Republicans have turned the idea of takers vs. makers upside down.

To them, makers don't build things with their hands, they don't work in construction or manufacturing. To them, makers are business owners and executives, who supposedly make businesses.

Meanwhile takers don't take the profits produced by workers or take the tax breaks and other financial advantages offered to the rich or take the trust funds their rich daddies set up for them. Takers are people who take a salary in exchange for personal labor or take assistance from the government when they can't find a job or take pension and social security benefits when they retire IN EXCHANGE FOR NO WORK AT ALL! Talk about takers. Those retired non-working loafers, expecting to live off other people's money, instead of off their own tax-sheltered investments. How dare they?

[underpants]

27. Been saying it for years - read my sig line n/t

[SunSeeker]

28. K & R

[arely staircase]

29. thank you

what a wonderful post.

[newmember]

30. None of this would be possible without both parties being bought out

When you blame corporations blame also the people you voted for.

[Festivito]

34. Check your math. That's 100% of Republicans and just enough Dems.

In the senate, 50 Repubs with 10 Dems had their 60 to filibuster.

[midnight]

32. The poor are getting ready to take another hit... Leaving off of $3.00 − $4.50 a day for food...

"As the farm bill approved by the Agriculture Committee last week reaches the Senate floor Monday afternoon, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) will be a few hours into an experiment: eating for a week on the meager food budget afford by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Murphy announced on Twitter that he would take the SNAP Challenge, which is the brainchild of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC).
That means Murphy will be eating on a few dollars per day, as his colleagues debate a measure that would cut $4 billion from the SNAP budget over the next decade. Murphy is using the $3 per day allowance FRAC and allies recommended in 2007 guidelines for lawmakers interested in the challenge, although government data shows the program averaged about $4.40/day nationwide in fiscal year 2012.
But if anything, the SNAP Challenge understates the hardships actual SNAP recipients face, both today and in the near future.
Those Americans must make it a full month on SNAP, and statistics show that about 80 percent of a given recipient’s monthly allotment gets spent in the first two weeks of the month:"

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/20/2038121/senator-undertakes-3-per-day-food-stamp-challenge-as-congress-readies-cuts/