"Only the little people pay taxes"

[hfojvt]

http://www.arcamax.com/politics/markshields/s-861533

"If there was a funeral notice, I missed it. No obituary appeared in any of my daily papers. But make no mistake about it: In the spring of 2011 in the United States of America, our collective sense of moral outrage must now be officially dead.

You want proof? On March 25, The New York Times ran David Kocieniewski's front-page story disclosing that General Electric -- which had corporate profits of $14.2 billion last year, including $5.1 billion in this country -- did not pay one dime of federal taxes to the U.S. Treasury. That is the same GE the CEO of which, Jeffrey Immelt, was chosen personally by President Obama to head the president's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness."

and a very little known fact, back in the day, even Reagan, of all people, worked with Democrats to increase taxes on corporations

"More importantly, the Gipper, after being re-elected in a landslide, threw his political support squarely behind the tax-reform effort, initiated by Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley, which would eventually triumph in law as the Tax Reform Act of 1986."

Amazing at how far we have fallen into the Government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations in even the last 25 years.

[aquart]

1. Removal of corporate personhood needs to be a priority.

But I suspect its champions will be found to have been secretly suicidal.

[patrice]

5. See my post below. What if people are corporations?

[The Big Vetolski]

9. How about abolishing the corporate veil as well? That way, the

corporate decision-makers would be personally responsible for their decisions that cause harm. Of course, the odds of either one happening in this political environment are not even slim to none, but none whatsoever.

"Corporation, noun. An ingenious device are accumulating maximum personal wealth with minimum personal responsibility."
--Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

[vi5]

2. We can blame this on Republicans all we want...

But the fact is that we could not have gotten to this point without a sizable amount of Democratic enablers. And those enablers kept and keep getting away with it because even the ones in our party who disagree with them, still support and enable their enabling.

It's a slow creep and it's all but infected at least 75% of the entire government. Pretty much all of the republicans and at least half of the Democrats buy into the whole "raising taxes=bad...raising taxes on the wealthy=job killing" despite all evidence to the contrary. And because we keep electing Democrats who buy into this and then not only that but making them leaders of our party in every way, it's not going to change any time soon.

[LooseWilly]

7. A nice DLC critique...

the notion of better Blue Dogs than Republicans comes with a price. Policy matters every bit as much, if not more than, party labels—it's a simple truth that needs to be acknowledged.

[Raster]

10. enablers? No. Accomplices and collaborators.

[vi5]

13. Yeah...

I was giving the benefit of the doubt. If someone votes WITH someone who is voting with the Republicans and against core Democratic positions then I consider that an accomplice and collaborator.

If someone votes on the side of core Democratic principals but doesn't speak out and advocate for removing members from committee chairs or leadership positions and argues against retribution for that then that I will give the benefit of the doubt is just enabling.

I could be wrong. I probably am.

[zalinda]

17. Part of the reason that taxes won't get raised

is because many, if not most of those who were elected to represent us, are millionaires. They won't raise taxes on themselves.

zalinda

[hfojvt]

18. well the column does start out with Obama appointing Immelt

so I am not sure how this is about blaming Republicans. Also, part of the point of the column was that even Reagan worked to increase corporate taxes, and Obama seems to be to the right of Reagan when it comes to things like payroll tax holidays for corporations.

[vi5]

22. I know...

My statement wasn't directly related to or in contradiction to the article. I read it, and agree with what it said.

My issue is that so many here on DU like to scream about how we should spend more time blaming Republicans and less time blaming Democrats (ESPECIALLY not to blame Obama at all...for anything). And the fact is that a majority of democrats have internalized that right wing memes on taxes just as much if not more than Republicans (as you said, Obama is to the right of Reagan on this issue and many others).

[KittyWampus]

3. Mark Shields- I'll recommend his columns any day.

[patrice]

4. Guy on Thom Hartmann last week was promoting the tactic that as many families as possible should Inc

orporate.

[hfojvt]

26. it's very likely that the benefits of being a corporation

are not very huge for very small corporations. Hfojvt is not gonna gain much by becoming hfojvt Ltd. unless hfojvt is already fairly well off.

[KittyWampus]

6. Sadly, there are simply no reasonable Republicans in the House or Senate left.

Shepherded expertly through Congress by Democratic House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski and Republican Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood, the reform law was inspired by the straightforward principles that people of equal incomes should pay equal taxes and that the tax code should elevate simplicity and, as to the degree possible, eliminate complexity.

[hfojvt]

8. was Packwood really reasonable?

Perhaps, as an Oregonian, but I thought I remembered the name vaguely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Packwood

This line is interesting "However, McConnell said, he and his fellow Republicans felt that it came down to a choice of "retain the Senate seat or retain our honor.""

because I find it very hard to believe that McConnell has any honor.

[KittyWampus]

14. LOL! how screwed up are the republicans then, if Packwood is "reasonable". Sorry for not putting

the word in quotes originally. Since it's so relative when discussing the extremism of the right these days.

[patrice]

11. Looks pretty much that working America is going through hell anyway, so at some point one

one must assess whether the pain of Blue Dog losses will be worth it, especially since things are going to get a whole lot worse ANYWAY.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Leona Helmsley was ahead of her time.

[checks-n-balances]

23. Thank God there are still people like Mark Shield who remember

Leona Helmsley and her infamous attitude (and quote). I wish all of our elected officials would remember her and the ugliness of what she said; maybe, then, the TPers (and other hoodwinked people) would realize that it perfectly captures the plutocracy toward the middle and lower income classes.

Her words are part of my sigline, btw.

[hfojvt]

27. not really, it was Vanderbilt who said "Law? What do I care about law?

Hain't I got the power?"

[dkf]

15. I've been wondering if this isn't the little guys way of saying they don't want to pay taxes either.

[RandomKoolzip]

16. By "this," do you mean the lack of public outrage?

[dkf]

19. There is public outrage...just not to the point of rioting or lawbreaking.

[TheKentuckian]

20. There needs to be such outrage.

[dkf]

21. Nobody wants to be arrested or thrown in jail.

It's not worth it. We may think we have it bad, but it could be a lot worse.

Isnt that why you haven't done anything yet?

[TheKentuckian]

24. Nope, the actions of one are easily cast as nuttery and criminality

It is more bang for the buck to gain like minds than go "lone gunman".

Give me a highly motivated and relentless one percent acting in concert and I'm all in.

Give me ten percent and I think the worm turns.

[dkf]

25. Well that is 10% with nothing to lose...no home no job no income nobody who relies on them.