Top Corporations Pay Little or No Taxes

“Most corporations, including a large majority of foreign companies doing business in the United States, pay no income taxes, according to a report released today.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that two-thirds of both American and foreign companies doing business here end up avoiding all income tax obligations to the federal government, despite corporate sales totaling $2.5 trillion.
According to the GAO, each year from 1998 to 2005, an average of 68 percent of the foreign companies operating in the United States paid zero federal income taxes. During the same period, 66 percent of U.S. domestic corporations paid no federal income taxes to the government.”

Some of the corporations not paying any taxes in the U.S. were Bank of America, General Electric and CitiBank.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/08/12/we-pay-taxes-most-corporations-dont/

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes_slide_8.html

How's That Trickle Down Workin For Yeah? You Get Trickled On Yet?

For almost 40 years every President, from Truman thru Carter, reduced our national debt. Bringing it down from 120% to approx 30% of GDP. But the Reagan and Bush I years saw the national debt skyrocket from 30% to about 65%. Clinton successfully reversed the trend and reduced the debt down to about 55%. Then Bush II drove the debt back up above 70%.

Two things are certain to grow when a Republican is in the White House, unemployment and the National Debt. Yet the Republicans accuse the Democrats of over spending.

These huge debts run up by the Republicans are a result of the infamous “Trickle Down Economics” theory. This theory claims that by giving the wealthy large tax breaks, they will invest that money into factories and production thus creating jobs. Well Republicans, how’s that working for yeah? If failed for Calvin Coolidge and now also for Reagan and the Bush’s. It’s been shown that the results of “Trickle Down”, is the redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the super-rich.

Clinton balanced the budget five times. Reagan, Bush I and Bush II never had a balanced budget.

Thanks to Mike Kohl who posts on DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=271842&mesg_id=271842

and:

http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com /

GUANTANAMO PRISONERS

After the disaster on Sept 11, 2001, the Bush administration needed to be perceived as tough and effective in finding and punishing those responsible for the attacks of 9/11. Close to 800 individuals were picked up in a short period of time without any due process and shipped to Guantanamo prison. These prisoners were initially called detainees then enemy combatants so the Bush administration could rationalize not treating them humanely, as required of prisoners of war.
Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, claimed that the majority of detainees — children as young as 12 and men as old as 93, never saw a US soldier when they were captured. He said that many were turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for up to $5,000 each. Little or no evidence was produced as to why they had been taken.
Colonel Wilkerson was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defense Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”. They feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.
Referring to Mr Cheney, Colonel Wilkerson, who served 31 years in the US Army, asserted: “He had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent ... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it.”

The above was from:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7092435.ece

In my opinion, Dick Cheney and the Bush administration had no respect for either national laws, international laws, the Constitution, or human decency. They rounded up approx 800 people, not caring that most were innocent. They treated these people, including children, horrible and tortured many. This is what tyranny looks like.

What Do We Call The Tea-Baggers?

At one point, in their ignorant stupor, they proudly called themselves “teabaggers”. Then when the left continued to laugh at them for not recognizing the irony, they decided to change to “tea-partiers”* and that those calling them teabaggers were being gross and disgusting. Funny how that’s exactly the feeling of the left when the ‘baggers first called themselves teabaggers. Glen Beck is still gross and disgusting.
Recently, I was warned of being banned from commenting on a newspaper forum for using the term teabaggers. Seems my free speech isn’t as important as CorpAmerica. But it’s cool, there are so many names that can be used. Morans is one of my favorites but it’s so last year. I coined “gullibles” but it hasn’t caught on. I have seen “hatriotic’s” but I think I am going with one I first saw on DU, “Foxholes”.

* Of course the Foxholes don’t recognize that the original tea-partiers were rebelling against the tyrannical capitalism of the largest corporation in the world at the time, The East India Company. Idiots, er I mean Foxholes.

Ten Immediate Benefits of HCR

From crooksandliars.com

By karoli Sunday Mar 21, 2010 5:45pm

Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President's signature on the health care bill:

1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday

2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions

3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage

4. Free preventative care for all

5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.

6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.

7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.

8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.

9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.

10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick.

Dont ever forget that the Republicans to a person did not want these benefits. They totally to the person support the predatory health insurers.

HCR Will Reduce Deficit to the Chagrin of Repubs

One major Republican talking point against health care reform is that it is too expensive. Well now the Congressional Business Office (CBO) has evaluated the Senate Health Care Reform bill and found to no ones surprise that the Republicans are full of crap. The CBO estimates that the new Senate passed HCR bill will REDUCE the deficit by $138 billions of dollars. But when shown the facts the Republicans still don’t want to vote for the bill. They are too heavily in debt to the predatory health INSURANCE industry.

Now it should be pointed out that these same Republicans voted for Medicare Part D when they were in power which the CBO estimates will INCREASE the deficit by $394 billions of dollars. And they voted for Bush’s 2003 tax breaks for the wealthy which the CBO estimates will INCREASE the deficit by $348 billions of dollars. And of course they voted in favor of the 2001 Bush tax breaks for the wealthy which the CBO estimates will INCREASE the deficit by $1.3 TRILLIONS of dollars, yes that’s trillions with a T. When the Republicans were in power they voted these bills thru with no provision to pay for them. They borrowed the money from Communist China and your children will pay off the debt via new TAXES.

But when we get a bill that will not only save lives (never a big deal for the Republicans) but will REDUCE the deficit, the Republicans are against it. When are the gullible T-baggers ever going to catch on to this theft? (rhetorical)

Danziger Bridge Killings

Jeffrey Lehrmann, a former police detective for the New Orleans Police Dept pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge that he failed to report a cover-up in the investigation of the Danziger Bridge shootings in New Orleans, the Department of Justice said in a statement Thursday, March 11, 2010.
Lehrmann also admitted he helped compile a false report on the incidents, and was with others when they planted a gun as part of the cover-up, according to court documents.
Last month, former police Lt. Michael Lohman pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with the cover-up.
Two civilians were killed and four others wounded in the shootings on September 4, 2005, six days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast.
The incident on the morning of Sept. 4, 2005, occurred on the Danziger Bridge, which crosses the Industrial Canal in eastern New Orleans. Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, was shot to death outside a motel on the Gentilly side of the bridge.
James Brissette, 19, was killed on the eastern side of the bridge, while four people walking with him with were seriously wounded. Susan Bartholomew lost part of her arm in the shooting and her husband, Leonard Bartholomew III, was shot in the head. Their daughter, Leisha Bartholomew and a nephew, Jose Holmes, suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Leonard Bartholomew IV, a teenage son, was uninjured.
The police claim they were being shot at, although there was no evidence to prove that claim except a gun that was later determined to be planted by the police.
One of the suspects, Lance Madison, was arrested and charged with eight counts of attempted murder against police officers.
"I didn't do anything wrong, and I had no reason to be arrested. I was up here trying to seek help for me and my little brother, trying to evacuate from the devastation going on down here," says Madison, a 49-year-old former college wide receiver, standing at the foot of the bridge where the incident occurred.
Madison, a 25-year employee of Federal Express, has no criminal record and is a member of a respected New Orleans family.
The man he was with -- referred to by the police as "the unidentified gunman" -- was his brother, 40-year-old Ronald, who had mental retardation. His family describes him as a childlike soul who loved the family's two dachshunds and watched Three Stooges videos.
Lance says that on that Sunday morning, he and Ronald -- their homes flooded -- were crossing the bridge on their way to another brother's dental office where they were staying after the storm.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6063982
Not only did the police fail to help citizens in need, they brutalized them. They terrorized them, shooting and killing without cause and without warning.
It should not go unnoticed that the police were white and the victims were black. Nor should it go unnoticed that the victims were poor and fleeing for safety to a higher class neighborhood.
It should also not go unnoticed that there was little corporate media coverage of this story. I guess there were already too many stories of white police killing innocent black citizens. Damn liberal media.