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POPS The Great Corporate Tax Heist Not surprisingly, the income collected from corporations has been declining as a percentage of gross domestic product, with the burden transferred to your income and payroll taxes. According to a study by the Treasury Department, from 2000-2006, an average of 2.2 percent of GDP was collected in corporate taxes. This compares to an average of 3.4 percent in other industrial countries. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that, under current law, corporate revenues will decline to 1.9 percent of GDP by 2017. But the GAO study confirms what we already knew: Whatever the nominal tax rate, U.S. corporations pay an effective rate among the lowest in the industrial world.
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POPSIs 0% Too High for Corporate Taxes? While Repubs fight to lower corp tax rates, the US Govt Accountability Office reports that 2/3 of corporations PAID NO TAXES AT ALL between '98 and '05. Seems like corporations have all the rights of individuals but none of the responsibilities.
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POPSIt's Good to be a Corporation in US! More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined, the companies had $2.5 trillion in sales. About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts. The GAO said it analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service, examining samples of corporate returns for the years 1998 through 2005. For 2005, for example, it reviewed 110,003 tax returns from among more than 1.2 million corporations doing business in the U.S. Dorgan and Levin have complained about companies abusing transfer prices -- amounts charged on transactions between companies in a group, such as a parent and subsidiary. In some cases, multinational companies can manipulate transfer prices to shift income from higher to lower tax jurisdictions, cutting their tax liabilities.
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POPSwild animals mauling I must confess this is the first I have heard of this, yet it seems to have been going on sometime!
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POPSIraq Could Have $79 Billion Budget Surplus - Report The GAO said Iraq had an estimated cumulative budget surplus of about $29 billion from 2005 to 2007 and could have another surplus of up to $50 billion this year. The expected surplus could be lower if Iraq passes stalled legislation for a $22 billion supplemental budget for 2008 - and if the government then executes the budget. The report also estimated that this year Iraq could generate $67 billion to $79 billion in oil sales. Other US officials previously had said they expected the oil windfall to be about $70 billion.
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POPSEmotion and Confirmation Bias Where there is no skepticism and clear-thinking, we have the emotional attachment of those worshiping theory and living in a hypothetical world. Theirs is a devotion to an idea, which is actually a faith. Hope and change, anyone? Climate Change?
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POPSFannie Mae and Freddie Mac Time to Get Rid of Them McCain is right on this one, as is Powerline... The Democratic Party has long had a cozy relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now that the chickens are coming home to roost, they take no responsibility, instead pursuing a policy of business as usual. As a reformist, McCain has often made life uncomfortable for his fellow Senators and Congressmen. I don't always agree with the reforms he advocates; McCain-Feingold is an obvious case in point. But if voters are looking for real change and want to elect a President who stands in opposition to the Washington establishment, they should vote for John McCain, not Barack Obama.
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POPSObama’s No-Brainer on Education The stakes couldn't be higher. The United States now ranks 25th among 30 industrialized countries in math. "If I told you your basketball team finished in 25th place, you'd be outraged," says former West Virginia governor Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education. When the landmark "A Nation at Risk" report was issued 25 years ago, the education system was ailing, but the United States was still No. 1 in college-graduation rates. Now we are No. 21. "We simply have not progressed," says former Colorado governor Roy Romer, who heads a commission that recently updated the report. "The rest of the world has." For example, the average European nation has 13 more school days than we do.
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POPS2008 San Francisco Civil Grand Jury Report On Homelessness Just Released This excerpt comes from http://www.bluoz.com/blog/index.php?url=archives/413-Civil-Grand-Jury-Report-on-Homelessness.html&serendipity =true#feedback Which is a website run by JEFF a very sane and cool SF Tenant of a crime ridden SRO (Single Room Occupancy Hotel Room) supposedly with in-house supportive services - managed by a non-profit/for profit group called Tenderloin Housing Clinic owned or directed by a lawyer or attorney named Randy Shaw. What the City of San Francisco (like the City of New York) has 'kept hidden' by sweeping their homeless into SRO's has just been blown out the door by this well done, fact based Civil Grand Jury Report. Goes to show you. Whenever a community fails to meet the needs of their entire community, including their elderly, poor, sick, disabled and homeless by NOT giving them good care with proper standards and accountabilty.
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POPSTSA = They Suck Ass if you fly at all, you have a story of abuse of power - how can it be so rampant and yet no one does anything?
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POPSLwalessness In USA- Red Cross and Others... Lawlessness as the American way. No accountability, only protection of those who break the laws with a spineless democratic leadership paving the way. There is no turning back now. We are hopelessly sunk in the swamp of right wing garbage. They have tried for 100 years and finally succeeded. We have no more justice.
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POPSIT'S A FRACKIN' CRACKER! The comments on this post start off funny, then become more debate oriented as you scroll on down. Lots of food for thought -- food that you won't get excommunicated for stealing!
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POPSHolding Liberals Accountable For Energy Woes
In essence, an artificial “monopoly” has been created among the member nations, whereby they can unilaterally determine what the rest of the world will pay for its energy needs. But for this monopoly to survive and thrive, it requires the defacto cooperation of all other parties involved. Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this situation is that such “cooperation” is effectively coming from the Democrat controlled Congress of the United States. In a sinister sense, America is officially refusing to increase the world production of oil, thus strengthening the OPEC monopoly and its ability to deliberately inflate the price of crude oil. By stubbornly refusing any consideration of exploring, drilling, and thus expanding American oil production, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA) and Senate Majority Harry Reid (D.-NV) along with their Democrat political machine in Washington, are effectively forcing the entire American oil industry into the role of collaborating OPEC members.
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POPSKucinich pursues impeachment This separation of powers was expressly intended to prevent a President from unilaterally summoning troops to war in the manner of a king. Are we willing to respect our institution, our Constitution and ourselves? Will this President, at last, be held accountable for lying to Congress to gain authorization for the use of force against Iraq? Will we allow future Presidents to take office knowing they can commit the same acts with impunity? Tomorrow I will bring forth a single article of impeachment which reviews the factual misrepresentations the President made to Congress to induce a favorable vote for the authorization for war. The only question that remains is - - will we do anything about it?"
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POPSAir Force to Re-Open Bidding on Tanker Those "significant errors?" Yeah, those were actually interference from lobbyists who were also working for the McCain campaign . Mr. McCain’s top advisers, including a co-chairman of his presidential campaign, were lobbyists for EADS. And Mr. McCain had written to the Defense Department, urging it to ignore a trade dispute between the United States and Europe over whether Airbus received improper subsidies. Mr. McCain said that he was asking the Air Force only to maintain a level playing field as it considered the two bids. Given how crooked this deal turned out to be, I think people who are considering voting for McCain are making a "significant error." It wouldn't surprise me if the rebid were designed to take heat off Baghdad Johnny.
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POPSMoral Depravity in the Highest Places
After 7 1/2 years of George W. Bush, much of the media and political establishment — which have never shown much interest in holding Bush to account — now appear anxious to simply move on. They seem determined to leave unexamined the full cruelty and mendacity of the Bush administration, with its unlawful wars and blatant violations of the Geneva Conventions. Moving on is a great idea - once there’s been some accountability, with a full public recognition of wrongdoing, and a commitment to bring about change. Otherwise, nothing will have been learned. The comments of Yoo, who authored top-level internal memos justifying torture and virtually unlimited presidential power, suggest a moral depravity in very high places. That depravity led to the horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib and at other U.S. prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and “black sites” around the world. The dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, Lawrence Velvel, argues that Bush and top administration offi
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