Once again, Senator Bernie Sanders (I -VT) fights for the American people and exposes corporatist pigs. Here is his list of the top ten tax evaders in this country...
1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.
2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.
3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.
4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.
5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.
6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.
7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.
8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.
9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.
10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.
I went to teapartypatriots.org and while they have a link to their coloring book, they have no link to any story about these tax evaders. Why doesn't the Tea Party want to hold corporations accountable for paying their fair share since the Tea Party preaches fiscal responsibility? The corporate tax code is the largest perpetrator of corporate socialism we have in this country, but the Tea Party doesn't care.
Do you know who has been reporting on these corporate criminals? That's right, liberal news organizations and websites. The "conservatives" are nowhere to be found. The Tea Party is a joke, and it is the fault of its enormously stupid members that do not realize that it is run by Washington insiders like Karl Rove. The Tea Party is a creation of the right wing nut bags that bankrupted our country, and it is funded by big business.
On Sunday, Cisco CEO John Chambers insisted on "60 Minutes" that the high corporate tax rate in the United States was the major barrier to job growth. I wish Leslie Stahl had asked him, "How do we make the tax rate lower than 0%?" Because that is what the above companies are paying. Actually, that isn't true. Some of them are getting money back that they didn't pay in the first place.
Militarism is at an all time high, and it is the chief reason we are fighting in Libya as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. President Obama is wholeheartedly to blame for this new illegal war that may not turn into the quagmire that the other two became, but its costs are off the charts. We have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars fighting this new war and it won't be long until we have spent over $1 billion. Oh, by the way, the Tea Party website said nothing about bloated military spending. The chief complaint was "Obamacare." The idiots forgot to check with the CBO that says repealing the Affordable Care Act of 2009 will add $250 billion to the deficit.
Some deficit hawks these "teabaggers" are, huh?
Why is it that liberals are consistently more conservative than "conservatives?" Not all Republicans have their head buried in the sand. There is a website called Republicans for Single Payer. These Republicans, just like liberals, understand that a single payer health care system is a necessary, conservative system. Currently, we are funding private insurance companies, with tax payer money, to deny coverage to the citizens of this country. This is the system that the Tea Party champions. Ask a "teabagger" if he or she will forgo Medicare. I can guarantee that the answer will be a resounding "no."
Why do we continue to stand for corporate welfare? Almost every industry is guilty, and the population seems to keep supporting these free-loaders. We are getting to a point of no return. There is no reason for the stock market to be booming like it is right now without the American jobs to go with it.
Congress must create a serious budget within the next two weeks. How can it continue to justify massive cuts to the programs that benefit the poor and middle class without cutting the massive tax breaks these corporations receive? How can we have a serious budget without addressing our bloated military spending?
"Oh, look at us; we are the fiscal conservatives that have come to Washington to cut the big bad budget! We are going to cut the enormous public radio budget! Ok, that saved us $1 million. Let's cut heating for the poor. That saved us another $2 million. Ok, where are we now? Great! Only $13,999,997,000,000 to go! Never mind that these are vital programs.
President Obama touted that he got Robert Gates to admit they could cut $10 billion from the military. Gee, their budget is only $700 billion. Do you think they can afford it? By the way, that doesn't include Iraq or Afghanistan.
We should be cutting the military budget in half and using the savings to help the Japanese to repair their country. Then, we should use the rest to build the infrastructure of this country. Look around you. America is falling apart, and most people don't care. The same people that are concerned about air quality and water quality have no concern about climate change. They are also popping iodine pills right now too to stave off radiation poisoning.
The things that we should be most concerned about, we don't seem to care about, and the things that shouldn't scare us make us pee our pants. Good luck in 2012 America. Once the corporations take over government completely, you will find out what fascism is really like.
