I love it when the media runs stories about huge multinational corporations that do not pay any income tax. Why? Because it inevitably leads to…crickets. Oh, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats will make angry speeches, but they disappear after a few days. Then the corporations fight back and say that they’re paying what the law says they should pay. And then they write out no check and continue to plow their profits into overseas factories and their stock price.
Ain’t Capitalism grand?
In fact, this is a national disgrace and there should be protests in the streets whenever any company pays zero tax. And the tax laws should be written so that huge multinational corporations should always have to pay taxes every year, and not just income taxes.
Corporations should have to pay a percentage of their profits to support public education, the environment, and infrastructure. They should offer much larger pay packages to all of their employees that include affordable health insurance, and larger 401(k) matches when an employee opens an account. Executive pay should be adjusted and cut so it doesn’t dwarf the salaries paid to the workers who actually create, deliver, support and innovate.
But that doesn’t happen, and it won’t with the current gang of Republicans and most of the Democrats we have currently serving in the Congress, because they are bought and paid for. And so is the president. After all, this is man so terrified of releasing his tax return, because he knows it will show something ugly and/or illegal about his business practices, he will go to any lengths to grovel at the feet of the ultra-conservative wing of the party and select only the most anti-government cabinet members and Supreme Court justices to protect him in case the Democrats sue or subpoena his files.
The worst part, though, is that we are at a point in our history where wealth and money and excess and things and things to hold the things we have too much of which makes Marie Kondo a celebrity and box office numbers and player salaries and companies that are worth a billion dollars but are really worth very little are part of of our national culture. Our national conversation. Our national, and personal, aspiration. This creates the false assumption that we can all be wealthy and that the capitalist system works because free markets work.
This is why we don’t march in the street when a new tax law creates a scenario where corporations pay nothing but middle class homeowners have to pay more. Because we believe we are next to hit the jackpot. And we’re not a little scared that if we do march, we will be fired.
It’s time for the tide to turn and for some fairness in the system. Think about that next time you’re in the voting booth.
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