By MARC MCDONALD
The most bizarre statement made by any GOP candidate in Wednesday's Republican debate in Iowa was made when Rudy Giuliani responded to a question about how America can reduce its crushing government deficit.
What was Giuliani's solution?
Was it ending corporate welfare (which costs America $300 billion a year)?
Was it rolling back George W. Bush's fiscally reckless tax cuts for the rich?
Was it stopping the disastrous Iraq War, which costs America $11 billion a month?
Nope, it was none of the above.
To reduce our nation's crushing deficit, Giuliani proposed cutting taxes. Specifically cutting corporate taxes.
Giuliani didn't propose cutting taxes for hard-pressed working class or middle class people in this country. No, his priority is with corporations (most of which already avoid paying any taxes at all, thanks to loopholes).
Never mind that the whole idea of cutting taxes to reduce deficits is an idiotic idea that has been repeatedly debunked ever since it was first proposed by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
I find it incredible that any candidate can still be calling for trickle-down economic policies, after the experience of three decades has shown that it simply doesn't work and it only leads to spiraling deficits.
And yet Giuliani and other GOP candidates can continue to propose such nonsense and get a free pass from the MSM.
I find it interesting how Giuliani seems to think that cutting corporate taxes should be a high priority for America. Between corporate welfare and tax loopholes, most corporations already get a free ride in this nation.
The tax burden in the U.S. over the years has been shifting from corporations to individual taxpayers (as has been documented by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele). In the 1950s, corporations paid around half of all taxes. Today, their burden has shrunk to less than 10 percent. In fact, today, 60 percent of all U.S. corporations pay zero income tax. Under a Giuliani administration, corporations can look forward to paying even less tax.
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7 comments:
Why oh why does anyone listen to the Republicans on matters of fiscal responsibility?
We ought to be listening to true financial wizards like Warren Buffett, instead of Bush, Giuliani, and other GOP morons who have no grasp of real-world economics.
Buffett, by the way, is a critic of Bush's tax cuts.
The problem is that the average American has a very limited knowledge of economics and virtually no knowledge of the history of economic ideas. Lassiez -faire ideas have been around (and repeatedly debunked ) for over 400 yrs.The Republicans will cling tenaciously to trickle down economic theories and as long as the American public remains so clueless about economics , they will continue to get away with it. I bet that if we conducted a poll to see if the average American knows who Keynes was we would find that they do not.
Why won't anybody talk about a flat tax. Tax all income at some increment which will produce the revenues we currently enjoy and divide it by the gross national product. Then tax eveyrone allowing a progressive incrementation for those living below the poverty level. Exempt retirement income and social secuirty. All income, corporate, capital gains, inheritance and wages at the same rate. I would bet that we would all be amazed at how far the taxes of mainstream Americans would fall. The problem with Bush tax cuts is they have shifted the burden of government revenue to the middle class. But if you remind them of it there heads explode because they don't know or don't want to know the reality of how they are being used.
Whatever happened to tariffs as a means to collect tax revenue?
For most of the 19th century, the U.S. levied a 30 percent tariff rate (unimaginably high by today's standards).
During that time, the U.S. went from being a rural collection of 13 rural colonies with no industry to becoming the greatest industrial power in world history.
Abraham Lincoln once praised tariffs, saying that they were much more preferable to an income tax, where "tax collectors spread out over the land like a cloud of locusts."
I am so in agreement with this post. If corporations and rich people paid ALL the taxes, just think how much that would help the rest of us. I agree with Hillary: "Nobody making less than $200,000 per year should pay ANY taxes." If someone making more than that wants to complain because they cannot afford to help me, you are going to to have a hard time getting me to listen. If we all band together and start a grass roots effort, we can get the corporations and the rich to use their ill gotten gains to help everyone else. Why should they get to keep all that money? If it is not helping anyone, what good can it do? After all, the only reason those companies and individuals have so much money is beacuse of hard working people like me. I want a piece of the pie. In fact, I want the whole f***ing thing!
In response to the previous poster, you're spreading a lot of GOP lies and talking points and setting up a lot of "straw man" arguments.
Nobody on the Left is arguing that the rich and the corporations should pay all of the taxes. We DO believe they should pay SOMETHING (a lot of them don't).
After all, someone has to pay for all these corporate welfare programs, (which cost U.S. taxpayers over $300 billion a year).
And when did Hillary ever say that people making less than $200,000 a year shouldn't pay taxes?
Merry Christmas Marc! I hope you have a beautiful Holiday!
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