It’s HARD WORK cutting taxes for corps & the rich to zero.

Has that photo been photoshopped? I’d swear his mouth should look like the assholes he’s been sucking.

Yep I read earlier that they don’t expect it to pass but it’s designed to “give them something to campaign on in 2012″. Yeah, good luck with that Repugs.

Camp sounds like he works for the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

Maybe he washes his face with Lava to get the brown stains out. He missed that foreshock of hair though.

All I can conclude is that 30 years of the mantra that ‘corporations are job creators’ have been repeated so often, so deliberately, and so consistently that people like Camp have a zombie-like faith in it — despite lack of evidence.

My local school districts create more jobs than most local businesses.
Add on my local fire, police, and justice systems and those are ‘family wage’ jobs.

Any corporate board member or manager has a fiduciary responsibility to deliver **shareholder value**, and that often translates to cutting positions, or to ‘job destruction’.

The same innovations that have made most Americans more productive since 1980 — with the aid of PCs, word processing, Excel spreadsheets, faxes, email, and distance learning — have not made their way (in the form of improved productivity profits) into the pocketbooks of those productive Americans.

It’s been siphoned off as ‘profit’ by corporate interests, then offshored.

Camp is blinded by ideology.
I doubt the man can see the end of his nose, although it would not surprise me in the slightest to learn that he actually believes the nonsense he’s spouting.

Maybe he also wears a garlic necklace, because he fears that vampires will attack him at night. That belief in vampires is about as logical — given current evidence — as the magical belief that ‘reducing corporate taxes’ will somehow magically create jobs.

There’s plenty of work to be done in America.
A lot of it happens to be in the public sector, but it’s not getting funded because of economic nitwits like Camp.

http://instantrimshot.com/classic/?sound=rimshot

If tax cuts for rich people create jobs, where the fuck are they? 3 decades of cutting taxes for rich people and no jobs.

Hey rich people, fuck you. Pay your taxes.

LMAO! Thanks. :)

Rim shot. No pun intended, right?

It’s the final, terminal stage of the oncological model of capitalism (i.e., capitalism as cancer). Like cancer cells, oncological capitalists don’t know when to stop, even if continuance will eventually kill the hosts on which they feed.

Actually, no — but thanks for pointing out my inadvertent rimjob!

Well, mayhaps for lawn and pool guys when the new McMansions get built.

“Trickle down economics” has become conventional wisdom, despite having been proven ridiculously unworkable over and over. That’s because the few people it benefits control the message and now the policy.

We’re so screwed.

It won’t work until corp tax is zero. /s

They can’t stop. Like cancer cells, they must be excised.

I’m thinking less than zero. We have yet to touch integers.

There’s “small corporations,” like the Koch Industries that are run as S Corps and called “small businesses,” when, in fact, they are mega-huge, usually global, corporations. But get treated as “small businesses” by the tax code. It’s bogus.

But then there are the truly “small businesses” that ARE run by average citizens and usually employ 50 or less. I do think, but don’t have concrete data, that there *may* be some tax burdens for those true small family-run businesses that, if lessened somewhat, *might* result in some small amount of jobs for US citizens.

The problem is this: any tax measure that sets out to lessen the burden on those honestly small businesses will end up being usurped by the Kochs, et al, to inure mostly to their benefit.

Therein lies at least one problem.

So this creep is probably speaking a kernal of truth, but it ends up getting mixed up with a boatload of elitist criminal venality.

No dice! Too bad, so sad. If those truly small business owners (there are several in my family but also some good friends, so I speak with some anecdotal knowledge) could mightily resist their damning allegiance to the Tea Party and Republicans and wake up and smell the coffee about how they’re being *used* by the Kochs, et al, then they *might* get somewhere. As it is… alas… they are hoist on their own petards.

Great book.

I’ve heard.

How do U.S. corporate tax rates compare to the rest of the world? There might be something said for trying to maintain a competitive edge in this country.

It’s the age-old problem: the poor have too much money and the rich not enough. I don’t fault Republicans for their policies; after all, they have been clear about them for years. I fault the MSM and the ignorant Americans who keep putting these Kochsuckers in office. WTF!?

I thought of that after I posted the comment. Effective corp tax rate is already tolerably close to zero owing to corp welfare & tax havens.

S&L govts think you have to have a negative tax rate to get corps to locate in their geography & ‘create’ local jobs. It’s quite a racket.

Yeah: well I fully expect the corporations to start *demanding* that all US citizens, in addition to paying USG taxes, start paying an “extra” corporations tax… in order to, you know, pay for them to “play” here. I’m just waiting for that penny to drop; it’s nearly at that point now anyway.

I don’t fault Republicans for their policies; after all, they have been clear about them for years.

I don’t agree that Republicans have been all that “clear” about their policies. I think they do a lot of that “forked tongue” speaking, but that’s just me. And anyway, I do “blame” Republicans, regardless.

But I think I “get” what you’re saying. JMHO

I’m no expert but I seem to remember that effective corp tax rates are a lot lower in the U.S. than in western Europe. If I’m wrong & someone really knows, plz correct me.

Yep and even when given every incentive in the world to stay and create jobs, they leap at the opportunity to lay off Americans in order to exploit cheaper foreign labor but those “incentives” are never withdrawn. One heckuva racket. All of the perks, none of the responsibilities.

I tend to share your view of it all.
How can these fools not recognize that ‘self defeating’ turns out to be the kernal of the ‘creative destruction’ at the core of capitalism?
They’re nuts.

“Trickle down economics” has become conventional wisdom, despite having been proven ridiculously unworkable over and over. That’s because the few people it benefits control the message and now the policy.

But I’d quibble.

Unless Camp is a very, very wealthy man, the policies that he espouses actually harm him. What I find so frustrating is how the very people who are getting screwed by the concentration of wealth are the most eager to help it accelerate.

It’s a level of denial that sometimes just takes my breath away.
I wouldn’t trust some of these people to make me an ice cream cone, let alone an economic policy. Yikies.

They’re nuts

They are greed-heads deep in denial.

So when does Obama start the negotiations by agreeing to go no higher than 20%?

Yes, it is the effective rate that is the key. This is particularly true when analyzing the current corporate income tax regime.

One example. Jabil Circuit, headquartered in Pinellas County, was offered tax incentives to stay here with Jabil promising to create something like 500-1000 jobs. Last year they laid off 5% of their work force but still receive the perks. These fucking capitalists wouldn’t know the truth if it put a foot up their ass.

Hey, most of the ‘baggers are poor, working class people that can’t wait to vote against their own self interests. It’s not a new or uncommon phenomenon.

I know nothing about Camp, but it’s usually the case these days that most politicians, esp at the fed level, are very very wealthy multi-millionaires. So most likely this benefits Camp personally.

That’s why people speak of Dee Cee as the “Village” or the “Bubble.” anymore it’s overflowing with multi-millionaires who run the show to inure to their personal benefit. Again: I have no real knowledge of Camp, but that’s the general picture overall.

Our politicians are either unforgivably corrupt or inexcusably stupid. Either way, they don’t deserve our support or votes.

Jesse Jackson said it best: “Teapartiers are turkeys at their own Thanksgiving.”

My vote is for corrupt. They definitely know which side of their bread is buggered buttered.

True, but there is a significant percentage of Tea Partiers who are upper middle class. I know them personally in my family, as well as some other associates. Don’t be fooled into thinking that all Tea Partiers are working class. A sizeable portion are highly educated and have well-paid white collar jobs. This segment *also* gets fooled into believing that the tax cuts for the super rich somehow inure to their personal benefit. In most cases, they don’t *earn enough* (even though they earn at high levels) to truly benefit from the upper level tax cuts.

Just saying….

Right on.

Oh, and tangentially related, ALL regulation on corps must be eliminated otherwise they have no money to create jobs, its all being tied up in conforming to the regs.

That’s my opinion as well.

Back to work.

Namaste

No war but class war.

Never. Give. Up.

LMAO! I missed that! Well said Mr. Jackson.

Heh.

Oh, and tangentially related, ALL regulation on corps must be eliminated otherwise they have no money to create jobs, its all being tied up in conforming to bribing the enforcers of the regs.

Thought I’d add some truth to your snark. ;)

Yeah: let the “free market” be ever so unfettered to regulate itself. Just like the nuclear energy industry did in Japan. Worked out so well over there…

But THEN what will they do for *something* to campaign on??

:-)

Cross that bridge when they come to it.

Unless they are in the top one percent or so, they are voting against their own self interests. And I never said the majority of ‘baggers were stupid or uneducated. My dad was a member of Mensa and as batshit insane as any teabagger.

There is some good that can come from simplifying the tax code and eliminating the corporate loopholes that have crept back in, but cutting the top rate to 25% is asinine in the extreme.

The only thing that has trickled down from Republican fiscal policies is high unemployment and stagnant real-dollar wages. All the benefits of increased productivity and tax cuts have been retained at the top. The experiment that began with Reagan has failed everyone except the oligarchs, but that was really the whole point all along.

No you didn’t say that they were stupid. Just wanted to point out that there’s a significant portion of the Tea Party who are upper middle class. And yes: then they, too, are voting against their own intersts when voting for tax cuts for the superwealthy; those Tea Partiers are using magical thinking to believe that those upper bracket tax cuts will help them out; they don’t. You’re correct about that.

simplifying the tax code

That’s a dog whistle for reducing the official rate, while making up for it by introducing more corp welfare.

And when I get seriously depressed by our guvt’s corruption, I drop over to TBogg for a touch of levity/sanity. Today is playlists suitable to the current situation. And it’s puppeh day, so there is something worth waiting for.

In a word: yes. Goal was to make the Olgiarchs super wealthy, and in that, they have been wildly successful. However, their unfettered greed makes them feel entitled to even more.

I can see cutting the top corporate (but not individual) tax rate to 25% if the many loopholes and subsidies are eliminated to raise the effective tax rate.

We should also not subsidize the export of jobs to China and elsewhere.

Cross Burn that bridge cross when they come to it.

We’re talking about the GOP, right?

Meanwhile corporations, struggling under the burdensome boot of Obama socialism, are enjoying record profits.

At least Reagan was honest about what he was going to do.

What’s Obama’s excuse? He’s a mealy-mouthed ass-sphincter who can’t help but lie to our faces?

Someone else can probably speak to any benefits of increasing protectionism but I think we need to accept that we are operating in a global marketplace now and acknowledge that the U.S. is currently better at producing some goods and services than others. Those manufacturing jobs of the 1950s and 60s are never coming back, time to move on.

It’s a popular Heritage Foundation meme that the US has (cue scary organ music) …The Highest Corporate Tax Rates in the WOOOOORRRRLD! (Except of course the Heritage folks ignore various things, such as the loopholes in these tax rates.)

The problem we’re not considering here is corporations have the added burden of paying dividends to share holders. We need to come up with some form of corporate personhood without the need to incorporate. The rich get to keep all the profits, pay no dividends, pay no taxes, and piss on the rest of us. Trickle down, baby. It’ll create jobs.

Dave Camp does not like the equation below:

400 USA families now have more wealth than 150,000,000.00 Americans
(this is not good enough for Dave Camp)

Dave wants this equation
200 USA families have more wealth than 150 million Americans

Too bad then that the knowledge jobs are being exported, too. And that college educations are so expensive nowadays that they’re not worth it unless you’re already rich or have a scholarship, because you can’t ditch these loans through bankruptcy.

But hey! Nothing must be allowed to make those richest among us, who got even richer as we got poorer, pay even a cent more in taxes! Because then they won’t make us any jobs! Oh, wait — they’re not doing that already.

I know. Just bc they say it, doesn’t make it so. In fact, if HF sez it, it’s prolly a lie.

Or knowledge jobs are being imported, since its cheaper to hire a Pak or Indian PhD than someone born & educated in the U.S.

We were doing such a good job of not feeding!

:^) Good one!!
Actually, I am pretty sure Camp’s district includes Dow Chemical (which is surrounded by woods, which one does not go into at night if they are glowing – I kid you not)

Excellent description of Obama. Do you mind if I steal it?

ditch them through bankruptcy?

Why would you even go about getting them if you have no intention of paying them back? Seems pretty weak to go into them with no intention of paying them back.

So we cut the rate so low that those with more excess wealth buy tax free government treasuries which pay interest therefore we pay the wealthiest to be in the top 1%. Nice.

How much US debt does the uber-rich own ?

I know, I know. But I’m doing this just in case any of the lurkers reading might actually get suckered by those arguments. I promise to lay off for now. :-)

Camp supports his governor’s disaster capitalist approach toward governing and meeting the needs of average Americans. It’s a virus at fever pitch in Ohio and Wisconsin, too, and it’s spreading.

Naming and shaming is insufficient to deter it. These are long term, heavily financed and powerfully backed goals. Vociferously opposing them at the ballot box (and over dinner?) would be appropriate, as would other creative ways to fight back. Mr. Gandhi invented a few. Martin Luther King championed others. He also cautioned that waiting for things to improve was a guarantee that they would not.

Mr. Obama and the Beltway revolving door types are the only ones who would consider the middle class sticking up for itself to be rude. The clock is running.

OT

I’m listening to democracynow on another window, as I missed it this morning. Juan Gonzales just said that Tepco said they were going to “string a new line” to bring electricity to nuke plant that’s melting down. Best laugh I’ve had all day. (Gallows humor, of course.)

And we can again. :-)

Of course, you can use it!

Those are the only loans which it’s not possible to discharge via bankruptcy. And they run upwards of $250,000. They’re why there’s a shortage of general practitioners and has been for years. (One of the few really good things Obama’s done was something FDL and other prog groups had to bludgeon him into doing: Student loan reform.)

And I break my promise right after I make it. :-)

Just as “tort reform” is code for protecting corporations from liability for their own negligence and intentionally harmful conduct. The guy and gal wronged by those corporations pay the price of that harm instead of the private business whose conduct brought it about. The universal false justification for all that is “jobs”. Those aren’t coming here any sooner than Godot will arrive at the bus stop.

I understand what student loans are.

I just think its acting in bad faith to try to go into the student loan process with the intention of ditching your student loan obligation through bankruptcy. If that isn’t what you meant than I must have misunderstood.

Righto. For some reason I was pondering that as I was in the process of waking up this morning & trying to decide whether it was worth getting out of bed.

It’s funny how uninsured illness, divorce, job cuts, exorbitant educational costs and long term unemployment can derail the best of intentions. Confronting the reality of such things, as predictable as rain, snow and sleet, is one reason bankruptcy rules traditionally provided for a fresh start. That is, until the bank-financed No Credit Card Company Left Behind Bankruptcy Reform [sic] Act of 2005.

I’m lurkin at my manufacturing job and I didn’t respond to shitforbrains. (I knew you would be proud)

Absolutely right. Like my parents. Upper upper middle class, watch fox news, everyone they know is either as rich as they are or richer.

They can’t be dissuaded from their kaleidescopic view of reality.

Came across this quote from Bluenorthwest from people in Ill., who said of state Senator obama;

“They said- he says anything, seems to mean something but really stands for nothing.” Spot on.

Hard to sleep with events in Japan, the paucity of good information coming out, and the chorus of “Nothing to see here, move along” coming from US leaders and newcueler energy lobbyists.

Trotsky once said the difference between a revolutionary and an evolutionary is that the revolutionary takes advantage of opportunities as they occur. We have a great opportunity staring us in the face, with WI taking the lead.

Catastrophic losses in their investment portfolio might encourage empathy, but like the color blind, some people will never see empathy.

David Camp’s top three contributors:
Dow Chemical
Altria Group
Blue Cross/Blue Shield

Someone at FDL informed me that O’s slogans were poll tested & designed to deceive. Can’t remember who it was, bc I’ve always remembered it, but have been unable to give credit.

Ohio and Michigan, too. Odd how Republicans are launching their state-based disaster capitalist attacks against middle Americans in middle America, in the rustbelt states with the largest number of failed industrial companies, which were once home to the strongest unions and still are to the strongest public sector service providers, including universities, in America. I suspect it’s going for the jugular. Time for the garlic and holy water, and the other usual implements.

May I add a personal side on education costs? When my brother graduated high school, he was given a choice of a college education or a brand new car. Granted, this was many decades ago – but the costs were similar enough. Today, I have two kids in a mid-level state university (thank God, graduating this year) and I am just about $100,000 in debt for it. This does not include computers, etc.

One-eyed man in the land of the blind is thought to be nuts.

And now I think we need to add Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

As you say, their effective tax rates are quite a bit lower than the nominal rate. And people like hedge fund managers, the richest Americans, pay a paltry 15%. Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.

It’s funny you mention “catastrophic losses in their portfolio”. It won’t work. How do I know? It already happened.

Let’s just say they always drink the mainstream econ kool aid. Which means they weren’t diversified enough in 2001 or abouts…and lost like 60% of their net worth in the tech bubble. My stepdad had to keep consulting for like an extra five years after that happened.

They’re incorrigible, and don’t learn. There are other examples.

bank-financed No Credit Card Company Left Behind Bankruptcy Reform

Thank you, former Sen. Biden (D-MBNA)…

For thirty years tuition has risen at much higher rates than consumer inflation generally. And states have taken a scythe to their support for their land grant universities, the powerhouses of more than football that built America. The grad school I went to now charges more for a single year than my degree cost; even when I went there, a single year cost more than my college degree.

I guess “children are our future”, a saying older than the bible, is as obsolete as the one that could never be said with a straight face: “employees are our most important asset”.

I wasn’t speaking of uninsured illness or divorce. I was speaking of going into the student loan process with the intention of getting out of your obligation through bankruptcy after the completion of your degree.

Understood. That’s a narrow and unrepresentative circumstance.

But apparently, the country is still not plutocratic enough for Republicans like Dave Camp Barack Obama.

FTFY

I’m sorry about their portfolio losses, but it’s rare to be able to work longer and recoup them or the lost value in one’s home or even one’s health. Tens of millions of Americans can attest to that.

New post up top, on WI recalls.

If corporations don’t want to pay taxes then I say, fine, but you won’t be getting any representation anymore either nor will you be able to contribute in any way to any political campaign or PAC or form 503c organizations for that purpose. Also, all your corporate lobbyists can go home now. They’re no longer allowed anywhere near Capitol Hill. When will this fiction of corporate personhood end? I’d love to see about half the SCOTUS justices retire under Obama’s tenure and new ones appointed that would put an end to corporate personhood. As it is the best we can hope is that the SCOTUS will stop expanding “rights” of corporate persons.

As you say, the bigger problem is the huge slice of income not subject to tax because it is deemed to have been earned offshore and fictionally stays there or because it benefits from income exclusions and credits or outright subsidies.

American corporations by and large are significant beneficiaries of government largesse. They are not the wellspring of pick yourself up by the bootstrap, self-sustaining Randian capitalists. They are medieval barons, a law unto themselves, whose riches come in many ways by being taken from someone else. ATM fees are a good example, seemingly small, cumulatively tens of billions a year, and all profit.

He has to wait until the House has passed the bill, and Harry Reid says there aren’t enough votes to stop it.

Looks like it paid him some nice dividends, no ?

Wll, shit, why not? anything the rich and corporate interests want is ok. We can scrape by, I’m pretty sure. Asshole.

My siblings are like one_outer’s parents. They are now struggling in this economy due to various issues: 1) loss in portfolios (both their own & that of my remaining parent, who still has an “ok” portfolio but not as much as before), 2) real struggles with their businesses (both sibling families are true “small” bus. owners).

I would feel more for them, but their selfish lack of awareness is too much. One sibling is completely *addicted* to Glenn Beck & screeches the live-long day about ObamaNazi ripping them off. No kidding. And said sibling owns lots of Beck gold dubloons & has them hidden in the basement. No kidding. This sibling is also friends with (wait for it) Frothy Santorum & even DINES with him (ick puke ick puke) and no doubt contributes to his campaigns. No EFFEN kidding.

Could go on. Will stop now. To say the least, they have been *hypnotised* to vote against their own interests. More than annoying…

The amount of increase in the Koch brothers total wealth is greater than California’s total debt.

the Top 50 richest AMERICANS could wipe out ALL state debt – and they’d still be rich.

They don’t do that, do they? Are they not patriotic? Do they not agree to shared sacrifice for the good of their country, the same one that made them rich?

I think the Top 50 rich people should all just BUY one state. Instead of California it would be Koch-ifornia. Arkansas would be Walton-sas. Wyoming would be Cheney-ville.

If there aren’t enough rich people (hah!) then corporations could be involved. Exxon-Mobil- Texas, Chevron-klahoma, GE-netticut and BOA-NY.

See, with a little creative think – PROBLEM GONE!

I would love it if you would offer some theories on how such differences, as between you and your siblings, arise from within the same nuclear family.

My family isn’t like that, so I just don’t understand (though I believe your family’s situation isn’t terribly unusual). I understand geographically regional differences of that magnitude, and I even understand how/why my mother once was friendly with a John Bircher couple, but how does it work within a single family? Are all siblings from the same biological parents? Are there great age separations? An emotionally catastrophic event that siblings experienced substantially differently?

Please lay out your life history, and that of your siblings, with explicit documentation of emotional growth paths. In 250 words or less. Thank you.

After SCOTUS decided to free up corporations from campaign finance laws, the needy politicians have been scurrying to score the biggest share of their largesse. This is unfair. Corporations should not be solely burdened with funding campaigns — it’s a tax on their profits!

When corporations hit hard times, they turn to the public for bailouts to float their leaky boats. So, even the repugs should go along with having the public foot the bill for campaign financing. Reduce corporate tax (in the form of payoffs): support public campaign financing NOW!

Absolutely agreed. Also, too, well-spun!

He is not respected. An attorney, a corporate shill. A stooge for the Chamber of Commerce. I don’t know anyone who voted for him. He does not represent his district- virtually impossible to get through to on the phone and emails get no response. No dialogue with the people.

Since people in N. Michigan discovered elections were being compromised -see the Meijer Inc. case that revealed election violations in Acme township and the R Sec of State let them off the hook without criminal investigation and a 400,000 fine. So the R’s, even in rural MI, are used to getting away with shit. They are just being found out. Snyder as Governor is really bringing it on home. Camp is disgusting. Michigan needs help. Throw the bastards out.

What if we just let the corps charge whatever they want for useless products that cost them nothing and FORCE Americans to buy their shit. Oh wait. We already have the health insurance mandate.