Scott to Eliminate funding for the Public housing he used to live American Dream

[buckethead]

I'm surprised that you believe imposing a five year waiting period on felons equates to racism, Faye. It is a racist though in and of itself to suggest that one race is more likely to be felonious than another.

Furthermore, why would you believe that a republican criminal would not want to empower his fellow criminals to garner more votes? Surely, convicted felons don't tend towards Democrats!

[BridgeTroll]

the share of U.S. taxes paid by corporations has fallen from 30 percent of federal revenue in the 1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009

Why Faye?

Well, let me first explain the currently intensified War on Women and Workers

Meet ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a national right-wing group that writes "model" legislation for its members. Who are its members? Republican state legislators and private organizations (think ExxonMobil).

Because ALEC is very secretive, only members get to know who its members are, what goes on at meetings, and what legislation is being authored and pushed.

The nearest analog to ALEC that I’m aware of on the left is the Progressive States Network, whose website can be perused at
http://www.progressivestates.org/
but PSN was only founded in 2005, does not mainly focus on writing model legislation, and is not as well organized or as disciplined as ALEC.

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,11565.0.html

As to corporations shirking their societal duties to pay taxes, after all, taxes are the price you pay to live and do business in a civilized society........

That all started with the conservative resurgence of which Reagan was part ( he was a highly paid sales person for GE, something many of you may have forgotten)

after the Goldwater defeat in 1964, visionary conservative leaders began to build a series of organizations and networks designed to promote their values and construct systematic strategies for sympathetic politicians. Some of these organizations are reasonably well known–for instance, the Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, a Racine native and UW-Madison alumnus who also started the Moral Majority and whose importance to the movement is almost impossible to overestimate–but many of these groups remain largely invisible.

That’s why events like the ones we’ve just experienced in Wisconsin can seem to come out of nowhere. Few outside the conservative movement have been paying much attention, and that is ill-advised.

Again from Professor William Cronon:

ALEC’s efforts to disenfranchise voters likely to vote Democratic, for instance, and its efforts to destroy public-sector unions because they also tend to favor Democrats, strike me as objectionable and anti-democratic (as opposed to anti-Democratic) on their face. As a pragmatic centrist in my own politics, I very strongly favor seeking the public good from both sides of the partisan aisle, and it’s not at all clear to me that recent legislation in Wisconsin or elsewhere can be defended as doing this. Shining a bright light on ALEC’s activities (and on other groups as well, across the political spectrum) thus seems to me a valuable thing to do whether or not one favors its political goals.

One of the first things Rick Scott did was:

Rick Scott reintroduced Florida to Jim Crow-style voting laws, which essentially disenfranchise a large percentage of African Americans and just so happen to boost Scott's chances at reelection. The law brought back draconian restrictions on felon's voting rights that Florida's two previous governors worked to reform.

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2011/03/rick_scott_naacp_felons_voting.php

Good God Faye.................. all of the above has NOTHING to do with Corporations not paying taxes!!  F-O-C-U-S...

[hillary supporter]

Corporations are owned by ordinary people, who, by the way, pay taxes on dividends and capital gains.  I don't understand the left's anti-corporate hardon.

i really have hard feelings towards corporations just recently aggravated by the nytimes story about GEs not paying taxes. I profoundly believe in (ULTRA-liberal) Noan Chomskys definition of corporations as an individual as "if a corporation was an individual, they would be classified as sociopath and in a mental hospital." But JMacs quote is true. Not to mention the charitable causes all corporations give to with billions involved, albeit most is generated by govt tax incentives. A lot of which is in the arts. I guess necessary evil is a phrase i could use. i think this is what rep. Rangel is thinking and doing.
I get disgusted when i hear of so much injustices done by corporations, especially the 2008 meltdown, but its just something i (as an american) have to accept.
"Democracy is terrible!!!!  But its the best we got." W.S. Churchill

[JeffreyS]

the share of U.S. taxes paid by corporations has fallen from 30 percent of federal revenue in the 1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009

Why Faye?

My guess would be the proliferation of loopholes, the diminishing of tarrifs and other restrictions allowing corporations to move opperations and claim their profits elsewhere.

[BridgeTroll]

the share of U.S. taxes paid by corporations has fallen from 30 percent of federal revenue in the 1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009

Why Faye?

My guess would be the proliferation of loopholes, the diminishing of tarrifs and other restrictions allowing corporations to move opperations and claim their profits elsewhere.

That would be my guess also.  I 'm pretty sure Stephen mentioned in another thread that those tax loopholes for corporations are actually beneficial to society and must be carefully considered before closing them.

[JeffreyS]

I would guess that technically he is correct. I just think the standard of what good you have to do to get a tax break has been severely watered down.

[buckethead]

Should a corporation be free to move operations offshore?

YES. (and they are)

What needs to happen is for them to be better off keeping operations within the States.

Policy needs to reflect a national desire to retain manufacturing (and other jobs/businesses) here, and encouraging companies to open shop within the borders.

Tariffs are a good idea. Favorable tax policy is another. I don't want to be the nation known for slave wages, however.

It occurs to me, a professed simpleton, that the Fair Tax is the way to achieve these goals.

DW mentioned the VAT, which he claimed promoted quality over mass produced "throw away" products.

I have an ingrained fear of a VAT due to it's obscure, layered nature. Perhaps a vestige of my self indoctrination into the neocon empire.

Somebody feel free to convince me otherwise.