We're coming, you're going, don't let the door hit you on the way out,
Kerry Donors Include 'Benedict Arnolds'
Candidate Decries Tax-Haven Firms While Accepting Executives' Aid
Remember the famous slogan"We're coming, you're going, don't let the door hit you on the way out..", It appears the
press is coming, are you going, Mr. Kerry?
"Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, frequently calls companies and chief executives "Benedict Arnolds" if they move jobs and operations overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes. But Kerry has accepted money and fundraising assistance from top executives at companies that fit the candidate's description of a notorious traitor of the American Revolution."
"On Monday, Kerry was asked why two of his biggest fundraisers were involved with "Benedict Arnold" companies. "If they have done that, it's not to my knowledge and I would oppose it," Kerry told a New York television station. "I think it's wrong to do [it] solely to avoid taxes."
Then he sought to clarify his position: "What I've said is not that people don't have the right to go overseas and form a company if they want to avoid the tax. I don't believe the American taxpayer ought to be giving them a benefit. That's what I object to. I don't object to global commerce. I don't object to companies deciding they want to compete somewhere else.''
David Roux, who has raised more than $250,000 for Kerry since 2002, is co-founder of a California company that helped purchase Seagate Technology Inc. four years ago and incorporated it in the Cayman Islands, one of the world's best-known tax havens. Roux described himself in an interview last fall as the "anchor tenant in John Kerry's fundraising mall."
While the State Department lists Seagate as among the companies that reincorporated offshore to save on taxes, Roux said yesterday that he works for a "global" company forced to make "thoughtful" business decisions about where to locate its offices and jobs. Roux said he does not consider Seagate or himself a "Benedict Arnold." That term, Roux said, "is, like many things in politics, a label that [was] meant to cover a lot of sins."
"Thomas F. Steyer, who said he has raised around $200,000 for Kerry, is partner at a California investment firm called Hellman & Friedman LLC that helped set up an insurance company in Bermuda, another popular tax haven. The insurance company -- Arch Capital Group Ltd. -- stated in a 2000 Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it was sinking roots in Bermuda to reduce its U.S. tax bill"
When asked for the definition of a "Benedict Arnold" company or CEO, Stephanie Cutter, Kerry's spokeswoman, said: "Companies that take advantage of tax loopholes to set up bank accounts or move jobs abroad simply to avoid taxes." She pointed to a list compiled by Citizen Works, a tax-exempt nonprofit group that monitors corporate influence, as a source of the companies that fit the candidate's definition.
According to federal election records, Kerry has received $119,285 from donors employed at what Citizen Works described as the "25 Fortune 500 Corporations With the Most Offshore Tax-Haven Subsidiaries." The list does not include nearly all of the companies that shave their tax bill by moving jobs and operations overseas, so Kerry has actually raised substantially more from firms qualifying as "Benedict Arnolds."
Kerry has also received $20,100 in donations directly from individuals at companies with mailing addresses offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes, records show.
"Senator Kerry has made it crystal clear that he's going to close these loopholes, forever," said Chad Clanton, a Kerry spokesman. "Nothing will stop him. Period."
Apparently, the press and Bush will paint Kerry as
a typical say-one-thing-do-another, flip-flopping Washingston politician. Kerry's record can not comfort us, when his perceived waffles, hypocricy are carved in people's mind, it may be too late.
Kerry, please don't let the door hit democratic party on your way out!!!