Well, the King Speaks. Off for a month's vacation, Georgie Boy deigned to pontificate on all things GOP. While Minnesotans try to recover bodies, Utah families wait for news of trapped miners, the west fights fires, the south battles 100-plus temperatures, and New Orleans still looks like a hurricane just hit it, the Chimp in Chief strode to the podium to tell us:
- Screw you, stupid homeowners
- Iraq is pivotal to the "global war on terror"
- Everything -- Iraq, the economy, job creation, the stock market -- is hunky dory
- Oh, except for Iran. That country is messin' in our business
- Corporations might need some tax breaks
- Screw you, stupid Americans and Democrats who represent them
I swear to god, I can't take much more. There is a point at which one is forced to believe that if Americans keep accepting this crap, they deserve what they get. But where do the rest of us go? Bush stands there with his pseudo-serious pauses (I still think he's getting cues from offstage through a hidden ear piece) and his forced conviviality (with which he tries to throw off reporters' rhythm and good-ole-boy towel snap 'em) and his behavior is a host of things including disingenuous, fatuous, disrespectful, deceitful, unpresidential, and impeachable.
No, homeowners don't deserve any consideration in the game of "bait the consumer" that has so enriched the already wealthy and powerful:
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Thursday concern should be shown those who've lost their homes but it's not the federal government's job to bail them out. "Obviously anybody who loses their home is somebody with whom we must show an enormous empathy," Bush said. Asked whether he would champion a government bailout? Bush responded: "If you mean direct grants to homeowners, the answer would be `No, I don't support that.' "
http://news.yahoo.com/...
But I remember when Bush's buddies, including his besotted King of Stupid brother Neil Bush, deserved a very generous bailout courtesy of American taxpayers. Who paid for that gift to the rich and the corrupt? YOU DID:
The Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s was a wave of savings and loan association failures in the United States in which over 1,000 savings and loan institutions failed in "the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance and larceny of all time."[1] The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around USD$150 billion, about $125 billion of which was consequently and directly subsidized by the U.S. government, which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s. The concomitant slowdown in the finance industry and the real estate market may have been a contributing cause of the 1990-1991 economic recession.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
And gee whiz, now that we're talking, Bush has had so much time on his hands he has been thinking about what gifts he can next give to American corporations. Maybe he'll think up some way to reward BP for dumping more toxins in Lake Michigan ... maybe a "Screw the Environment Tax Incentive" or something. How does this strike the average American? Only two days ago, a man named Steve Skvara (who lives not 10 miles from me), stood up at the AFL-CIO debate to ask what was wrong with this country. Is there no one else outraged that Bush would be pondering new ways to enrich the people who made out like bandits when LTV Steel folded? None of those execs lack retirement accounts or health care coverage.
Bush may consider new corporate tax break
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- President Bush says he is considering a new plan to cut U.S. corporate tax rates to make them more globally competitive.
Bush told the Washington Post he was "inclined" to send to Congress a corporate tax package supplied him by advisers although he was uncertain how it would fare.
The president was given a series of ideas to restructure corporate taxes, possibly eliminating some narrowly targeted breaks to pay for a broader, across-the-board rate cut.
Such a move could further inflame a battle with the Democratic Congress over spending and taxes, the Post said.
http://www.upi.com/...
I don't get it. Corporations are paying precious little in tax as it is, and they hold all the cards. Bush has eviscerated the Department of Labor, OSHA, the Environmental Protection Agency. He lies through his teeth about job creation and the economy, and brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "lies, damn lies, and statistics" with his administration's report on jobless claims.
For instance, consider what Tim Johnson had to say in 2004:
Washington, DC — With the April 15th tax deadline fast approaching, U.S. Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) called upon the Internal Revenue Service today to increase enforcement to ensure that corporations are actually paying what they owe in federal taxes. Recent reports show that while audits of individual tax returns have climbed 37 % from 2000 to 2003, audits of corporations have fallen 26 % over the same period.
In a report released this week, the General Accounting Office, the independent investigative arm of Congress, revealed that a large majority of domestic and foreign corporations reported no U.S. tax liability from 1996 to 2000. These figures were as high as 71 percent of large, domestic corporations paying absolutely no federal income taxes. Shockingly, nearly 90 percent of corporations paid less than 5 percent of their total income in taxes.
http://johnson.senate.gov/...
Rupert Murdoch, the soon to be owner of all American media, is a very clever tax evader. The UK had him pegged years ago, and now he's here to screw Americans.
In 1999, The Economist reported that Newscorp Investments had made £1.4 billion ($2.1 billion) in profits over the previous 11 years but had paid no net corporation tax. It further reported, after an examination of what was available of the accounts, that Newscorp would normally have expected to pay a corporate tax of approximately $350 million. The article explained that the corporation's complex structure, international scope and use of offshore havens allowed News Corporation to avoid tax
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Do you remember the "American Jobs Creation Act" of 2004? Yeah, kinda like the "Clean Skies" initiative and "No Child Left Behind." Bush has done nothing BUT enrich his corporate cronies since he sat his dumbass in the oval office chair. Read this snippet from Mother Jones in its March/April 2005 edition:
It was an apt description of the vaingloriously named American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. Though the law began as an effort to end a $5 billion-a-year corporate tax subsidy that had been declared illegal by the World Trade Organization, it had grown into a hydra-headed beast. The law's principal author, Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), jokingly referred to it as "Miss Piggy" on the House floor. Arizona Senator John McCain decried "the worst example of the influence of special interests that I have ever seen." The president's own Treasury secretary, John Snow, bemoaned the myriad "tax provisions that benefit few taxpayers." Top White House economists protested one new loophole that would cut $3 billion, primarily from the taxes of pharmaceutical and high-tech companies, without yielding "any substantial economic benefits."
Almost every industry in America received special favors. The tax cuts included half a billion for shipbuilders Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, $100 million for NASCAR racetrack owners, and $9 million for arrow manufacturers. Importers of Chinese ceiling fans—like Home Depot—got a break, as did energy companies angling to build a natural gas pipeline in Alaska. About $231 million went to reduce the taxes of shopping-mall developers in the states of key House and Senate members. Four Texas companies received special dispensation to shelter their profits in the Caribbean. The law also cut taxes on railroads, coffee roasters, timber firms, and Hollywood studios. General Electric received tax benefits worth more than $1 billion over the next decade.
"From the beginning to the end, this was designed by lobbyists," says C. Eugene Steuerle, codirector of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, who spearheaded corporate tax reform as a member of the Reagan Treasury in 1986. "The only question was whether this was the worst tax bill in our lifetime or the worst tax bill in U.S. history."
http://www.motherjones.com/...
The strategy is the same: screw the average American and then blame them for being alive, I guess. It is galling that Bush can stand at the podium and say all this shit and then this, with a straight face, "I will use the veto to keep your taxes low."
Appearing before cameras at the Treasury Department alongside his economic team, the president vowed to veto spending bills that exceed his targets, and he accused Democrats of plotting the largest tax increase in history to fund an additional $205 billion in discretionary spending over five years.
"Put another way, it's about $1,300 in higher spending every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every year for the next five years," he said. "Now, somebody is going to have to pay for it. And that, of course, will be the hardworking American people. . . . I will use the veto to keep your taxes low and to keep federal spending under control."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
I hope you enjoy your vacation, George. Meanwhile:
- My property taxes are going up
- My grocery bill is higher
- I am being paid less than when you were elected because of corporate media consolidation
- My house is worth less
- My college age kids are hopeless
- My city and state watch body bags come home from Iraq
- My news intake consists of death and destruction, much of it at your direction
- My vacation plans consist of writing this diary.
We are not living in a democracy. That was King George today. Did you see him? Did you hear him? Did you volunteer to fan him while he eats grapes on a Kennebunkport porch this August?