According to G.E., Shirking Taxes is Good for America

Allegedly, cutting taxes on corporations is good for America because it creates jobs and tax revenue. Not so for G.E., according to this New York Times report by David Kocieniewski. Over the last couple decades, G.E. has lobbied successfully to create a tax code nearly custom-fitted to itself so that it can, in effect, receive a tax benefit in the billions of dollars while posting incredible profits. As Kocieniewski puts it, G.E. has basically turned its tax department into a profit center. 


It's all legit, of course, but it's hard to see how it's "good for America." Jobs, you say. Okay, but the largest job growth in G.E. has been overseas while there has been a 1/5th reduction of workforce at home (p.4). By the nature of the tax breaks, most of the profits have been earned overseas, too. The only real growth within the U.S.? Their tax department, meaning G.E. is mostly adding American jobs designed to keep money out of circulation in the American economy. Brilliant.

One of the striking ironies of this situation is that liberals are actually appealing to Reagan - yes, Reagan - to make their case against this kind of thing:

"Cracking down on offshore profit-shifting by financial companies like G.E. was one of the important achievements of President Reagan’s 1986 Tax Reform Act,” said Robert S. McIntyre, director of the liberal group Citizens for Tax Justice.

This shows how stupid it is to say this country is leaning too far left, since we're still to the right of Ronald Reagan.

Even Mother Jones is looking to Reagan as a model for getting us back on track, such as a recent interview with former Reagan budget director David Stockman, who laments that we have forgotten how Reagan actually had to raise taxes shortly after cutting them. Granted, Stockman's point was about cutting spending at the same time, but it remains distressing that the conservative right has managed to wrench our public discourse in a direction so far from the former political center that, as John Stewart was at pains to point out, we are simultaneously lamenting "high" teacher pay (upwards of $60,000) and protesting that people earning $250,000 are really struggling and so we should both cut collective bargaining rights and renew the Bush tax cuts (the ones that gave my family a "boost" of $600).

Aiee. Aiee.

I don't claim to have all the answers to the real deficit problems we have, but I do know that we can't hope to solve them if we're not willing to talk about them intelligently and to take stock of our values, here.