Death - But Maybe Not Taxes

We certainly won't be the first ones today to remind you of the old axiom that nothing is certain in life but death and taxes - though we may be the first ones to tell you that between the two, we tend to favor the Angel of Darkness.

The fact is, though, while every mortal being on Earth eventually dies, not everyone pays taxes anymore. We imagine that makes the Grim Reaper more than a bit jealous - and maybe even a bit afraid - of the legions of American corporate tax cheats, who are undoubtedly smiling at the pain of the "little people" who actually pay their taxes - primarily honest American workers

The fact is, whether you're a corporation or a person - or a person wealthy enough to hide behind the legal fabrications of being a corporation - that can make a huge difference on whether you pay taxes or not. As one of the latest studies from Citizens for Tax Justice proves, corporations from Fed Ex, to Pepco Electric to Southwest Airlines will be paying less than you will in taxes for 2012. Most of them will even be getting a handsome tax return for their creative manipulation of the tax code.

As journalist Sam Pizzigatti notes, once upon a time, all corporations in America paid taxes, way back in the heyday of the 1950s. For all the dreamy, longing talk of the race-divided, socially cloistered 1950s that Republicans continue to slobber about, the one thing we never hear any corporate-loving Republican discuss is the tax rates of the 1950s, which were significantly more effective in some ways than they are today.

Instead, you're far more likely to hear the false propaganda of right-wing shills like Mattie Duppler, who this weekend wormed her way onto 'Up with Steve Kornacki.' Right-wing hacks like Duppler are a dime a dozen, and inevitably always blame America's current tax problem on the false idea that too many of our tax dollars are being spent in ways they disagree with by someone they don't like. Currently, and for several years now, their target of blame has been President Obama.

For the record, everyone from the Wall Street Journal to NPR, and everyone in between - including our friend Rick Ungar at Forbes - have proven continually and repeatedly that the smallest government spender since Eisenhower is President Barack Obama. That of course completely disproves all the hacks like Duppler - a shill for the long-ago discredited anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist - who insist Obama is spending too much - which, in fact, he's not.

The real problem is that federal tax revenues are still at historically low levels - meaning the government is missing out on collecting some serious revenues.

We all know how some of America's wealthiest individuals - like former GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney - avoid paying taxes, by stuffing them in offshore tax havens like the Cayman Islands. Some corporations also use that route, among other strategies.

Pulitzer Prize-winning economic journalist David Cay Johnston notes that's not the only way the corporations in America get out of paying their fair share. Corporations manipulate the tax code in any way they can, even effectively stealing tax money from their employees in 21 states and pocketing the cash, while screwing both the states and their workers.

The long and short of our American tax problem is that in the long run, America will have to lower some of our government spending. In the short term however, the federal and state governments need to stop allowing corporations to steal, lie, and cheat their way out of paying their fair share of taxes. If the corporations won't stop their unethical and dishonest behavior, then the corporations need to have their own government-enforced meetings with the Grim Reaper.

If the choice given to those stealing from public trusts for their own private benefit truly was death or paying one's taxes, we have a feeling the old cloaked one would be a bit less jealous of the tax man - and that would be just fine with us.

Friday Funday: Empathy And Praise

While there is still plenty to discuss and debate about President Obama's 2014 budget proposal, the immigration issue, the gun safety bills, and even a scientist who claims to have invented time travel, as we do on most Fridays, we're going to pull our focus away from the mechanics and analysis of politics, to something a bit lighter today - which frankly, is leading our thoughts to turn to vacation.

The next Federal holiday in the U.S. isn't even until the end of May, and our staff still has plenty of work and more than a few days of travel scheduled between now and then. We do have a day or two off tentatively set on the calendar - though we hope we don't end up spending those days sitting in an airport.

A couple of our professional colleagues this week ran into travel issues, and we have to empathize with both them and travel workers across the nation. Both groups of people were faced with the fallout from this week's ugly storms that dropped snow throughout the Midwest, even closing Interstate 80 in Nebraska - three weeks into spring. If you think your job is hard, imagine being a ticket counter agent for an airline during a freak storm like that.

Those patient airline workers, and a few other unique people this week, have earned special praise from us for going the extra mile in difficult situations.

First, we feel that we - and the entire nation - need to thank the parents and family members of the victims of the 12/14 shootings in Connecticut. They have worked tirelessly to keep reminding members of Congress, as well as members of their own state legislature, that more can and should be done by our elected officials to make our gun-filled culture safer. Their fight is far from done, though they did win a key battle this week in the Senate. Hopefully, our Senators will do the right thing, and rapidly pass the background check bill in front of them.

We also have to give praise to Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Sherrod Brown, former FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair, and the federal regulators behind the latest wild foreclosure news. Senator Warren, out of the media spotlight this week, tore into Federal banking regulators for not doing their jobs, while Bair very publicly made it clear that banks may be no longer "too big to fail." The federal regulators who've continued digging into the housing crisis long after most Americans thought it was over also earn some praise from us today. They revealed this week that nearly 1.2 million borrowers whose properties were foreclosed on during 2009 and 2010 should never have been victimized by some of the biggest banks in the nation - banks that will now have to answer for their crimes.

Speaking of crimes, Sen. Mitch McConnell continues trying to divert attention from the true crime that may have happened in his office recently. Thankfully the group 'Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington' didn't fall for his media blather. Instead, they've filed an official Senate Ethics committee complaint on McConnell, who now has to explain why his staffers - paid by taxpayers - were illegally working on McConnell's reelection campaign, during their professional, Congressional workday.

Finally, even though baseball season is finally here, we have to give some praise to the NHL, who announced their support this week for gay rights. The league has pledged to fight homophobia with new programs focusing on both players and fans. Hopefully, the NHL's actions towards acceptance and equality may soon spread to other major pro sports leagues. We know that action has made us even more psyched to watch the Chicago Blackhawks game this weekend.

Whatever you do to relax this weekend, we're very glad we have a couple days off to rest and recharge. We sincerely hope you do too.

Evolution Of Ideas

As we continue to dig into the details of the budget President Obama and the White House presented on Wednesday, and the Senate gets ready to vote today on the gun safety reforms we've discussed earlier this week, we think it's healthy and important to focus on a few debates about political evolution going on right now, about principle and compromise.

On the left, this debate is boiling to the top because of President Obama's budget, and the President's longstanding claims that some earned benefits - like Medicare - may have to be trimmed. Liberals insist there be ZERO cutting of any kind. Progressives are leaving wiggle room - for a reason.

On the right, the battle between compromise and principle has simply widened what has already been an intraparty civil war. From the Hastert Rule "violations" by Speaker Boehner, to a Tea Party activist in Oklahoma blackmailing a Republican state senator, to the paranoid accusations by Mitch McConnell of what is likely one of his own staffers recording a political strategy session, right-leaning moderates and conservatives hate each other almost as much as they hate anyone on the left.

The hostility in both cases comes, in part, from each side being a bit unfamiliar with its current body politic, like a teenager going through a growth spurt.

On the right, the same exact hate speech has been used and reused as the primary political motivating tool for over a century, as though evolution was something unnecessary for conservatives to achieve. Some members of the Republican Party finally appear to be starting to abandon that method of motivation, as it's only yielding progressively diminished returns, on issues from same sex marriage, to immigration reform, to gun safety laws, and more.

The left has seemingly already evolved, to a degree, though its two main factions still aren't quite speaking the same language.

Ed Kilgore And Jonathan Bernstein's discussion in Washington Monthly and Salon of what's wrong with the GOP is a perfect example of this speaking in two different tongues.

The discussion about what President Obama's true goals are in his budget is another.

On the farther, more liberal left, well known bloggers like Heather "Digby" Parton and cartoonists like Herblock Award-winning Tom Tomorrow, as well as former labor Secretary Robert Reich don't entirely trust that President Obama isn't going to sell out the middle class on earned benefits issues like Medicare.

Well known political wonks like Greg Sargent, Ezra Klein, and Michael Tomasky tend to see the same thing we do: That President Obama is playing politics with his budget plan, fully well-aware that even though Obama's basically given Republicans in Congress everything they want, they still will not be able to get a deal with him, because of their extremist bretheren.

Since Obama and the more centrist progressive Democrats can't get a policy win, they're using this opportunity to broadly show the world exactly where the blockage is in Washington, DC - with the obstructionist Republicans in the House - so the Dems can claim a political victory in the House in 2014. Then, President Obama may be able to actually govern again, as he did during his first two years in office.

We're not sure which side will evolve, politically, before the other one does, though we certainly favor one side.

We are certain of this: Whichever side evolves first, and learns to control itself, and communicate effectively will likely win solid majorities, at all levels, for many election cycles to come.