http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wium/local-wium-963208.mp3
Macomb, IL – More than a few Americans feel it's unfair for regular people who pay taxes to endure the lousy effects of cuts in government spending when corporations pay little or nothing.
Republicans' proposed budget would essentially eliminate job training and employment help for more than 43,000 Illinoisans, according to the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
The GOP also would drop 6,900 Illinois kids from Head Start; cut $6 million from our police; cut $83 million from clean-water programs; jeopardize nutrition aid for low-income parents and their children; and cut $243 million in Pell Grants used by almost 400,000 college students in the state, according to CBPP and the Center for Law and Social Policy.
Friday is the tax deadline, so some media will uncritically repeat the annual observation from tax critics that folks now have to work X-number of days to pay their taxes. (Where are stories about the number of days needed to make sure seniors have Medicare, motorists have highways, and people have fire protection, schools, national defense, and so on?)
States do have budget gaps of more than $102 billion, but the Institute for Policy Studies notes that corporate tax dodgers alone cost the Treasury more than $100 billion. A Government Accountability Office study showed that almost three-fifths of all American-based corporation pay no federal taxes.
In Illinois, two-thirds of all corporations filing Illinois tax returns paid no taxes for 2008, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue, reported in the Chicago Tribune. Even after the recent, temporary tax increase, corporations pay only for Illinois earnings, and companies that operate as partnerships or closely held ventures don't pay the corporate rate, but the lower, individual rate.
Carl Gibson, an activist with the grassroots US Uncut group, said, "There's a direct connection between corporate tax dodging and what's happening in people's lives. If we close those loopholes, we wouldn't have to be cutting back on firefighters, library hours and student loans."
In the 1940s, corporations paid about one and a half times what people paid in federal taxes, according to the nonpartisan Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
By the '60s, the burden shifted; corporations paid less than half of individuals' $68 billion; in 2008, individuals paid more than $1 trillion - almost four times what corporations contributed.
Meanwhile, corporations helped direct folks' frustrations away from who's kicking in what in taxes to "wasteful" government spending or against "overpaid" or "incompetent" public workers.
Corporations avoiding their share of running the country, such as General Electric, according to the New York Times, use "an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore," (Underscoring that this isn't a strictly Republican flaw, President Obama picked GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt to lead the White House's Economic Advisory Panel!)
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent, listed some of these "deadbeat duds." Four of the worst are GE, which over the past five years made $26 billion in profits in the United States but received a $4 billion refund; Bank of America, which made $4 billion in profits (and got a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury of nearly $1 trillion) and received a $1.9 billion tax refund; Exxon Mobil, which made $19 billion in profits in 2009 but received a $156 million rebate; and Citigroup (after a $2.5 trillion bailout from Treasury and the Federal Reserve) made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. There are more.
Sanders conceded that government spending should responsible as well as responsive, saying, "We have a deficit problem; it has to be addressed. But it cannot be addressed on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the poor [or] young people - the most vulnerable in the country. The wealthiest people and the largest corporations in this country have got to contribute."
He added, "We've got to talk about shared sacrifice."
Bill Knight is a freelance writer who teaches at Western Illinois University. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of WIU or Tri States Public Radio.