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Battle Lines Being Drawn As Obama Plans To Curb Tax Avoidance
theodp writes "Barack Obama has squared up for a major battle with big business, announcing a crackdown on offshore tax avoidance and evasion by US multinationals that's designed to raise $210B and make it easier for companies to create 'good jobs here at home'. Obama cited a building in the Cayman Islands where more than 18,000 US companies are housed: 'Either this is the biggest building in the world or it is the biggest tax scam in the world,' he said. 'I think the American people know which it is.' The administration says that more than a third of US foreign profits in 2003 came from Bermuda, the Netherlands and Ireland, and noted US companies paid an effective tax rate of just 2.3% on the $700bn they earned in foreign profits in 2004. Among tech companies affected by the crackdown, Microsoft joined 200 companies who signed a letter complaining that the proposed tax changes would put them at a disadvantage with their rivals, Cisco moaned that the measures 'would adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the US,' and Google declined to comment for the time being."
Wow, you're right; he probably didn't realize that. You should call him up right now and let him know. I mean, you have his number, right? Don't they give that out to all the super-geniuses of the world so they can lend their bountiful intelligence to him in times of need?
No?
Shut up.
This isn't tax cheating. It's tax avoidance. It's not illegal. Wake up, People. There's nothing wrong with avoiding paying taxes. In fact, we should all do so as best we can. It's time for the government to be fiscally responsible. Not simply strangle it's constituents to placate budget inflation.
What? Are you kidding?
Dude, if any country in the next 10 years lets you keep 10% of what you earn, they'll be bombed and invaded for being a tax haven and refusing to pay their 'fair share' if Obama has his way.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
I'm going to go into your house tonight and take anything I don't think you use properly.
Well, you conservatives sure haven't done any good at solving anything either! I hope YOU get laid off!
And we know for a fact that Krugman, an FDR Democrat, would NEVER produced a biased article....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
5 insightful?? maybe 5 mentally ill. dear Jmorris42, the 1950s called they want their hysteria back.
> Fascism does not mean what you think it means.
Well lets see. One the one hand we have your opinion. On the other we have the historical record of the regimes who invented, promoted and championed fascism. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, lots of luv from Lenin and Stalin in their day. Even some luv from FDR, who saw much to be emulated in it.
> Fascism is simply private business that is controlled by the government.
You couldn't be more wrong. Go read some history and get back to me. I'd really suggest the book I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, Goldberg's _Liberal Fascism_. It's very well footnoted so even if you can't bring yourself to accept his conclusions just on the strength of his arguments, you will have plenty of primary sources lined up for you to go looking for... and then have to face up to learning something you always thought to be Truth just ain't so, Fascism was a philosophy of the leftist mind, fully at home in the company of Progressives, Socialists, modern (not classical) Liberals and even Communists who all saw things to like in fascist thought. Some simply thought it a useful phase on the jourrney to the perfect socialist utopia, but all admired, if nothing else, its effectiveness at sweeping away classical liberalism which they all loathed.
And another one that will probably rock your reality. The Nazis were not just Fascists, they were Socialists, like their name implies. They just weren't International Socialists like the Russians. Look up the Nazi Party platform (the previous three words into Google will work) and tell me they weren't Socialists. Yes, from their first published platform it was obvious they were racists and Nationalists, but it also reveals why they named themselves National Socialists.
Democrat delenda est