It is a good thing that the Obama administration IS exacting some constraints on this process. Hopefully, more balanced executive and legislative decision-making processes will ensue relative to the collection and dispensation of tax revenues.

Think of all the people those companies can hire with the savings !!

Thank goodness Obama promised during the campaign to keep lobbyists out of his administration.

We should nuke K street from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

40below: Thank goodness Obama promised during the campaign to keep lobbyists out of his administration.

it has nothing to do with obama genius. were talking about the tax cuts on repatriated earnings, which began in 2004, essentially reducing the tax from 35% to 5%, screwing us (the people) out of an estimated $100 billion dollars.

bales: 40below: Thank goodness Obama promised during the campaign to keep lobbyists out of his administration.

it has nothing to do with obama genius. were talking about the tax cuts on repatriated earnings, which began in 2004, essentially reducing the tax from 35% to 5%, screwing us (the people) out of an estimated $100 billion dollars.

Luckily, Obama didn't start taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists until 2005

Get back people: this is just the invisible hand at work.

Mordant: Think of all the people those companies can hire with the savings !

Especially if they are India! Think of all the bonuses the CEOs can give themselves!

/thinks outsourcing is treason
//is mindful of the US Constitution's view of treason
///RON PAUL!

eddyatwork: /thinks outsourcing is treason

Why do you hate free markets? Why do you hate the 3rd world? Are you a racist, eddy?

Wait....

wasn't this on Fark already?

The paper by three Kansas professors examined the impact of a one-time tax break approved by Congress in 2004 that allowed multinational corporations to "repatriate" profits earned overseas, effectively reducing their tax rate on the money from 35 percent to 5.25 percent.

Does anyone still want to believe the illusion that 'tax the rich' will really solve all our problems...?

Weaver95: Does anyone still want to believe the illusion that 'tax the rich' will really solve all our problems...?

Well, taxing them less and less has certainly improved our nation.

/OH WAIT
/lololol

Weaver95: The paper by three Kansas professors examined the impact of a one-time tax break approved by Congress in 2004 that allowed multinational corporations to "repatriate" profits earned overseas, effectively reducing their tax rate on the money from 35 percent to 5.25 percent.

Does anyone still want to believe the illusion that 'tax the rich' will really solve all our problems...?

Everyone else in the country does.

40below: Thank goodness Obama promised during the campaign to keep lobbyists out of his administration.

At least that's what he wants you to think!

MrGumboPants: Well, taxing them less and less has certainly improved our nation.

/OH WAIT
/lololol

It's pointless to increase taxes on 'the rich' when they have so many ways to move money out of the country. sure - raise taxes on whatever vaguely defined economic group you want to call 'rich'.....but the people who've got all that money you're looking to confiscate will just pay lobbyists to open a loophole for them to dodge that tax burden.

Now, the easiest answer to your problem would be to just stop listening to lobbyists...but do you really think that your elected officials are going to do that? Because I don't think that anyone inside the beltway is going to just start behaving themselves.

I've said it before and i'll say it again - there are only two parties in this country that matter: beltway insiders and everyone else. This is just more evidence of just how bad things have gotten in this country.

shirtsbyeric: 40below: Thank goodness Obama promised during the campaign to keep lobbyists out of his administration.

At least that's what he wants you to think!

For what it's worth, I think Obama really meant it at the time. But lobbying firms are so much a part of the washington insider culture that Obama isn't going to be able to halt their pervasive influence.

Decisions in this country aren't made by and for 'we the people'. Not anymore. ok, well not consistantly anyways - sometimes they throw us a bone. But for the most part decisions are made by and for an elite circle of corporate interests, government administrators and collected special interest groups. the concerns of rank and file people like us really don't figure into the national policy debate.

Weaver95: It's pointless to increase taxes on 'the rich' when they have so many ways to move money out of the country.

And yet we've decreased taxes on them over the last 30 years -- both functionally and in all the above board ways.

The whole discussion of 'tax more' or 'tax less' is pointless without a frame of reference. Most liberals would be perfectly happy to end up with a Nixon-era code -- which was far more progressive than anything we're likely to get under Obama. And I don't remember wealthy folks running screaming from the country at that point.

So if I pay a lobbyist $25, I'll get all my taxes back? Sweet deal.

This is why politicians should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers with the logos of those giving them bribe...er, campaign contributions....er their sponsors....or something

MrGumboPants: Weaver95: It's pointless to increase taxes on 'the rich' when they have so many ways to move money out of the country.

And yet we've decreased taxes on them over the last 30 years -- both functionally and in all the above board ways.

And I believe that we're going to keep decreasing taxes on those folks, while shifting more of the burden onto an ever shrinking middle class. That's just the trend i'm seeing from both parties. And once the middle class is largely destroyed and the welfare money runs out, life will get very very interesting in this country.

The whole discussion of 'tax more' or 'tax less' is pointless without a frame of reference. Most liberals would be perfectly happy to end up with a Nixon-era code -- which was far more progressive than anything we're likely to get under Obama. And I don't remember wealthy folks running screaming from the country at that point.

The problem is that somewhere along the line our elected officials decided that it was ok to start taxing people based on ideological causes, and not on the needs of a balanced budget. we stopped caring about paying bills, and instead started using the tax code to engineer social policy. And once that happened, we were in serious trouble.

If the government had no power to make businesses profitable by decree, the lobbyists would all go home. Sadly, I see few people calling for less government authority over business.

Jacobin: This is why politicians should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers with the logos of those giving them bribe...er, campaign contributions....er their sponsors....or something

That is the best idea I have heard on fark in a long time, if only I had money to lobby for it.

ScubaDude1960: If the government had no power to make businesses profitable by decree, the lobbyists would all go home. Sadly, I see few people calling for less government authority over business.

But if the government had no such power, it would be a truly free market!!1!

Weaver95: The problem is that somewhere along the line our elected officials decided that it was ok to start taxing people based on ideological causes, and not on the needs of a balanced budget. we stopped caring about paying bills, and instead started using the tax code to engineer social policy. And once that happened, we were in serious trouble.

I 100% disagree. You're saying the government shouldn't use the tax code to improve society. That is lunacy, and that form of anti-government right wing thinking is really the problem, not the fuzzy bipartisan issues you seem to be blaming it on.

Fact is, the GOP got what it wanted 30 years ago. We're living in the middle of their engineered social policy. There's no way around that.

Weaver95: we stopped caring about paying bills, and instead started using the tax code to engineer social policy. And once that happened, we were in serious trouble.

Libertarian paternalism didn't cause this mess, vote buying did.

Silovik

If only I had photoshop skills

eddyatwork: /thinks outsourcing is treason

Staying in the US and going bankrupt is patriotic? Feel free to open a manufacturing business. Encourage your employees to unionize. Call up OSHA, the EPA, the EEOC, and any other regulatory agency you can think of to come inspect your place and make sure you're complying with all relevant regulations. I'll drop a nickel in your cup when you are reduced to begging in the streets.

Pardon the misplaced italics.

MrGumboPants: I 100% disagree. You're saying the government shouldn't use the tax code to improve society. That is lunacy, and that form of anti-government right wing thinking is really the problem, not the fuzzy bipartisan issues you seem to be blaming it on.

I think that if you start manipulating tax law to create artifical economic situations, then sooner or later you run into trouble. Look at wall street - they manipulated (via lobbyists) tax laws and SEC regulations to create a number of artifical bubbles....which then all went POP and left us in our current situation.

Fact is, the GOP got what it wanted 30 years ago. We're living in the middle of their engineered social policy. There's no way around that.

Oh I think the Democrats got into the act more than a few times themselves. the one thing both parties like is to suck down the lobbyist dollars while blaming 'the other guy' for listening to 'those evil lobbyists'. In reality, both parties are equally guilty of that particular sin. They just don't want the rank and file to realize it.

Jacobin: Silovik

If only I had photoshop skills


Just leave it up to Ron Paul supporters.

Public financing of elections would eliminate the lobbyists entirely, but OMG FIRST AMENDMENT

Weaver95: Look at wall street - they manipulated (via lobbyists) tax laws and SEC regulations to create a number of artifical bubbles....which then all went POP

The problem was lack of regulation, not regulatory prescriptions that forced them to invent credit default swaps or mortgage backed securities. The same thing would have happened with no SEC at all. Besides, places like AIG weren't regulated by the SEC, they were regulated by some tiny group called the Office of Thrift Supervision which didn't have any manpower or resources. Essentially these megabanks existed in your unregulated dreamworld.

bubbaprog: Public financing of elections would eliminate the lobbyists entirely, but OMG FIRST AMENDMENT

I don't think that'd help. Instead, i'd completely eliminate the concept of 'soft money'. Make it *all* 'hard money'.

This might help explain the terminology.

chipspastic: ScubaDude1960: If the government had no power to make businesses profitable by decree, the lobbyists would all go home. Sadly, I see few people calling for less government authority over business.

But if the government had no such power, it would be a truly free market!!1!

Yes. And in a free market, each person earns what he produces, by engaging in un-coerced commerce with others whom they mutually agree to do business with. The problem is that nobody wants to earn and everybody wants to get a piece of what somebody else earned.

Shaggy_C: Weaver95: Look at wall street - they manipulated (via lobbyists) tax laws and SEC regulations to create a number of artifical bubbles....which then all went POP

The problem was lack of regulation, not regulatory prescriptions that forced them to invent credit default swaps or mortgage backed securities. The same thing would have happened with no SEC at all. Besides, places like AIG weren't regulated by the SEC, they were regulated by some tiny group called the Office of Thrift Supervision which didn't have any manpower or resources. Essentially these megabanks existed in your unregulated dreamworld.

Yeah, but you can't deny that every time someone started to look at wall street, someone dumped a ton of $$$ into their campaign coffers and they left the damn thing alone.

Weaver95: Does anyone still want to believe the illusion that 'tax the rich' will really solve all our problems...?

Don't you ever get tired? Seriously no matter how much it hurts, you are a wage slave like the other 98% of people who aren't wealthy. Give it up already. I'd explain but I'm tired of trying to explain to people who won't understand and won't even care anyway.

Weaver95: Yeah, but you can't deny that every time someone started to look at wall street, someone dumped a ton of $$$ into their campaign coffers and they left the damn thing alone.

So what are you arguing for then? Less regulation as a matter of principle as opposed to bribery? I don't see how having the same end result is somehow better because it was done on extremist ideological grounds that you happen to agree with.

Here we go with the Free Market mantra. "If only humans weren't so human, we'd have a utopia!"

Shaggy_C: Weaver95: Yeah, but you can't deny that every time someone started to look at wall street, someone dumped a ton of $$$ into their campaign coffers and they left the damn thing alone.

So what are you arguing for then? Less regulation as a matter of principle as opposed to bribery? I don't see how having the same end result is somehow better because it was done on extremist ideological grounds that you happen to agree with.

make *all* campaign money 'hard' money. no exceptions for anyone. that'd be a good first step towards cutting back the influence of lobbyists and special interest groups.

Weaver95

Does anyone still believe...

Well, yes. Because, as the study and the article points out, they are currently NOT BEING TAXED, which is the problem. Therefor, to tax them, would *possibly* help to correct that.

Seriously, how does a tax reduction from 35% to 5.25% (as in the case of repatriated funds) show that we are currently taxing the rich? 'Cause I see a very drastic tax reduction. 5.25

Weaver95: make *all* campaign money 'hard' money. no exceptions for anyone. that'd be a good first step towards cutting back the influence of lobbyists and special interest groups.

But you tried to tie the lobbying angle back to the economy and Wall Street. We all know where your political leanings are, and I challenge you to point out to me in what fundamental way the deregulated market structure of the last 30 years is anything other than moves toward your ideology, and also how less lobbyist influence would have prevented it in a way that you would have been satisfied with. Are you for more government control all of a sudden?

Uh, sorry. My last comment cut off short.

....5.25 is less than 35. Therefor, there is tax money not being charged.

Aracnix: Uh, sorry. My last comment cut off short.

....5.25 is less than 35. Therefor, there is tax money not being charged.

I think the point is that raising the 35% higher isn't going to do jack squat to get that money back.

Now that's what I call productivity. How do you get a job as a lobbyist anyways?

Shaggy_C: Weaver95: make *all* campaign money 'hard' money. no exceptions for anyone. that'd be a good first step towards cutting back the influence of lobbyists and special interest groups.

But you tried to tie the lobbying angle back to the economy and Wall Street. We all know where your political leanings are, and I challenge you to point out to me in what fundamental way the deregulated market structure of the last 30 years is anything other than moves toward your ideology, and also how less lobbyist influence would have prevented it in a way that you would have been satisfied with. Are you for more government control all of a sudden?

Perhaps I was unclear, so let me see if I can get this point across to you. My contention is that wall street firms corrupt the legislative process to serve their own ends. Chris Dodd, for example (chairman of the banking and urban affairs committee) has recieved $4,242,546 specifically from Securities & Investment firms. And as a result, he used his influence as chairman to write rules and regulations that directly favored the firms that paid him all that money. Specifically, AIG gave Dodd $281,038 to look the other way, and that is exactly what he did.

If you take the time to follow the money, you can easily trace the influence of corporate dollars and it's impact on legislation and/or regulatory agencies. And if you want to look it up for yourself, go here and here to follow up the data for yourself.

And yes, Dodd is merely ONE example of a much larger problem.

Just because people on both sides of the aisle take money from the deregulation-above-all-else crowd doesn't mean that one side isn't more culpable than the other.

Following the money is fine. But follow the ideology, too. "Government is the problem" = "Here, rich folks, do more of whatever you want".

Shaggy_C: But you tried to tie the lobbying angle back to the economy and Wall Street. We all know where your political leanings are, and I challenge you to point out to me in what fundamental way the deregulated market structure of the last 30 years is anything other than moves toward your ideology, and also how less lobbyist influence would have prevented it in a way that you would have been satisfied with. Are you for more government control all of a sudden?

A lobbyist, Phill Gramm, was elected and given power over the things which he lobbied for

Shaggy

Yeah, probably. The rich are rich because they do everything they can to keep their money. That'll never change. But the fact that the rich have most of the money is why it makes sense that the rich should be the most taxed. Whether that is done through a progressive tax system or simply as a result of a flat tax system, either way it just seems to make logical sense that the people with the most money should (not in a moralistic sense but in a rational sense) pay the most taxes.

Taxes are a way of robbing people of their money for the benefit of a larger, impersonal system. It's still theft. Why rob poor people? It just makes more sense to steal from rich* people.


*rich = anyone who make more money than me, of course

Weaver95: And yes, Dodd is merely ONE example of a much larger problem.

Yeah...but he's a hell of an example.