8 Huge Corporate Handouts in the Fiscal Cliff Bill

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/8-huge-corporate-handouts-fiscal-cliff-bill



5) Subsidies for Goldman Sachs Headquarters – Sec. 328 extends “tax exempt financing for York Liberty Zone,” which was a program to provide post-9/11 recovery funds. Rather than going to small businesses affected, however, this was, according to Bloomberg, “little more than a subsidy for fancy Manhattan apartments and office towers for Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Corp.” Michael Bloomberg himself actually thought the program was excessive, so that’s saying something. According to David Cay Johnston’s The Fine Print, Goldman got $1.6 billion in tax free financing for its new massive headquarters through Liberty Bonds.

6) $9B Off-shore financing loophole for banks – Sec. 322 is an “Extension of the Active Financing Exception to Subpart F.” Very few tax loopholes have a trade association, but this one does. This strangely worded provision basically allows American corporations such as banks and manufactures to engage in certain lending practices and not pay taxes on income earned from it. According to this Washington Post piece, supporters of the bill include GE, Caterpillar, and JP Morgan. Steve Elmendorf, super-lobbyist, has been paid $80,000 in 2012 alone to lobby on the “Active Financing Working Group.”

7) Tax credits for foreign subsidiaries – Sec. 323 is an extension of the “Look-through treatment of payments between related CFCs under foreign personal holding company income rules.” This gibberish sounding provision cost $1.5 billion from 2010 and 2011, and the US Chamber loves it. It’s a provision that allows US multinationals to not pay taxes on income earned by companies they own abroad.

8) Bonus Depreciation, R&D Tax Credit – These are well-known corporate boondoggles. The research tax credit was projected to cost $8B for 2010 and 2011, and the depreciation provisions were projected to cost about $110B for those two years, with some of that made up in later years.


*** the article takes exception with rail roads subsidies -- something i do not.

[leveymg]

1. The Bill doesn't make all this lard permanent, does it?

Let's hope they're on the chopping block for quick action this session.

[DiverDave]

2. I am sick to death

of the lengths this president will bow to those bastards.

Or to put it another way, So what else is new?

[brush]

4. I am sick to death also . . .

. . . of all the bad mouthers of the President on DU. HE IS NOT A KING THAT CAN RULE BY EDIT. He's also not the king of the Democrats either, and they had as much a hand in the bill as anyone. If there is fault lay it all around because the majority of the 538 members of the Senate and House voted to pass the bill with the provisions sited in the OP. If you think all the banks and corporations in the country, WITH THE REPUGS WORKING FOR THEM FULL-TIME, have no power in this country, your naivete is stunning.

Now try listing some of the benefits of the bill like extending unemployment for those that were about to lose their only income, or the increased revenue the bill raises and you might have a different perspective. You don't ever get everything you want unless you are the dictator in a dictatorship. It's about negotiation, or you may as well be just an inflexible, left-wing version of a teabagger and nothing ever gets done. And who's to say this quick fix bill is permanent? Now the real negotiation starts, and those on unemployment at lease aren't going to starve.

[DiverDave]

18. blah blah blah

PEANUTS!
And I guess its ok that the ceo that get facetime get what they want.
yeah, he is the best.
If I wanted a fucking republican I would have voted for one.
They WILL get the SS money, mark my words.
With the Presidents help.
We are screwed.
Wake up.
Naivete, look in the mirror smarty pants.

[brush]

19. I don't have to look in the mirror

I looked at your post, and your negativity is also stunning.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

15. politics is the art of the possible

I think the president displayed better brinksmanship than he has earlier, and played harder ball if not hardest possible ball with the opposition.

Any time we start out negotiations with John Boehner telling Harry Reid to go fuck himself, as was reported, you can be pretty sure there was some pressure being applied to the GOP.

That said, this was a result that involved two sides; we can only hold the president accountable for one of those two sides. Considering the intransigent unreasonable and unrealistic nature of the GOP, he had to come to a meeting of the minds with a side that is arguably demented and that hates his guts, intending to make this as difficult as possible out of sheer bloodymindedness, combined with a certain very real desperation on the part of the right.

I think the most interesting hard core negotiations are still ahead. I suspect that if we were privy to all of this, Obama played it pretty shrewdly, and that this is as close to what winning could be (at the risk of sounding like Charlie Sheen) as it is possible to achieve right now.

I'm glad that milk won't be reaching $8 a gallon, or that those on unemployment who would be the most hard hit are not being thrown to the wolves, so to speak.

If we take the long view, I think this places the GOP in a bad place for further factionalism and self-destruction, as well as a good place for the Dems for 2014 and 2016.

Is it perfect? Far from it. Can we live with it? For now. Taking the long view, it's better positioning than where the left and center have been before now.

[SHRED]

3. More pork for the pigs

Meanwhile we will see less take home pay and Obama will be blamed.

-

[OKNancy]

5. The article leaves out things that are good about the bill.

Last edited Wed Jan 2, 2013, 01:43 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm deleting my original post. THe link was to the AUGUST bill, not to the Dec 31st bill.

[MNBrewer]

7. I suppose an article that deals with HUGE CORPORATE HANDOUTS IN THE BILL

Might do that. Ya think?? Would you expect an article that deals with all the wonderful, progressive aspects of the bill to deal with the huge corporate handouts?

[gtar100]

6. What it tells me is that we have a class of rich people who

still treat the United States as their own personal cash cow. They could care less about making this country better (let alone the world). They are here for themselves and nobody else. And they know that what they are doing is wrong otherwise they wouldn't use such cryptic language to name those parts of the bill. If it were all on the up and up, they would call a spade a spade.

These provisions are the work of lobbyists. More reason to get big money out of politics.

[mother earth]

8. I'm so tired of the excuses, whether it's Obama or the rest of our PAID government officials...

they are simply handing out entitlements to the big corporations who own this country. Have we had enough of making excuses for our own rape & pillaging? Obama certainly is not king, but the buck has to stop somewhere...apparently we love and are accepting of the pretense we are being handed on a grand level.

If we cannot speak here and criticize what is blatantly WRONG, where is freedom of speech? This is so wrong. We won't be hearing about this splashed over the news channels, will we?

A huge thank you, xchrom, for calling our attention to so many things that otherwise go under the radar. K & R & keep spreading truth.

[lonestarnot]

9. Loopfuckingholes should be the next fight.

[fasttense]

10. And the TN senators want to cut a Trillion out of Social Security

while their corporate masters get their hundred billion dollar tax cuts. They are betting the American people are too stupid to know what is happening.

What a scam all of this is. It's nothing more than stealing from the middle class and workers in order to feed the uber rich greedy little pigs. Can't you just hear them snorting, grunting and going oink, oink, oink as they feed off of We the People.

[progressoid]

11. Remember how closing loopholes and pork was a priority for the candidates a few months ago?

[Agony]

12. our problems are broad and deep

"Most tax credits drop straight to the bottom line – it’s why companies like Enron considered its tax compliance section a “profit center”. A few hundred billion dollars of tax expenditures is a major carrot to offer. Surely, a modest hike in income taxes for people who make more than $400k in income and stupid enough not to take that money in capital gain would be worth trading off for the few hundred billion dollars in corporate pork. This is what the fiscal cliff is about – who gets the money. And by leaving out the corporate sector, nearly anyone who talks about this debate is leaving out a key negotiating partner."

[ProSense]

13. "Bonus Depreciation, R&D Tax Credit – These are well-known corporate boondoggles."

Matt Stoller is a moron. When the hell did the clean-energy tax credits become a negative?

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr8eas/pdf/BILLS-112hr8eas.pdf

People are scouring the bill to find anything they can spin as negative.

Here's the biggest positive: No spending cuts.

[davidn3600]

14. Well...what do you expect? We vote for the lesser evil in every election.

When you vote for lesser evils, you still end up with evil.

The law of diminishing returns is setting in.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

16. I haven't read the whole thing myself - yet - but I appreciate you posting this article; thanks!

You have to expect the greedy will get their benefits from any agreement, or make it impossible to do anything.

I'm hoping so much that Elizabeth Warren will be effective against the banksters.

[Hotler]

17. I have no hope. I see no future. n/t

[Amonester]

20. If it's true, what I don't understand is 'why' did all those teaRoarists in the House vote Nay??

If it's true, are 'they' not the first ones who would be thrilled just fantasizing about the MILLIONS they would stand at the receiving end of on their next campaigns??

Something's fishy. I don't understand why THEY voted it down then.