Last fall, after my group put out a study detailing widespread tax avoidance by America’s largest and most profitable corporations, the right-wing Heritage Foundation published a screed attacking us. It was one blatant misstatement after another. I e-mailed the author, Norbert Michel, to point out his many factual errors, but he declined to correct them. […]
Robert McIntyre
Robert S. McIntyre is director of Citizens for Tax Justice and a contributing editor for The American Prospect.
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Posted inColumns
A Double-Barreled Attack
George W. Bush’s Social Security proposals have come under heavy and deserved attack over the past few months. But a few key points should be made clearer. First, repeat after me: Cutting Social Security benefits does not mean “saving” Social Security. It means “cutting” Social Security. We can debate whether that’s advisable, but we shouldn’t […]
Posted inColumns
State Corporate-Tax Follies
If you’re unhappy with the mess George W. Bush has made of the federal corporate income tax, you’ll be less happy to learn that things are even worse in the states. Last September, my group published a study showing that America’s biggest and most profitable corporations now shelter more than half of their U.S. profits […]
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New Year’s Resolutions
Over the next few years, we’re going to face monumental tax and budget decisions. President Bush wants to privatize part of Social Security, make the tax code far less progressive, borrow many more trillions of dollars, and probably slash domestic programs. It’s crucial that people understand what’s at stake as these issues unfold — and […]
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Tax Missimplification
Two days after his re-election, President Bush offered the public some guidance on what he says will be a central goal of his second term: “tax simplification.” Bush said he wants to “encourage people to invest and save,” i.e., he favors still more tax cuts for the rich. He added that he’ll propose a tax […]
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It’s Your Money They’re Wasting
In September, my group, Citizens for Tax Justice, released a major study on corporate tax avoidance. We looked at 275 of the largest and most profitable Fortune 500 companies and found that almost a third managed to pay nothing (or less) in federal income taxes in at least one of the first three years of […]
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Now for Some Bad News
Read my lips: I’ll raise your taxes — a lot. Thus, paraphrased only slightly, speaks George W. Bush to Middle America. Yet many of his intended middle-class victims don’t seem to hold it against him. Or perhaps they haven’t been listening hard enough. In his speech at the Republican convention, Bush called for a “simpler, […]
Posted inSpecial Report
A Payday Bonus
Russell Long was hardly the darling of liberal tax reformers when he chaired the Senate Finance Committee in the 1970s. In fact, we usually saw him as a toady for corporate special interests. But as the genial Louisiana Democrat liked to say, even a blind hog finds an acorn once in awhile. The Earned Income […]
Posted inSpecial Report
Civilization’s Price
If John Kerry is elected this fall, his no. 1 task will be to deal with the huge budget mess George W. Bush’s tax cuts have created. Which begs the question: How could President Kerry build public support for the higher taxes our country desperately needs? So far, Kerry hasn’t shown any inclination to talk […]
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Joker in Chief
As federal deficits mount to record levels, President Bush now tells us there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Not a bright light, mind you, but he does claim that his new budget plan, despite more huge tax cuts, will get the government’s books halfway to balanced within five years. There are, however, a […]