If We’re So Broke How Come Billionaire Companies Pay No Taxes?

So, you keep hearing the GOP and the Tea Party types tell us how broke we are. GOP is trying to convince us that taking money from Meals on Wheels, Medicare, Social Security, Planned Parenthood, WIC, Unemployment, etc. in order to pay down the debt and reduce the deficit.

They fought Obama hard demanding he leave George Bush’s tax cut for the wealthiest 2% in the country for another two years. They forced him to make a deal with them so he could actually pass legislation that helps the average American household. Keep in mind, President Obama is the person you have to fear. I mean seriously I’d be scared too if there was a guy in the White House telling the wealthy and the corporations that the free ride they’ve gotten used to since the Supreme Court appointed George Bush to the position of President of The United States.

Before G.W. and his handlers took over the top 2% in the country were paying close to 36% in taxes under Bill Clinton. Refresh your memories if you need to but that helped to create the BUDGET SURPLUS that G.W. quickly squandered away. Problem is he also cut their taxes so low there was no way to replace that, so they cooked the books. The left the cost of the wars and countless other things from the budget, so it didn’t look too bad to Americans.

Then American got a new President. One that told us almost immediately the deficit was actually much higher than reported by the previous administration because they omitted things like the cost of war.

But here we have a list of who has all the money and why the middle class, women, seniors and the poor are now being told it is up to them to share the sacrifice but what about these people?

When do share they begin sharing the sacrifice?

1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was nice enough to put the list above together for Americans so they can see just who really matters in this country now. It isn’t us folks, it’s them.

Sanders has called for closing corporate tax loopholes and eliminating tax breaks for oil and gas companies. He also introduced legislation to impose a 5.4 percent surtax on millionaires that would yield up to $50 billion a year. The senator has said that spending cuts must be paired with new revenue so the federal budget is not balanced solely on the backs of working families.

“We have a deficit problem. It has to be addressed,” Sanders said, “but it cannot be addressed on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the poor, young people, the most vulnerable in this country. The wealthiest people and the largest corporations in this country have got to contribute.

Will we sit by and continue allowing the Koch funded Tea Party and GOP to lie to us while bashing the President so they can continue rewarding the wealthiest in this country with the money they are stealing from us?