A Republican representative repeated the tired line today that "the U.S. has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world".
He said this while trying to defend some new Republican tax proposals, and he added that if we don't cut the corporate tax rate we're sure to lose more jobs overseas. There's just one small problem with his argument.
According to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), nearly two-thirds of U.S. companies and 68% of foreign corporations in the U.S. paid NO federal income taxes from 1998-2005.
This is from a report back in August, so you'd think it would've become public knowledge by now, but unfortunately it hasn't. I wonder if that's because the "second highest tax rate" lie is rarely if ever challenged in the mainstream media, especially on television.
The manufacturing sector (alone) lost more than three million jobs between 1998 and 2003, and I'm assuming more were lost from 2003-2005. While job creation and loss is more complicated than just tax rates, doesn't the fact that we lost millions and millions of jobs despite ZERO taxes for over 2/3 of corporations destroy the Republican argument that we need lower corporate taxes rates?
It should. Speaking of 'shoulds', the cable news talking heads should be aware of this fact and should use it to clobber anyone who makes this tired tax cut argument.