There's a pretty common-sense solution to all of these budget cuts and job losses that don't have to happen. All that needs to happen is a little tweaking in the tax code, and millions of jobs could be saved or created. And it would be an overwhelmingly populist policy that everyone could get behind.
More below the fold.
Seriously, it's that simple.
Did you know that since 2009, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Bank of America and Citigroup all paid a grand total of $0 in federal income taxes to Uncle Sam? By the way, ExxonMobil is the #2 most profitable corporation on the planet next to Wal-Mart.
I'll repeat that. $0. From four multi-billion-dollar corporations. To give you an idea of how obscenely, absurdly ludicrous that is, I have $3 in my wallet right now. This means I literally have more money in my wallet than the income tax liability of four international corporations at the top of the Fortune 500 who make billions annually. And I'm lucky to meet my monthly expenses working 3 jobs in Mississippi, the state with the lowest cost of living in the nation.
My state is facing a severe budget crisis and laying off thousands of state workers just like everywhere else, due to low tax revenues. Governor Haley Barbour's executive budget recommendation for FY 2012 includes brutal cuts to all state agencies, most notably K-12 education, college education and the health department. Compared to last year's funding, K-12 is getting cut by $5 million. Colleges are getting cut by $10 million. Public Health has to cover $13 million in cuts. He's proposed total spending cuts of $634 million compared to last year's budget.
His cuts would mean that mental hospitals let mental patients out in the streets to take up space in county jails. It would mean that kids are shuffled into larger and more unmanageable classrooms, left to the mercy of an underpaid, overworked teacher to deal with the mess. His cuts would mean that kids who worked hard in school to overcome a lifetime of hardship in the Delta or in the hood don't get the financial aid necessary to go to college. We all know how bad these cuts are.
While working Mississippians have to be the sacrifice on the altar of deficit reduction, corporations that stashed away income overseas to avoid taxes get off scot-free and continue to make billions.
But there's an easy solution.
Make them pay.
Nearly two-thirds of US corporations don't pay any income taxes. And according to this study from the independent, non-partisan Government Accountability Office, 83 of the top 100 publicly traded corporations that operate in the US stash away domestic income in offshore banks.
We're literally losing $100 billion every year because of corporate tax dodgers, and that's $1 trillion every decade that isn't going to K-12 education, colleges or public health, or hundreds of other worthy public programs that could use the money and do lots of good for the public. That's $1 trillion worth of draconian budget cuts in every state, every ten years.
Just in Mississippi, corporations paying their fair share of taxes like everyone else means we would have an extra $432,035,285 in the bank every year. That means if the plutocracy properly adhered to the 16th amendment, these budget cuts wouldn't have to happen. And doing the math for a state where the average median income is $36,338 per year, and assuming the average public sector worker makes the median income, that'd be 11,889 people that could keep working. That'd be 11,889 people that could keep spending on local businesses, enriching their local economies, and making their town a better place to live.
Instead, because billion-dollar corporations keep their billions in the Cayman Islands and we don't do anything to keep them from doing so, almost 12,000 Mississippians will have to come home one day with a pink slip and tell their families that they'll have to file for unemployment.
If that isn't the epitome of economic injustice, I don't know what is.
What are you going to do about it?
Will you be complacent, or will you stand up and take action?
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