Something I have not seen in all of the diaries about the proposed corporate bailout is the question of what to do about those companies that moved their headquarters to Ireland, the Cayman Islands, or other jurisdictions precisely to avoid US taxes. Do those companies now want to get a slice of the federal dollars that they have so carefully avoided contributing to? Hey Apple, your products are excellent, but before you apply for a dime of tax money let's talk about how many billions of dollars in profit you have made in this country and what percentage you paid on it. Hey GE, the last time I checked I paid more taxes than you did, and I am a lower middle-class guy with a mortgage. We need to keep the corporations who deployed teams of lawyers to avoid supporting this country from sucking it dry now.
And you hotel companies and airlines - we quite understand that your business is in a lot of trouble right now. However, before we start tossing shovelfulls of money in your direction, we want to see the complete list of Board member compensation, and we want to see your taxes. Are you seriously planning on paying the CEOs millions as though they were running a vastly profitable company when they're only income will be from the federal government? Not acceptable. If you are crying poor we need details, because a lot of Americans genuinely are and they need help. And don't whine that it will take you so long to get these statistics, because every company has a set of tax returns that they can lay their hands on at any moment, and we all know how easy it is to put something on the Internet so that everyone can see it and verify it.
When Republicans start shouting about the need for corporate bailouts, forgetting that they are deficit hawks when Democrats are in power, we need to point out what irresponsible spending really looks like. It looks like what they want, and we can't accept it.