Corporate welfare was protected while marginal and middle class taxpayers got a huge tax hike.
Linking Social Security (and other government expenses) to chained cpi is now part of the public consciousness.
It needs time to permeate in – it was way too early to actually implement it. Public Opinion is against it at the moment. They will keep working on ways to cut Social Security and bring it up again at some future date.
Corporate profits were protected, even though they are at record levels.
Corporations are to share none of the pain.
The top 0.1% derive most of their income directly from Corporate profits. So the income of the top 0.1% was protected too.
Facebook kept their 0.34% Corporation Tax rate.
Google can keep diverting US generated profits to Bermuda to pay almost no Corporation tax.
There are many ways for multinationals to pay very little or zero Corporation Tax – just about all multinationals do it.
Closing these Corporation Tax loopholes would have brought in far more revenue than the expiry of the Payroll Tax break.
Update 01/04 GE and Citibank get huge tax breaks plus other items of Corporate Welfare – Ben Swann.
FOX19.com-Cincinnati News, Weather
Mitt Romney’s low tax rate was protected. He was a winner too.
Talk of higher taxes for dividend payments went nowhere. Carried Interest was not even mentioned.
Mitt Romney’s donations to the Mormons are still to be treated as tax deductible.
The large subsidies to the oil industry were not touched.
Neither were the special tax breaks or the juicy contracts for the arms industry.
The big pharmaceutical companies are very happy with the fiscal cliff deal. Government gifts to them have not been touched.
Wall St is extremely happy – their subsidies and privileges were not touched.
The sum total of the fiscal cliff deal was to take an additional $200bn or so a year from the 99% without touching the $1,000bn+ of annual Corporate Welfare.
77% of taxpayers are going to be paying more in taxes.
To rub salt into the wound, the fiscal cliff deal was stuffed with even more Corporate Pork.
“Sec. 328 extends “tax exempt financing for York Liberty Zone,” which was a program to provide post-9/11 recovery funds. Rather than going to small businesses affected, however, this was, according to Bloomberg, “little more than a subsidy for fancy Manhattan apartments and office towers for Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Corp.” Michael Bloomberg himself actually thought the program was excessive, so that’s saying something. According to David Cay Johnston’s The Fine Print, Goldman got $1.6 billion in tax free financing for its new massive headquarters through Liberty Bonds.
$9B Off-shore financing loophole for banks – Sec. 322 is an “Extension of the Active Financing Exception to Subpart F.” Very few tax loopholes have a trade association, but this one does. This strangely worded provision basically allows American corporations such as banks and manufactures to engage in certain lending practices and not pay taxes on income earned from it. According to this Washington Post piece, supporters of the bill include GE, Caterpillar, and JP Morgan. Steve Elmendorf, super-lobbyist, has been paid $80,000 in 2012 alone to lobby on the “Active Financing Working Group.”
Tax credits for foreign subsidiaries – Sec. 323 is an extension of the “Look-through treatment of payments between related CFCs under foreign personal holding company income rules.” This gibberish sounding provision cost $1.5 billion from 2010 and 2011, and the US Chamber loves it. It’s a provision that allows US multinationals to not pay taxes on income earned by companies they own abroad.
Bonus Depreciation, R&D Tax Credit – These are well-known corporate boondoggles. The research tax credit was projected to cost $8B for 2010 and 2011, and the depreciation provisions were projected to cost about $110B for those two years, with some of that made up in later years. ”
The 99% get a 2% increase in taxes while these corporate pigs go oink, oink, oink.
Fiscal Cliff Deal Sneaks In Wall Street Gifts, NASCAR Perk
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/fiscal-cliff-wall-street_n_2397933.html
From NASCAR to rum, the 10 weirdest parts of the Pork Laden #FiscalCliff bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/02/from-nascar-to-rum-the-10-weirdest-parts-of-the-fiscal-cliff-deal/
Senators got 3 minutes to read the 154 page bill before voting on it.
More details on what the Fiscal Cliff deal actually means.
America and Americans have just been thrown under the bus and sold down the river.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/america-and-american-workers-have-just.html
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/what-fiscal-cliff-deal-actually-means.html
What does it take to wake people up?
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/i-beleive-i-have-dream-i-have-dream.html
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http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/fiscal-cliff-deal-goldman-sachs-won-top.html
Why am I not surprised; alright, I’m bent over and I’ve gottem spread.
Yes, it was an absolute sham. The American people had no one negotiating for them in Washington. I only hope the public can really grasp what is going on here before the next round in March.
Watch how they keep us divided. For example, the need to cut Medicare spending. It’s framed to one side as undeserving people sucking up tax dollars for the hell of it. In theory at least, the liberal side wants more spending for healthcare. Notice how they jujitsu out whether there is any other way to look at it. a way that unites us? No one who is not profiting from it anyway, wants to overpay for drugs. What is never discussed is that the patient is a pass-through vehicle for profits far above any other nation’s cost of providing care and preventing bankruptcy. And every premium payer is now coerced into giving more and more of their money to this industry.
Want to cut Medicare? Go right ahead. Cut out the extra billions in profiteering every year. Don’t take from the least well off, decreasing Social Security and Medicare that is supposed to protect a minimal quality of life to retired working class people. If money needs to be raised, raise it from those who can afford it without any significant reduction in quality of life. Congress wants to pretend someone making almost half a million a year is middle class, well if the amount of earnings taxable by Medicare and Social Security was raised, it wouldn’t impact their lifestyle. Not so on the other end of things. And if they don’t want to raise taxes, go back to cutting costs by negotiating drug prices just to name one of the biggest cost drivers. There are others, as we pay about the equivalent of an Iraq War every year over what other countries pay while insuring everyone.
I have stolen your picture for the article on my blog. It is great.
I hope you don’t mind.