by Colin Taylor
Last week, 80 CEOs jointly published a letter in the Wall Street Journal
calling for austerity spending cuts to deal with the deficit, in a new
effort to “starve the beast” and slice funds away from public programs,
especially Medicare and Medicaid, reducing their effectiveness to make
their calls for privatization more effective. It’s the same old game
that corporations and Republicans across the country have played time
and time again, one that has the American people losing.
Senator Bernie Sanders, champion of the middle class and economic
justice, published his own response- a scathing condemnation of their
hypocrisy and blatant opportunism:
“There really is no shame. The Wall Street leaders whose recklessness
and illegal behavior caused this terrible recession are now lecturing
the American people on the need for courage to deal with the nation’s
finances and deficit crisis. Before telling us why we should cut Social
Security, Medicare and other vitally important programs, these CEOs
might want to take a hard look at their responsibility for causing the
deficit and this terrible recession.
Our Wall Street friends
might also want to show some courage of their own by suggesting that the
wealthiest people in this country, like them, start paying their fair
share of taxes. They might work to end the outrageous corporate
loopholes, tax havens and outsourcing provisions that their lobbyists
have littered throughout the tax code – contributing greatly to our
deficit.
Many of the CEO’s who signed the deficit-reduction
letter run corporations that evaded at least $34.5 billion in taxes by
setting up more than 600 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands and other
offshore tax havens since 2008. As a result, at least a dozen of the
companies avoided paying any federal income taxes in recent years, and
even received more than $6.4 billion in tax refunds from the IRS since
2008.
Several of the companies received a total taxpayer bailout
of more than $2.5 trillion from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury
Department.
Many of the companies also have outsourced hundreds
of thousands of American jobs to China and other low wage countries,
forcing their workers to receive unemployment insurance and other
federal benefits. In other words, these are some of the same people who
have significantly caused the deficit to explode over the last four
years.”
He then released a list of the eighteen CEOs who are responsible for
triggering the recession, destroying the middle class, corrupting our
politicians, underpaying their workers, and outsourcing jobs overseas.
These are the names of traitors who have forsaken their people and nation to worship at the altar of greed:
1) Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $1.9 billion tax refund.
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? Over $1.3 trillion.
Amount of federal income taxes Bank of America would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.6 billion.
2) Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $278 million tax refund.
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $824 billion.
Amount of federal income taxes Goldman Sachs would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.7 billion
3) JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $416 billion.
Amount of federal income taxes JP Morgan Chase would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.9 billion.
4) General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $3.3 billion tax refund.
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve? $16 billion.
Jobs Shipped Overseas? At least 25,000 since 2001.
5) Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $705 million tax refund.
American Jobs Cut in 2010? In 2010, Verizon announced 13,000 job cuts, the third highest corporate layoff total that year.
6) Boeing CEO James McNerney, Jr.
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? None. $124 million tax refund.
American Jobs Shipped overseas? Over 57,000.
Amount of Corporate Welfare? At least $58 billion.
7) Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
Amount of federal income taxes Microsoft would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $19.4 billion.
8) Honeywell International CEO David Cote
Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $34 million tax refund.
9) Corning CEO Wendell Weeks
Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $4 million tax refund.
10) Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $74 million tax refund.
11). Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $55 million tax refund.
12) Deere & Company CEO Samuel Allen
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $1 million tax refund.
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3) Marsh & McLennan Companies CEO Brian Duperreault
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $90 million refund.
14) Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs
Amount of federal income taxes Qualcomm would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.7 billion.
15) Tenneco CEO Gregg Sherill
Amount of federal income taxes Tenneco would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $269 million.
16) Express Scripts CEO George Paz
Amount of federal income taxes Express Scripts would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $20 million.
17) Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman
Amount of federal income taxes Caesars Entertainment would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $9 million.
18). R.R. Donnelly & Sons CEO Thomas Quinlan III
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $49 million tax refund.
These are astonishing numbers. There are billions of dollars missing
from the federal budget because huge multinational corporations don’t
pay any taxes while crying for spending cuts and austerity measures
placed on the backs of the American people. Bernie Sanders is the only
candidate really confronting these issues, and we must hear his message.
We cannot allow the proud heritage of American democracy to slide into
the dark pit of oligarchy, where the worker becomes a serf and the
mega-rich rule like lords.
