For example, in 2018 there were 60 American corporations that paid $0 in federal taxes, despite earnings in the billions. According to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, these federal free riders included IBM, Amazon, Netflix, Molson Coors, Whirlpool, JetBlue Airways, and General Motors.

It gets worse.

As Megan Henney writes at Fox Business, “Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes at the 21 percent corporate rate, the companies received a corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion.” Henney adds, “Netflix, for instance, raked in $856 million in profit but paid no federal taxes because of tax credits, according to ITEP. IBM, meanwhile, earned $500 million but received a rebate worth $342 million, although it’s unclear specifically how the company did so. The company said it used "domestic incentives” to reduce its income tax by about $110 million in 2018.“

How do they get away with it?

The loopholes that these large companies use to reduce or eliminate their tax burdens include accelerated depreciation — which allows them to write off their capital investments — and a range of tax credits for what they call "research and development.” Still others took advantage of alternative-energy tax subsidies or stock options.

Until Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission get serious about closing some of these loopholes, corporations will continue to take advantage. After all, what they’re doing isn’t illegal. But in the end, the public’s confidence in our elected officials will continue to erode as the perception of government favoritism toward big business is reinforced. Not surprisingly, polls show that most Americans want these loopholes closed.

But let’s be clear: First, corporations don’t pay taxes — consumers do. So this isn’t about raising corporate taxes, punishing successful companies, or eroding their positive effects on our economy. Instead, the issue is fairness, as so many small businesses and working individuals struggle to keep their accounts in the black each month and contribute a much higher percentage to the government at tax time. That’s because small-business owners often file taxes as individuals — and thus pay the much higher individual rate.

Meanwhile, video-game companies like Activision, entertainment companies such as Netflix, and gargantuans like Amazon reap the benefits of a flawed system that enables them to not only avoid taxes, but to actually receive tax windfalls.

Brock Blake writes at Forbes, “While there’s potential for this tax law to have a positive impact for small business owners in the long run, most entrepreneurs feel that the government looks out for corporations’ interests over small businesses. According to a recent survey, 79 percent of startup entrepreneurs say they had no support from government to launch their companies, and 60 percent believe that government doesn’t care about businesses like theirs. Ouch.”

Our approach to this problem will test our commitment to free-market principles. We shouldn’t embrace policies that limit the expansion of job opportunities, the innovativeness and competitiveness of American companies, or the overall growth of the U.S. economy.

The Republican reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% was a good and much-needed move, but large companies shouldn’t be exempt — again, especially when so many small businesses who compete with them are Sub S corporations paying the taxes at the highest personal rate. Moving forward, conservatives should enable a business climate that supports the creation and expansion of small businesses. We’re all for limited taxation and pro-growth economic policies, but if mom-and-pop grocery stores fork over hefty taxes to the federal government every year, then large corporations should bear some of the burden too.

Finally, despite what many conservative economists predicted, the largest tax-avoiding companies don’t always reinvest their savings into the American economy. Some shelter their tax windfalls overseas, for example. Clearly, we need a tax system that incentivizes reinvestment while steering clear of the Left’s failed formula of higher taxes and increased government regulation.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62627?mailing_id=4233&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4233&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

NRA attorney Chuck Michel argued that “politicians are free to disagree with the NRA’s pro-freedom, firearm safety, and self-reliance message, but they aren’t free to censor it — as this would do when NRA supporters drop their NRA affiliations for fear of losing work from the city because they get put on a blacklist.” The lawsuit charges that the city’s anti-NRA ordinance is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and association as well as the 14th Amendment’s right to equal protection under the law.

Speaking of the NRA, its annual convention is currently underway in Indianapolis, where President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are scheduled to speak today. This will be the third consecutive year Trump has addressed the assembly. The executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, Chris Cox, welcomed the president and his support, stating, “Donald Trump is the most enthusiastic supporter of the Second Amendment to occupy the Oval Office in our lifetimes. President Trump’s Supreme Court appointments ensure that the Second Amendment will be respected for generations to come. Our members are excited to hear him speak and thank him for his support for our Right to Keep and Bear Arms.”  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62634?mailing_id=4233&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4233&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

The long arm of the PC police has reached back to the ‘30s and arrested, prosecuted and sentenced the late singer Kate Smith. Smith, who popularized Irving Berlin’s song “God Bless America” and was a female pioneer in early television, recorded songs that today in hindsight are viewed as racist.

An old friend, Harry Covert, writes to recall the early days of black-and-white TV when he (and I) watched Kate Smith’s television program. Covert remembers one show interrupted by a news bulletin announcing the attempted assassination of Harry S. Truman by militant Puerto Rican activists. He notes that today’s Puerto Ricans are not smeared by that incident, so why is Smith being figuratively tarred and feathered?

In 1940, Irving Berlin, the Russian-born composer, established the God Bless America Fund “for the benefit of the youth of America,” donating the proceeds from the song’s royalties to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America. Yankees baseball great Joe DiMaggio was a trustee on the GBA Fund.

Smith, along with many other celebrities, donated her time to entertain troops during World War II. The PC crowd gives her no credit for that. The New York Yankees, an organization that should be proud of such history and DiMaggio’s association with it, stopped playing “God Bless America” at their games. The Philadelphia Flyers, which at one time asked Smith to sing the song live at their hockey games because when she did the team usually won, has also banned her voice.

As in so many cases with political correctness, the standard is unequally applied. What about Southern Democrats who approved of slavery and Jim Crow laws, poll literacy tests and opposed civil rights legislation? One of them, Sen. Richard Russell (D-GA), has a Senate office building named for him.

Then there is Sen. Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia. Not only was Byrd a member of the Ku Klux Klan, rising to the level of Exalted Cyclops in the bigoted organization, he spoke favorably of the Klan during the early stages of his political career. In 1956, Byrd wrote to the organization’s imperial wizard: “The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.”

During his 1958 Senate campaign when he was 41, Byrd said his membership in the Klan was “the most egregious mistake I’ve ever made.” Still, in a 2001 interview on Fox News Sunday, in response to a question about race relations, Byrd, then 83, said, “I’ve seen a lot of white n—s in my time.” He later apologized for the remark.

When it comes to naming buildings and other projects after politicians, The Daily Gazette in Schenectady, N.Y., editorializes against the practice: “There’s a state park on Long Island and a parkway near Niagara Falls named after Robert Moses. Moses was a 20th-century urban planner who was later revealed in the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, 'The Power Broker,’ as a ruthless abuser of political power with racist tendencies who pushed through many major infrastructure projects that New York City residents now revile. Should his name be on public highways and parks?”

How far are we willing to take this retro-cleansing of American history? The Arlington County, Virginia Board may decide as early as this week to rename Jefferson Davis Highway, which runs through Arlington and Alexandria. Davis’ offense was being the president of the Confederacy. They have already renamed Washington-Lee High School, because of Robert E. Lee.

As for Kate Smith, when these imposers of the present on the past accomplish anything benefiting America, as did the singer and Irving Berlin, then we can talk. In the meantime, why not focus on efforts that will significantly help the poor and disenfranchised, such as school choice? Meaningless symbolism improves nothing.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/62599?mailing_id=4230&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4230&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Rowe appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to address the college-admissions scandal. Yet far better, he explained that college has become the most over-priced scam in the nation, saddling thousands of young Americans with decades of student-loan repayments. Repayments that have forced them to postpone activities like buying a house, getting married, or having children.

Postponements that are now impacting the entire U.S. economy.

“Where’s the outrage for the pressure that we’ve put on a 17-year-old to borrow $100,000?” Rowe asks. “So much of that pressure comes from their mom and dad. It’s well-intended, but it’s kinda tragic.”

Rowe further notes that parental pressure is amplified by high-school guidance counselors, politicians, lobbyists, and employers.

The results? Rowe says, “We promoted the one thing at the expense of all of the others and the one thing just happened to be the most expensive thing.”

Expensive is an understatement. As measured by the Consumer Price Index, the cost of college since 1985 has increased at nearly quadruple the rate of inflation. In a single decade from 2007 to 2017, college tuition skyrocketed 63%, school housing 51%, and textbooks 88%.

As a result, total student-loan debt — now more than $1.5 trillion and counting — is the second-highest segment of consumer debt, trailing only mortgage obligations. Moreover, default rates are now more than 10%, making them the highest segment of household debt in the nation.

In the meantime, Americans trapped by this increasingly onerous dynamic never get around to asking an essential question: Why do most employers require a college degree, even when one is not necessary to perform job-related actives?

One of the main reasons has to do with a 1971 Supreme Court decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Co.. Prior to the ruling, Duke Power restricted workers without a high-school diploma to menial jobs, unless they could pass an aptitude test. Griggs and other black American employees filed suit, claiming that the company’s requirements were discriminatory under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

SCOTUS unanimously agreed, ruling that employers could only require educational credentials that were reasonably job-related. Furthermore, any company’s educational or testing qualifications that engendered “disparate impact” were in violation of the law.

The implication? In a 2008 paper, “Griggs v. Duke Power: Implications for College Credentialing,” authors Bryan O'Keefe and Richard Vedder explained that many employers, knowing that aptitude testing and high-school diplomas had become legally hazardous, began using college degrees to screen out applicants they didn’t want to hire. “Griggs turned the college degree into a ‘credential,’” the authors explained. “The content of the education did not change, but the degree — the sheepskin — became a necessary first step for a decent job.”

Is it? As columnist (and Yale graduate) Kyle Smith asserts, “An elite-college degree isn’t an instrument or a tool; it doesn’t have to lead to anything. It’s a status symbol in itself.”

More troubling, colleges are also the places where “a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed” is now imparted to the nation’s Ruling Class, as Boston University professor emeritus Angelo Codevilla explains.

Yet the most salient aspect of this ongoing scam is revealed by columnist Mark Hemingway. “Credentialism creates the illusion of knowledge and capability where none exists,” he explains.

Rowe heartily agrees. “Seven million jobs are available now; most of them don’t require a four-year degree,” he states. “They require training. And yet we’re obsessed, not really with education, you know. What we are obsessed with is credentialing. And so people are buying diplomas. And they’re buying their degrees. It’s a diploma dilemma, honestly. It’s expensive. It is getting worse. It’s not just the kids holding the note. It is us.”

“Us” is the American taxpayer who bears the ultimate burden for any and all student-loan defaults. Thus, colleges themselves, which bear no burden whatsoever, can raise costs with impunity.

Enter Democrat presidential candidate Elizabeth dinky-Warren, who promises to “fix” the problem — from exactly the wrong end of the equation. Rather than take on the entire government-backed, taxpayer-underwritten student-loan program that fuels the cost spiral, she proposes what amounts to rank vote-buying: Warren pledges to cancel almost all student-loan debt for 42 million students, which would cost taxpayers a staggering one time payment of $642 billion.

Following that shakedown, she proposes “universal free college,” paid for by her “Ultra-Millionaire Tax — a 2% annual tax on the 75,000 families with $50 million or more in wealth.”

That dinky-Warren is comfortable promoting the idea of borrowing money and not honoring one’s commitment to pay it back is bad enough. Yet the utter failure to control costs — and the nerve to use to the word “free” as it relates to those costs — is astounding. Americans might ask themselves how a Harvard professor can be as morally bankrupt and economically ignorant as Warren appears to be.

In 2016, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds addressed the credentialing dilemma, stating, “If you want equality, the best thing to do is to ban employers from asking students where they went to school and, perhaps, even if they went to college at all.”

The quality dilemma? Require colleges to publish data on student graduation rates, the level of debt they’ve accumulated, and what they earn after graduating, so potential enrollees know exactly what they’re getting before they go into debt.

The pricing dilemma? Make colleges partially liable for all student-loan defaults, incentivizing them to offer students the marketable skills that would prevent such defaults. Despite what people like Warren believe, “skin in the game” is the best cost controller there is.

Most important, a national conversation must be engendered to disabuse Americans of the long-orchestrated fear that the only choices they have are college or eternal mediocrity. Eternal indebtedness is closer to the truth — which might even be tolerable if it were a genuine education one was receiving in return.

Far too often, it’s not. “Since the 1970s, it has been virtually impossible to flunk out of American colleges,” Codevilla explains. “And it is an open secret that ‘the best’ colleges require the least work and give out the highest grade point averages.” Why? Because “our ruling class recruits and renews itself not through meritocracy but rather by taking into itself people whose most prominent feature is their commitment to fit in.”

And what has that “commitment to fit in” precipitated? An arrogant, “credentialed” Ruling Class that has given America a $22 trillion national debt, manufactured tribalism, un-winnable wars, and defenseless borders, all while holding “deplorable” Americans in utter contempt.

If college is the “answer,” Americans are asking the wrong questions.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62602?mailing_id=4230&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4230&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Predictably Iranian officials responded by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, an area through which a fifth of the world’s oil trade travels. China, one of the country’s granted a sanction exemption, indicated that it is unlikely to end oil trade with Iran. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang argued, “China’s cooperation with Iran is open, transparent, reasonable and legitimate, and should be respected.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned, “We’ll no longer grant any exemptions. We are going to zero across the board. We’ll continue to enforce sanctions and monitor compliance and any nation or entity interacting with Iran should do its diligence and err on the side of caution; the risks are simply not going to be worth the benefits.” He added, “How long we’ll remain there at zero depends solely on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s senior leaders.”

Pompeo then reiterated, “The goal remains simple: to deprive the outlaw regime of the funds it has used to destabilize the Middle East for four decades and incentivize Iran to behave like a normal country.” That’s a great goal, but frankly it’ll take regime change to achieve it.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62563?mailing_id=4227&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4227&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

“Like, I’m commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aka commie-AOC and like I want to talk about like, climate change. Because, like, there’s no doubt cow farts are making the climate change.”

“Like, in July, the climate was 96 degrees and in February the climate was 36 degrees. OMG, like that’s a huge change in the climate in only four months.”

“Like, at this rate the world is going to end in exactly 12 years, and, like, I’m only 29-years-old now so the world will be over when I’m only 37-years-old.”

“Like, I also want to talk about socialism because socialism is so amazing. Like, socialism is actually short for social media, did you know that? Like, I do social media so I’m a socialist and, like, three of the most successful countries in the world are socialist too — Venezuela, Facebook, and Twitter are all very successful socialist countries. I have a lot of friends that moved to America from Facebook.”  ~The Patriot Post

For all the grief he got for his reaction to dirty cop-Robert Mueller’s report over this past weekend, rino-Romney is accurate when he says that the country has strayed far from the aspirations and principles of the Founders. Certainly, we at The Patriot Post believe they would be appalled by the expansion of the size and scope of the federal government and in particular at the constant assault on the First and Second Amendments. In that part of his statement at least, rino-Mitt Romney is 100% correct.

But Trump retaliated with a tweet pointing out something else that was quite obvious: If rino-Mitt Romney had fought Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s flawed policies in 2008 or 2012 with the same fire he has shown against Trump’s character flaws today, he’d likely have been president in either election — and the country would be much better off.

Back in January, we noted with great disappointment that rino-Romney took some shots at Trump over his character flaws, including womanizing. Well, those have been known by anyone who has followed celebrity gossip for the last 35 years. Americans factored those in when they voted in 2016 and will do so again in 2020. In 2016, enough Americans supported Trump in enough states to give him the presidency.

But here’s what rino-Romney doesn’t seem to understand: Had he beaten scumbag/liar-nObama in either 2008 or 2012, the same Resistance that has cropped up to President Trump would have arisen against him. It might not have been a bunch of women claiming affairs (given rino-Romney’s character, such claims would have been laughable), but you can bet they would have found something to attack, possibly his religious faith.

Furthermore, there would still be a “Resistance” out there, but this one would have declared him racist, with the defeat of the first black president serving as prima facie evidence of racism. We’d see the same sort of actions as well. And the same treatment would have been in store for rino-John McCain had he won in 2008.

rino-John McCain and rino-Mitt Romney were/are good men and patriots. The problem was, neither cared to punch back against the Left’s lies. Both overestimated the fairness of the press and their political opposition despite decades of evidence to the contrary and assumed they could reach across the aisle.

Worse, both of them failed conservatives who swallowed their disappointment to back them as the nominees in 2008 and 2012. rino-Romney in particular did not speak up about the IRS targeting the Tea Party, or Operation Choke Point, or other abuses of power by the scumbag/liar-nObama administration. Nor did they speak up when Second Amendment supporters were smeared as domestic terrorists or when California tried to force pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to advocate for abortion, among other incidents. Even now, with scumbag-Andrew Cuomo acting like Venezuela’s Maduro or Turkey’s Erdogan and prosecutors targeting press outlets over editorial decisions, rino-Romney has been silent when he should be objecting.

rino-Mitt Romney is at least aware of how far we’ve strayed from the aspirations and principles that underlie the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. His big problem is that he and others haven’t learned the lessons of 2016 and don’t seem to realize that we are at a point where it will be a hard fight to merely get into a position where it can be possible to bring the government back in line with those principles.

We can be critical of Trump’s character flaws while at the same time recognizing his pugnaciousness is achieving results. It is lamentable that we have had to make the choice between character and an effective tactician, but that was where 2016 left us. Given what has gone on since then, it’s likely we face the same choice in 2020.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62536?mailing_id=4225&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4225&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

~The Patriot Post

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On Monday, the president ordered the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to find ways to limit the number of foreigners overstaying their short-term visas. The White House stated that the administration will “find effective ways to combat the rampant number of overstays” that are “undermining the rule of law and straining resources that are needed to address the crisis at our southern border.”

In signing his executive order, Trump stated, “We have laws that need to be followed to keep Americans safe and to protect the integrity of a system where, right now, there are millions of people who are waiting in line to come to America to see the American Dream.” It will be interesting to see how many Democrats object to Trump’s latest order to enforce the law — or what judge will strike it down.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62556?mailing_id=4225&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4225&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

It’s that time of year again — that time when the northern hemisphere will be warming, as it has for millions of years, except during ice ages.

Since most of the world’s industrial capacity and economic wealth is located north of the equator, this means that the now-perennial onset of global warming hysteria is about to sprout into full bloom.

On 22 April 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) founded “Earth Day” in order to launch an annual “teach in” about conservation and environmental concerns.

Of course, conservation is not a bad word — it even shares the same root word as “conservative.” Indeed, our family makes every effort to use energy and resources wisely. The “waste not, want not” principle is good economic practice.

However, the Left’s motives for “Earth Day” don’t stop at educating folks about conservation and environmental preservation. Those objectives provide cover for a much more sinister purpose — using ecological concern to justify all manner of government regulation and intervention.

It’s no small irony that Nelson founded “Earth Day” on the centenary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s birthday, as it was the impetus for creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Nelson modeled his anti-capitalist protests after anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of that era, and the so-called “environmental movement” he helped spawn has devolved from a pack of unwashed adolescent peaceniks and malcontents into a slick, influential and well funded cadre of Lefty politicos. (This would be the same movement that protested against nuclear energy, which yields no carbon dioxide as a byproduct of energy production.)

Nelson’s cadre has managed, by way of the EPA, to implement an enormous hidden tax burden on the American people — more than a trillion dollars last year — in the form of runaway environmental regulations, which surreptitiously increase the prices of products and services.

And as far as climate change?

Bottom line: Human activity does affect the climate. Every time you exhale CO2, you increase the concentration of that minuscule greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, but if you want to make a positive impact upon the environment, don’t hold your breath. Roll up your sleeves and promote liberty and free enterprise, because, per capita, it is the free nations of the world that have the cleanest environments, and those with Socialist governments that have the worst.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62522?mailing_id=4223&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4223&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body