The new Golden Rule

In the fight over the federal deficit, here’s a loophole that needs closing: the foaming cataracts of cash pouring out of our economy by corporations diverting U.S. profits to untraceable offshore tax havens.

So before we talk about slashing essential programs for pre-K, health care, and the environment, let’s talk about the vast rivers of revenue bleeding out of taxpayers’ pockets.

Overall, U.S. corporations are estimated to have hidden $1.4 trillion in tax havens. Who can wrap their brain around so many zeros?

Our tax dollars pay for the roads and bridges over which business runs its trucks. The U.S. Navy secures shipping lanes through which corporations transport Chinese goods. The American legal system protects corporate patents and general stability. Yet corporations are allowed to dodge—and we’re stuck with the tab.

True, the corporate tax rate is high at 35 percent. That has little practical meaning, though, thanks to the allyou-can-eat buffet of big-business tax breaks—subsidies, bailouts, exemptions, and writing off investment losses, to name a few. So the problem lies in the tax code. Plus what it took to get the code that way.

From Kennedy to Reagan—no thanks to Clinton and Bush 43—presidents and Congress have struggled to stanch this tidal wave. Lately it’s the Democrats trying. Good luck with that, given the proposed cuts to the IRS.

Otherwise, we have us a new Golden Rule, articulated by an employee of one of the right-wing Scaife foundations: “Whoever has the gold rules.”