Since
American companies stopped paying Federal Income Taxes, tricky hypesters have
found sensationalism here, deploying wildly inappropriate numbers to
promote their agendas. Just now some
“nonpartisan reform” group came out with a report that 30 big American
corporations spent more on lobbying than they did on taxes, and the electronic
press is actually covering it as news.
“Of
course they did,” the report failed to add, “because 29 of the companies didn’t pay any
taxes at all. They spent more on paper clips than they did on taxes. On toilet paper for the executive bathrooms. On every single line item in the corporate books.”
Getting
to the point, according to this pathetic version of surreality anyway, amounts these outfits slipped to lobbyists ranged from $710
thou to $84 mil, totaling almost half a bil over 3 years (translation:
averaging something over $5 mil annually per company for 3 years).
Talk about your
proverbial drop in your proverbial bucket. $5 mil a year.
Check out an Income Statement, why don’t you? Any major corporate Income Statement will do.
The
problems we face are difficult enough without fibbers throwing in all their
fibs about them. In addition to
nonpartisan reform, maybe we need laws regulating the use of arithmetic by
nonpartisan reform groups too.
Look for misrepresentation wherever corporate taxes get mentioned. We’ve noted this kind of accounting outrage in our face before.
