war profiteering

[Doug Millison]

"The so-called economic stimulus package that passed the House last week
would have been scurrilous in times of prosperity. But in this time of
national crisis it is, quite simply, grotesque.  The grisly details include
a retroactive elimination of the corporate alternative minimum tax and a 10
percent cut in the capital gains tax. And on the other side of the Capitol,
the Senate Republicans are proposing an acceleration of all the top-bracket
tax cuts and a return of that old favorite, the fully tax-deductible
three-martini lunch.  The House package is little more than a rehashed
corporate wish list, doling out $115 billion in tax breaks to big business
and the wealthiest taxpayers, and a comparatively measly $14 billion to
poor and moderate-income families in the form of tax rebates and
unemployment benefits. And while the tax cuts for the haves are permanent,
those for the have-nots are good for only one year. [...]  The House bill
is so outrageous that even some top GOP officials are balking. In a rare
slip from the party line, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill colorfully
criticized it as "show business." Rep. Greg Ganske, R-Iowa, one of seven
Republicans who voted against the bill, labeled it "an early Christmas
card" for "already profitable corporations." And the president's budget
director, Mitch Daniels, informed the nation in a poetic outburst that "the
corral gates" have been blown open and "the animals are running loose."
[...]  Armey then offered us all a lecture on how big corporate giveaways
are the best way to create new jobs. Unfortunately, the facts don't bear
him out. The $15 billion Congress just handed the airline industry hasn't
kept it from laying off 140,000 workers. [...] Let history record that,
after Sept. 11, our leaders brought the nation together and decided to
fight the war on terrorism by making business lunches fully tax-deductible
and levying no taxes on corporate profits patriotically funneled off shore.
Call it Operation Enduring Avarice. It's enough to put a lump in your
throat"

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11839



Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com