Forum Post: The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks
Posted 11 years ago on Nov. 19, 2012, 9:55 p.m. EST by SparkyJP
(1646)
from Westminster, MD
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
By Sarah Anderson and Scott Klinger. Contributors include Brent Soloway.
This business-driven initiative is using the so-called fiscal cliff as a cover for tax-code changes that would damage our economy.
The CEO Campaign to 'Fix' the DebtThe Fix the Debt campaign has raised $60 million and recruited more than 80 CEOs of America’s most powerful corporations to lobby for a debt deal that would reduce corporate taxes and shift costs onto the poor and elderly.
This report focuses on the Fix the Debt campaign’s corporate tax agenda and in particular the windfalls the campaign’s member corporations would reap from a territorial tax system. We also analyze the savings the Fix the Debt campaign’s CEOs have derived from the Bush tax cuts and how many of them received more in compensation last year than their corporations paid in federal income taxes.
Key findings:
• The 63 Fix the Debt companies that are publicly held stand to gain as much as $134 billion in windfalls if Congress approves one of their main proposals — a “territorial tax system.” Under this system, companies would not have to pay U.S. federal income taxes on foreign earnings when they bring the profits back to the United States.
• The CEOs backing Fix the Debt personally received a combined total of $41 million in savings last year thanks to the Bush-era tax cuts. The top CEO beneficiary of the Bush tax cuts in 2011, Leon Black of Apollo Global Management, saved $9.9 million on the Bush tax cuts. The private equity fund leader reaped $215 million in taxable income last year just from vested stock.
• Of the 63 Fix the Debt CEOs at publicly held firms, 24 received more in compensation last year than their corporations paid in federal corporate income taxes. All but six of these firms reported U.S. profits last year.
The CEOs backing Fix the Debt personally received a combined total of $41 million in savings last year thanks to the Bush-era tax cuts. The top CEO beneficiary of the Bush tax cuts in 2011, Leon Black of Apollo Global Management, saved $9.9 million on the Bush tax cuts. The private equity fund leader reaped $215 million in taxable income last year just from vested stock.
Of the 63 Fix the Debt CEOs at publicly held firms, 24 received more in compensation last year than their corporations paid in federal corporate income taxes. All but six of these firms reported U.S. profits last year.
http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/ceo-campaign-to-fix-the-debt
As Talks Begin on "Fiscal Cliff," Report Warns "Fix the Debt" a Front for More Corporate Bailouts
As the White House begins a series of meetings today on the looming "fiscal cliff," a coalition of the largest corporate firms and advocacy groups is lobbying for wide-ranging cuts in government spending, including to programs like Medicare and Social Security. The group, which includes 80 of the country’s most powerful CEOs, is called the Campaign to Fix the Debt. It was co-founded by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, previously the co-chairs of President Obama’s bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
Critics have accused the group of using the budget crisis to push for corporate tax cuts.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/13/as_talks_begin_on_fiscal_cliff
We're about to have it broke off in our ass again so heads-up!! Read between the lines and understand this BS deal they're selling.
We Don't Get Fooled Again
CEOs have derived from the Bush tax cuts and how many of them received more in compensation last year than their corporations paid in federal income taxes.
This is really worth reflecting on, when one thinks of all the collective effort that a corporation represents and to think that more of the bounty produce by all those hard working citizens is going to support the lifestyle and trust funds (ie kingdom) of just one Royal than is being given back to the common good, no wonder we're all fucked.
This crisis was manufactured by congress!!
The reason we are where we are is because our elected leaders put us here. The fiscal cliff -- a set of automatic draconian budget cuts and tax increases that will start taking effect on Jan. 1 -- was purposely created as a way to force the squabbling Congress and president into a budget deal. It is part of the Budget Control Act of 2011. It will force a "compromise", and guess who gets the shitty end of the stick. Think back to 2010 lame duck session and the bush tax cut extension.
You can be sure that their answer will be to bargain down to get to where they wanted to be in the first place, using the fiscal cliff as the reason. Kinda like overpricing your used car in order to settle on the price you want.
See what Glenn Greenwald is saying about it:
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/13410327-the-fiscal-cliff-is-actually-an-austerity-bomb
Cheers ;[
I think the Bush tax cuts were very lopsided, not too sorry to see them go, even if I have to pay a little more, cutting the military is always hard to do, in short I am not sure if the "fiscal cliff" might be the best deal we can get from this Congress, I am not sure that Obama won't give away more to avoid it, he has not been good at getting much for the people
(I never thought he would be, I hope we go for a fighter not a uniter next time)
Speaking of the Bush tax cuts that's what created the whole debt in the first place, we would be debt free if we had not changed fiscal policies in 2001.
“The most recent projections from OMB and CBO indicate that, if current policies remain in place, the total unified surplus will reach about $800 billion in fiscal year 2010, including an on-budget surplus of almost $500 billion. Moreover, the admittedly quite uncertain long-term budget exercises released by the CBO last October maintain an implicit on-budget surplus under baseline assumptions well past 2030 despite the budgetary pressures from the aging of the baby-boom generation, especially on the major health programs.
These most recent projections, granted their tentativeness, nonetheless make clear that the highly desirable goal of paying off the federal debt is in reach and, indeed, would occur well before the end of the decade under baseline assumptions. This is in marked contrast to the perception of a year ago, when the elimination of the debt did not appear likely until the next decade. But continuing to run surpluses beyond the point at which we reach zero or near-zero federal debt brings to center stage the critical longer-term fiscal policy issue of whether the federal government should accumulate large quantities of private (more technically, nonfederal) assets.
At zero debt, the continuing unified budget surpluses now projected under current law imply a major accumulation of private assets by the federal government. Such an accumulation would make the federal government a significant factor in our nation's capital markets and would risk significant distortion in the allocation of capital to its most productive uses. Such a distortion could be quite costly, as it is our extraordinarily effective allocation process that has enabled such impressive increases in productivity and standards of living despite a relatively low domestic saving rate.”
“Returning to the broader fiscal picture, I continue to believe, as I have testified previously, that all else being equal, a declining level of federal debt is desirable because it holds down long-term real interest rates, thereby lowering the cost of capital and elevating private investment. The rapid capital deepening that has occurred in the U.S. economy in recent years is a testament to these benefits. But the sequence of upward revisions to the budget surplus projections for several years now has reshaped the choices and opportunities before us. Indeed, in almost any credible baseline scenario, short of a major and prolonged economic contraction, the full benefits of debt reduction are now achieved well before the end of this decade--a prospect that did not seem reasonable only a year or even six months ago. Thus, the emerging key fiscal policy need is now to address the implications of maintaining surpluses beyond the point at which publicly held debt is effectively eliminated.”
Testimony of Chairman Alan Greenspan Current fiscal issues Before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives March 2, 2001
more jobs soon
I'd rather just blame the Republicans and give the Democrats a pass for having no backbone.