Bush Signs $136 Billion Tax Cut Bill

[maddezmom]

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON - With no fanfare, President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday signed the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades, showering $136 billion in new tax breaks on businesses, farmers and other groups.


Intended to end a bitter trade war with Europe, the election-year measure was described by supporters as critically necessary to aid beleaguered manufacturers who have suffered 2.7 million lost jobs over the past four years.


But opponents charged that the tax package had grown into a massive giveaway that will add to the complexity of the tax system and end up rewarding multinational companies that move jobs overseas.

more:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=716&e=3&u=/ap/20041022/ap_on_go_pr_wh/corporate_taxes

edited to add more accurate headline:
Bush Signs $136B Corporate Tax Cut Bill
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=693&e=1&u=/ap/20041022/ap_on_go_pr_wh/corporate_taxes

[shanti]

1. i wonder what's hidden in this bill

they always manage to sneak a few bombs in.

[maddezmom]

4. here's a highlight

~~~The centerpiece is $76.5 billion in new tax relief for the battered manufacturing sector, but manufacturing is broadly defined to include not just factories but also oil and gas producers, engineering, construction and architectural firms and large farming operations.~~~

[maddezmom]

6. interesting companion peice:SFG- Special interests in tax bill

~snip~
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who did not vote on the bill this week, called it the "worst example of the influence of the special interests I have ever seen."

What makes me livid is not just the cost of the tax breaks, but the fact that in the midst of war and a health care crisis, our elected officials are worried about the peak draw weight for taxable bows
~snip~


The big winners will be higher-income people in states that have a sales tax but no income tax: Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington and Wyoming. Tennessee taxes only dividend and interest income. Alaska and New Hampshire have no income or statewide sales tax, but Alaska has local sales taxes.

Except for Washington, all those states went for Bush/Cheney in 2000. Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Washington are considered swing states in the upcoming election.
~snip~

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/10/14/BUGE5995061.DTL

[Evergreen Emerald]

27. Washington is not swing state

Kerry will win in WA

[Wickerman]

2. Hope Kerry spends the weekend stumping about Bush*

having the chance to do the right thing and veto this treasury-buster - instead, he quietly signed a huge looting of our kids future. The fact that this guy - who never misses an explotation opportunity - did the signing without fanfare shows he knows it wouldn't play well in Poland (Ohio).

[prolesunited]

3. Record high deficits

and again the solution is more tax cuts. And, no, this money is NOT going into the hands of US workers. It will be used to line the pockets of execs and ship jobs overseas.

[realFedUp]

5. Borrowed and bloodied money

.

[seasat]

7. You could smell the bacon all the way down here in FL.

GE's 2 million in lobbying efforts for this bill, among other cos, has created one of the biggest pork barrel corporate welfare bills in our nation's history. 136 billion to correct a 5 billion dollar export subsidy is ludicrous. Why not enforce trade regulations on the environment, labor, and foreign subsidies? It'd cost the American tax payer less and keep more jobs in this country. Never mind, I already answered my question in the previous statement. It would raise the cost of labor (in the short term) because it would cut down on outsourcing and the CEOs wouldn't be able to give themselves such fat salaries. However, the short sighted idiots in Shrub's administration should realize that as the US consumer's wages drop, so will our consumption. Unless they think China, who manipulates currency, or India, who has high tariffs, are going to suddenly open up their consumer markets more to US companies. I think they are deluded.

[bif]

8. Red Ink Republicans at it again!

And they like to bitch about the tax and spend Dems. This is shameless.

[mountainvue]

9. He is out of his

f*cking mind. It's almost like he knows he is going to lose and is sabotaging the next administration with this insanity.

[TahitiNut]

10. The Corporate tax rate is ALREADY the lowest in history.

While the ratio of corporate profits to employee compensation skyrockets:

[JPZenger]

11. No Discipline to Control the Deficit

I'm glad ceiling fan importers finally got the multi-million dollar Federal tax relief that they so greatly deserve. That was a key request of Home Depot, whose executives are major contributors to Republican causes.

There is no telling how many good jobs that particular tax break will create inside the U.S.

-----

The U.S. had to remove $49 billion of export tax breaks to comply with Fair trade decisions. The expectation is that they would find $49 billion of new business tax breaks so that it would be "revenue neutral." However, the Republicans had too many favors to pay off. So instead, they adopted $136 billion of new business tax breaks.

These guys have no discipline to control the deficit. At this rate of multi-trillion dollar deficit increase and this rate of raiding the Social Security trust fund for tax cuts, we'll all be eating cat food in our last years.

[Rose Siding]

12. Good thing we aren't fighting any wars...

because they can get pricey. O, wait...

[Just Me]

13. Fully implementing his new UNFAIR TAXATION system, eh!! n/t

[MatrixEscape]

14. Isn't this just another ..

Just another check-mark on the Corporate Fascist Manifesto to-do list!

If you look back on changes corporate laws since around 1919, you can see why the big corporations have so much power, for evil, today. Their influence in our politics is one big, horrific march to the obliteration of Democracy in any way, shape, or form, IMO.

To me, large corporations are now just smoke-screens for the Elite power base, that shudders at the thought of the expansion of our already depreciated idea of Democracy. The idea of incorporation has gone from a method to protect people from liability to becoming a person-like masks for wealthy families and coalitions that seek to retain their power and expand their wealth at any cost.

The Oz-head is the perfect metaphor, expect that there is more than one Wizard behind the corporate curtain.

If that underlying premise does not change, then every battle for the People's rights is merely a small attack on the symptoms. The larger interests call upon battalions of lawyers and lobbyists as its army and respond relentlessly. The only solution to this disease is to go for the corporate laws that create the disease.

[One Signata Nach]

15. http://vote-kerry.sytes.net - THE ANTI-BUSH SONG

pass it along - educate people - get the radios to play it - get Kerry in power - Bring Bush to his knees

[camero]

16. Just yesterday, B&D laid off 700

But they just got a tax cut. So much for tax cuts creating jobs.

[Divine Discontent]

17. the big thing...

this bill wasn't signed in a press gathered photo op in the Rose Garden???? you're kidding??????

signed in the seclusion on Air Force One???????

Well, that's just DAMNABLE!

This must be breaking news - let's check

ok, CBS has it SOMEWHERE on it's news page, not in the top news area.

same with MSNBC

but,

wait, FOXNEWS & CNN don't even have it on their front pages!!!!!

what? wait? I thought the news media was suppose to show the news?

All I saw was that some school district is getting rid of Halloween parties???????? (CNN)

[Divine Discontent]

18. makes me SICK

reading my own post, just made me have a tad bit of anger with the media.

[camero]

19. Don't forget Castro falling

and Britney's exploits. But showing the bushies looting the treasury off the backs of the weak and sick? Media has to hide it.

It should make us sick.

[theoceansnerves]

20. opponents? what opponents?

the democrats in the senate rolled over and passed this thing en masse. cowards.

[KT2000]

21. It must be Friday!

was wondering what gem they would sneak by this week.

[corker]

22. gave away the store..

somehow the middle class will have to have our own lobbyists,the lobbyists are the only ones our government is representing now...

[CanadaRX]

23. "American Conservative" Magazine Endorses Kerry!

American Conservative magazine just 'endorsed' John Kerry:"Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation’s children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal—Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can’t be found to do it—and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail." <...>

"George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans 'won’t do.' This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support."

Link to the magazine:

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html

[ElsewheresDaughter]

24. welcome to DU you! ..... thank you ....this deserves its own thread...

and since you cannot yet start a thread may i?

[CanadaRX]

34. "American Conservative Magazine" Endorsement of Kerry - New Thread

Yes, please. Thank you! I tried to start my own thread, but being a newbie, I couldn't.

Gracious thanks.

[saigon68]

26. WHAT A CHIMP

resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy

[Guaranteed]

25. Kick for giving away $136B's that could have gone to the

middle class.

[gulfcoastliberal]

28. Bush Signs the Pioneer-Ranger Tax Cut Bill

is more like it. This bill makes me want to vomit at the outright corruption the media and people allow to happen right under their noses whilst they take it up the ass by these same thugs.

[Robert Oak]

29. H.R. 4520 , some detailed links

Gotta use www.thomas.gov to look it up, it's long and buried.

Here's an anlaysis of just the increase in loopholes to take
jobs and keep the cash overseas
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/9975287.htm?1c

Here's an analysis of the pork on this bill

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1013-27.htm

and here's my two cents:

Original problem, a 5B tax problem every year that the WTO ruled
illegal

replaced with a 137B tax cut over 10 years,

let's see, does 50B = 137 B? I don't think so.

And as usual the rupukes titled the bill the opposite of what it's going to do.

Should be the "disappearing american jobs act".

little more:
http://forum.noslaves.com/index.php?showtopic=271
vote list:
http://forum.noslaves.com/index.php?showtopic=281

[realFedUp]

31. Thanks for this information Robert Oak...this burns me up!

How many Dems voted for this pig bill?

snip-

The beneficiaries include ceiling-fan importers; foreign gamblers; railroads; certain shopping-center developers; NASCAR track owners; Native Alaskan whalers; producers of methanol and movies; cruise-ship operators; the makers of ships, aircraft, drugs, arrows and fishing-tackle boxes; and on and on. General Electric alone is expected to receive $9 billion in tax cuts from this bill.

At a time of war, record federal budget deficits and relatively low corporate tax receipts, this bill's $137 billion worth of tax cuts over 10 years, to echo the words of GOP Sen. John McCain, is simply a disgrace. If Mr. Bush approves it, as he's indicated he will, voters ought to take full note of his priorities.

The bill's genesis was the need to rescind a $5 billion-a-year U.S. tax subsidy to about 1,800 American exporters that the World Trade Organization had declared illegal. Congress could have used the revenue from ending this subsidy to cut the deficit or partially offset the cost of the so-called middle-class tax cuts that it just extended. Instead, it came up with almost three times as much in new tax cuts benefiting hundreds of thousands of American corporations.

[realFedUp]

32. More specifics of the bill here

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c108:6:./temp/~c108872Ofv::

[realFedUp]

33. Why is it so hard to find out who voted for this in the Senate?

user friendly, my ass.

[CanadaRX]

35. Here's a Link - Senate Roll Call - Votes by Senators

Here you go. This should do the trick. I've written both my Senators, and my House guy.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=2&vote=00211

[Q]

30. "Corporate looting and piracy act" - top ten outrages

Commentary

Connie Rice: Top 10 Outrages of the Corporate Tax Bill

October 20, 2004 · Although many political observers are still questioning what was accomplished during the session of the 108th Congress, the Bush administration and other legislators are eagerly touting the passage of a 633-page tax bill called the "American Jobs Creation Act of 2004." Commentator Connie Rice has her own name for this bill -- the "Corporate Looting and Piracy Act." She says the legislation will create few jobs, but billions in corporate welfare. Rice says there are so many absurd "riders" in the bill that it was hard to pick out just 10 for her latest list: Top 10 Outrages of the 2004 Corporate Tax Bill:

Excerpts:

(10.) The Irrational Exuberance Compensation Provision:

"To compensate the 1,800 companies that would lose the export tax break, Congress got drunk and decided to compensate 200,000 domestic companies not subject to the export tax to save them $76.5 billion over 10 years, instead of the $5 billion the 1,800 would have required," Rice says. "Can you imagine Congress wildly expanding Head Start by a factor of 100 to cover thousands of ineligible children?"

(9.) Universal Manufacturer Provisions:

"To fit everyone at this hogs trough, they've defined every business as a manufacturer -- so newspapers, architects and makers of sex-free movies are now manufacturers," Rice says. "So broad is the definition of manufacturer that Bechtel, Halliburton and NASCAR are now classified as favored manufacturers who will get over $77 billion in tax breaks. As one staffer said: 'Everybody with a Republican lobbyist is a manufacturer.' Contrast this with the constipated way we define the unemployed or the poor."

(8.) The Texas Tax Cheats Repatriation Act:

"Instead of being indicted for tax evasion, a special group of big Houston corporations that dropped American citizenship to hide their profits in overseas tax havens will be forgiven and allowed to take advantage of the one-year tax holiday and one-seventh of the former tax rate," Rice says. "This is a one strike and you're in bill that grandfathers in only select Houston tax cheats."

(3.) The Expense Account Expansion Clause:

"This increases the small business expensing limit from $25,000 to $100,000," Rice says. "This same Congress -- so generous with business -- requires welfare mothers to count their thrift-shop dishes and winter coats toward their assets threshold to reduce the amount of federal contribution."

(2.) The Leave No Corporation Behind Provisions:

"Unlike the Leave No Child Behind bill, this corporate boondoggle is fully funded," Rice says. "ExxonMobil, Home Depot, cruise ships, corn farmers, coffee roasters and makers of fishing tackle boxes, bows and arrows and ceiling fans all have special tax breaks specially tailored for their needs. And unlike the nation's children, who will be paying down our trillion-dollar deficit their whole lives, 60 percent of these corporations will likely continue to pay zero federal taxes, because their armies of lawyers will figure out how re-open newly closed loopholes that allegedly will pay for this bill."

(1.) The Middle Class Bypass Moves

"The same House Republicans who are the handmaidens to this corporate looting cut out $2 billion in tax credits to subsidize salaries of military reservists called to active duty! They had $137 billion for every oil mogul and timber titan, but cut out the only money that would support the only people putting their lives on the line for their country," Rice says. "And get this: They also cut the charitable car donation deduction that middle-class people take, cut the child tax credit for the poor, blocked restoration of overtime for millions of workers, cut unemployment benefits, cut and then restored war veterans hospital benefits and made it harder for regular folk to apply for bankruptcy."


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4117683