"Bush Signs $136B Corporate Tax Cut Bill"

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - With no fanfare, President Bush 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. It also will swell the nation's huge budget deficit.

There was no ceremony for the bill-signing. White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced it on Air Force One as Bush flew to a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania. The handling of the corporate tax bill was in contrast to Bush's action on Oct. 4 when he sat before television cameras on a stage in Des Moines, Iowa, to sign three tax-cut breaks popular with middle-class voters and reviving other tax incentives for businesses.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20041022/D85SJBHO3.html

[klook]

1. Bill Moyers nailed it

Bill Moyers closed his Oct. 15 NOW show with a particularly fiery denouncement of this exorbitant giveaway to the plunderers.

There are moments when you see suddenly crystallized in a particular event a threat to democracy as ominous as the smoke rising from Mt. St. Helens.

This week it was that enormous payoff to big corporations by their subjects in Congress. I say "payoffs" advisedly. Business elites provide politicians with money to run for office. The politicians pay them back with a return on their investment so generous it boggles the mind. As I said in the discussion, that big tax bill this week is worth $137 billion in tax cuts for corporations....

On and on it goes, the pillaging and plundering by suits with Guccis. In a time of war, terror, and soaring deficits, you would think we'd be asking these corporate aristocrats to make a little patriotic sacrifice like that asked of single mothers or our men and women in Iraq. Instead they're allowed to pass their share of the burden to workers and children not yet born. At the least, as Kevin Phillips said of Sinclair, they ought to take the flag from their lapels let them replace it with the icon they most revere — the dollar sign.

Full transcript: http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript342_full.html (scroll down to end)

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. He sure did!

[Stephanie]

4. Didn't Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton vote for this?

What's the deal? Who opposed it? Anyone?

[RevCheesehead]

5. WOW! Go, Bill!

[The Chronicler]

3. Just what the owning class needs, more tax breaks!

[klook]

6. Bush's "Ownership Society" at work (n/t)