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Rush
....."Now, I want to go to a
column that ran a couple days ago in the Wall Street Journal: "The
Overseas Profits Elephant in the Room." It's co-written by John
Chambers and Safra Catz. John Chambers is the CEO of Cisco. They make
routers and stuff, another high-tech firm. "During last year's 'Jobs
Summit' --" you know, I'd forgotten about that. Do we not need another
jobs summit? Remember that jobs summit? We had a jobs summit in
December at the White House, and everybody went away to their study
groups, came back in three hours, reported to the leader of the regime,
and that was supposed to be problem solved. Well, Mr. Chambers says:
"During last year's 'Jobs Summit,' President Obama said he was open to
any good idea to get the economy moving again. Today he should be
especially so, since Washington's many monetary and fiscal policy
decisions have not been able to spur the robust growth or job expansion
that we all would like. And yet there is a simple idea -- the
trillion-dollar elephant in the room -- that has apparently been
dismissed for no good reason.
"One trillion dollars is roughly
the amount of earnings that American companies have in their foreign
operations -- and that they could repatriate to the United States. That
money, in turn, could be invested in U.S. jobs, capital assets, research
and development, and more. But for U.S companies such repatriation of
earnings carries a significant penalty: a federal tax of up to 35%. This
means that U.S. companies can, without significant consequence, use
their foreign earnings to invest in any country in the world -- except
here." Which is what Google is doing. They're doing it. They are
avoiding the 35% tax rate here. If they expatriate the money back
they're looking at double taxation. "But, Rush, but, Rush, they're
liberals and they're good citizens and they care about funding the
government." No, they don't. They care about you doing it. They
thrive on you thinking they're good citizens. They thrive on you
thinking they're good people.
Remember the "we're supposed to look
the other way" monologue the other day after Dingy Harry and Sharron
Angle's debate? We're supposed to look the other way while they drive
women off the bridge and kill 'em. We're supposed to look the other way
while they promote abortion. We're supposed to look the other way
while they don't pay, all because they're good people, all because they
have compassion. We're supposed to look the other way and really ignore
all the rotgut things that they do, because they are good people.
They're liberals. They pay their fair share. They believe in
government.
"The U.S. government's treatment of repatriated
foreign earnings stands in marked contrast to the tax practices of
almost every major developed economy, including Germany, Japan, the
United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Australia and Canada, to
name a few. Companies headquartered in any of these countries can
repatriate foreign earnings to their home countries at a tax rate of
0%-2%. That's because those countries realize that choking off foreign
capital from their economies is decidedly against their national
interests." By the way, have you checked out Canada's economic growth
rate since 1997? I mean just a few miles to the north of us there is an
economic boom going on in what arguably is a socialist country. Check
it out the next time you have a chance to check something out.
"Especially with corporate bond rates falling below 4%, it's hard to
imagine any responsible corporation," including Google, "repatriating
foreign earnings at a combined federal and state tax rate approaching
40%." Why would they do it?
"Many commentators have pointed to
the large cash balances sitting on U.S. corporate books as evidence
that the economy is still stalled because companies aren't spending," or
because small business isn't borrowing. "That analysis misses the
point. Large cash balances remain on U.S. corporate books because U.S.
companies can't spend their foreign-held cash in the U.S. without
incurring a prohibitive tax liability." Now, some people would say it's
only 35%. They get to keep 65%, why would they want to screw the
government out it? If there's a place to spend it where it's taxed
less, that's what they're going to do. Remember, a company doesn't
exist to support the government. A company doesn't exist to give you
health care. A company does not exist to provide jobs. A company does
not exist to make sure the community remains crime free. A company does
not exist to make sure that you don't eat trans fat. A company exists
to make a profit based on selling a product or service that customers
want, desire, love, and like, and whose shareholders invest in and are
rewarded as their investment increases in value. A to B, simple. And
anything that gets in the way of that pattern is gonna harm the
corporation, they're not going to do it, unless they're scared to death
of government, have to pay protection racket fees, bribes, and what have
you, in order to operate.
Back to Mr. Chambers' piece here:
"By permitting companies to repatriate foreign earnings at a low tax
rate -- say, 5% -- Congress and the president could create a privately
funded stimulus of up to a trillion dollars," private sector stimulus.
"They could also raise up to $50 billion in federal tax revenue. That's
money the economy would not otherwise receive. The amount of corporate
cash that would come flooding into the country could be larger than the
entire federal stimulus package, and it could be used for creating jobs,
investing in research, building plants, purchasing equipment, and other
uses. It could also provide needed stability for the equity markets
because companies would expand their activity in mergers and
acquisitions, and would pay dividends or buy back stock. And when
markets go up, confidence increases and businesses and consumers begin
to spend." It's simple.
"The $50 billion boost in federal tax
revenue, meanwhile, could be used to help put America back to work. For
example, Congress could use it to give employers -- large or small -- a
refundable tax credit for hiring previously unemployed workers
(including recent graduates). The tax credit could equal up to 50% of a
worker's first-year and second-year wages, capped at $12,500 per year
(or $25,000 total per new hire). Such a program could help put more
than two million Americans back to work at no cost to the government or
American taxpayers. How's that for a good idea?" John Chambers, chief
executive officer, Cisco Systems. The coauthor, Ms. Catz, president of
Oracle, two high-tech corporations, there you have it. A trillion
dollars is over there, and over there, up there, and down there. It
ain't here. Could be here. It's in Canada because Canada only charges
2% tax rate. We charge 35%, and of course with this regime,
corporations are evil, they're the enemy, they're the target. Anybody
suggesting this seriously would be accused of being in the back pockets
of the special interests and so forth. And, of course, it is considered
immoral for a corporation to only pay 5% in taxes, for some reason it's
immoral.
So why would Google pay 35% when they can pay 2.4%?
"Because, Mr. Limbaugh, they're good liberal corporate citizens. Yeah,
you dummkopf, that's what they want you and everybody to believe, Mr.
New Castrati. If all corporations are evil, how does Google get a pass
just because they're a bunch of liberals anyway?"
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