General Electric Pays Negative Taxes

This makes me supremely mad. According to the New York Times, while the rest of us schmucks give an absurd amount in taxes every year, which go towards subsidies for profitable companies like General Electric, G.E. actually gets paid from the government and avoids taxes completely. How does G.E. reward America for this generosity? By shifting the majority of the G.E. workforce overseas.

Thanks to the administration of George W. Bush (and the blind-eye congress under Obama), corporate tax law was changed to create loopholes that companies like G.E. could use to avoid taxes. Not only that, the loopholes work only if companies fire Americans and hire Europeans instead. We were just too busy being scared about terrorism to notice. Wonder why we're losing jobs to other countries? Look no further.

Ironically, it was Ronald Reagan, Republican prophet, who closed the loophole to begin with. But these days, with both the Democratic and Republican parties comfortably in corporate America's pocket, awarding companies rights beyond those of ordinary people has become the norm.

I'm sure our founding fathers would be proud.

The Republican party line says that corporations should be given free reign because their output and profits benefit the nation. But due to the loopholes, G.E.'s output and profits aren't benefiting the nation-- they're staying overseas. Instead of merely allowing a corporation to retain most of its profits, we're actually providing a financial incentive to abandon America.

We're paying G.E. billions of dollars to leave us.

Does that sound like good policy??