This week, Apple CEO Tim Cook was questioned in a Congressional Hearing about his company’s complex scheme to avoid paying taxes.  According to Mr. Cook, the company’s stash of billions of dollars in overseas shell corporations was not tax dodging – it was ingenuity.  And, just in case anyone actually fell for the tech company’s creative explanation, Mark Gongloff of the Huffington Post shared an incredible chart, which illustrates exactly how unjust our nation’s tax system has really become.

The chart was produced by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and it shows how the sources of federal revenue have changed over several decades.  In 1950, corporations contributed over 30 percent to our nation’s revenue, and individual income and payroll taxes made up about 45 percent.  But today, corporations only contribute 17 percent, and individuals are paying for over 60 percent of federal revenue.

So, despite all the Republican claims about the U.S. having the world’s highest tax rate – corporations are contributing less to our nation than ever before.  Yet, corporate executives like Tim Cook have the audacity to say we should be celebrating their “ingenuity.”  These companies make the huge profits they have been raking in by using the commons that our tax dollars develop and maintain.

Without roads and bridges, communications systems and utilities, corporations couldn’t get their products into the hands of hard-working Americans.  They should be paying for the privilege to do business here.  American tax payers should not be picking up a larger share of the tab, while corporate executives hold on to an ever-increasing share of the profits.  Let’s tell companies like Apple that we’ll celebrate their ingenuity just as soon as they start paying their fair share.

Originally published at ThomHartmann.Com.

For over a week, Republicans have refused to focus on anything but so-called scandal.  And, it turns out, that’s exactly the way they want it.  On Thursday, the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, sent a letter to GOP leaders, and told them to avoid working on any legislation that could take the focus off of the Obama Administration.

Michael Needham, the CEO of Heritage Action for America, wrote, “Legislation such as the Internet sales tax, or the FARRM Act, which contains nearly $800 billion in food stamp spending, would give the press a reason to shift their attention away from the failures of the Obama administration to write another ‘circular firing squad’ article.”  In other words, they want Republicans to use the media’s scandal obsession to keep the focus off of in-fighting within the Party, and to avoid getting any real work done.

It’s also important to note that Heritage Action is a registered 501(c)(4) organization.  That means you and me are subsidizing the very organization that’s telling our lawmakers not to do their job.  As if Republicans in Congress ever needed an excuse to do nothing.  The fact is, while the GOP obsesses about so-called scandal, the pressing issues facing our nation are being ignored.

Instead of trying to score political points, Republicans could be working to help our economy, create jobs, or to fix our broken immigration system.  They were not elected to do the bidding of conservative think tanks.  It’s time to listen to the American people, put aside political witch-hunts, and start working on the issues that people actually care about.

Originally posted at ThomHartmann.Com.

Yesterday, in response to recent IRS admissions, President Obama called the enhanced investigation of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status “intolerable and inexcusable.”  And, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a criminal investigation into the allegations against the IRS.  But both of them are missing the point.

The scandal here is not that political groups were targeted by the IRS, it’s the fact that political groups are being subsidized by John Q. Taxpayer.  Groups that are politically motivated, and not really “social welfare” organizations, shouldn’t receive preferential tax treatment in the first place – regardless of their political affiliation.

A report by the Inspector General stated that “ineffective management” at the IRS allowed conservative groups to be targeted for over 18 months, and resulted in substantial delays in the processing of their non-profit applications.  But, the real “ineffective management” here was Congress’s failure to regulate these organizations, and enforce transparency.  And, what’s truly “intolerable and inexcusable” is the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen United decision, which opened the campaign-finance floodgates in the first place.

The IRS shouldn’t be apologizing for investigating phony “nonprofit” organizations, they should be investigating all politically-motivated groups who want to be subsidized by the taxpayers.  Congress has repeatedly rejected campaign finance reform, and Citizens United moved oversight from the Federal Elections Commission to the IRS.   It’s impossible to create and enforce reasonable guidelines based on an unreasonable Supreme Court decision.

The only way to really fix this problem is to amend our Constitution to say that money isn’t speech, and corporations aren’t people.  Let’s make it happen.  Join the fight at MoveToAmend.org.

Originally posted at ThomHartmann.com.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held the first of many hearings on comprehensive immigration reform.  In the seven and a half hour hearing, senators debated 32 of the three hundred proposed amendments to the bill, and adopted 21 of the changes.  The proposals ranged from plans to correct technical immigration issues, to Sen. Ted Cruz’s amendment to triple the number of border control agents, to Sen. Jeff Sessions’ proposal to construct a 700 mile, double-layered fence along our Southern border.

Thankfully, most of the extreme amendments were voted down, but there’s still cause for concern over the proposals they accepted.  One of the most contentious changes was Republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s  mandate, that the Department of Homeland Security submit a plan to stop 90 percent of illegal border crossings in high-risk areas, before undocumented individuals already living here can even apply for so-called “provisional immigrant” status.  This provision is only slightly better than Grassley’s rejected, poison-pill amendment, which set unattainable benchmarks that DHS had to meet before any pathway to citizenship would be considered.

After losing the Hispanic vote in the 2012 election, Republicans have attempted to paint themselves as pro-immigration, but it’s all an act.  The racist and unrealistic GOP amendments in this legislation show they have no real desire to fix our nation’s immigration system.  As the Senate Judiciary Committee debates the hundreds of remaining amendments over the coming months, we must prevent these poison-pill provisions from making immigration reform meaningless.  Call your Senators and tell them to fight these poison-pill amendments, and support provisions that actually fix our broken immigration system.

Most of us are still feeling the effects of a struggling economy, but the corporate elite and the Wall Street banksters are doing better than ever.  Many corporations have seen record profits in recent years, which have fueled buying sprees on Wall Street, pushing the DOW Jones to it’s all-time high.  But, the income gap between workers and CEOs, which has gone up almost 20% since 2009, shows that all that profit is going straight to the top.  This is exactly why many people don’t feel the effects of the modest economic recovery – because this recovery is not our recovery – all the gains are going directly to the top 1%.  And this is why corporations are actively fighting the part of the Dodd-Frank act, that directs corporations to report the income differential between workers and CEOs.  In 1960, the average CEO was paid about 40 times as much as the average worker.  By 1990, CEOs were raking in over 100 times the amount that workers received.  And by 2011, some corporate executives – like the one who works for JC Penny’s – were making more than 1700 times the salary of an average worker.

A Bloomberg analysis indicates that everyday employees are the only ones who are not benefiting from the historic profits seen since the 2008 economic meltdown.  This is not only unacceptable, but it’s undesirable – without a broad, inclusive economic base, long-term economic growth is impossible.  It’s time to stop the economic locusts who are sucking every last bit of profit out of our economy for the benefit of themselves alone.

Dodd-Frank is forcing the oligarchs to disclose the income disparity, now let’s start working to correct it.  Let’s implement a Wall Street transaction tax, set limits on executive pay, and start taxing those who are obsessed with hoarding money.

Originally posted at ThomHartmann.Com.

It looks like President Obama is still open to negotiations with Republican economic terrorists.  Details of the president’s budget, set to be released April 10th, show that he will offer significant spending cuts to so-called “entitlement programs”- like Social Security and Medicare – in hopes of attaining a “grand” budget bargain with Congressional Republicans.

The plan replaces the sequester with other spending cuts, and increases revenues by $580 billion.  In a move that is sure to infuriate progressives and many Democrats, the president will propose lowering cost-of-living increases to Social Security benefits.  This is insane.  Instead of asking the wealthiest in our country to pay the same percentage of their income towards our social safety net, the President thinks that the elderly, disabled, and veterans should bear the burden of Republican austerity.

Our nation has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, and economic terrorists shouldn’t be the exception.  We must stand together to preserve our social programs.  Tell Congress and the President that we won’t stand for balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.  Sign the petition at no-cuts.com.

Originally posted at Thom Hartmann.

The Tennessee General Assembly is trying to subvert democracy.  Republican lawmakers in that state want to revise our election process, and give themselves the power to select which candidates appear on the ballot for U.S. Senator.  This is the latest GOP tactic to destroy our democratic process, and it’s their clever way of going around the 17th Amendment.  

Before 1913, state legislators selected U.S. Senators, but the process was ripe with corruption.  So, the 17th Amendment was enacted to give voters the power to select their leaders, and remove the opportunity for rich guys to buy themselves a Senate seat.  If passed, Tennessee Senate Bill 0471 and House Bill 0414 would amend state election laws, to let state legislators nominate candidates, and thus would likely determine who represents that state in the U.S. Senate.  As Tennessee voters are highly likely to vote Republican, it’s a virtual certainty that the GOP candidate selected by the state legislators would go on to represent that state in the Senate.

The 17th Amendment was passed to prevent wealthy men from buying off state legislators, and this new law in Tennessee would open the door to the same type of corruption all over again.  Citizens United paved the way for mountains of cash in political races…but why spend millions in campaign ads when you can simply bribe a few state legislators and achieve the same effect?

Republicans know they can’t win elections on the issues, hence their attempt to disenfranchise voters and buy off politicians.  Now they think they can simply decide who has the right to appear on the ballot.  We must stop the attack on our democratic process.  Our right to vote is our most important right, and it must be protected.

Originally posted at Thom Hartmann.

Republicans are already plotting their next opportunity to take our nation hostage.  At his weekly press conference, John Boehner said the GOP will refuse to raise the debt ceiling in May, if the president doesn’t agree to more spending cuts.  President Obama already agreed to cuts in the fiscal cliff deal totaling $1.5 trillion over the next decade.  And the sequester will cut an additional $1.2 trillion over that same period.  But, that’s not enough for Republicans.

The last time the GOP played political games with the debt limit, economic growth slowed in our nation, and citizens and businesses alike faced increased borrowing costs, but that doesn’t concern the Speaker of the House.  According to Boehner, Republicans plan to wage economic terrorism again, unless the President agrees to cut spending dollar-for-dollar with the debt ceiling increase.

So, unless Obama is willing to further devastate our economy with Republican austerity, John Boehner and House Republicans won’t let him pay the bills that they racked up.  The debt ceiling does not authorize more spending.  It only allows the President to pay for spending that the House has already approved.

This is simply economic terrorism… and it’s no way to run a government.  Call John Boehner’s office and tell him to stop playing political games with our economy.

When you think European financial crisis, you think Greece, or Spain, or Italy. But economic trouble in the small island nation of Cyprus is causing a serious panic throughout Europe. Because of Cyprus banks’ exposure to the financial troubles in neighboring Greece, the island nation’s banks need a bailout.

In exchange for the $13 billion dollar bailout, representatives from the European Central Bank and IMF, along with finance ministers from European countries, have proposed a radical plan to impose a one-time tax on bank depositors. The plan calls for a 6.75% tax on all bank deposits up to 100,000 euros, and a 9.9% tax on deposits over that amount.

As residents learned of the proposal, people rushed to banks and ATMs to withdraw their savings to avoid the tax. The policy is causing panic in Cyprus, and that government has halted electronic bank transfers through Tuesday, in an effort to prevent a run on banks throughout that nation.

Residents in other European nations are watching closely to see if similar plans are proposed for their countries. If leaders are not careful, this policy could bring down the banking system in Cyprus, and possibly throughout all of Europe. Let’s hope they make the right decisions, and stop this financial disaster before it’s too late. Stay tuned

Originally published on ThomHartmann.Com.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is supposed to insure deposits and regulate banks, but the agency has helped the banksters avoid trial for their crimes since the 2008 financial meltdown. The LA Times reports that the very agency responsible for investigating and prosecuting bank procedures that crashed our economy has been quietly settling charges out of court – and out of the view of the American public.

Since 2007, the agency has settled numerous charges of bankster wrongdoing, but agreed to a “no press release” clause in the settlement agreements, so the big banks have avoided public scrutiny. A spokesman for the FDIC said they only announce the settlements “when damage payments are large and media interest [is] intense.” However, the FDIC didn’t announce a $54 million settlement with Deutsche Bank for causing the collapse of of The Independent National Mortgage Corporation, known as IndyMac.

And that settlement is just part of the $787 million the FDIC has recovered since 2008. The “no-disclosure” clause may have allowed the FDIC to avoid the expense of taking on the big banks in court, but the practice also allowed banksters to get away with alleged crimes, like money laundering, foreclosure fraud, and mortgage fraud. The settlements simply become a cost of doing business for the banks.

It’s time to hold the banksters accountable. If too-big-to-fail means too-big-to-jail, then break up the banks and charge the banksters for their crimes.