Orwell Strikes Again

Do corporate advocates for repatriating overseas profits have a legitimate case? Not anymore. The federal government has already gone the "tax holiday" route — in 2004 — with disastrous results.

Congressional advocates for that 2004 "onetime" holiday made the same arguments that repatriators are making today. They promised that the tax holiday would create jobs. In fact, they even named their holiday legislation the "American Job Creation Act of 2004." But their holiday didn't just fail to create the promised jobs. Their holiday enriched corporations that actually destroyed jobs in the months right after they received their tax windfall.

One government study looking at the first two years after the repatriation windfall found that 12 of the top recipients laid off more than 67,000 American workers. These firms collectively brought back home more than $100 billion, nearly a third of the total amount repatriated by all firms that took advantage of the tax holiday. Collectively, these early job killers pocketed an estimated $32 billion in savings from taxes they otherwise would have had to pay.
~ from America Loses: Corporations That Take "Tax Holidays" Slash Jobs by Sarah Anderson, John Cavanagh, Chuck Collins, Scott Klinger, Sam Pizzigati ~

Almost anytime a large swath of Corporate America gets behind any type of legislation, you can be assured that, whatever they claim in relation to it, it ain't true! If they argue that deregulation will benefit consumers, it won't. If they argue that privatization will save taxpayer dollars, it will do anything but. And, if they argue that a tax holiday will lead to more jobs, they are lying through their teeth!

Let's face it. Orwell's once fictitious doublespeak has become the law of the land. Our leaders -- both governmental and corporate -- consistently work to promote sacred ideals, while their real intent is to trash the same. They realize that too many of the common folk aren't that politically astute and so they create snazzy pr campaigns to dupe them again and again into supporting laws and policies that are against the interests of the 99 per cent.

It is a strategy of naked contrivance -- but dammit, it works! As long as it works, why change a successful game plan?