What's Wrong With This Picture?

I'm sure we've all heard the refrain many times before. Our national and state governments are in such bad shape because those nasty public sector unions are bleeding our treasuries dry. They are able to get away with this highway robbery due to the nefarious collective bargaining. Not only are the unions destroying the country, but Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security are gouging budgets left and right.

To make matters worse, the corporate tax rate is a staggering 35%! How can we expect business to create jobs and fuel the economy if we're constantly yanking their hard-earned money away from them?

The ONLY way out of this mess is to put unions in their place, slash government spending by mammoth proportions AND reduce the tax burden on the beleaguered corporate class.

Yes, that's the official story and it's nothing more than a big pile of bunk!! We're in such bad shape because we keep going off to war, there is little meaningful regulation of the people who wrecked the economy and few corporations actually pay anywhere near 35% in taxes. In fact, as the list below from Mother Jones illustrates, many of the wealthiest corporations aren't paying a damn cent in federal corporate taxes. Even worse, several of these financial Goliaths are receiving whopping refunds!!

1) ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.
~ from Bernie Sanders' Top 10 Tax Avoiders by Michael Mechanic ~

So, tell me again, who exactly is bankrupting the country?