Community | March 18, 2011 | 56 comments

Gingrich We Should ‘Celebrate’ Corporate Tax Dodgers, Employees Should Pay Instead

source: http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/18/gingrich-corp-taxes/

bundlebear
One of the top priorities for Republicans this year has been to preserve and extend corporate tax breaks. This includes GOPers like former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) who have eagerly defended corporations like Bank of America, ExxonMobil, and GE which have avoided paying a dime in corporate income taxes in recent years, but rake in huge annual profits.

Another one of those companies making millions in profits but failing to pay any corporate income tax is Arch Coal. In 2009, for instance, the corporation netted over $42 million, yet was able to use tax loopholes and gimmicks to avoid contributing anything in corporate income taxes.

ThinkProgress asked Gingrich about these corporate tax-dodgers this week at a St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in Nashua, New Hampshire. Gingrich defended Arch Coal and other corporations who avoided paying income taxes because “they don’t owe that” to the U.S. government. Striking an anti-populist note, the former House Speaker also praised the fact that even though many corporations were avoiding taxes, their employees would still be forced to contribute to the government’s coffers.

Gingrich concluded by enthusiastically championing corporate tax loopholes, telling ThinkProgress that corporations were using “an incentive…not a loophole.” “We should celebrate that as a good thing,” Gingrich added:

KEYES: There have been a lot of complains from the left and right about corporations not paying their fair share in taxes. For instance, Arch Coal in 2009 made $42 million but paid nothing in corporate income tax. What are your thoughts on that?

GINGRICH: My thoughts are I’m opposed to tax increases. I want to create more jobs in America, not fewer.

KEYES: But they’re not paying anything right now in corporate income tax.

GINGRICH: But you don’t know why they’re not paying anything. Did they buy new equipment? Did they do things that actually create jobs? I can’t give you an answer for any one company.

KEYES: But in general, corporations who are making millions and millions in profit but then not contributing anything to the United States government. Do you think that’s fair?

GINGRICH: First of all, if they make millions and millions in profit, they probably employ thousands and thousands of people and those thousands and thousands of people are contributing a lot to America. I am for the maximum job creation in the United States and I think that means lower taxes, not higher taxes. It means less regulations, not more regulation.

KEYES: But you don’t think we should try to be forcing them to pay what they owe?

GINGRICH: First of all, they don’t owe that. If what they did was legal, and if it was designed to create more jobs. For example, if we gave you 100 percent write-off for new equipment so you could compete with China, and you use that 100 percent write-off, you actually did what we wanted you to do. [...] You have to go ask Arch [Coal] “what is it they did right in order to lower their tax liability and did it create jobs in America?”

KEYES: Would you like to see those corporate tax loopholes closed though? [crosstalk]

GINGRICH: I just want to say this because it’s an important difference in how we approach this. If we give you an incentive to do something right that creates more jobs, that is not a loophole. That’s an incentive. If you then intelligently follow that incentive and create more jobs, we should celebrate that as a good thing.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/18/gingrich-corp-taxes/
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56 comments // Gingrich We Should ‘Celebrate’ Corporate Tax Dodgers, Employees Should Pay Instead // Video

  • iowawashington
  • good_stuff
    • 0
      good_stuff  

    • This interview should have ended with...

      "If I were to go out and spend all my money on plasma screen TV's, and ipads; which create jobs, why should I have to pay income taxes? So you don't believe that corporations are people that should be given the right to donate/campaign for politicians, right?" Well, are coorporations poeple or collectives of people?

    • 1 year ago
  • Milieu
    • +2
      Milieu  

    • "There's somebody else, isn't there?"

      She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?

      She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. " 'I can't handle a Jaguar right now.' He said that many times. 'All I want is a Chevrolet.' "

      He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.

      He'd just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he'd given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.

      The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, "How do you give that speech and do what you're doing?"

      "It doesn't matter what I do," he answered. "People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter what I live."

      Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/newt-gingrich-0910-8#ixzz1H7Jj9MP6

      There's the moral compass of The Newster in a nutshell, the last paragraph, especially.

    • 1 year ago
  • Straighttalker
    • 0
      Straighttalker  

    • Gingrich like those incentives because he can tap into them for his political advantage. This appear to be a self serving comment. What do the community think?

    • 1 year ago
  • savroD
  • EdJoyProductions
    • +3
      EdJoyProductions  

    • Newt Gingrich left his wife and mother of his children for a younger woman while his wife was in the hospital with cancer. Imagine what he would do to us if given the opportunity.

    • 1 year ago
  • PressCore
    • +3
      PressCore  
    • EdJoyProductions:

      That sounds like McLame's m.o. too. Gingrich must be round the bend
      to spew out such anti-populist fraudster malarchy as that. He'll never win.
      The Republicans would have to be self destructive imbeciles to nominate
      such a liar and con artist as Gingrich for election. He should be tarred &
      feathered and run out of town on a rail. I'd loath to think we traded that
      tradition and sense of honesty for " civilization ". Mr. wolf in sheeps clothing
      Gingrich reminds me of Oscar Wild's novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
      Someone who sold his soul to the devil because he was such a fool with
      a warped sense of values he didn't know he couldn't take it with him.

    • 1 year ago
  • Vierotchka
  • Nabe8
    • +2
      Nabe8  

    • I think the scariest part of this video is that Newt is extremely well-spoken and articulate. He comes off rational, though the biggest hole in his logic lie in the fact that there is no guarantee that these "incentives" create U.S. jobs. (As we all have noted) Au contraire, the jobs are being created overseas. How about some "incentives" for AMERICAN workers. How about reversing this tax fight, slashing taxes from the bottom, lowest income workers through to the moderate small businesses?

    • 1 year ago
  • savvy7
    • +4
      savvy7  

    • Hey Gingrich, you lying douchebag! How many Big Corporations have moved their HQ off shore to avoid paying taxes and how many benefited by Bush tax cuts while shoveling hundreds of jobs abroad during this same period? What jobs did those tax cuts create for middle-class Americans? And now that the SCOTUS made it legal for Corp.'s to give (read, buy off) the GOP unlimited funds, Republicans no longer have to hide the money left on the dresser that they pocket after pimping out the American worker. Get stuffed, Gingrich!

    • 1 year ago
  • Vierotchka
    • +2
      Vierotchka  
    • savvy7:

      This is why I encourage liberals and unions to create their own corporations in Delaware (it is cheap and easy) so that they can give as much as they want to the candidates of their choice.

    • 1 year ago
  • ampersand
  • Vierotchka
  • MizPiz
  • PressCore
    • +1
      PressCore  
    • Vierotchka:

      I don't doubt many of those who run and get elected under that name
      republican are exactly how you label them. The term republican in 2011
      is only a shadow of it's former self when Abraham Lincoln and Theodore
      Roosevelt were the main proponents of that party. It can be argued with
      legitimate merit that Theodore Roosevelt was the last true Republican
      President though. (Notice how I spelled the office title with a capital p
      as the Constitution prescribed it). Every president we've had since of
      that label is nothing at all like Lincoln & Roosevelt, which is why you'll
      see their 2 faces carved into the mountain face in Mt.Rushmore national
      park in Dakota country, and noone elses. It's not simply because they
      ran out of room. It's because the rest are simply Corporate Government
      clerks unfit to resist being Corporate puppets, hence the small p. The
      problems the USA faces today reached their boil over point 20 years
      before 1908 when Roosevelt was still in office. Theodore Roosevelt had
      such colossal problems with Monopolists like Morgan, Rockefeller et al...
      And had to contend with corruption that was rife because they bought
      virtually everyone and everything in sight, that he got no backing from
      the corrupt Republicans of his day, so he started the Bull Moose party.

      After 100+ years of Corporation Party domination of the Government,
      both the Democrat and Republican parties have been so thoroughly
      subverted by the Corporation Party aka Big Money, they've become
      puppeteered too. It's become a sham. Ron Paul is a Republican in
      the true sense of the word. But as things have become so perverse,
      he's looked upon as a reactionary rather than the real mccoy. Likewise
      we have people of integrity like Dennis Kucinich, who are genuinely
      Democrats. But their party doesn't pick them to be nominated because
      they've been so corrupted that without viable 3rd, 4th, and 5th parties
      on the ballots in all 50 States..., their chances to win are prejudiced.

      And without public outcry on their side to publicly debate them...It's all
      a farce. The Corporation Party owns the TV Corporations who make
      sure to carefully censor all talking points worth debating. And narrow
      their focus instead to tailor their rehearsed debate to whomever comes
      across as a better public speaker. It's all Show Biz now because it's all
      contrived, rehearsed and polished to sell like a Pledge furniture cleaning
      commercial. Ie presidents are Corporate fabricated products like Brauny
      towels and marketed that way because commercial TV controls people's
      minds here in the USA discouraging people from reading books. The
      result is that people's minds are treated like a shot glass with just enough
      space to fill 2 fingers of whiskey. Once the contents are consumed, the
      shot glass is emptied of all recognizance of what happened before.
      No memory, no mind. No mind, no learning. Cycling on uninterupted to
      maintain the corrupt status quo. To be honest, there would have to be
      open debates with spontaneity. And the talking points would have to be
      surprises, brought up by the people, and not the Corporations. It's been
      that way since 1968, when the last vestige of the administration of John F.
      Kennedy (LBJ)announced he wouldn't run. No Tass in Pravda. or Pravda
      is Tass.

    • 1 year ago
  • Vierotchka
    • +3
      Vierotchka  
    • PressCore:

      I would hardly call Ron Paul a Republican - what with his admiration of Ayn Rand and most of his positionx, he's a Libertarian more than a Republican. He is right only with regard to the War in Iraq and drugs. For the rest, he is totally kooky. I think Eisenhower was the last true Republican President.

    • 1 year ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • Vierotchka:

      Without meaning to be cheeky, you missed his position re: the Fed.
      With all the negative things I've heard mentioned about Ayn Rand,
      I'd be more reserved to assess that after I've had a chance to read
      her mind as reflected in her writings. You're right about the libertarian
      stance he has. Many would like to see him start a party of his own.
      As as the H.R. Rep from his district in Texas, he directly advocates
      for his constituents. I agree with the points you've brought up mostly.
      What we lack in the USA is intelligent public debate at the grass roots
      level, and viable political parties. It's a shame we don't have high levels
      of public participation and voting here in the USA. I wish it more resembled Switzerland's direct Democracy. If it did, I have the feeling things would'nt
      be so imbalanced. The idea one is what they own is more relevant in
      our society than in more socialist oriented cultures it seems to me. The
      fact that the combined resources of 85% of our populace represents
      only 7% of the total wealth is symptomatic that the USA is in deep trouble.

    • 1 year ago
  • Vierotchka
  • SFirman
  • ampersand
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • Vierotchka:

      http://Rep.no

      Thanks for the link. I've blogged it as I do all your links. Being a person
      who's learned to think for himself for the past 44 years, I feel that H.R.
      Rep. Paul would make a sterling Treasury Secretary secretary. If it would
      not require him giving up his H.R. seat to accomplish that objective, then
      I would support that. I say that because any man who'd represent the
      constituents of his district as a go between to any executive branch agency
      of the Federal Government of the U.S.-behemouth that it is-is a modern
      day hero,whether he woulfd make a president with a capital p or not.
      There're worse things than rascism posing conflicts of interest in G people.

      Here in Onondaga county, New York, where I've been stuck for the past
      22 of those 44 years, we used to have an unconditional asshole named
      James Walsh who was the RepugnantCon H.R. Rep. for too many terms.
      He was such a personal friend of George Bush that when I wrote to him
      about an extreme problem I've had with the FBI in 1998, he ignored me
      because of his conflict of interest. It seems Bush was supporting the FBI's
      Racketeering Conspiracy to violate my civil rights. So apparently Walsh
      couldn't reconcile his cognitive dissonance because of his personal
      friendship with Hitler Bush. And also, it was due to a collosal deficiency
      in Walsh's character. ( I doubt he had any) to observe the 1st Amendment
      clause which gave him a legal obligation to answer my letter and represent
      me from Congress to the Dept. of Injustice or to the Court if necessary,.
      In my case against the FBI it would have been necessary because the
      DOJ is so pathetic it allows the FBI to investigate itself, which is absurd.

      And the lawyers of the DOJ are corrupt too, In the late Sept. 2010 issues
      of USA Today front center column they had a series of articles depicting
      a U.S. Court Judicial commission which documented too many cases of
      DOJ prosecutorial abuse to make them any less worse, to use a Ernest
      Hemmingway term, than the Flunkie Bureau itself. My case against the
      FBI is a criminal one that dates back to 1975, and implicates supervisors
      all the way up to FBI Directors. It appears Walsh didn't regard the U.S.
      Constitution as worth more than used toilet paper, same as Bush did.
      Before he left office Walsh televised he " didn't feel any obligation to
      respond to my letter " So, yes, I have personal basis to agree with your
      assessment, Vierotcka on the nature of too many of the Republicans,
      We have a new Republican H.R. Rep.now. I hope she will be able to
      recognize that law is above politics, and advocate for me in Congress.
      If she doesn't I won't allow Onondaga County to settle with me.(The
      FBI being malicious cowards had to corrupt every level of police force
      to accomplish their Racketeering) The County Exec. might persuade her.
      I think she realizes we have a crooked Sheriff & D.A. that permitted them.

    • 1 year ago
  • Milieu
  • Mark701
    • +4
      Mark701  

    • "First of all, they don’t owe that. If what they did was legal, and if it was designed to create more jobs. For example, if we gave you 100 percent write-off for new equipment so you could compete with China, and you use that 100 percent write-off, you actually did what we wanted you to do"

      Here's the big problem Newty, THEY DON'T CREATE JOBS IN AMERICA!!!!
      DUH! But you already know that don't you.

    • 1 year ago
  • PressCore
    • +1
      PressCore  
    • Mark701:

      Verdad. At the minimalists say, the USA produces babies, and food, and
      minimum wage jobs. That might not be so bad as it seems it the minimum
      wage were an honest one as it is in Denmark where the average wage for
      the service oriented jobs is $20 an hour. But the minimum wage I worked
      for in 1963, when I was in high school, was $1.25 worth of 90% Silver money.
      When you realize the value of that money adjusted for inflation would have
      to be worth 3- 5 X $7.25 an hour today, then the minimum wage is a farce.

    • 1 year ago
  • Steamed_N_More
  • nanac
    • +2
      nanac  

    • Newt Gingrich is a crook and should be in jail for his scamming of the American people..He is nothing but a con-man..

    • 1 year ago
  • bike10
  • JackHoffman
    • +4
      JackHoffman  

    • And who pays for the services they use in order to make their profits? Roads, power grids etc? We do. Just more crap from the fright wing. Theft of the highest order.

    • 1 year ago
  • twinite
  • hammywill
    • +6
      hammywill  

    • By Gingrich's logic every single time I spend any money I am helping to create jobs and should be allowed to write that off.

      Hmmm....seems fair to me. I will start submitting every receipt for every cheeseburger, underwear, and iPod purchase I make and tell them to refund me the money because I helped to create jobs and spur economic growth.

    • 1 year ago
  • simplecj
    • +1
      simplecj  
    • hammywill:

      Great point! Companies often are able to write off lavish vacations because they take a bunch of head people along with top shareholders and spend "some" of the time talking about business.

      They can write off just about anything they spend money on and when you have a list that big, there's no doubt much of it really had nothing to do with business other than to help keep them from paying their taxes.

    • 1 year ago
  • Persecuted
    • +6
      Persecuted  

    • yes... less regulation, not more regulation... unless of course it has to do with a womans vagina... then we should regulate the shit out of it.

    • 1 year ago
  • jesus_is_a_liberal
  • simplecj
    • +2
      simplecj  

    • What he is saying is PART truth.... it's good to give incentives to create jobs here in America. BUT I highly doubt that the many multi million/billion dollar companies that pay next to nothing in taxes have done it all in the name of benefiting the public. Most likely a large chunk of it is dubious loopholes that have nothing to do with job creation and that is what he was trying to dismiss.

      He is right though, to prove the point we need to be able to show how much of the taxes these companies dodged were actually through beneficial, job creating incentive programs. My bet is that it's a small portion... but at least we could make him eat his words!

      I still think our tax code needs to be shredded and we should start over with something much more simple and fair and with no loopholes. Incentives that have direct provable benefit to the public would be the only write-offs for companies. If we did that, we could actually lower the "official" tax rates on individuals and companies and still generate more revenue. With our current 70,000 page tax code, it's no wonder companies can get away with murder when they have an army of lawyers and accountants working for them. Most individuals are screwed and actually pay most if not all of their taxes. We pay roughly 25% while they pay only 10% or less even though the official corporate tax is 35%. That's a lot of loopholes... can't possibly be all government "job creating" incentives or we'd see a lot less unemployment.

    • 1 year ago
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
    • +6
      COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM  

    • My bottom line take: And peep like Newt should be tried for treason against the United States and it's citizens, and then taken to a NRA shooting range and place as a target, with a prize to whoever shoots closest to where a heart should have been.

      In one statement he came clean that the republican agenda is to make the working people pay all of the taxes to free corporations from having to pay any. This, of course, would then enable the corporations to contribute more money to the republican party and individual legislators.

      Further, he is declaring that we should celebrate those corporate parasites who feed of the blood of the working people, and can get away without paying for their meals. This man is unquestionably a delusional psychopath intent on inflicting as much suffering on the public as possible. Tried in the court of the people and executed, along with his mongol horde, and all executed at the firing range.

    • 1 year ago
  • postlapsaria
    • +1
      postlapsaria  

    • i've got an idea-- they're for "job creation" right?
      no matter how how shitty-- right? (after all- fuck the unions) and sharon angle made sure to tell people, "ya know, mcdonalds is always hiring AND you get a free lunch."

      so the republicans want "jobs" and hate welfare? change the name of welfare, and medicare and social security. rename them "professional citizen" "freelance patient" and "privatized plant manager" (plant meaning maybe daffodils or some nice roses on their porches) and have them fill out a W4-- win win!

      poor people keep getting a helping hand to live a decent life and they're not technically unemployed so the unemployment rate is 4% or something and the republicans won't complain.

      that is of course based on the fact that they talk about jobs so much, considering their actual legislation-- i have no fixes all they seem to work on is screwing non-christians or non-conservatives.

    • 1 year ago
  • postlapsaria
  • Maggielee
  • Milieu
  • PressCore
  • Leen61
    • +3
      Leen61  

    • Hey Gingrich, where are all these jobs the corporations produced? They are not opening any factories here to compete against China, they are sending the jobs TO China. If all these billions of dollars in tax breaks were translating into job creation, we wouldn't have an unemployment problem.

    • 1 year ago
  • TheAmericanPatriot
  • Milieu
    • +2
      Milieu  
    • TheAmericanPatriot:

      Gingrich concluded by enthusiastically championing corporate tax loopholes => meaning someone else pays taxes.

      Who does that leave.........let's think Real Hard......umm, uh.....oh, I know, the Employees.

      Not lying, telling the truth, just feels like lying to Republic Syndicate and Oligarchs.

    • 1 year ago
  • dinm76
  • August_K
    • +1
      August_K  
    • TheAmericanPatriot:

      Please explain to us why it is that Bush only created 3 Million jobs in 8 years..... even after his "jobs creating?" tax cuts to the top tier in 2003 and why Bush stated that jobs outsourcing was good for American workers.

      Clinton managed 23 Million and Bush 1 grew almost as many jobs as Jr. did and he did it in 4 years.

      For your reference..... first link has a great graph showing how many jobs were created going back to Truman.

      Bush On Jobs: The Worst Track Record On Record
      http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on...

      BUSH: SENDING JOBS OVERSEAS HELPS THE U.S.
      February 10, 2004
      WASHINGTON — The movement of American factory jobs and white-collar work to other countries is part of a positive transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over time, even if it causes short-term pain and dislocation, the Bush administration said yesterday.
      The embrace of foreign "outsourcing," an accelerating trend that has contributed to U.S. job losses in recent years and has become an issue in the 2004 elections, is contained in the president's annual report to Congress on the U.S. economy.
      http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001854367_bushecon10.html

    • 1 year ago
  • Mark701
  • Mark701
  • MizPiz
  • SFirman
  • Steamed_N_More
    • +1
      Steamed_N_More  

    • "I have all the facts I need for my agenda! Stop confusing my issue!" Heard it all before. Remembered when any business reported no income or loss for 3 yrs. It was classified as a HOBBY!

    • 1 year ago
  • chief_longhair
  • Nephwrack
  • August_K
  • Milieu
    • +6
      Milieu  

    • "GINGRICH: First of all, they don’t owe that. If what they did was legal, and if it was designed to create more jobs. For example, if we gave you 100 percent write-off for new equipment so you could compete with China, and you use that 100 percent write-off, you actually did what we wanted you to do. [...] You have to go ask Arch [Coal] “what is it they did right in order to lower their tax liability and did it create jobs in America?”"

      Besides buy the legislators who wrote the laws letting these Oligarchs off the hook?

    • 1 year ago
  • UtopianSky
    • +9
      UtopianSky  

    • Completely backwards thinking.

      Corporations that do not pay taxes to the US do NOT make jobs in the US, they ONLY have their corporate headquarters in the US.

      The employees are all in Mexico, India, China, and the Philippines.

      As a result, the rich get richer, Americans remain unemployed, and the third world gets exploited as slave labor.

      That's the Republican way.

      You know, we can't even offer corporations tax incentives to keep their workforces in the US when as it stands now they are not paying any taxes at all!

    • 1 year ago
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