Fair and Equitable

While Governors and state legislators across the country are conspiring to rip from its carcass the meager remaining flesh that holds the middle class together...firing and pauperizing police, firefighters, nurses, teachers, any and all public service employees...while simultaneously cannibalizing public education from pre-K through graduate schools, slashing funding for sewage treatment, water supplies, roads, bridges and etc, etc, etc...there does exist a very special and favored sector of our once thriving economic machine that is not only exempt from these draconian, suicidal slashes, but that has actually profited at the expense of the rest of us:

The Great and Powerful Multi-national Corporation!

This press release from the only remaining Senator with a conscience,
Bernie Sanders (I-VT), pretty much says it all. Please go read it.
Here's a bitter, projectile vomit-inducing taste:

Congress returned to Capitol Hill on Monday to debate steep spending cuts. Sen. Bernie Sanders said it is grossly unfair for congressional Republicans to propose major cuts to Head Start, Pell Grants, the Social Security Administration, nutrition grants for pregnant low-income women and the Environmental Protection Agency while ignoring the reality that some of the most profitable corporations pay nothing or almost nothing in federal income taxes. Sanders compiled a list of some of some of the 10 worst corporate income tax avoiders.

 “We have a deficit problem. It has to be addressed,” Sanders said, “but it cannot be addressed on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the poor, young people, the most vulnerable in this country.  The wealthiest people and the largest corporations in this country have got to contribute. We’ve got to talk about shared sacrifice.”

Here are the top three corporate sociopathic welfare queens:

1) Exxon Mobil 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.

 But, of course new taxes have fallen off the legislative table into a black memory hole, so I guess it's us that has ta pay pay pay, while the wealthy and powerful play and play.