ktlight
24th August 2011, 10:39
FYI:
Lawmakers rarely speak candidly about the relationship between large corporations and government, avoiding the ugly realities surrounding campaign contributions and legalized corruption. But occasionally when lawmakers leave office, they're more frank about the intersection of business and politics. In an interview with The Huffington Post, former Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) issued a stark warning about the government's inability to rein in the growing power of multinational corporations.
"Because [corporations] have become so international and global in nature, it's highly questionable whether governments can actually control corporations to a sufficient degree to prevent them from controlling governments," said Kanjorski, who served for 26 years in the House of Representatives until he was ousted last year amid a swarm of Republican congressional victories.
Two of the most worrying examples of the increasing ungovernability of corporations, Kanjorksi argued, are the current push to bestow tax breaks on American firms for stashing capital overseas and the failure to implement a new rule breaking up too-big-to-fail banks.
A coalition of tech firms, drug companies, energy conglomerates and lobbying front-groups have been pushing for a tax holiday on corporate cash that companies hide overseas. American companies hold money in nations that have very low tax rates, such as Panama, in order to avoid paying into the government's coffers.
Current laws allow that money to remain untaxed until companies bring it back to the U.S, and naturally, some of the firms who are most active in this kind of tax avoidance are now lobbying to be allowed to bring the money back at a rate as low as 5 percent.
"I'm not saying we shouldn't adjust our tax code otherwise -- there are thing we need to do there -- but to give them a free ride, what are you encouraging? The next guy who doesn't like the law will just do the same thing," Kanjorski said of the proposed tax holiday. "The reality is, why should we be bargaining with super-national corporations who are actually acting against our interest in avoidance of what our law is? We are impotent to get them to respond."
Kanjorski was speaking from experience. The district he represented has long been neglected by corporate America. Home to the small cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, the 11th District of Pennsylvania was a significant manufacturing hub for much of the 20th century, but firms shipped most of those jobs elsewhere decades ago, leaving the region struggling economically well before the financial crash of 2008 devastated the national labor market.
source to read more
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/23/business-government-corporate-control_n_933581.html
Lawmakers rarely speak candidly about the relationship between large corporations and government, avoiding the ugly realities surrounding campaign contributions and legalized corruption. But occasionally when lawmakers leave office, they're more frank about the intersection of business and politics. In an interview with The Huffington Post, former Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) issued a stark warning about the government's inability to rein in the growing power of multinational corporations.
"Because [corporations] have become so international and global in nature, it's highly questionable whether governments can actually control corporations to a sufficient degree to prevent them from controlling governments," said Kanjorski, who served for 26 years in the House of Representatives until he was ousted last year amid a swarm of Republican congressional victories.
Two of the most worrying examples of the increasing ungovernability of corporations, Kanjorksi argued, are the current push to bestow tax breaks on American firms for stashing capital overseas and the failure to implement a new rule breaking up too-big-to-fail banks.
A coalition of tech firms, drug companies, energy conglomerates and lobbying front-groups have been pushing for a tax holiday on corporate cash that companies hide overseas. American companies hold money in nations that have very low tax rates, such as Panama, in order to avoid paying into the government's coffers.
Current laws allow that money to remain untaxed until companies bring it back to the U.S, and naturally, some of the firms who are most active in this kind of tax avoidance are now lobbying to be allowed to bring the money back at a rate as low as 5 percent.
"I'm not saying we shouldn't adjust our tax code otherwise -- there are thing we need to do there -- but to give them a free ride, what are you encouraging? The next guy who doesn't like the law will just do the same thing," Kanjorski said of the proposed tax holiday. "The reality is, why should we be bargaining with super-national corporations who are actually acting against our interest in avoidance of what our law is? We are impotent to get them to respond."
Kanjorski was speaking from experience. The district he represented has long been neglected by corporate America. Home to the small cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, the 11th District of Pennsylvania was a significant manufacturing hub for much of the 20th century, but firms shipped most of those jobs elsewhere decades ago, leaving the region struggling economically well before the financial crash of 2008 devastated the national labor market.
source to read more
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/23/business-government-corporate-control_n_933581.html