The Hightower Lowdown

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Earth to 'The Wall Street Journal'

The Wall Street Journal editorial writers have a unique perspective on life: looking down on you and me.

These pipe-smoking editorialists are considered to be the official mouthpiece for the corporate nation, and they're constantly carping about how the rich and corporate are just damned near bent over double with the burden of having to support the government with their taxes.

Recently, however, they had an astonishing conversion -- they came out for more taxes! Not on them and their ilk. On you -- the working stiffs and poor folks.

You can't make up stuff this good. The editors wailed from on high about "The Non-Paying Class," declaring that us hoi polloi "pay little or no taxes" and need to be forced by Washington to pay more in order to relieve the burden of those at the top.

Who are these goobers talking about? They singled out a poor, hypothetical schmoe who's making $12,000 a year and is in the lowest tax bracket. This person, the editors complained, "pays a little less than four percent of income in taxes." The editors dubbed such people "lucky duckies."

Yoo-hooooooo. Earth to you aliens at the Journal. Trying to eke out a living on pay of $12,000 a year is the exact opposite of "lucky." It's poverty -- and it ought not be taxed at all.

Plus, when they talk about who pays the most taxes, they're referring only to federal income taxes, leaving out the thoroughly regressive burdens of our payroll taxes, state and local taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, fees, and a host of other assessments. Add these in, and us slobs at the bottom are paying the same rates or higher than the swells at the top.

For example, state and local governments sock the poor with taxes that total more than 11% of their paltry income. But they let the rich skate by with half as much.

If the Journal editors ever want to visit Earth, we'd be happy to show them around our neighborhood.

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Tax Scams

George W. is pushing his latest tax giveaway to the superrich as an "economic stimulus."

Well, I'd be "stimulated," too, if I were going to get $16,000 out of the deal. That's how much Bush himself would gain. Or how about Dick Cheney, who'd get $104,000 under this scam?

Meanwhile, there's an even richer group that's lined up to get more special tax giveaways from George: corporations. Talk about your tax dodgers! Corporations already enjoy more government subsidies and benefits than people do, yet they pay the least in taxes. Forget the basic corporate tax rate of 35%, these outfits have hordes of lobbyists, lawyers, and accountants to "Enron the system," creating loopholes and tax gimmicks that whittle their formal tax log down to a toothpick ... or less.

For example, there's the scandalous (but still legal) tax dodge known as the Bermuda Loophole. It lets corporate sharpies pretend to be headquartered offshore, even though they're physically right here in the USA. Bottom line is that they can use Bermuda to escape paying their taxes to the Red, White, and Blue!

Here's my thought on this scam. I say that all CEOs playing the anti-American Bermuda card have to wear Bermuda shorts everywhere they go, so we regular taxpayers can know who they are, grab 'em on the streets, and give them noogies.

Speaking of corporate moochers, guess who's one of the slickest? John Snow! Yes, Bush's new treasury secretary, the guy who's now in charge of our nation's tax policy. Snow headed CSX Corporation and leaped through so many loopholes that in three of the past four years, CSX paid zero in federal income taxes, even though it had banked nearly a billion dollars in profit. Even trickier, CSX got $164 million in tax rebates during those years.

To fight these scams, contact Citizens for Tax Justice at 202/626-3780.