Corporate welfare

Corporate tax breaks…do you know what they cost you?

When a company comes to town and says they are going to build a plant that will employ x number of citizens, the proposal is couched in a way that focuses on the jobs and not the amount of money tax payers put out to subsidize the new plant. This is the first step in a targeted advertising campaign to play you for a fool.

Why so? Because it is easier to make you believe poor people are stealing all your taxes and not the business robbing you blind right in front of your nose.

Cities and states all across the nation supply tax relief to corporations courting governments for economic development projects. The cost of these tax breaks often goes unreported.  Tax payers are generally kept in the dark regarding any negative aspects and have no idea how their tax dollars are being spent.

Recently a new Federal law was passed that will make state governments report how much money they lose in these “job creating schemes.”  The reckoning won’t start until 2017 but by then maybe the painful reality of tax incentives, subsidies and tax breaks will finally hit home.

Economists Ljungqvist and Smolyansky at NYU claim that corporate tax breaks at the state level don’t help create jobs.

According to the Cato Institute $100 billion a year is lost to corporate welfare that gives money to companies that are already profitable.

Only 12% of Federal spending goes to families in need. Behind the scenes most taxpayers are blinded by how much tax it is costing them to create “jobs” that never materialize but make loads of money for the companies that take advantage of these incentives. Corporate welfare is alive and well and costing you more than you imagine those greedy welfare recipients are getting. When corporations get subsidies etc. it costs YOU the taxpayer. It is a gullible toxic mistake not to understand where the money is really going.

Corporations use all our tax payer infrastructure, avoid paying taxes, ship jobs overseas and get money from taxpayers. You complain and they are out the door going to the next sucker state.

“The reality is that these tax breaks, special deals and government programs that Republicans support cost well over a trillion dollars a year. So if you’re the kind of person that thinks people who support Bernie Sanders are idiots because “someone has to pay for that free college”, you need to recognize that someone also has to pay for the Republican backed socialist wealth redistribution that benefits rich individuals and corporations. The big difference here is, the average Joe might actually benefit from Sanders’ socialism.” Dale Hansen

Here is just one example of an embarrassing use of tax payer money in New York.

“New York Governor Andrew Cuomo launched a campaign in 2013 that took root in 2014. This program had 356 tax free zones developed to create jobs. It cost NY taxpayers over $47 million just to advertise and only generated 76 jobs. Over 30 companies took advantage of this tax holiday promising to invest $91 million over 5 years. In fact they only invested $1.7 million in the first year. New York spends $7 billion every year on subsidies to businesses, including tax exemptions, tax credits, grants, tax-exempt bonds, and discounted land…all in the name of job creation, economic growth and improved quality of life for all New Yorkers. In fact 33% of spending resulted in no job promises, no job creation, or a loss of jobs. In fact, with little accountability, businesses often take the money and run.” Dale Hansen

Take a little side trip and check out this site subsidytracker.org  and find out about the real welfare cheats.

At subsidy tracker i see that our own Ocwen Financial is number 30 on the list and has received $434,043,672 in grants and allocated tax credits from the Feds since 2000. The Megadeals by state and local governments just made my head spin when i read about #1Boeing who got an $8.7 billion package deal from the Washington State legislature in 2013. You will recognize most of the names on these lists and it is a travesty that more people aren’t aware of where the money is really going.

i just found this site and am even more alarmed at what is going on. So stop blaming poor people for taking your money…its not them… they are used to easily distract you from the real corporate welfare bloodsuckers.

See ya next week.

Takers

Decades of propaganda aimed at all those horrible taker’s had Paul Ryan the Republican Speaker of the House come out today with a statement that was a breath of fresh air.

“I’m certainly not going to stand here and tell you I have always met this standard,” Ryan said. “There was a time when I would talk about a difference between ‘makers’ and ‘takers’ in our country, referring to people who accepted government benefits. But as I spent more time listening, and really learning the root causes of poverty, I realized I was wrong.”

“‘Takers’ wasn’t how to refer to a single mom stuck in a poverty trap, just trying to take care of her family. Most people don’t want to be dependent. And to label a whole group of Americans that way was wrong. I shouldn’t castigate a large group of Americans to make a point. So I stopped thinking about it that way—and talking about it that way. But I didn’t come out and say all this to be politically correct. I was just wrong.”

To actually hear him admit he was wrong must send an uncomfortable message to his constituents that still believe in the maker’s and taker’s dogma. i don’t know if he is trying to reign in the extremists in his party but this is certainly a light in the pretty dark reality of the Republican party today.

On the other hand Ted Cruz went off the deep end with this statement

“We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.”

Talk about screaming out to a base that regularly uses fear of the other as a rallying call.

Do we want to create new law enforcement agencies to specifically patrol so called Muslim neighborhoods? Do such neighborhoods even exist in the US? Do we want the government tracking and monitoring anyone just because they practice Islam? Isn’t this really going off the deep end with the fear?

Unless they are a confirmed threat i don’t want anyone including me monitored.

What is wrong here is that a Presidential candidate for the Republican Party is more than willing to give away all our safeguards for a civil society in exchange for some pie in the sky feeling of security.

Please save us from this madness.

See ya next week

Hawksbill

Shelter at "Watch Ho"

Watch Ho

He has been relocated and is no longer squashing the plants

Let it shine on hypocrisy

Mitch McConnell has already targeted Merrick Garland's nomination by President Obama for the Supreme Court by unilaterally deciding that he is a preposterous choice just because President Obama made it in his last year in office.

Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the people of the United States should choose Supreme Court justices. What it does say is that the President will nominate justices for the Supreme court with the advice and consent of the Senate.

i've always maintained that a political party that doesn't believe in government can not do a good job managing the government. Today is a prime example of the Republican parties bumbling job performance. They are an embarrassment to the nation and the world.

Mitch McConnell and all the other Republicans who conspired not to consider President Obama's nomination should be fired for failing to perform those duties they were elected for.

McConnell had maybe 1.5 million people maximum vote for him as Senator.

Sixty-one Million voters came out in 2012 and cast their ballots for President Obama. If that is not the "people" endorsing President Obama to do his job then i don't know what is.

So who, i ask, is representing the "people?" It is definitely not Senate Republicans.

When McConnell says he wants to wait until a new President is elected he is effectively saying I'm not going to do my job and you can't make me.

No business owner in his right mind would ever hire an employee who didn't believe the company should perform in the manner it was designed too. Not only that...they would have already fired McConnell and all the rest of the do nothing Republican Senators that are suppressing consideration of Merrick Garland.

See ya next week

2015 Nature Pics

I have thought of making this my profile pic on Facebook

Taking photos is one of those activities that gets me really excited.

A bus in San Francisco going Nowhere in Particular

 Over the years i have developed an insatiable need to share the breathtaking world around us through writing and pictures and this blog has been my bully-pulpit.

The family cabin in the California Sierra's

Here i can advocate for all sorts of things and you the reader can choose to look at it or pass it by.

Pinecrest Lake in the California Sierra's

Today i decided to go through my pics from the last year and pick out ones that demonstrate the tantalizing world of nature.

On a hike above Kennedy Meadows in the Sierra's we passed these pack animals

i have files of photos set up for birds, animals, insects, plants etc. that i scroll through and enjoy.

He would have preferred our lunch in Boston

This guy was keeping an eye on us somewhere on Victoria Island, Canada

A salmon climbing the ladder on the Yukon River around Whitehorse

i was doing this the other day when i thought

Relief Reservoir... Sierra's

Hiking in the Emigrant Basin Wilderness area, CA

Started the hike...no snow...headed back down...snow in July in Calif.

i could do a blog

Lava Beds National Park, California

about some

Lots of good birding here, northern California

of the pics i

Trail on Ferry Island, BC had all these really cool carvings all along the way

haven't posted.

Saw this Grizzly in Hyder, Alaska

Muncho Lake, BC...the most beautiful lake on our trip...loved this place.

Hiked in to this place

These flowers are everywhere and so beautiful

Heading to Skagway, Alaska

Top of the pass before Skagway

 

Between Prince Rupert and Meziadin Lake, BC

i don't want to bore you so i'll stop writing here.

Hiking outside Prince Rupert, BC

Yard sculpture made of Bicycle Rims,  Whitehorse, Yukon

 So

Pacific Coast trail....some beautiful growth on Victoria Island, BC

see

An irresistible chipmunk

ya next week

Berry Picking on Gabriola Island, BC

for

A child running past as the sun was setting at Deception Pass, Washington

A very cool looking slug on a hike

some more.

An English phone booth we found in the woods of Maine by Booth Bay

New York Botanical Gardens

Great Horned Owl seen in woods while at the Frida Khalo show in NY Botanical Gardens

The camping set up

Lassen National Park northern California

Whitehorse, Yukon...kids made these of the salmon traveling on the Yukon