This isn’t just a GE thread, but more of a rant on a system that says it does one thing while doing quite another in reality. I totally agree that the United States has a serious spending problem. However, when a company the size of General Electric has paid nothing in taxes for two years running, despite making more than $14 billion in pure profit in just 2010 alone, it should be clear be also have a revenue problem.
Of course, some would like you to think this is just an isolated incident. It isn’t. A study done a few years ago by the Government Accountability Office actually showed that more than 67% of American corporations paid absolutely nothing in federal income tax over a 7 year period due to various loopholes and offshore tax shelters like Bermuda and Switzerland. We have a tax system that encourages American companies to not pay their fair share back into the system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/business/13tax.html
There is a difference between being pro business and being totally fleeced by big business. We have become so fixated on trying to please big money that we really just seem to ignore the fact they are simply absorbing a greater percentage of our nation’s wealth year by year and doing very little to build our nation back up.
For those who are always talking about fiscal sanity, I urge you to look at the other side of the coin in the budget issue and realize that these things are comprised of both revenue and spending. A system in which American mega companies are making record profits and paying no taxes, while the rest of the country treads water, is certainly not the kind of economic system that is going to lead to greater prosperity for the majority of Americans.
Whether it be AIG, Enron, Goldman Sachs, GE, or others, we seem to have a corporate attitude that really doesn’t care what steps it has to take in the search for the almighty dollar. Enough of the sob stories about how bad businesses have it in America. Reality is painting a very different picture.