Midweek Reading

The strongest case for urban density isn’t aesthetics, it’s math

Union membership at Wisconsin private employers declined 69% from peak in 1984

The Lasting Legacy Of Redlining

Amy Coney Barrett served as a ‘handmaid’ in Christian group People of Praise

Want to make money? Become a mathematician. Seriously.

Eight Charts that Explain the Market

“The Richest People on the Planet are Criminals”

“If You’re Getting a W-2, You’re a Sucker”

Gun deaths were the leading killer of US children in 2020

The Amazonification of the American workforce

Choice School Must Pay Property Taxes

How Conservatives Fell in Love With Judicial Activism

The Lie About the Supreme Court Everyone Pretends to Believe

Are Performance Improvement Plans Just Code For 'You Should Quit'?

Brewers Cost Taxpayers $1.56 Billion

63% of State’s Corporations Pay No Taxes

Milwaukee deemed 'climate haven' for resistance against climate disasters

Weekend Reading

Tucker Carlson Endorses White Supremacist Theory by Name

Republicans Throwing Away Our Money

The Corporate Tax Burden: Facts and Fiction

Milwaukee Tool's downtown project proceeds as key committee approves $12M in city subsidies

Anderson Cooper: Pretty much everything Sen. Johnson said is dangerous

SmithGroup Will Design Harbor District Riverwalk

How the Federal Reserve Is Increasing Wealth Inequality

The New Gerrymandering Scheme

West Allis is the Hottest City in Wisconsin

Kavanaugh an ill-considered choice to pen ruling on incorrigible childhood offenses

Sotomayor gives blistering dissent to Trump SCOTUS appointees who find juvenile not worthy of parole

Bill Requires MPS Reimburse Private School Transportation Costs

Why the "Reagan Revolution" Scheme to Gut America's Middle Class is Coming to an End

This Is Years of Starving Government and Deregulating Industry at Work

The 'Capitalism is Broken' Economy

Foxconn fallout: Mount Pleasant Village President says 'everything is on the table' for renegotiating local development agreement

Weekend Reading

The Oceans We Know Won't Survive Climate Change
Tax Aversion And The Legacy Of Slavery
How Slavery Shaped American Capitalism
Amid Trade War, Farmers Lean On New Crop: Hemp
Federal Judge In Trump Tax Case Picks Apart DOJ Rule Barring Indictment Of President
How To Get Away With Gerrymandering
For The First Time In History, U.S. Billionaires Paid A Lower Tax Rate Than The Working Class Last Year
Federal Deficit Estimated At $984 Billion, Highest In Seven Years
No More Half-Measures On Corporate Taxes
How A Brief Socialist Takeover In North Dakota Gave Residents A Public Bank

60 Profitable Fortune 500 Companies Avoided All Federal Income Taxes in 2018

60 Profitable Fortune 500 Companies Avoided All Federal Income Taxes in 2018

For decades, profitable Fortune 500 companies have manipulated the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits. This ITEP report provides the first comprehensive look at how corporate tax changes under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affect the scale of corporate tax avoidance. The report finds that in 2018, 60 of America’s biggest corporations zeroed out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income. Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes at the 21 percent statutory corporate tax rate, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion.

Republican Deficits

Republican Tax Scam Reading

Republican Tax Plan Leaves $1.5 Trillion Bill For Middle Class To Pay
Law Professors Just Published A Delightful, 34-Page List Of Ways People Will Game The GOP Tax Plan
Cut We Cut The Crap On The Debt From The Tax Bill Hurting Our Kids?
What Happened When North Carolina Cut Taxes Like The GOP Plans To For The Country
I'm A Depression Historian. The GOP Tax Bill Is Straight Out Of 1929.
The Biggest Tax Scam In History
Incidence And Welfare Effects Of Corporate Tax Cuts
Voodoo Too: The GOP Addiction To Financial Deregulation
Schroedinger's Tax Hike
It Started As A Tax Cut. How It Could Change American Life.
Republicans Are Getting Ready To Repeat Kansas' Tax Cut Disaster
The Four Big Tax Deceptions

Note To Trump Voters: An Ally Can Turn

Sunday Reading

Corporate Profits Are Way Up, Corporate Taxes Are Way Down
Trump's Tax Plan: Having A Laugh On Laffer
Water Bill Violate Constitution
U.S. Appeals Court Upholds 15-Miles Residency Rule For Milwaukee Cops, Emergency Workers
Hacked Records Show Bradley Foundation Taking Its Conservative Wisconsin Model National
Evaluating Trump's First 100 Days - On His Own Terms
New Study Suggests That Men Need To Drink With Friends Twice A Week To Stay Healthy

For Years, We’ve Been Told Fat Clogs Our Arteries. Now, Scientists Say That’s All Wrong.

Wisconsin ranks among U.S. states with the heaviest tax burdens

Milwaukee County Programs Help Employ Hundreds Of Area Residents

Sunday Reading

The Case for Free Trade is Weaker Than You Think
This Study Shows How Low Corporate America's Taxes Really Are
Don't Dismantle Government - Fix It
Only About One-Quarter of Corporate Stock is Owned By Taxable Shareholders
Vast Majority of $22.8 Trillion is U.S. Corporate Stock Won't Be Taxed
America's Trickle-Down Experiment Has Failed
America Isn't Going Broke
The Most Horrendous Lie on Wall Street
New Stadium? Teams Now Want The Whole Neighborhood
The Truth About Football Stadiums: Those Supposed Great New Jobs Are Bogus
Should Retail Companies Get Subsidies?
The Suburb That Tried To Kill The Car

Weekend Reading

How The US Congress Hands US Corporate Taxes To Europe
Markets Don't Work As Well As We Thought
Confusion About The Financial Crisis Won't Die
To Quote Aaron Rodgers - "R-E-L-A-X"
Has The Most Reliable U.S. Recession Predictor Lost Its Value?
Bargaining Power And The Wage Curve: Important New Evidence

Holiday Reading

Truths & Myths About The Rise Of Part-Time Jobs
What Science Says About Marijuana
The Health Benefits Of Trees
Corporations Used To Pay Almost One-Third Of Federal Taxes. Now It's One-Tenth.

Charts To Email Your Right-Wing Brother In-Law

How Your City's Public Transit Stacks Up
State's Job Growth Defies Predictions After Tax Increases

U.S. Corporate Tax Avoidance

From The Transcript:

Avoiding taxes has become a hallmark of America’s business icons; Apple, Google, GE, and many more of the Fortune 500. The nation’s largest corporations are sitting on more than $2 trillion in cash while revenue from corporate income taxes have plummeted from just below 40 percent in 1943 to just below 10 percent in 2012. Government and big business have colluded to create what’s tantamount to an “unlimited IRA” for corporations. 

That’s not my term, although I wish I had thought of it, because it explains so much about what’s gone wrong in a country where some 20 million workers who would like a full-time job still can’t get one. Yet the upper one percent of the population takes home a staggering 22.5 percent of America’s income while their effective federal income tax rate has dropped.

Weekend Reading

Wisconsin's Health System Ranks In Top 10 In National Report
The Privatization Backlash
Backlash Against Privatization Is Growing in States and Cities Across the US
Biggest Infrastructure Need: States
Scott Walker's Health Care Dilemma
John Doe Probe Raises Issue Of Potential Conflicts With Justices
Federal Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin's Voter ID Law
Wisconsin Voter ID Ruling Could Cost State More Than $1 Million
FOX Find Another Anti-Government Wingnut [David Clarke] To Prop Up 
Ill-Advised Sheriff [David Clarke] Who Warned Of Second American Revolution
Walker Declines To Commit To Four-Year Wisconsin Term
Corporate Tax Attacks In The States
The Most Important Economic Chart

Time To Raise The U.S. Minimum Wage

A Chart That Demands Attention

A Rough Guide To Spotting Bad Science
A Chart To Share With People Who Complain About People On Welfare

The Real Moochers

As usual, the biggest government moochers are the well-connected, not the downtrodden:

• Cliven Bundy is part of a long tradition: corporate mooching
• New GAO Report: Federal Government Not Collecting a "Fair Return" from Drilling on Public Lands
• Government Accountability Office: Taxpayers Getting Stiffed by Flawed Federal Coal Lease System
• Unfair Share: How Oil and Gas Drillers Avoid Paying Royalties
• Step right up, Big Coal, for America’s Big Coal Giveaway
• A Sweetheart Deal For Big Coal Is A Slap In The Face To American Families
• A Fair Share: The Case of Updating Federal Royalties
• A Comparison of the Share of Revenue Received from Oil and Gas Production by the Federal Government and Other Resource Owners
• The Public's Airwaves
• The Price of Free Airwaves
• The Sorry State of Corporate Taxes
• The U.S. Has A Low Corporate Tax

Companies Spending More On Lobbying Than Taxes

[source]

Fortune 500 Companies Paying Little Or Nothing In State Income Taxes

Negative Income Tax For Corporate-personage ... It's The Wisconsin Way

Hey, all you hard-working, under-compensated Wisconsin folks: How would you like to pay a state income tax rate of 4.3 percent? Or, if that's too much, how about 2.2 percent? Still too rich for ya? Well, then, how about a Wisconsin state income tax of NEGATIVE ONE PERCENT? Yes, the state would PAY YOU a refund on zero taxes owed! Wow!

No Relationship Between Cutting Tax Rates On Corporate Profits And Job Growth

The Corporate Tax Rate Debate: Lower Taxes on Corporate Profits Not Linked to Job Creation

The American corporate tax system is badly broken. Some corporations pay more than a third of their profits in federal income taxes, while other equally profitable firms pay nothing at all. On average, corporations pay just 12.6 percent of their profits in federal income taxes, according to a recent study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

Corporate and political leaders keep telling us that cutting corporate tax rates will create jobs. 

Our examination of the evidence found no relationship between cutting tax rates on corporate profits and job growth.

We examined the job creation track record of 60 large, profitable U.S. corporations (from a list of 280 Fortune 500 companies) with the highest and lowest effective tax rates between 2008 and 2010 and found: 

• 22 of the 30 corporations that paid the highest tax rates (30 percent or more) on their reported profits created almost 200,000 jobs between 2008 and 2012. Only eight of the 30 firms paying high tax rates reported reducing the number of employees between 2008 and 2012. 

• The 30 profitable corporations that paid little or no taxes over three years collectively shed 51,289 jobs; half of these low-tax firms created some jobs, and half shed jobs between 2008 and 2012. 

• Lowe’s, the nation’s second-largest home improvement store, paid over 36 percent in taxes on reported profits of $9 billion between 2008 and 2010, and hired an additional 28,820 employees between 2008 and 2012. 

• Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless provider, reported $32 billion in U.S. profits between 2008 and 2010, yet received tax refunds totaling $951 million and reduced the number of employees by almost 56,000 between 2008 and 2012.

In 2004, when a temporary “tax holiday” on offshore profits was put in place, 58 firms brought $218 billion in profits back to the U.S. under the program, for a savings of $64 billion on their taxes. In the following two years, those 58 firms eliminated 600,000 jobs. 

In 2012, U.S. corporations reported earning nearly $1.8 trillion in profits. Had they paid the 35 percent tax rate on those profits, total corporate tax receipts would have been $630 billion (rather than the $242 billion they actually paid), and the deficit would have been reduced by nearly a third. 

Today, large U.S. corporations report more than $1 trillion in cash or liquid assets. They have the funds to invest in new jobs, should they choose to do so. We found no evidence that cutting the tax rate on corporate profits induces firms to create new jobs in the United States. However, several legal loopholes and deductions do discourage job creation in the U.S. and should be eliminated. This would raise significant revenue and make the tax code fairer.

We're Broke!*

"10 highest-paid chief executive officers running Wisconsin public companies scored an average pay increase of 31% last year, bringing their average compensation up to $10.5 million." [source]

* [source]

Weekend Reading

The Deficit Is Shrinking

Don't Blame Apple For Keeping Its Money
Austerity Does Not Help Unemployment, Stimulus Does
Subsidies - Good News And Not So Good
Wisconsin Lags Neighboring States In 12-Month Job Growth
Why We Need The Corporate Income Tax
Ben Bernanke, Force Of Nature
Hannity's Flip-Flopping On NSA Surveillance
Ron Johnson: 'Restoring Faith In Government' Is Wrong Solution
America's Worst Charities
College Costs Are Skyrocketing

U.S. Budget Cuts Too Fast, Slowing Recovery

Corporate Profits Up, Their Taxes Have Fallen

Ayn Rand USA: In 20 Years Corporate Profits Are Up 4X and Their Taxes Have Fallen by 50% -- Meanwhile the Workers' Payroll Tax Has Doubled

In the past twenty years, corporate profits have quadrupled while the corporate tax percent has dropped by half. The payroll tax, paid by workers, has doubled... 

Companies call their CEO bonuses "performance pay" to get a lower rate. Private equity firms call fees "capital gains" to get a lower rate. Fast food companies call their lunch menus "intellectual property" to get a lower rate. 

Prisons and casinos have stooped to the level of calling themselves "real estate investment trusts" (REITs) to gain tax exemptions. Stooping lower yet, Disney and others have added cows and sheep to their greenspace to get a farmland exemption... 

The IRS estimated that 17 percent of taxes owed were not paid in 2006, leaving an underpayment of $450 billion. The revenue loss from tax havens approaches $450 billion. Subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes are estimated at over $1 trillion. Expenditures overwhelmingly benefit the richest taxpayers... 

Only 3 percent of the CEOs, upper management, and financial professionals were entrepreneurs in 2005, even though they made up about 60 percent of the richest .1% of Americans. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. Job creators come from the middle class. 

So if the super-rich are not holding the world on their shoulders, what do they do with their money? According to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate.