“But what was really striking about the bill that passed late at night in both houses of Congress was not the treatment of the Bush tax cuts. It was the inclusion, in the bill, of a whole raft of special tax favors for industry. Goldman Sachs, General Electric, and Citigroup got extension of a provision that allows US companies to move overseas profits into offshore financial subsidiaries, even though President Obama had criticized companies for doing just this. This one provision allowed General Electric, a key Obama ally, to avoid paying much US income tax. Some of the other 50 corporate tax breaks benefited the movie industry, another key Obama ally, green energy companies, biotechnology companies, a NASCAR racecar track owned by an ally of a Democratic senator in Michigan, and StarKist Tuna, which is close to Nancy Pelosi (D-California), former speaker of the House of Representatives.”

“Moreover, this was not a list of corporate tax breaks sponsored by Republicans, generally thought to be closer to industry, or developed by both parties. It was a bill coming out of a Senate committee chaired by Max Baucus (D-Montana) in August 2012 and passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, which was then blocked by the Republican-controlled House. Most Capitol Hill observers thought it was dead. President Obama, however, insisted that it be folded into the fiscal cliff bill where he knew Republicans would not be able to block it.107”

“This was President Obama’s personal list of corporate tax breaks. The breaks, taken together, cost the US government per year more than the expected tax receipts from eliminating the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $400,000 a year, $67 billion in 2013 versus $62 billion. The only difference was that the corporate tax breaks were mostly for a year to two so that the special interests involved would have to come back to get them renewed, which would in turn create plenty of incentive to make campaign contributions.”

Excerpt From: Lewis, Hunter. “Crony Capitalism In America.” AC2 Books. iBooks.

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