With our manufacturing base ravaged via offshoring, an estimated 30 million domestic jobs have been lost since the Reagan era with acceleration of such post NAFTA in the mid 90′s and beyond. We now have a nation of folks that used to have blue collar jobs making products for both domestic and to some degree global consumption, that are suffering greatly due to manipulation of all aspects of that which once made this nation great. Under Reagan we went from the world’s greatest lending nation to that of its greatest debtor. That’s what trickle down;I.E, ‘voodoo economics’ hath wrought.

Starting in the early 70′s and beyond with Nixon and Kissinger opening up the vast Chinese labor market at the behest of David Rockefeller, the demise of the U.S. manufacturing base was a fait accompli. Labor arbitrage became the order of the day relative to how the ‘Captains of Industry’ perceived the U.S. vs. vastly cheaper sources of the same in the Far East. We were sold out by our compromised Congress and successive presidencies that marched lockstep to their globalist slanted jody calls.

I’m not advocating we go back to punitive 90% taxation on the rich, but they and their U.S. based corporations need to pay their fair share. Many corporations now are represented by simply a mail box on Little Cayman Island or a small house in Wyoming and elsewhere to provide a so-called corporate presence. Supposedy U.S. corporate tax rates are the second highest in the world, second only to Japan, but we hear that many major corporations such as GE manage to completely avoid paying any taxes within the letter of our tax laws. Why so? Many if not most corporations have entire departments dedicated to finessing the tax code to their benefit. It’s loopholes like this that need to be summarily cut off. If they leave the U.S. in a huff than products produced by their offshore manufacturing entities need to have a hefty tariff placed upon them. This too could possibly spark domestic entreprenuerialship for producing those goods now offshored again on our mainland; with us being able to produce them more cheaply.

Something has gone horribly wrong with America’s business and government ethic along with our system of taxation which needs a major overhaul. Why anyone would want to destroy this great nation is beyond my event horizon. We have a lot of work to do, but we can turn things about. In that sense I’m an optimist, but with our elected reps and the Chief Executive, President Obama, talking out of both sides of their collective mouths; it leaves us little hope. None of them discuss the offshoring phenomena and the destruction of our manufacturing base along with any ideas on how to turn things about. Globalism is their new religion and it’s “to hell with us”, we now simply to be their abject, unquestioning tax slaves.

I’m going to provide a link concerning questionable corporate practices. So too these type services are available on the Little Cayman Island and in Europe. It’s estimated that a half trillion dollars in taxes are both avoided or outright circumvented by these type ‘storefront’ ops. The U.S. has been turned into simply ‘doormat’ nation for corporate freebooters to exploit and to wipe their soiled corporate feet upon.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009138/1700-sq-ft-house-rural-Wyoming-home-2-000-corporations.html

In summation I’m not for simply raising taxes, but achieving balance and fairness across the entire spectrum of tax revenue producing sources.

Even more importantly we must pass a balanced budget amendment and make it stick. Not one cent more to be spent than can be supported by fair taxation. Without a balanced budget this entire discussion of spending cuts and cockamamie tax schemes are an exercise in futility.

Carl Nemo **==

In fact my federal taxes have remained very steady through the LBJ…Nixon….Carter….Reagan years. Rates may decrease but deductions are altered so it turns out to be a wash. The the Gawd Awful SS con game drains some more as the years go by. That percent just goes up a shade here and there but when you comp it in ten year blocks it is an eye opener.

I pulled ten years of taxes and the fluctuation from 1964 to 2004 is just a few percent. My only real advantage in the last ten years has been the fact I get nicked less in capital gains but that gets compensated by various other changes such as in business expenses/income. Again, a wash.

There have been enough web sites to show the tax burden expanding over the years. I can’t dispute it since they put in all that crap we never think about.

When I look at tax burden I look at the entire puzzle and the Feds are just a part of it.

J.

My thoughts exactly. Then instead of addressing the problem the new guy exasperates it. When you are in a fiscal hole you don’t add debt – financial 101. And the debt they have added! Our legacy to the next generation.

Are you telling me you were better off under the tax structure before Reagan? And that you’d be better off if we just repealed all those cuts and went back to that structure?

If so, I could get behind that.

J.

That was not how I’d have spent it, I concur.

J.

Like water, it rolls downhill.

J.