The Corporations That Occupy Congress

By David Cay Johnston
Reuters
December 20, 2011

http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2011/12/20/the-corporations-that-occupy-congress/

[go to the original to see a descriptive chart - moderator]

Some of the biggest companies in the United States have been
firing workers and in some cases lobbying for rules that
depress wages at the very time that jobs are needed, pay is
low, and the federal budget suffers from a lack of revenue.

Last month Citizens for Tax Justice and an affiliate issued
'Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10'. It
showed that 30 brand-name companies paid a federal income tax
rate of minus 6.7 percent on $160 billion of profit from 2008
through 2010 compared to a going corporate tax rate of 35
percent. All but one of those 30 companies reported lobbying
expenses in Washington.

Another report, by Public Campaign, shows that 29 of those
companies spent nearly half a billion dollars over those
three years lobbying in Washington for laws and rules that
favor their interests. Only Atmos Energy, the 30th company,
reported no lobbying.

Public Campaign replaced Atmos with Federal Express, the
package delivery company that paid a smidgen of tax - $37
million, or less than one percent of the $4.2 billion in
profit it reported in 2008 through 2010.

For the amount spent lobbying, the companies could have hired
3,100 people at $50,000 for wages and benefits to do
productive work.

The report - "For Hire: Lobbyists or the 99 percent" - says
that while shedding jobs, the 30 companies are "spending
millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists to stave off
higher taxes or regulations."

These and other companies have access to lawmakers and
regulators that are unavailable to ordinary Americans.

CALL CONGRESS

Doubt that? Dial the Capitol switchboard at (202)
224-3121 , ask for your representative’s office and
request a five-minute audience, in person, at the lawmaker’s
convenience back in the home district.

In more than a decade of lectures recommending this, I have
yet to have a single person email me about having scored a
private meeting with the representative called.

Corporations have vast resources to pour into ensuring access
- resources that expand when little or no taxes are paid on
profits thanks to rules they previously lobbied into law.

Companies form nonprofit trade associations, hire former
lawmakers and agency staffers, and have jobs to dole out to
lawmakers after they leave office and to friends and family
while they’re in office. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s
Citizens United decision, corporations can now pour unlimited
sums into influencing elections. So can unions, but they are
financial pipsqueaks compared to companies.

Then there are political action committees, or PACs, to
finance campaigns as well as donations by executives and
major shareholders.

Combine all this and you have a powerful formula for making
rules that favor corporate interests over human interests,
something that the framers of the U.S. Constitution
understood more than two centuries ago.

James Madison wrote disapprovingly in 1792 of "a government
operating by corrupt influence, substituting the motive of
private interest in place of public duty" where eventually
"the terror of the sword, may support a real domination of
the few, under an apparent liberty of the many."

FEARS COME TRUE

The late U.S. president’s fears have come to life. For
swords, just substitute police with rubber bullets, batons
and pepper spray at Occupy demonstrations, including
perfectly peaceful ones.

Company reports to shareholders show that among the 30
companies in the Public Campaign report, the 10 firms that
spent the most on lobbying during the same three-year period
fired more than 93,000 American workers.

Those firings took place in an economy that had five million
fewer people with any work in 2010 than in 2008.

All those firings mean higher costs to taxpayers to support
those unable to find work, including the more than 4.2
million Americans who are now persevering by applying for
jobs after more than a year. Millions more have given up and
are no longer counted among the unemployed.

Federal Express spent $25 million lobbying to protect a rule
that makes it virtually impossible for its express delivery
workers to unionize. That’s 67 percent of what it paid in
taxes.

FedEx says it was "educating lawmakers" about a proposal
"that would cripple competition in the express delivery
industry and hinder our nation’s future economic success."

The Teamsters, who represent drivers at United Parcel
Service, say FedEx was protecting a special interest rule
that shorts workers. UPS pays its unionized drivers 53
percent to 104 percent more per hour than FedEx does.

The United States already ranks second among modern nations,
just behind South Korea, in the share of its workers in low-
wage jobs while too many companies lobby for ever lower
taxes, ever smaller wages and ever fewer worker rights to
protect the mighty torrents of greenbacks flowing into their
coffers. A better balance would make America better off.

© 2011 Reuters

David Cay Johnston is the author of Free Lunch: How the
Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense
(and Stick You With the Bill).

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