Taxing “evil corporations” 100% would only pay 2 months of deficit

by Robert Canfield

Spending, not corporate jets, causing US debt problems

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress continue to insist that U.S. corporations need to “pay their fair share” in order to resolve our national debt problems. They want more revenue, a.k.a more TAXES, from those “evil corporations”. And that leads us to the big question: Is our national debt a spending problem or a revenue problem?

Democrats want U.S. companies to pay their “fair share” to close the deficit gap. Ok! Let’s give it the old Democrat try. Let’s really STICK IT to those evil corporations and their Lear jets, tax breaks for the rich, etc. Are you ready? Here we go!

Let’s target the largest U.S. corporations, those with annual gross revenues of over $40 billion per year. There are over 60 of these giant corporations in the U.S. Let’s not beat around the Bush. Let’s go all the way. Let’s tax their annual net profits at 100%. That’s the kind of fair share that any Democrat would be happy with. How much would a 100% tax on the annual net profit of these largest companies raise? A whopping $204.8 BILLION dollars!!!

Wow, you’re thinking. $204.8 billion additional corporate tax dollars every year would shoot down those corporate Lear jets and those tax breaks for the rich! It seems like those new corporate tax dollars would make a big dent in our national debt! That’s what I’d call a fair share, wouldn’t you?

There’s just one little problem. Currently, U.S. Government spending outpaces revenues by $118 BILLION per month. That’s right. The U.S. spends $1.4 TRILLION per year more than it receives in revenue. Even if Congress taxed 100% of the annual net profits of every U.S. company with over $40 billion in annual gross revenue, it would pay for less than TWO MONTHS of our monthly deficit of $118 billion per month. Think about that.

Clearly, we have a spending problem. Obama and the Democrats are barking up the wrong tree. There will never be enough additional “fair share” tax revenue to solve our national debt problems.

Robert Canfield is a communications consultant and former Troutdale City Councilor and budget committee member.

(Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/full_list/, http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/16/news/economy/debt_ceiling_deadline/index.htm )