Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party |
- GE Filed 57,000-Page Tax Return, Paid No Taxes on $14 Billion in Profits
- Tea Party Groups Push GOP On Taxes
- Paul: Obama health care more fascism than socialism
- Pentagon successfully tests hypersonic flying bomb
- Antibiotic-resistant infections spread through Europe
- Tea parties unite to pick GOP candidate to take on Stabenow
| GE Filed 57,000-Page Tax Return, Paid No Taxes on $14 Billion in Profits Posted: 18 Nov 2011 11:17 AM PST BY JOHN MCCORMACK, The Weekly Standard General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn’t pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked. The fact that GE paid no taxes in 2010 was widely reported earlier this year, but the size of its tax return first came to light when House budget committee chairman Paul Ryan (R, Wisc.) made the case for corporate tax reform at a recent townhall meeting. “GE was able to utilize all of these various loopholes, all of these various deductions–it’s legal,” Ryan said. Nine billion dollars of GE’s profits came overseas, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. tax law. GE wasn’t taxed on $5 billion in U.S. profits because it utilized numerous deductions and tax credits, including tax breaks for investments in low-income housing, green energy, research and development, as well as depreciation of property. “I asked the GE tax officer, ‘How long was your tax form?’” Ryan said. “He said, ‘Well, we file electronically, we don’t measure in pages.’” Ryan asked for an estimate, which came back at a stunning 57,000 pages. When Ryan relayed the story at the townhall meeting in Janesville, there were audible gasps from the crowd. Ken Kies, a tax lawyer who represents GE, confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD the tax return would have been 57,000 pages had it been filed on paper. The size of GE’s tax return has more than doubled in the last five years. Ryan used the data point to underscore the irrationality of the corporate income tax code. He also contrasted GE with UPS to make the point that the corporate income tax code doesn’t make sense. “UPS paid a 34 percent effective tax rate,” while its biggest foreign competitor, DHL, paid a 24 percent tax rate, Ryan said. To read more, visit: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/ge-filed-57000-page-tax-return-paid-no-taxes-14-billion-profits_609137.html |
| Tea Party Groups Push GOP On Taxes Posted: 18 Nov 2011 11:13 AM PST By Kevin Bohn, WLKY.com (CNN) — Several tea party-aligned groups are pushing Republican members of Congress not to support tax increases as a congressional super committee tries to come up with a proposal to cut at least $1.2 billion from the nation’s debt. Republicans serving on the committee that is charged with cutting $1.2 trillion in federal spending over 10 years have proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes balanced against a reduction in tax rates and tax reform. Americans for Prosperity is pushing 40 House Republicans who have previously indicated a willingness to support new taxes to reverse course and is going up with a $50,000 radio ad campaign on Thursday targeting five House Republicans who serve on the Appropriations Committee. The ad says in part the members “recently joined 40 Republicans and 60 Democrats signing a letter asking the congressional super committee to consider ‘all options for mandatory and discretionary spending and revenues.’ Americans for Prosperity is concerned that this could make higher taxes. And, tax increases would be disastrous.” The ad is airing in the districts of Reps. Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri; Charles Dent of Pennsylvania; Frank Wolf of Virginia; Steve LaTourette of Ohio; and Ander Crenshaw of Florida. Wolf’s spokesman Daniel Scandling said in reaction “Congressman Wolf does not support raising taxes. He does support closing loopholes and ending the practice of tax earmarks” and said Wolf “has been talking about putting everything on the table for almost six years.” Emerson’s chief of staff Jeffrey Connor told CNN in reaction to the ad: “Revenues are not necessarily taxes – revenue includes things like expanding offshore oil leases and selling unneeded federal lands, eliminating fraud in the Additional Child Tax Credit and bringing U.S. corporate revenues back to American shores.” The offices of Dent, LaTourette and Crenshaw did not respond to requests for comment. To read more, visit: http://www.wlky.com/r/29799162/detail.html |
| Paul: Obama health care more fascism than socialism Posted: 18 Nov 2011 11:06 AM PST By Paige Winfield Cunningham, WashingtonTimes.com It’s doubtful whether anyone opposes President Obama’s health care law more than Ron Paul, but the Texas congressman said Wednesday that the sweeping legislation is not socialized medicine — contrary to claims made by his fellow presidential contenders Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain. Instead, Mr. Paul called the Affordable Care Act "corporate medicine leading toward fascism," insisting that his definition was much worse. "It’s not socialized medicine, but it’s characteristic and creates the same things," he said in comments before the Congressional Health Care Caucus, which invited him to speak on Capitol Hill. "You always have shortages on socialized medicine, but you always have shortages when you have government intervention — like we do now. "You keep the businessman involved, but the businessman makes a lot of profit and he’s in bed [with] and gets protection from the government," said Mr. Paul, one of a handful of doctors who serve in Congress. "That’s not a very good alternative. They’re both very bad and some of the bad aspects would overlap." Mr. Obama had originally hoped for a universal health care system where a public option would compete with private plans on insurance exchanges, but was forced to compromise when his plan appeared politically untenable. To read more, visit: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2011/nov/16/paul-obama-health-care-more-fascism-socialism/ |
| Pentagon successfully tests hypersonic flying bomb Posted: 18 Nov 2011 11:02 AM PST From: Google.com WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Thursday held a successful test flight of a flying bomb that travels faster than the speed of sound and will give military planners the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world in less than a hour. Launched by rocket from Hawaii at 1130 GMT, the “Advanced Hypersonic Weapon,” or AHW, glided through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific “at hypersonic speed” before hitting its target on the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands, a Pentagon statement said. Kwajalein is about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii. The Pentagon did not say what top speeds were reached by the vehicle, which unlike a ballistic missile is maneuverable. Scientists classify hypersonic speeds as those that exceed Mach 5 — or five times the speed of sound — 3,728 miles (6,000 kilometers) an hour. The test aimed to gather data on “aerodynamics, navigation, guidance and control, and thermal protection technologies,” said Lieutenant Colonel Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman. The US Army’s AHW project is part of the “Prompt Global Strike” program which seeks to give the US military the means to deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within an hour. To read more, visit: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jTJeu2vLniWcT_-Sqc5IQQUOPesQ?docId=CNG.1e15397ba6f112f35bec6eb7fd662ef1.1b1 |
| Antibiotic-resistant infections spread through Europe Posted: 18 Nov 2011 10:55 AM PST By: Jeremy Laurance, The Independent The world is being driven towards the “unthinkable scenario of untreatable infections”, experts are warning, because of the growth of superbugs resistant to all antibiotics and the dwindling interest in developing new drugs to combat them. Reports are increasing across Europe of patients with infections that are nearly impossible to treat. The European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) said yesterday that in some countries up to 50 per cent of cases of blood poisoning caused by one bug – K. pneumoniae, a common cause of urinary and respiratory conditions – were resistant to carbapenems, the most powerful class of antibiotics. Across Europe, the percentage of carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae has doubled from 7 per cent to 15 per cent. The ECDC said it is “particularly worrying” because carbapenems are the last-line antibiotics for treatment of multi-drug-resistant infections. Marc Sprenger, the director, said: “The situation is critical. We need to declare a war against these bacteria.” In 2009, carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae was established only in Greece, but by 2010, it had extended to Italy, Austria, Cyprus and Hungary. The bacterium is present in the intestinal tract and is transmitted by touch. Resistant strains of E.coli also increased in 2010. Between 25 and 50 per cent of E.coli infections in Italy and Spain were resistant to fluoroquinolones in 2010, one of the most important antibiotics for treating the bacterium. To read more, visit: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/antibioticresistant-infections-spread-through-europe-6264079.html |
| Tea parties unite to pick GOP candidate to take on Stabenow Posted: 18 Nov 2011 10:41 AM PST By: Marisa Schultz/ The Detroit News Tea party groups in Michigan plan a statewide convention and straw poll to pick their GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in an unprecedented move of solidarity to avoid splitting their votes. Organizers say the only way to ensure a true constitutional conservative defeats Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow in the 2012 election is for tea parties to unite around one candidate. For fiercely independent groups leery of a top-down power structure, a decision to work together on behalf of the straw poll winner reflects the urgency of their cause, organizers say, though some tea party supporters question whether the alliance weakens the freedom of the grass-roots cause. “Our best chance … is if we unite and start now,” said Cindy Gamrat, of Plainwell, an organizer of the tea parties’ Michigan 4 Conservative Senate push. “It’s a big feat we are undertaking.” With a rallying force Gamrat puts at 15,000 tea party members, the unification effort could be a big boost to a Republican challenger to former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Holland, a frontrunner who has netted endorsements from many prominent members of the GOP, but who has had difficulty convincing some tea party groups he’s conservative enough. Several candidates vying for the Republican nomination say the chance to win a unified tea party endorsement is an enormous opportunity. To read more, visit: http://www.detnews.com/article/20111118/POLITICS02/111180382/Tea-parties-unite-to-pick-GOP-candidate-to-take-on-Stabenow |
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