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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Baldur Fjvlnisson who wrote (334953)	12/30/2002 9:25:34 AM
From: Baldur Fjvlnisson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Just think - offshore tax havens and shelters enable corporations and executives to evade an estimated $70 billion in taxes each year. How can anyone in this country suggest we have a fair system when companies can take $70 billion off the table? That undermines the very essence of our government. It’s a system only companies like Enron could love. And did they ever. Enron held over 800 subsidiaries in countries with no taxes on income, profits, or capital gains -- 692 in the Cayman Islands alone. I believe in opening new markets and I want American companies to win. But I know we can distinguish between legitimate businesses and sham transactions. Assets in offshore entities have climbed from an estimated $200 billion in 1983, to an estimated $5 trillion today - and too many are brass plate addresses with a fax machine in an offshore tax haven. What does that say to the vast majority of Americans who actually pay taxes? And the silence from this Administration speaks volumes! They’ve dragged their feet and fought every attempt to crack down on corporate loopholes. It’s time we stood up and insisted on real reform and real tax fairness. We must also take a hard look at federal spending. We simply can’t afford to keep wasting money on the wrong things. It won’t be easy. The special interests will stop at nothing to keep their special deals. That’s why I’ve joined John McCain in calling for a “Corporate Subsidy Reform Commission” modeled after the military base-closing commission. A bipartisan group would recommend corporate subsidies to be eliminated and Congress would have to vote up or down on the entire package. It’s the only way to stop the games that go on in Washington. When I first came to the Senate, each year millions upon millions of dollars were lavished on a wool and mohair subsidy cooked up during WWI to make sure we’d have plenty of wool and mohair for our soldiers’ uniforms. But even after we stopped making our uniforms out of wool and mohair, the subsidy continued. I came to the Senate floor again and again - finally we killed it. Or we thought we did. Last year it came back. This kind of wasteful, no-growth, special interest giveaway is alive and well -- again. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg. We were presented a defense bill that gave away $250,000 to an Illinois firm to research caffeinated chewing gum; $750,000 for grasshopper research in Alaska; $250,000 for a lettuce geneticist in Salinas, California and $64,000 for urban pest research in Georgia. This is our defense budget? By eliminating these expenditures would you balance the budget? No. But that’s not the point. The point is that no politician can - with credibility - tell you he’s ‘fiscally responsible’ if he stays silent while these games are played. Is wasteful spending a tiny part of the budget? Yes. But it’s far more than most working people will ever see in their lives and invested in choices that do matter -- that do grow our economy -- it can make a world of difference. It’s a question of choices. The Fossil Energy Research and Development program spends more than $400 million on R&D for oil companies who can afford their own R&D- and even duplicates research they’re already engaged in. And for 130 years the Federal government has allowed companies to mine on publicly owned lands for free, in addition to letting them buy those lands way below market price -- $5 an acre or less. If we simply required small, fair royalties and eliminated the giveaway of public lands we could save another $519 million over 5 years. It’s time we made that our policy so we can invest in things that really matter. INVESTING IN THE FUTURE In fact I think it’s time for us to engage in a great enterprise of job creation for the long-term future. And there’s a way to do it that not only plays to the best of America’s creative and entrepreneurial spirit, but that improves our quality of life. In the 1960’s President Kennedy challenged America to go into space and go to the moon within a decade. John Glenn was one of our leaders on the journey. As the President said then, we would do it not because it was easy but because it was hard. We need to now go to the moon here on earth by setting America on the course to energy independence. And in doing so, we can create millions of new jobs, even as we improve the quality of our lives and our security.