Pork Salad Harry: Millions in Corporate Tax Credits While Personal Taxes Rise

Confounded Interest ^ | 01/03/2012 | Anthony B. Sanders

[whitedog57]

Eileen Norcross of Mercatus wrote an excellent article for American Spectator where she says:

“On his blog, Confounded Interest, GMU finance professor Anthony Sanders dryly notes that the American Taxpayer Relief Act does nothing of the sort. As he puts it, “How is adding $4 trilion to the federal deficit in 10 years called, ‘relief’?””

I winced at “dryly” but her “Notes on the Cliff” is a must read.

Calling the bill “The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012” is laughable. Not just the $4 trillion in Federal deficits to be added (which future taxpayers have to pay), but the sheer level of pork barrel spending took my breath away.

- $430 million for Hollywood through “special expensing rules” to encourage TV and film production in the United States. Producers can expense up to $15 million of costs for their projects.

- $331 million for railroads by allowing short-line and regional operators to claim a tax credit up to 50 percent of the cost to maintain tracks that they own or lease.

- $222 million for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands through returned excise taxes collected by the federal government on rum produced in the islands and imported to the mainland.

- $70 million for NASCAR by extending a “7-year cost recovery period for certain motorsports racing track facilities.”

- $59 million for algae growers through tax credits to encourage production of “cellulosic biofuel” at up to $1.01 per gallon.

- $4 million for electric motorcycle makers by expanding an existing green-energy tax credit for buyers of plug-in vehicles to include electric motorbikes.

- In progress: additional tax credits for college students living in fraternity and sorority houses (Animal House toga and alcohol subsidy?) BILLS-112hr1327ih

Among other pork barrel spending that has nothing to do with taxpayer relief. Maybe Puerto Rican taxpayers. See the rest here: 118551686-Fiscal-Cliff-Bill

We now know that President Obama, “Pork Salad” Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell loaded in this pork barrel spending and gave Senate members only minutes to dive through the fat.

This is very troubling given the decline in wages and salaries (as a percentage of GDP) and the rise of corporate profits. Even the Huffington Post acknowledged that taxes rose on 77% of the population.

While corporate profits after tax have skyrocketed.

True, corporations employ people. But there is seriously something “leviathan” about sticking taxpayers with trillions in deficits and debts while corporations (including Hollywood) get a break. Waiting to hear from Michael Moore, Matt Damon, George Clooney and Danny Glover (but not holding my breath).

I wish I could sing the Tony Joe White hit “Poke Salad Annie” with the words “Pork Harry.” Or Pork Salad Barry or Pork Barrel Mitch.

[whitedog57]

Fraternity and sorority tax subsidy????????

[TigersEye]

Who would have ever thought that a mob connected criminal like Harry Reid would do something like this!?! /s

[VRWC For Truth]

DC has declared war on the producers. It’s time for the producers to lay an economic SEIGE on DC.