The WSJ editorial board is conservative but the paper and its reporting is down the middle. Mr Judy Woodruff is Al Hunt and he is the Journal's chief Washington correspondent. He does not run the paper or its editorial board. He is the papers "token" liberal columnist and has an opinion piece in the WSJ every Thursday.
Do you read it? I do. Today's gem was that the new corporate tax breaks were going to shareholders and to pay down debt, not to hire new employees. The libs are clearly running the show there as they do CNBC, which I dont watch much anymore.
typical....
Tax Windfall May Not Boost
Hiring Despite Claims
Some Companies Plan to Use
New Break on Foreign Profits
For Debt and Other Needs
By GLENN R. SIMPSON and GREGORY ZUCKERMAN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 13, 2004; Page A1
WASHINGTON -- Big companies long lobbied for a tax cut on their overseas profit as a way to spur U.S. job growth. But now that it has been granted, much of the windfall won't go toward hiring but for such uses as strengthening balance sheets, buying back shares and making acquisitions.
The one-year break, included in a sweeping tax bill that cleared the Senate and went to the president this week, will allow hundreds of billions of dollars in overseas profit to be brought home by dozens of U.S. companies at a steeply reduced tax rate. By some estimates, U.S. companies have parked as much as $500 billion in profit abroad to avoid taxes back home.
Companies say the repatriated money, which would be taxed at a 5.25% rate instead of 35%, will provide stimulus and better position them for hiring in the long run. Software company Oracle Corp., for instance, likely will use some of the billions it will bring home to help finance its aggressive acquisition strategy. Computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. says it may devote a substantial portion of the several billion dollars it plans to bring back to paying down debt from its purchase of Compaq Computer Corp. -- a transaction that led to layoffs.