Thanks! Mother lode... and Molly Ivins too -
And the start -
PERSPECTIVE - Profiteering makes a comeback
By Molly Ivins
11.02.01 - AUSTIN, Texas \ufffd I don't see how we can call the House
"economic stimulus" package anything but war-profiteering. The bill is a
disgrace, and the usual suspects from Texas \ufffd Tom Delay and Dick
Armey \ufffd hold large responsibility for it.
What happened here, while we were all being exposed to anthrax-scare
24-7, is that corporate hitchhikers, who got left out of the earlier tax-cut
package in favor of rich people, moved right in for the kill in the name of
patriotism and economic stimulus. The bill provides big tax cuts for big,
profitable corporations \ufffd IBM, General Motors and General Electric get a
total of $3.27 billion in immediate tax rebate checks.
A total of $25 billion in immediate tax rebates goes to large, profitable
corporations, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. That's twice as much
instant rebates to profitable corporations as the House, by two votes,
decided to give the 37 million low-income families who didn't qualify for
the original tax rebate.
Forty-one percent of the new tax cuts go to the richest 1 percent of
taxpayers, while only 7 percent goes to the bottom 60 percent,
according to the analysis by Tax Justice. Even more eye-popping cuts,
relative to size, go to a whole slew of Texas corporations, including TXU,
ChevronTexaco, Enron, etc. Dirty work at the crossroads \ufffd or, more
accurately, like the refrain of the country song, "Dead skunk in the
middle of the road, stinkin' to high heaven."
Another take on US world strategy VS all those speeches we hear around election times, re Our Goodness for All:
[link|http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/1774/sw177411.htm|A Socialist perspective on the longer haul..]
Then there're some stats (for the number folk) on what our little School of the Americas has accomplished for us, in creating love and such among the neighbors - in TTC's top link.
Well, that's all the Bad stuff about our Perennial Goodness I can take, for the mo-
A.
