Reevaluating Tax Breaks

If you could implement any change in the United States government what would it be?  This is more powerful question than most people take time to realize. Chances are if you asked one hundred different people you would get one hundred different answers.  One thing that could use some serious reevaluation would be the tax breaks we have in our current tax system, primarily for the big corporations.  Why you may ask, well the answer is simple, its because although some tax breaks are necessary and adequate, others are lenient and can be perceived as making a mockery of the system.

 This article titled 10 Facts About Corporate Taxes That Will Make Your Blood Boil  gives us a look into the confusing world of the corporate tax system. With the national deficit currently at an all time high, giving companies that are bringing in record revenues big tax breaks seem counter productive to our problem.  In the 1950's corporate taxes accounted for about 30% of all federal revenue, in 2006 it was just 6.6%. In other words that is down about five times less than what it was in the 1950's.  The United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world at about 35%, so the question is why does it only generate less than 7% of federal revenue? Well the corporation have become experts at finding breaks in the system, primarily by means overseas.  Corporations will keep the revenues in off shore accounts therefore avoiding being taxed by the United States.

Looking deeper into the subject we can examine some individual companies and see what they paid in taxes.   General Electric made a total of 14.2 billion dollars in profits last year.  So how much did they pay in taxes to the U.S. Treasury?  According to the New York Times, not one penny was paid.  However, General Electric disputes this. How About Exxon Mobile?  They paid 15 billion in taxes in 2009, but not one penny went to the United States government. Boeing which receives billions in government subsidies every year, and has a contract with the United States government, not one penny was paid in taxes.  Did you pay taxes to federal government last year? If you were employed at anytime then yes you did, why should multi-billion dollar corporations posting record profits quarter after quarter not be asked to pay anything? Doing this would help to reduce the national deficit.

Now I am not saying that we need to completely do away with tax breaks, I just think the entire system needs to be broken down and reassembled to a more productive system that is fair for all of us, from the big corporation to the sixteen year olds working their first job at minimum wage. 

Fukushima, The Aftermath

Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman of CounterPunch: "America's Best Political Newsletter" wrote an article titled  Exposing the "No Harm" Mantra The Dangerous Myths of Fukushima .  This article is about the aftermath of last years earthquake and tsunamis that sent nuclear plants into meltdown.


A brief background on the authors:


Dr. Joseph Mangano serves as the Program Manager of the Advanced Lithography program and oversees efforts designed to revolutionize semiconductor lithography technology through accelerated research of highly innovative technical approaches that enable pattern transfer to wafers of features of 100 nm and below. The program emphasizes reducing technical barriers in the major lithography technologies, including exposure sources and areas relevant to more than one technology option.
From 1984 to2004, Dr. Mangano served as a Vice President and Senior Research Scientist at Science Research Laboratory  From 1978 to 1984, Dr. Mangano served as the Program Manager, Division Director, and Deputy Office Director for DARPA where he led programs in excimer lasers, free electron lasers, particle beam technology, and blue-green submarine laser communications.Dr. Mangano earned S.B., S.M., E.E., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Plasma Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


Janette Sherman, M.D. specializes in internal medicine and toxicology with an emphasis on chemicals and nuclear radiation that cause illness, including cancer and birth defects. She graduated from Western Michigan University with majors in biology and chemistry and from the Wayne State University College of Medicine. Prior to medical school, she worked for the Atomic Energy Commission (forerunner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) at the University of California in Berkeley, and for the U.S. Navy Radiation Defense Laboratory in San Francisco. From 1976–1982 Dr. Sherman served on the advisory board for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxic Substances Control Act.


The authors of this article were attempting to reach out the general public in order to bring some awareness to the issue, basically because it effects all of us, even here in the United States.  They provided some alarming statistics in the article about the fallout since the disaster.  It is something that we should all take seriously.  


As we dig a little deeper into the article, lets take some time to break it down.  There appears to be a clear distinction here between the scientific arguments made in this article and the political arguments the authors claim are being made against it.  They claim that political arguments state that the radiation levels are low and not harmful to humans in such small doses.  The authors states that one year after Fukushima the evidence is mounting against that very argument, and it seems to be pretty convincing.


At first the Japanese government said the emissions from Fukushima were just 10% of the one from Chernobyl (a nuclear disaster that occurred in 1986), which they later doubled to 20%, but by October of 2011, they said is was double that of Chernobyl.  Taking those number alone into consideration would suggest that it is being naive and unrealistic to think that humans aren't at risk from the toxins released into the air from the meltdown.  


Meteorologists from all around the world tracked the radioactive particles and gases days after the meltdown, just six days after the incident those gases had already reached the United States, and eighteen days later had circled the Northern Hemisphere.  It is becoming evident that there is a real problem here. A gas known as Xenon 133 was reported as being 40,000 times higher that normal levels in the United States, and though this gas does not enter the body, it signifies that other gases are on the way, as the article states.  


The article goes on to give other statistics about how other gases in out US environment have gone up as a result from the meltdown, radioactive rain that can poison the human body,573 people near the site who died were cited by coroner as a result of the disaster. One survey showed a decrease in the birth rate and increase in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).  Some deaths in the United States were said to be related to the meltdown.  It is a scary thing to think about when analyzing the effect of the Fukushima meltdown, but to simply accept the notions the Japanese government was putting out there that radiation levels were not a threat to us, the general public, after the meltdown would be a foolish thing to do, as the authors of the article have pointed out, there are two sides to every story. Perhaps some of the statistics provided in this article have other elements factoring into them, but overall this is a topic that should be taken very seriously so that things may be done to prevent it from ever happening again and, also, procedures can be put into place for effective reaction should it ever occur again.