Hey, Corporate America! Show Taxpayers Some Appreciation!
Bernard Farquart
But I don't like spam!
<chris...@votenader.org> wrote in message
news:22342489...@host-69-48-73-244.roc.choiceone.net...
> Hey, Corporate America! Show Taxpayers Some Appreciation!
> By Ralph Nader
>
> If you work for a corporation, ask your own employer to support
> Taxpayer Appreciation Day. (We?ve included contact information at the
> end of the article.)
>
> Take Action Now! April 15 is just around the corner. Please let us know
> what action you?ve taken and what type of response you receive at
> tax...@votenader.org
>
> I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that April 15th of each
> year be designated Taxpayer Appreciation Day, a day when corporations
> receiving taxpayer subsidies, bailouts, and other forms of corporate
> welfare can express their thanks to the citizens who provide them.
>
> Though it may not be evident, quite a few industries -- and the profits
> they generate -- can be traced back to taxpayer-financed programs whose
> fruits have been given away to (mostly) larger businesses.
>
> Taxpayer dollars have often funded discoveries made by NASA, the
> Department of Defense, and the National Institutes of Health and other
> federal agencies. In many instances the rights to those discoveries were
> later given away to companies that brag about them as though they were
> the fruits of their own investments. Taxpayer dollars have played a
> major role in the growth of the aviation and aerospace, biotechnology,
> pharmaceutical, and telecommunications industries -- to name only a few.
>
> Though corporate America insists it must file yearly income taxes just
> like everyone else, it is responsible for a sharply decreasing portion
> of federal tax dollars -- despite record profits. Despite record
> profits, corporate tax contributions to the federal budget have been
> steadily declining for fifty years and now stand at a mere 7.4% of the
> federal government income because of the loopholes they driven into our
> tax laws. The average citizen pays more than four to five times that in
> federal income tax revenues (with the single exception of payroll
> taxes).
>
> Clearly corporations that believe they are self-reliant are often, in
> fact, dependent on taxpayer funds to maintain their financial viability.
> The least they could do is thank us. Which is why we need something like
> Taxpayer Appreciation Day. Consider the following:
>
> General Electric bought RCA (which owned NBC) in the mid-1980s with
> funds it was able to save by using an outrageous tax loophole passed by
> Congress in 1981. That loophole allowed GE to pay no federal taxes on
> three years of profits, totaling more than $6 billion dollars. It also
> gave them a $125 million refund! That gave GE the money to buy RCA. GE
> should arrange a media extravaganzas on NBC to say "Thank you,
> taxpayers.? Pharmaceutical companies constantly ballyhoo their
> discoveries in advertisements. What they don't tell us is that many of
> the important nonredundant therapeutic drugs -- including most
> anticancer drugs -- were developed, in whole or in part, with taxpayer
> money and then given to them by the NIH and the Defense Department.
> Bristol-Meyers Squibb, for example, controls the rights to Taxol, an
> anticancer drug developed all the way through human clinical trials at
> the National Institutes of Health with $31 million of taxpayer moneys.
>
> Pharmaceutical companies spend billions on advertisements each year.
> Perhaps they should consider a big "Thank You, Taxpayers" ad campaign
> every April 15, if only to remind them where their drug research and
> development subsidies come from.
>
> Mining companies often receive vast sweetheart deals from taxpayers.
> Under the 1872 Mining Act hard rock mining companies are allowed to
> purchase mining rights to public land for only $5 an acre, no matter how
> valuable the minerals on (or in) that land might be. A Canadian company
> recently mined $9 billion in gold on federal land in Nevada after using
> the Mining Act to purchase the mining rights to it for about $30,000.
> Mining companies owe the taxpayers their gratitude.
>
> Television broadcasters were given free license to use public airwaves
> (worth around $70 billion) by a supine Congress in 1997. They too should
> thank us. What about all those professional sports corporations that
> play and profit in taxpayer-funded stadiums and arenas? The owners and
> players should thank the fans/taxpayers who -- in spite of their largess
> -- still must pay through the nose for tickets. For years McDonalds
> received taxpayer subsidies to promote its products overseas as part of
> a foreign market access program. Now McDonalds is a ubiquitous brand
> name worldwide, but has it ever thanked the taxpayers who underwrote its
> efforts? Then there are the HMOs, hospitals, and defense contractors
> that have had their legal fees reimbursed by the taxpayers when our
> government prosecutes them for fraud or cost overruns. Those companies
> have great public relations firms that can help them show us their
> gratitude. Corporate America has taken too much from us for too long.
> It's time it shows us a little bit of appreciation.
>
> Corporate Contacts:
>
> General Electric (NBC):
> David Frail
> Financial Communications
> 1--203-373-3387
> david...@corporate.ge.com
>
> Bristol-Meyers Squibb:
> Peter R. Dolan, CEO
> 345 Park Avenue
> New York, New York, USA 10154-0037
> 1-212-546-4000
> peter...@bms.com
>
> Viacom (CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, BET, Paramount Pictures, Viacom
Outdoor, Infinity, UPN, Spike TV, TV Land, CMT: Country Music Television,
Comedy Central, Showtime, Blockbuster, and Simon & Schuster):
> Sumner M. Redstone , Chairman and CEO
> 1515 Broadway
> New York, NY 10036
> 1-212-258-6000
> (refused to provide email addresses)
>
> Walt Disney Co. (ABC):
> David Eisner, CEO
> 500 S. Buena Vista Street
> Burbank, CA 91521 ABC, Inc.
> 1-818-460-7477
> net...@abc.com
>
> McDonalds USA:
> Jim Cantalupo, Chairman and CEO
> McDonald?s Plaza
> Oak Brook, IL 60523
> 1-800-244-6227
> Email on-line form.
>
> Halliburton (Kellogg Brown & Root):
> David J. Lesar, Chairman, President & CEO
> 5 Houston Center
> 1401 McKinney, Suite 2400
> Houston, TX 77010
> 1-713-759-2600
> community...@halliburton.com
>
> In addition to these, pursue your favorite and let us know what they say!
>
> --
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worldwide
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the
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>
> The RIM via its publication A WORLD TO WIN declared its belief in the
> Palestinian intifada. The February 28, 2002, edition stated "the
> Revolutionary Internationalist Movement once again reaffirms its
unwavering
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> the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. With the weapon of
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> Palestinian people's fight will surely become .more integral part of the
>
>
>