One Graph Shows The Debt Discourse Is Rigged
D.C. is talking about spending cuts instead of corporate tax evasion.
Note: I’m publishing some regular musings here. Use this button to subscribe, which will alert you to them and sign you up to The Lever’s free email newsletter.
While Republicans and the Washington press corps try to focus the intensifying debt/deficit debate on spending cuts, the Congressional Budget Office just issued a new report showing corporations are making more and more cash, but paying the same or less in tax.
The graph above tells the story of companies making hundreds of billions of dollars more in profit, but tax payments remaining flat or dropping.
And yet in all the discussion of the debt ceiling and the deficit, fixing this tax gap somehow isn't part of the conversation, which the Beltway’s army of corporate lobbyists no doubt loves.
It’s a reminder that The Discourse™ isn’t some impartial force of nature tracking the truth. It is typically rigged for particular outcomes — in this case, spending cuts that crush the working class and the preservation of a tax system that further enriches the rich.
If you like this post, pitch in to the tip jar for The Lever, an award-winning reader-supported investigative news outlet that holds the powerful accountable.