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Subscribe to RSSKEENE, N.H., and WASHINGTON -- There are two views of how Mitt Romney handled himself at the Des Moines Register Soap Box event. From the Romney camp's perspective, it showed strength. From Democrats' perspective, he was out of touch, defending corporations.
Today at a town hall here, he defended the remark once again.
"When you say, 'Tax corporations,' the steel and the vinyl and the concrete, those things don't pay taxes, only people do," Romney maintained. "So high taxes on corporations is high taxes on people, and people are going to go places where taxes are not too high, so we have to be competitive with other nations."
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only idiotic liberal wing nuts have this vision of Corporations as big evil haunted castles....oooohhhhh
hey idiots, Corporations are run by people.....corporations employ people......stocks in these companies are owned by people.......I know this doesn't fit your 9th grade-ish delusions of good vs evil but get with reality LOL
"Gregor" - Obviously the statement is way over your head and taken out of context. Corporations are not people, the fact that they are run by people is another issue. The Supreme Court ruling on the Citizens United versus FEC was wrong and will ruin political discourse and the one person one vote concept laid out in the constitution, the 14th Amendment has opened the door to this whole corporations are people argument.
Definition of Corporation: an invisible, intangible, artificial creation of the law existing as a voluntary chartered association of individuals that has most of the rights and duties of natural persons but with perpetual existence and limited liability.
The Humanity of Corporations
Just as Dred Scott was only an extension of existing law, Citizens United merely extends law that has been developing for a long time. But, like Dred Scott, the Court’s conclusion makes clear to most people that the law is wrong. To say that a corporation with billions to spend on advertising is no different from a human being with one voice and one vote goes beyond what a large majority of Americans are willing to accept.
The real point is that a corporation is an artificial creation. That creation isn't finite as long as the corporation exists, with unlimitedpower to influence politics is wrong. It flies in the face of one person one vote concept. A corporation can now provide unlimited campaign funding and influence blocks of votes - further corrupting and already corrupted system. Corporate influence must be kept in check and the founding fathers made that argument. The latest Supreme Court decisions gives them power beyond what makes sense in a democracy. Why do you think monopolies are technically illegal (even though they do still exist)? Too much concentrated power of a particular segment is never a good thing. The key to me is "artificial". People make robots too - are they technically human? No, they are artificial beings - but under your arguement I guess they are people too...
gregor wonders why the world thinks Rep/TP are uneducated rednecks???
Corporations are persons.
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Corporations are persons. That is how the gov't is able to tax corporations. The gov't can not tax a car, or a pencil, or any other non-person. How could the object of taxation possibly pay if not associated with a person? Corporations absolutely do pay taxes. Ask anybody who owns or runs such an entity. Albeit, a corporation, as with any business structure, passes on all its passable costs to the customer in the price. Some costs can not be passed on as in the case of Utilities and some of their costs. Good planning with contracts takes care of that or the company eats it. Lesson over. Out.
You're talking about tax purposes not voting rights - apples and oranges...
Romney was not talking about voting rights. Corporations do not have voting rights, never have. The "Corporations as persons" concept has existed for hundreds of years and pertains to the taxing of those units only. Apples and oranges don't apply. You simply have a misunderstanding of the corporate to gov't relationship. No slam intended here.
we must raise taxes , that is all i hear the nation is going broke , and social security is going broke, and food is so high you cannot buy it also everything is going up but your paycheck , as much as i pay in taxes these people on welfare and on section 8 should get a job after being on government assistance for 5 years and then no longer and spending out without bringing any in natural you're going to be broke
If there really has been a vast increase in income disparity in the U.S. by any measure, it is very likely to have come about by liberal policies, because liberals are economically illiterate but unethical enough to turn their ignorance into an emergency on the part of everyone else.
Romney is saying something that is obvious to anybody who isn't economically illiterate:
Businesses actually create wealth. Money isn't wealth. Wealth is goods and services. If it weren't for goods and services being produced, money would be worthless (something completely lost on liberals who simply ignore the natural incentives of the market in their constant barrage of new, completely ignorant, self-defeating wealth-redistribution schemes). The regulatory and wealth redistribution schemes of the liberal defeat their own purposes by: (1) increasing "taxes on corporations" (which aren't taxes on corporations at all, since they are simply paid by the consumers who buy the corporations' goods), (2) increasing regulations, which large corporations actually lobby for because they protect them from competition and from litigation (the grand corporatist scheme of FDR that liberals still don't understand, despite years and years and years of political science and economics scholarship) (3) increasing the moral hazard of corporations, allowing them to pass off the costs of their failures or inefficiencies to the taxpayer (think Barney Fudd & co's "home ownership" scheme, the Obama-Bush bailouts, huge corn subsidies "for the environment," the bailout of the auto industry which actually prevented GM from being competitive but "helped preserve jobs" by creating a privileged class paid twice what most of their counterparts are paid doing the same work in the same factory, etc., etc., etc.) The list of corporate backed schemes that liberals keep falling for goes on and on and on and on. In fact, they've even made conservatives "true believers" because conservatives have become unable to resist the sheer corporate profiteering on liberal ignorance.
Liberals just can't seem to quit falling for the cute-sounding rhetoric of their Democrat corporatist overlords, who always have a ready but laughable excuse for funneling money to corporations, and are deeply skillful at creating policies that cover up the actual effects of their economic interventions. (One example of this is that policy studies that investigate government job "creation" invariably ignores jobs that did not come into existence because of the true economic costs of the "created" jobs.) The fact that the rhetoric sounds more "compassionate" does not actually make the ACTUAL outcomes of these policies any better for the poor or middle class.
The vast majority of corporate owners (sharedholders) are middle class and are investing long-term (such as paying for Junior's college education, down payment on a house or retirement). These are real people. In fact, they are people (as every person is) dependent on the production of goods and services (wealth). Entrepreneurs who are driven enough to produce goods and services the most efficiently and the most aligned with the needs, wants, interests, tastes, etc., of the largest number of people are able to command the most resources to provide wealth to others (goods and services). Everyone's ability to prosper, therefore, is completely dependent on the freedom of entrepreneurs to pursue their self-interest and for people to freely enter into employment contracts to help entrepreneurs produce.
If you want to get a liberal really pissed, ask them to back up anything they say with scholarship. Just look at the most commonly-cited pseudo-statical "fact" parlyed around as of late: That there has been a massive increase in wealth disparity. I have never been able to find a shred of evidence for this, outside of a few comically amateur calculations from Census data--data that the U.S. government itself (in official U.S. Census methodology) denies is useful for making such calculations!!! Liberals just keep getting dumber and more irate. It wasn't just Hitler that created fascism, it was the fuel of a public policy-illiterate mob of "forward-thinking" morons, properly indoctrinated.
If there really has been a vast increase in income disparity in the U.S. by any measure, it is very likely to have come about by "liberal"/progressive policies, because liberals are, for the most part, economically illiterate, but unethical enough to turn their ignorance into an emergency on everyone else's part.
"Shadow" are you kidding me? "wealth" is not goods and services. The selling of goods and services based on demand creates wealth - duh... Are you going to argue that GM should have been allowed to go under? Taxes are a means to generate revenue so the federal government can provide services and protections to the country as a whole, i.e. FDA, EPA, etc. Those same corporations benefit from the freedoms of commerce that this democracy provides. I certainly don't defend government spending on all levels. GM wasn't competitive because of their product line - not a tax burden, new management and product brought them back to life. I see why your a Romette - same economic theory or did you work at Bain Capital too?
Definition: Wealth - a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches
I guess when you hate someone's political beliefs, you hate the person also, huh? Therefore it's okay to twist and distort every comment he/she makes to justify your hatred of that person and their political beliefs. Had Obama said corporatations are people too, liberals would not have even raised an eyebrow. They would have understood he was referring to all the people that built the brick & mortar office buildings, all the people who are employed in those buildings, all the people who manage the businesses and all the people who have invested their money into the businesses. I find it interesting that for the past 24 hours we have had non-stop news coverage and speculation on the future of Apple Corp because of "one person" who tendered his resignation with the company. Even their stock has dropped! If corporations are not people, then why is this even a news story, why does it even matter?
“Mr. Corporation” is not elected by the people the way “Mr. Government” is.
Americans need to differentiate between the party which advocates for their interest from the the one that only support corporations at their expense. Between the two Giants; Corporations (Private sector) and The Government , which side would we say is accountable to the people?
We the people (voters) need to understand that even though majority of us work for "Mr. corporation", "Mr. Corporation" is not elected by we the people and therefore is always free to do whatever pleases "him" ("Mr. Corporation"), without any fear of being held accountable the way we hold "Mr. Government" accountable because "Mr. Government" is elected by us.
"Mr. Corporation", for example, has continued paying majority of American workers low wages at the 1990s rates without considering the magnitude by which the cost of living has risen. For example; In 1998 at a time Gas price was only 0.78 cents/gallon, a Mr. X worked for "Mr. Corporation" at $8.50/hr and would spend only $11 dollars to fill his gas tank. 15 years later (Year 2011) "Mr. Corporation" is still shamefully paying Mr. X $8.50/hr when gas price alone is $4.00/gallon without considering the fact that the same Mr. X presently has to spend $60.00 to fill the same gas tank from the same stagnant 1998 pay rate of $8.50/hr.
(Employment Agencies, for example, have been paying workers $7.50/hr since the mid 1990s and are still paying the same rate of $7.50/hr today the year 2011. Republicans need to understand that millions of American workers can no longer afford to buy food from the stores and are terribly hurting as Republicans continue to support low pay by corporations)
Because "Mr. Government" is elected by the people and is accountable to them, "he" has tried to pay "his" workers more fairly in consideration to the rising cost of living. People working for "Mr. Government" are therefore better off than those working for "Mr. Corporation". At least they have had their pay rates go up with the rising cost of living. I consider this to be a fair practice by "Mr. Government" which most Democrats support, unfortunately, majority of Republicans hate it because they want "Mr. Government" to pay the same low rates "Mr. Corporation" pays "his" workers so that "Mr. corporation can continue to report abnormal profits.
In a capitalist state like America , the government has no mandate to tell corporations how much they need to pay their workers. Corporations therefore pay their workers very low rates as they report billions of profits in their annual financial statements.
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If Republicans want Corporations to be the main sector that is responsible for people's daily activities in terms of employment and management of various human services then it would be proper for Corporations (the private sector) also to be answerable to the people through some kind of elective representation the same way the government is elected by the people and is accountable to them.
Currently, some corporations, being supported by Republicans, are deliberately not hiring workers until the government gives them tax cuts and they do this knowing that they are not accountable to the voters so there is nothing voters can do to hold them accountable. What can American voters do to corporations that deliberately sit on their money and refuse to hire workers with an intention of sabotaging the economy? The answer is--Nothing. Instead it is the government that takes the blame for the sufferings that people undergo due to evil activities by some corporations.
If Corporations deliberately refuse to hire then voters need to let the government hire. There will therefore be a healthy competition between the two and that is what Democracy is all about. Let their Republican backers not say that the government is taking over from them. The government really struggles to create jobs because the government knows that it is accountable to the people. In contrast, Corporations can sabotage whatever the government is doing knowing that there is nothing that voters can do to them. Instead voters will just blame the innocent side and that is the government.