GOP tax plan designed to stimulate voters more than economy

The press is having a field day with something called the Paradise Papers. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a pile of documents released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). They detail the business dealings of celebrities like Bono and the Queen of England, and companies like Apple and Nike. Even U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. They show nothing illegal, really, just how the rich and famous move their money around to avoid paying too much in taxes.

The media are treating this like a scandal when it’s actually a wake-up call. This is why tax reform is so badly needed here in the United States. I’ve regaled you with the stats from the IRS, like the top five percent of wage-earners paying nearly 60 percent of the income tax. The House Republican tax legislation takes some steps in the right direction but it still leaves the basic problem unresolved. They won’t tell you what that is so I will. The rich pay way too much in taxes. They’re the ones who need a tax break, not the middle class.

The middle class now pays somewhere around eight percent of their income in taxes. That’s set to go to around five percent if the House Republicans and President Trump get their way. They always target the middle class for tax cuts because there’s more of them. They just don’t need another tax cut.

If the objective is really to stimulate the economy then you’re going to have to allow the filthy rich to keep more of their money and spend it in the economy. That means the dreaded one-percenters. I know, people don’t like to hear that, but it’s true. The rich are overtaxed and the middle class are under-taxed. The poor and working poor aren’t taxed at all. In fact, most of them get money from the government through the Earned Income Tax Credit that they never paid in.

Why aren’t the folks in Washington telling you this? Because they’re cowards. Cowards and panderers. They don’t really see this as a vehicle to stimulate the economy. They see it as a way to buy votes, not dissimilar from the way the Democrats operate. So, why aren’t the Democrats going for it? Simply because they didn’t think of it first. If this were their idea they’d be all over it.

The only thing that remotely comes close to doing what we need done is lowering the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. Mark my words, that’s the one thing that will probably not survive intact when the dust settles. It’s too tempting, even for the Republicans, to punish the very corporations that create the jobs.

And then there’s the SALT issue. That stands for state and local taxes. The current GOP plan would severely limit how much high-tax states can deduct those taxes. That’s raised the ire of Republicans and Democrats in high-tax states. Rep. Diane Black, chairman of the House Budget Committee and member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee pointed out to me that it’s wrong for the rest of us to subsidize high-tax states. She has a great point. Why is it fair for anyone to claw back some of the taxes they pay their own states through deductions to their federal income tax? The fact that some states tax their people to death is not the fault of the rest of us.

Getting rid of many of the deductions is the right move. Continuing to soak the rich is the wrong move.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Mega-polluter Apple doesn't want you unless you're green

If you don’t believe we’re destroying the planet through global warming then Apple doesn’t want your money. That was the message from CEO Tim Cook at a recent shareholders meeting. Cook told so-called climate denier investors that if they didn’t like the company wasting money on “green” initiatives they “should get out of this stock.”

Cook said Apple does many things that have nothing to do with return on investment because, “We want to leave the world better than we found it.” Really? Apple has been repeatedly singled out by environmental groups as being a huge polluter in China. And not

of CO2, which is not a pollutant, but of real pollution. Apple suppliers throughout China often “fail to properly dispose of hazardous waste,” according to the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing. 

At one factory that makes iPhone screens, 137 workers were seriously injured by toxic chemicals used to make the product. Apple has been urged to move its factories back to the United States but it’s doubtful many of these factories could pass EPA standards.

One iPhone supplier, Pegatron, has been criticized for all sorts of problems including improper disposal of waste, poor working conditions and excessive hours for its employees as well as crowded living conditions. One Apple supplier had to put netting around the top of its plant because workers were jumping to their deaths to escape the horrid working conditions.

Oh, yeah, Tim. You’re leaving the world better than you found it.

I had an Apple “genius” at the Apple store inform me sometime back that Apple was bigger than Exxon Mobil. I thought big corporations were evil. That’s what Occupy Wall Street folks were telling us through Twitter tweets and postings on Facebook on their Apple computers while sipping their lattes from Starbucks. These occupiers are walking advertisements for big corporations. I’m sure they Googled how evil Big Business is.

So, somehow Apple is “green” because it wastes money on green energy projects that lose money. It’s the carbon offsets mentality. Put your money in some so-called green venture and you get to pollute all you want. It’s time we called them on it.

I love Apple products. I’m bringing you this column courtesy of the MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone as do my kids. Hypocritical? Perhaps, but Samsung is just as bad. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any phone that’s not made in China. Now, I could join the Amish and give up electronics altogether (which, quite frankly, sounds very appealing sometimes) or I can continue to rail on China as I have been for the last 20 years.

China is the common denominator in all of this. There is no EPA in China. There’s no Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act. The communist Chinese don’t give a damn about the people or the environment and corporations have taken the path of least resistance. It’s time they took the path of coexistence, as they’ve been preaching with those annoying bumper stickers. It’s time the electronics industry cleaned up its act and Apple is in a perfect position to lead the way. They made almost $42 billion last year. We hear liberals all the time saying corporations don’t need to make that much. They chastise McDonald’s for not raising the minimum wage, asking how much does one company really need to make. McDonald’s made $5.4 billion. Apple made 7 times the profit of McDonald’s and McDonald’s is the villain?

The last time I checked people weren’t throwing themselves from the rooftops of McDonald’s.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Blaming everyone but themselves

I have long preached about the virtues of personal responsibility.  Far too many people expect someone else – oftentimes the government – to assume responsibility for their actions.  I had a caller to my show several years ago who was a second-grade teacher.  A little girl in her class didn’t know her colors and the teacher was concerned the child might have a learning disability. She scheduled a parent/teacher conference with the child’s mother and asked her if she had ever taught the child her colors.  The mother responded, “That’s what Head Start is for.”

Because the government has swooped in and taken responsibility for so many things too many people have shirked personal responsibility assuming if they fail it’s someone else’s fault.  Take the case of a 36-year-old Tennessee man who’s suing Apple Computers.  Why?  Because he says he’s addicted to pornography which led to his wife leaving him and taking his child.  He’s suing Apple because he said his MacBook wasn’t equipped with a filter that kept him from viewing pornography.  “The Plaintiff became depressed and despondent, unable to work as a result of observing porn on his MacBook,” the complaint reads.

Let me just say right up front that I believe claims of sex addiction are bogus.  Some psychiatrists claim that sex addicts suffer from neurochemical changes similar to adrenaline rushes which cause the addiction.  I suspect similar neurochemical changes can be observed in people who ride roller coasters but they haven’t come out with a roller coaster addiction.  At least, not yet.  I can’t wait for the first meeting of Roller Coasters Anonymous.

I was in Vegas recently.  A guys trip.  We took in a show, relaxed and did a bit of gambling.  I always take a set amount of cash in my pocket for gambling.  Inevitably, I always lose it but I build it into the cost of the trip.  My goal is to make the money last the whole weekend so I can enjoy the challenge of the game and camaraderie with friends.  There are ATMs all over the casinos.  I don’t use them.  Not that I haven’t been tempted to but I have something that’s called “self-restraint.”

Same thing with my computer.  I can access the very same porn sites as the guy who’s suing Apple.  I just choose not to.  We live in an instant gratification society.  With that comes certain responsibilities.  You have to know when to say no or, at least, no more.  The guy suing Apple is looking for someone to blame.  He wants to shift the responsibility for losing his family onto someone else when he is solely to blame.

Here’s the funny part.  The dude claims he accidentally accessed pornography when he mistyped Facebook.  Instead of typing the a-c-e he says he typed u-c-k.  Sure you did, pal.  He also claimed he had never seen pornography before.  He’s 36!  He says once he did, he preferred the women he saw on the screen to his own wife.  Sounds like he had a real solid marriage.

His wife better be darn glad she got away from this idiot.  The sad thing is he’s not alone.  Millions of people are blaming someone else right now for the situations they’re in.  Life hasn’t always gone my way but I’m man enough to admit when it’s my fault.  Sitting around and looking at dirty pictures all day is no one’s fault but his.  If he’s that weak-minded did it ever occur to him to just get rid of the laptop? 

Moral of the story?  Sometimes an Apple a day keeps the wife away.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Stop encouraging laziness

A story came across the news wire and my senior research analyst brought it to me in the studio while I was on the air.  It was an AP story out of Atwood, Mich. about how farmers were complaining they wouldn’t be able to bring in the cherry and apple crops without illegal aliens.  American workers, they claimed, were either not available or not willing to work.

George W. Bush was fond of saying that illegals are doing the jobs Americans just won’t do.  The truth is illegals are simply doing some of the jobs Americans won’t do for the money.  Americans won’t live 15 to a room just so they can find employment.  There’s not a job in America that Americans didn’t used to do before the illegal aliens came in, undercut them and stole their jobs.

That’s not to say that the American worker is blameless.  Atwood, Mich. is about four-and-a-half hours from Detroit where the unemployment rate is 16 percent, more than double the national rate.  One would think that Detroit and Atwood might be a great match.  Farmers are looking for workers and Detroiters are looking for work.  So why are farmers in Atwood still resorting to hiring illegal aliens?

Part of the problem is some of the farmers are lying.  The unemployment rate in Michigan is 8.4 percent.  Detroit may be driving that number higher than it would normally be but there’s no doubt that workers are available for the farmers of Atwood.  Some farmers would rather deal with illegals because they can pay them low wages or even lower wages if they pay cash under the table.  But part of the blame should be placed on the shoulders of the workers themselves, or, should I say, the government that encourages them not to work.

Before the sequester, unemployment benefits had been extended so that many unemployed workers could draw unemployment benefits for 99 weeks.  That’s nearly two years!  As a result of the sequester the number of weeks was cut back.  Total benefits vary by state but in Michigan you can still conceivably stay on unemployment for 67 weeks.  That’s almost 16 months!  Granted, unemployment benefits are substantially less than what one was making while employed but you’re also not working.  There’s something to be said about doing nothing and getting paid.

I’ve never drawn unemployment.  I don’t begrudge anyone who has.  I’ve just chosen not to do it and I’ve been unemployed a number of times.  This is radio, after all.  The worst time came when I was program director of a station and got washed out in a format change.  I was let go with no severance pay.  I worked on straight commission for an ad agency and made a whopping $100 in three months.  It never even occurred to me to file for unemployment.

In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t.  It was my lack of success in sales that prompted me to pack up everything I owned and move to Nashville without a job.  Within two days I had a fulltime job selling memberships at a health club and a part-time gig at a radio station.  Within three months I was back in radio full time.

The point is, poverty is a great motivator.  As long as we’re paying people not to work, they won’t.  Time was when Americans would do what needed to be done to put bread on the table.  Nobody’s going to drive four-and-a-half hours if they’re getting paid to sit at home but they’ll drive a lot further than that if it’s the only way they eat.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.