A new poll published a couple of weeks ago by the Democratic leaning group Third Way showed that 47 percent of independent voters in 12 battleground states, including 51 percent who identified as “swing independents†who are still undecided, agreed with this Republican messaging statement, “We need an economy based on opportunity, where hard work is rewarded, the government lives within its means, and economic growth is our top priority.â€
In 2007, Democrats in Congress pushed through the College Cost Reduction and Access Act that lowered subsidized Stafford student loan rates from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over a four year period. According to the non-partisan U.S. PIRG, that measure saved the estimated 30,000 South Dakota undergraduate students and an estimated interest rates at the current 3.4 percent.
Republicans like John Thune and Kristi Noem like to rant about how America’s corporate taxes are the highest in the world and that if we only would cut them we could jump start the economy and create jobs.
It’s a great political line. It also happens to be untrue.
Recent tax figures released for 2011 indicate that the corporate taxes as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of this country were 1.2 percent or $180 billion dollars last year. That is as low a percentage America corporations have paid since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Indeed, research shows that our corporate tax rate last year in terms of taxes paid by corporations in America was approximately 12 percent not the 35 percent myth that Republicans would like to have Americans believe. That 12 percent is a stunningly low number and one that places American corporations’ tax burden well below those of most all the industrialized countries in the world. That is a fact and no amount of rhetoric can change that.
