In L.A., Obama attacks corporations

During his recent trip to Los Angeles, in which his motorcade blocked a pregnant woman’s path to the maternity ward, President Obama attacked U.S. corporations that flee the massively high taxes he imposes. The corporations merge with foreign corporations, thus paying the more reasonable tax rates of foreign countries.

He called for “economic patriotism” and said, ““You shouldn’t get to call yourself an American company only when you want a handout from American taxpayers.” In that case, why didn’t he call for ending all corporate welfare, which some estimates put well above $100 billion a year?

Instead, he wants Congress to close supposed “loopholes” that allow such mergers. There are indications the supposedly low-tax Republicans who run the U.S. House of Representatives might go along with him. If not, he might dictatorily invoke a 1969 tax law dating to the Nixon administration, another way in which he would imitate the lawless President Nixon. Nixon’s tax-increase, inflationary economic policies also crashed the economy in 1974, so we might get a repeat of that.

But there’s a better way to keep U.S. companies from leaving: cut their taxes. The U.S. top corporate tax rate is 35 percent, plus 8.84 percent in California. Total: 43.84 percent.

Here’s the top corporate tax in several countries, according to Global Finance Magazine:

• Ireland: 12.5 percent (no wonder so many corporations move there).
• Canada: 26 percent.
• Germany: 29.48 percent.
• Israel: 25 percent.
• South Korea: 24.2 percent.
• Japan: 38 percent (no wonder their economy has stagnated for two decades).
• China: 25 percent.