GOP Congresswoman: Clueless or Pandering?

It’s no secret that I did not support Jaime Herrera Beutler for the seat she sits in currently. The above video is a prime reason why, beyond the nonsense thrown at me by her staff and the Clark County Republican Party because I had the audacity to actually support a Conservative Republican in last year’s election.

At her May 16, 2011 Town Hall, Jaime faced a crowd of angry Democrats fearing she will vote like a Republican. The above comment was the normal run of the mill leftwing tripe on ending tax breaks and subsidies for corporations, the job creators. Hearing this particular part of her reply, I can only ask, “Jaime, are you clueless or pandering to Democrats again?”

She specifically mentions ExxonMobil and GE as corporations not paying taxes. Leftists, Moveon.org and several others have been making that claim, based in large part to admitted Socialist Democrat Bernie Sanders from Vermont releasing his list of Top Ten Tax Avoiders, where it is claimed the companies posted large profit increases, and pay no taxes in the U.S.

Like a true socialist, Sanders despises when others earn profits, but enjoys making his own profit by selling a book, taking $174,000 a year in salary plus generous benefits and retirement, at taxpayer expense incidentally.

But, this isn’t to point out Sanders hypocrisy, but is questioning how it is that our freshman congresswoman, Jaime Herrera Beutler makes such a ludicrous comment like “ExxonMobil and GE should pay their fair share,” adopting the leftist cry heard throughout the country in efforts to demonize the wealthy and further class divisions in America.

CNN Money tells on ExxonMobil,

“Exxon paid the most taxes last year of any U.S. company, by far -- but not a cent went to the IRS for income taxes. That’s because the oil giant does business in some of the mostly highly taxed countries in the world. Want to extract petroleum in Nigeria? Be prepared to fork over up to 85% of your profit in tax payments.”

“Exxon doled out more than $15 billion in income tax payments to foreign countries last year. U.S. tax codes allow companies to take massive deductions in light of those international charges, which knocked Exxon’s federal income-tax bill down into negative territory.”

“That said, Uncle Sam gets his money in other ways. Including sales taxes and duties, Exxon recorded $7.7 billion in U.S. tax costs last year, and paid even more overseas.”

“Its grand total in global taxes for the year? A whopping $78.6 billion. The company’s effective income tax rate was a hefty 47%, its highest in three years.”

On ExxonMobil’s Perspectives website we read,

“Here’s a number you won’t hear in Washington: During the first quarter, on those U.S. earnings of $2.6 billion, we incurred tax expenses in the United States of $3.1 billion. That’s right – our U.S. tax bill was higher than our U.S. earnings.”

“That includes income taxes, sales-based taxes and others such as property taxes. But it doesn’t include royalties or lease payments we pay to the government to produce oil and gas on government-controlled lands, which would make the government’s take from our operations even bigger.”

An effective tax rate of 47%, much higher than other large corporations in the country and people like Herrera Beutler, Bernie Sanders and so many more are crying they need to “pay their fair share?” It would appear to me that if they were to “pay their fair share,” their taxes would be lowered, not increased.

But, what about GE? She mentioned them too. Again, referring to CNN Money we read,

“General Electric didn't have to pay the IRS a dime of income tax in 2009. That's because the company's financial services division lost a boatload of money, giving GE a tax break it used to offset income from its other business lines.”

“‘This is the first time in at least decades that GE has reported negative U.S. pretax income, and it reflects the worst economy since the Great Depression,’ said Anne Eisele, GE’s director of financial communications.”

Looking into Sanders claims of the corporate giants not “paying their fair share,” Politifact ruled FALSE Sanders claim.

And here we see our alleged conservative Republican congresswoman standing before a Town Hall crowd of largely left-wing Democrats joining in with their divisive bleating of “pay their fair share.”

In 2007, Jaime declared herself a “friend of organized labor” as she was seeking the seat in the 18th legislative district she occupied for a little over 2 years before hoodwinking her way into congress, thanks to some underhanded tricks by establishment GOP party members in at least 4 counties.

While in Olympia, she twice voted for and co-sponsored pro-SEIU legislation that would have forced childcare centers into Public Unions, a point her then Campaign Manager and now Chief of Staff, Casey Bowman labeled me as a liar for documenting.

Incidentally, to this point on forced unionization of childcare centers, later in this same town hall, Jaime boasts of how proud she was to have supported that legislation that did not pass.

Getting back to the point though. Even she is serious about “paying their fair share,” will she work towards tax subsidies for the unions?

Unions around our state, and I have to imagine across the nation as well, have been granted many of the same tax breaks falsely labeled as “subsidies” by the left and what do they produce? Nothing! They organize and manipulate union’s members to take, not to give. That ends up giving us either higher taxes or his consumer prices.

If she’s serious about ending those “tax breaks,” let’s see her begin with the Union’s.

I won’t be holding my breath, though. I’ll sit back and keep wondering, is she clueless about taxes in America or was she pandering to the Democrats that evening?