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From 1998 - 2007, corporate profits rose 10% a year on average. In 2009 and 2010, they increased 243%. Excluded are sheltered amounts offshore. In 2012, best guess estimates put them at $1.4 trillion.
Increased sales didn't produce profits. Cost-cutting did on the backs of workforces. Jobs, wages, benefits, and hours worked suffered. Productivity rose.
In 2011, profit margins reached their highest level in over 80 years. At the same time, federal, state, and local government tax cuts benefitted bottom line performance.
In less than 18 months, it doubled. It increased twice as fast as pre-tax profits. High income households benefitted proportionately. They did so through equity appreciation, dividends, interest, rents, and other ways they increase wealth.
In contrast, ordinary people lost out. Increasingly they're more hard-pressed to get by. Force-fed austerity promises worse.
If federal tax revenues reverted to pre-2000 levels (20.6% of GDP), $458 billion annually would be raised. Over $4.5 trillion in 10 years would offset planned sequestered cuts.
Letting Bush era tax cuts expire last December 31 would accomplish the same thing. Another way is by taxing America's wealthiest more.
On average they pay 22.5%. An effective 45% top marginal rate produces nearly half a trillion dollars annually. Doing so raises federal tax revenues from 14.4% to their pre-2000 20.6% level.
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