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One of the main reasons the economy soared during the Donald Trump Administration – was the corporate tax cuts that were a part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

We exist in the midst of a (way too) globalist economy. We are competing with…everywhere else on the planet to get businesses to come and stay here.  The more competitive our business rate is – the better we’ll do at insourcing employers.

The 2017 corporate tax cut wasn’t radical or even very deep. It harmonized a ridiculous tax rate range (15%-39%) to a flat 21%. Which only placed us in the middle of the pack globally – but was a dramatic overall domestic improvement. The lower average and guess-free flat rate made us a much more attractive locale – and businesses responded.

All of which are but some of the reasons why those of us who have ever held a real job argue for a low, simple, flat tax rate – with as few deductions/adjustments as possible.

Begin with: A progressive tax rate is unconstitutional. Per the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

One tax law with multiple rates – is UN-equal protection before the law.

The lower the rate – the better. Because of competitiveness. And because the people who make the money ALWAYS do better things with it than the government that takes the money from those who made it.

Then comes the ridiculous array of crony deductions/adjustments. The more – the worse.

Again, this is unequal protection before the law. You can’t have a tax break for someone – unless that tax break applies to everyone.

Tax breaks (and subsidies) for “green energy” companies – are unfair to the real energy companies competing against them for your energy dollar.

And because the government is awful at everything – including picking industries to benefit/punish with the tax code. “Green energy” tax breaks (and subsidies) – is government DEFINITELY backing the wrong horse.

The government doesn’t “pick winners and losers” – it picks losers at the expense of winners. If your idea is a good one – you don’t need any government cronyism. No one needs to subsidize ice cream. One reason bad ideas get government cronyism – is because they need it.

But even if you don’t need government cronyism – you still want to if you can get it. And if your business is big enough to out-bribe everyone else for our government officials’ attention – you too can get cronyism.

Because our government officials have turned selling cronyism into an art form.

Our government is now inconceivably huge. The 2021 inanity includes a $5 trillion budget and $2 trillion in regulatory compliance costs.  And that’s not counting the extra $5+ trillion they’re looking to spend on two fake “infrastructure” bills.

These government bills – are each THOUSANDS of pages long.  You can tuck a LOT of cronyism into those fatty, flabby legislative folds.

Because Congress takes maximum advantage of the inherent anti-transparency government hugeness affords them.

So the corporate tax hikes the Democrats are looking to impose to pay for their additional budgetary inanities? They’ll crush small businesses – while not even actually applying to Big Business. Because cronyism.

And NO ONE is better at bribing their way to cronyism – than Big Tech.

How Google Avoids Paying Its Taxes and Sticks You With the Bill

Why Amazon Pays No Corporate Taxes

Facebook Doesn’t Pay Taxes On Its Profits

How Twitter Can Legally Avoid Taxes

Of course, ALL of this Big Tech tax cronyism is legal. Because Big Tech bribed the people who wrote the laws that made it all legal. But that doesn’t make it right.

And of course, the government does need money to operate. And if the world’s richest companies are paying NOTHING – We the Screwed get to pay more to subsidize Big Tech’s lavish cronyism.

And the Big Tech cronyism by no means stops with just The Feds. They’re screwing us everywhere there is government to bribe.

20 Jobs, but $54 Million in Tax Breaks for Google Center in Columbus

Amazon Has Secured $670 Million in State and Local Tax Breaks This Year

Facebook’s Tax Breaks Are Thoroughly Undeserved. But Local Governments Think They’re Worth It

Yes, they’re “worth it” – to the local government officials getting bribed by Big Tech.

Twitter Got a Big Tax Break to Stay in San Francisco. Now Jack Dorsey Says Its Future Is No Longer in the City

Big Tech even gets international tax cronyism from their bribed bureaucrats.

Biden’s International Trade Big Tech Cronyism Is Ridiculously Small Ball:

“Biden’s trade people have spent most of his four months in power almost singularly focused on getting monstrous Big Tech out from under some international digital taxes.”

Care for yet another massive dose of corrupt cronyism? There’s plenty, you know.

The Feds have already spent tens (hundreds?) of billions of dollars on connecting people who are already connected to the Internet – to the Internet. Pointless redundancy is another government hallmark.

Most of that money has come from a tax – the Universal Service Fund (USF) tax:

“(A) system of telecommunications subsidies and fees managed by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intended to promote universal access to telecommunications services in the United States.”

This tax – is massive:

“That tax rate has become an even more monstrous 33.4% in the second quarter of this year.  And it’ll be even higher each successive quarter – because it goes up every quarter.”

It also goes up every time three Federal Communications Commission (FCC) bureaucrats decide to vote to further raise it.

This is a ridiculously huge rate.  Why is it so ridiculously huge?  Because Big Tech – the biggest beneficiaries of the government spending billions per annum connecting people to their websites – DON’T PAY THE USF TAX.

The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) – the companies that privately build with their own money the Internet infrastructure that makes Big Tech possible – pay the USF tax.

Here’s a thought:

The government wants to close the non-existent “Digital Divide?”  How about not taxing the companies that already closed it – at a rate now approaching FORTY PERCENT.

While entirely exempting the Big Tech companies from the tax.

The Big Tech companies have spent nearly nothing to build the Internet. That simply sit back and free-ride on the Internet the ISPs built – and become trillion-aires whilst reclining.

Seems fair.

Ain’t cronyism grand?

Here’s another thought:

The Big Tech companies that have bribed their way to zero federal income tax and massive state and local tax exemptions – should at least kick into the USF tax-and-spend program that directly, massively benefits them.

DC lies incessantly. About everything. All the time. In all possible directions.

DC does all of this lying – to advance its small-minded, insular interests.

By “DC,” I always mean the Deep State government – the entrenched bureaucracy. Which has been allowed to take on a life of its own – completely untouched and unaffected by the silly little elections we pretend determine our collective fate.

As we have long noted:

“Government is just another organism. Just like any other other organism, its first priority is self-preservation. Its second – is to grow. The most it possibly can. It wants to be bigger, do more – control more.

“There are more than four million humans who work in just the federal government. Most of them see preserving and growing government as in their interest. And see those who want Less Government as the enemy.”

The Democrat Party is the party of government. They help create and disseminate the lies that benefit DC – because it benefits them too. Think of the symbiotic relationship between sea anemones and the fish that take up residence in and around them.

The Republican Party is supposed to be the party that opposes all of this awfulness. They are supposed to be the Party of We the People – working to minimize DC’s destruction of our lives.

One way Republicans are supposed to do this – is by identifying and calling out DC when DC lies to us. God knows the Big Media-Big Tech “fact-check” cabal won’t correct DC – so we REALLY need Republicans to help us do it.

So when Republicans too spread DC lies – it is REALLY a problem. (And annoying as all get out.)

As but one of the limitless examples: DC lies all the time about the Internet. It minimizes and downplays the amazing success the private sector has delivered when it comes to developing the World Wide Web – and then accessing it.

DC lies incessantly about “tens of millions of Americans lacking Internet access.” The much-ballyhooed “Digital Divide”:

“A Microsoft study last year found that 162 million Americans lack broadband internet – nearly half the US population.”

This is a GIANT lie. Told here by DC mega-crony Microsoft – which has a GIANT financial interest in government spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Internet connections. Because those connections will require many, MANY attending Microsoft products.

DC has a LOT of cronyism-benefiting cronies. DC and it’s very many cronies all combine to collude on this “Digital Divide” lie – in an attempt to fraudulently justify a greater government role on the Internet.

The New Infrastructure Bill Invests $65 Billion in Broadband

This giant lie – is fostered by lots of attending lies.

Perhaps the biggest: DC gets to “half of all Americans lack Internet access” – by only counting hardline connections as an Internet connection.

Government ‘Digital Divide’ Lies: They Don’t Even Count Your Smart Phone as an Internet Connection

This is an absurd lie. In 2021, 298 million Americans own smartphones. On which we can wirelessly, seamlessly connect to the Internet – any and every time we want. But DC doesn’t count these 298 million Internet connections – as Internet connections. Which is absurd.

And there is satellite Internet – which is an option for a mere  100% of Americans. But DC doesn’t count this either. Which is absurd.

During Donald Trump’s presidential tenure, DC for the first time in many decades was forced to dip its toe into reality. (And DC HATED him for making them do it.)

Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – belied the giant Internet connection lie:

“99.99% of the U.S. population has access to one or more internet service providers offering cable, DSL, fiber, fixed wireless, satellite or another type of internet service of 4 Mbps or higher.”

With the truth readily available – I mean, I have known it for years – you would hope Republicans would push back against DC’s giant lie.

But we fight this war with the “opposition party” we have – not the opposition party we’d like to have.

Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Includes Billions for Broadband

Not only are Republicans voting for this nonsense – they are putting quill to parchment to promote it. And with it – all the lies being told to allegedly justify it.

I saw this op-ed headline – and hoped against hope it was penned by a Democrat.

Bipartisan Bill Will Change Checkerboard of Broadband Connectivity in Rural America

Sadly, it was not penned by a Democrat:

“By Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA.)”

But it may as well have been. The Congressman delivered the DC lie – in his very first sentence:

“Millions of Americans lack access to reliable, high-speed internet service….”

That is a DC lie, Congressman.  Misinformation. Disinformation. The very thing your constituents sent you to DC to oppose and counter.

Congressman: Did your staff do ANY homework prior to writing this for you? Again, the truth is readily available online – and has been for years.

The Trump FCC report was issued in 2019. That one item alone should have been the end of your op-ed – and your support for the ridiculous infrastructure bill.

Federal ‘Infrastructure’? State-Local Government and Crony Bail Outs and Slush Funds

You should have discovered this readily discoverable truth – and told every single one of your Republican colleagues to retract their support for the ridiculous infrastructure bill.

But you didn’t. Instead, you ridiculously voted for it. And then extruded this ridiculous op-ed – congratulating yourself for your ridiculous vote.

Congressman, you have yet again reminded us:

We fight this war with the “opposition party” we have.

Not the opposition party we’d like to have.