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Publisher, Stewart Sallo Editor, Joel Dyer Associate Publisher, Fran Zankowski Director of Operations/Controller, Benecia Beyer Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Entertainment Editor, Amanda Moutinho Special Editions Editor, Caitlin Rockett Contributing Writers: Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Gavin Dahl, Paul Danish, James Dziezynski, Sarah Haas, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, Michael Krumholtz, Brian Palmer, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Alan Sculley, Ryan Syrek, Gregory Thorson, Christi Turner, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner, Mollie Putzig, Mariah Taylor, Betsy Welch, Noël Phillips, Carolyn Oxley, Grant Stringer, Billy Singleton SALES AND MARKETING Retail Sales Manager, Allen Carmichael Senior Account Executive, David Hasson Account Executive, Julian Bourke Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Inside Sales Representative, Jason Myers Marketing Consultant, Alex Schimmel Marketing Manager, Devin Edgley Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Production Manager, Dave Kirby Art Director, Susan France Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman Assistant to the Publisher Julia Sallo CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama 17-Year-Old, Mia Rose Sallo Cover photo: Donna Meeks drinking bottled water to replace her contaminated tap water in Pavillion, Wyoming. Photo by Joel Dyer January 12, 2017 Volume XXIV, Number 23 As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holdsbarred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit www.boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper. 690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO, 80305 p 303.494.5511 f 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. © 2016 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.
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Highroad Trump’s ‘tax holiday:’ Boon or boondoggle? by Jim Hightower
G
ood news, folks — our new president says he’s planning a “tax holiday” for you! Well... not directly for you. Trump’s trillion-dollar whopper of a tax break will only go to such multinational corporations as Apple, GE, Johnson & Johnson and Microsoft. However, Trump will push for these cuts in your name, insisting that the trickle-down
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effect will be to create thousands of new jobs for America’s hard-hit working stiffs. Here’s the deal: To dodge paying the taxes they owe to our country, many U.S.-based global giants have stashed about $2-trillion worth of their profits in offshore bank accounts. Now, they want to bring this pile of loot home — yet they want to be rewarded for doing so by having the taxes they owe to us slashed. Enter The Donald, who has delighted these scofflaws by offering to tax that offshore income at the low rate of only 10 percent, versus the 30 percent you and I pay for America’s upkeep. “Trust me,” exclaims The Donald. They’ll expand their businesses here and generate jobs for you! I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night. We’ve been suckered with this tax holiday scam before. In 2004, George W. Bush pulled it on us — and instead of creating jobs, the corporate
For more information on Jim Hightower’s work — and to subscribe to his award-winning monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown — visit www.jimhightower.com.
tax-dodgers actually eliminated thousands more of our jobs! Why’d that happen? Because they put their “repatriated” profits not into expanding business, but (1) buying back their corporations’ stock, which jacks up the payout to top executives and the richest shareholders, and (2) shrinking the number of businesses by buying up competitors and firing duplicate workforces. The way to know whether or not Trump’s tax holiday will benefit workers is to see if it requires that corporations actually create the thousands of good jobs promised — before they get any tax break. Anything less is just another swindle. This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly. January 12, 2017 5