More and more people are getting mad about tax-dodging corporations, and with good reason. We’re told that the federal deficit is a danger to the nation’s economy, and yet it seems that nearly every day we hear that some super-major, gi-normous, unimaginably wealthy corporation has gotten away with paying zero taxes — and in many cases, actually got millions, even billions, in “tax benefits,” such as GE’s $3.2 billion gift from you and me. If it’s not General Electric, it’s Bank of America. If it’s not Bank of America, it’s Exxon Mobil. Or Chevron. Or Boeing. Or Goldman Sachs. Or Citigroup. Or some other behemoth whose execs think they’re not obligated to pitch in to keep things going, like the rest of us.

So surely the spiffy deficit-cutting plan from the new GOP House leaders in D.C. will raise corporate tax rates, right? Yes, I'm joking. The truth is that, besides phasing out Medicare (which is something that even 70% of Tea Partiers oppose, for Pete’s sake) and cutting out the pittance given to those money-eating liberals at Planned Parenthood and NPR, the GOP plan calls for lowering the deficit by ... you guessed it ... lowering corporate tax rates even lower. The excuse for cutting corporate taxes, of course, is the same old wishful-thinking/lie we’ve heard over and over: “Give the rich more money and they’ll create new jobs.” Well, no. No, they don’t. Maybe that’s how it worked in olden, semi-mythical times when corporate bosses felt a modicum of responsibility toward the society that gave them the chance to get rich. But all you have to do is look where we are today after eight years of the “Bush tax cuts” for the super-wealthy to figure out that corporate responsibility toward society and creating jobs is pretty far down on the corporate priority list.

Well, enough of this crap. I say that if conservatives revere Ronald Reagan and find inspiration from him, well, how about being like Reagan, and raise corporate taxes when they’re needed? This will come as a surprise to those who get their Reagan anecdotes from the Tea Party/Libertarian fantasy mill, but Reagan, who lowered corporate taxes early in his administration, found that, by 1986, a horde of big corporations, including his former employer, GE, were paying zero federal corporate income taxes. “I didn’t realize things had gotten that far out of line,” Reagan told Treasury secretary Donald T. Regan, as told in the latter’s 1988 autobiography.

President Reagan then undertook a serious tax reform effort, culminating in the 1986 Tax Reform Act that raised corporate taxes and closed a large number of loopholes that had let big corporations dodge paying what Reagan termed “their fair share.” Yes, that Ronald Reagan. As if to emphasize it again, during the signing ceremony, he explained that the reason for the new law was to make sure “that everybody and every corporation pay their fair share.”

Unfortunately for America, Reagan’s heirs at the head of the Republican Party don’t see corporate responsibility in the same way. Newt Gingrich, for instance, as reported by Think Progress, said we should “celebrate” corporate tax dodgers; while Minnesota governor and presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, when asked about Bank of America's tax-dodging, replied that corporate taxes are too high anyway. Here's what Reagan thought about it, in a video of speech upon raising corporate rates:

NC Policy Watch today points out what may be the weirdest  bill, or at least the most mystifying bill, yet proposed in this session of our new, thrill-a-minute, Tea Party-led legislature. Remember, any contender for the Legislative Crazy Award has to contend with Rep. Glen Bradley, who a month ago, introduced a bill to let N.C. issue its own, gold-backed currency. Today’s challenge to Bradley’s goofball supremacy comes from state Sen. Andrew Brock of Mocksville. Brock, who usually can be found thinking up new ways to keep women from choosing what to do with their own bodies when they get pregnant, has now proposed a bill that would, well, I’m not sure what it would do, exactly. Or what it would outlaw doing. Or why or when the law Brock is proposing would ever be needed. See if you can figure this out; here is Brock’s proposed law, verbatim:

AN ACT TO PROHIBIT HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS FROM QUESTIONING PATIENTS ABOUT LAWFUL ACTIVITY RELATED TO FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION WHEN PROVIDING HEALTH CARE TO PATIENTS AND TO AUTHORIZE THE IMPOSITION OF A FINE ON HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS WHO ENGAGE IN THE PROHIBITED CONDUCT.

OK, so, the way I'm reading the bill, if someone comes into the emergency room and his 5-year-old son has a bullet in his leg, a doctor can’t even ask the guy whether he keeps firearms in his house? Jesus, have all the 2^nd Amendment folks lost their collective minds, or is it just Brock? In any case, Brock likes to boast that he is rated the most conservative member of the state senate and the most business-friendly, but he may now want to apply for the N.C. Senate’s Most Fucked Up Priorities Trophy. I’d say he’s got a great chance to win.

• N.C. state Sen. Andrew Brock

Yesterday was the anniversary of the start of the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The folks at Facing South, which is the online magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, have published the first part of a five-part series on the aftermath of the spill, and it is an eye-opening, riveting read for anyone who’s even remotely interested in finding out what’s going on in the Gulf states these days. You can read it here. The series is written by Sue Sturgis, formerly of the Raleigh News & Observer and the Independent Weekly in Durham, and one of the best investigative reporters in the South. Here’s the intro to the piece:

A year after the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, a growing number of cleanup workers and coastal residents are reporting debilitating health problems associated with exposure to toxic chemicals in crude oil and dispersants. Faced with inaction from the federal government, victims are organizing a grassroots movement to demand action.

[caption id="attachment_34094" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Investigative reporter Sue Sturgis"]