THANK GOD FOR SMALL FAVORS

2/12/09

There is one development in the compromise stimulus bill that makes this misguided scheme slightly less rancid, though still quite malodorous. And it isn’t the almost undetectable (and probably, in the end, zero, or worse) reduction in its size.

Try as it might, the GOP could not completely preserve the five year loss carryback for corporations that has been the subject of much derision, at least by the Pontificator. See my previous posts: 2/11/09, SMALL POLITICIANS, NOT SMALL BUSINESS, 2/9/09, post “THEY WOULD BE SELECTED FOR CERTAIN PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES, WHICH WOULD HAVE TO BE OF A HIGHLY STIMULATING NATURE…”, and 1/16/09, SCREW UP, GET A CHECK!!!. This particular handout for corporations has, unfortunately, not been killed altogether; it has merely been limited to businesses with less than $15mm in revenue. While I have a predisposition toward small business (Again, see my 2/11/09 post SMALL POLITICIANS, NOT SMALL BUSINESS.), I still would have rather seen this abomination eliminated altogether; government should not be handing out money to losing businesses, or at least not gargantuan amounts of money, to businesses that aren’t cutting it, regardless of their size. (More generally, the government should not discriminate in its tax policies between businesses of different sizes; it should keep a level playing field. The problem for years has been that the government has been playing for the big guys against the small guys. To those of you old enough to remember the long defunct College All Star game played in the old Soldier Field, it has been as if the government has been playing for the NFL champions against the hapless, but scrappy, College All Stars. But I digress.) However, this limitation on the size of the recipients of your tax dollars is at least a mitigating factor in this misguided piece of legislation.

Note, however, that it is the GOP, that self-designated pal of the little guy, who fought to keep the large losing corporations firmly positioned at the public trough. It was only pressure from the Democrats that forced the big failures to yield their spots at the aforementioned trough to the small failures.