Glenn Beck is a Moron

CNN.com had a piece on high corporate taxes in America by Glenn Beck.

Beck starts off smarmy as usual:

Ah, tax day. The day that we all get together to give our money to an organization that none of us believe actually deserves it.
It's the day we all fund thousands of services that don't really work and that most of us will never use -- like we're overpaying for a mediocre meal at a restaurant where we don't even get to eat it.

But Beck's idiotic tone is not what really irks me. What makes me shake my fist is that Beck drags out the old, tired, worn-out story about the HUGE tax rate that corporations are faced with. The troubles with that old story are too many to go into, but here is what I would like to say to Beck:

Mr. Beck,
What a lovely (if not rehashed) piece on the poor, oppressed corporations that are so heavily burdened with such extreme tax rates that it boggles the mind and stifles all economic progress. Unfortunately, your piece is about as well researched and corroborated as a high school football player’s book report.

While it may be technically true that the U.S. corporate “total tax rate, which includes all taxes paid by a company -- federal, state, property taxes, etc. -- is a literally insane 46.2 percent, “it is actually true that not one single major corporation pays anything close to that rate.

I commend you on citing the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers for that little tidbit (and I really do mean tidbit). So let me offer my own expert testimony.

With corporate tax receipts-the money actually paid- at 20-year low, the Government Accountability Office looked at what little corporate taxes were paid between 1996 and 2000 and behold--94% of all U.S. companies paid less than 5% -- and 61% paid nothing at all.

Wow, that sure does sound like a crushing burden to corporations! Having to pay a tax rate of 5%, sheesh! Thank God I only have to pay at a rate of 32%

I realize that you are first and foremost a radio and TV entertainer, however, despite what people like Rush Limbaugh say, you entertainers are taken as Political Pundits and real people do believe what you say.

If I were an uninformed listener of yours I would have only your point of view and “statistics” to (mis)inform me.

I find it curious that your piece on the supposed great and unfair tax burden on corporations came out within days of the GAO report on real taxes paid (actually in this case unpaid), as if you set out to intentionally confuse your audience about the reality of who really pays in America.

Those whose arguments are empty of fact, are generally full of shit.™