Cheney’s KBR Friends Not Paying Taxes

March 15, 2008

The Facts

Kellogg Brown & Root has found some legal loop holes to avoid paying Medicare and payroll taxes, saving them hundreds of millions of dollars. They have done this by setting up offshore companies in the Cayman Islands. The Defense Department has known about this since 2004, but says it was saving money through cheaper labor.

My View

You may recall that KBR is Dick Cheney’s old company and that KBR got the contract in Iraq without having to go through a bidding process after Cheney became Vice-President. Cheney defended the latter by saying KBR was the only company that was qualified to perform the necessary work. Naturally, we all know Bush and Cheney would not have pulled any strings to give the contract to KBR, so they must have been the only qualified company.

American workers who work for KBR either do not realize they are being royally screwed by KBR or don’t care. Most likely they don’t know yet, but those workers will not receive any Medicare or Medicaid credits while working for KBR through their off shore company, or be entitled to unemployment benefits. They will be pretty upset when they reach SS age and find out they are not going to get as much as thought they were going to get. And they have no legal recourse if KBR wants to screw them in other ways while they are employed. KBR is conveniently ignoring to tell them all these facts when they are hired.

I guess the tax cuts that the Republican Party insist giving big businesses is just not enough, so we have those infamous tax loop holes created by their Congressional friends so they can pay even less tax, on their way to not paying any taxes at all. Only when big businesses are paying no taxes at all will they and the Republicans be happy. So I’ve got some suggestions.

Since they don’t want to pay taxes and support America, strip the company of all protection and benefits that American companies have. For starters, if some foreign power wants to nationalize them like they do oil companies, tough luck; if some foreign military wants to attack them, tough luck. Include all the executives of KBR in this same loss of protection. In other words, take away all their rights as an American. The list could go on and on, but you get the idea. Any American company that breaks our laws and/or takes advantage of legal loop holes to avoid supporting America should not be allowed to be an American company, have American protection, participate in our programs, or receive American benefits. And the executives of those companies should also be stripped of the same, including their future Medicare and Medicaid benefits. I’m sure that will greatly upset them, as they will need their SS benefits to subsidize the hundreds of millions of dollars they will have.

It’s a pretty lengthy article, but if you really care how our government and big businesses are screwing you and your country, you should read this article on this subject and KBR.