AUSTIN, Texas -- OK, Republicans, justify this. I want to hear your explanations for why the Republican leadership went against the will of 318 members to grant an unconscionable gift to corporations that set up offshore tax shelters to avoid paying their U.S. taxes.
According to Citizens for Tax Justice, the offshore tax-shelter dodge costs this country as much as $50 billion annually. This amendment was not to shut down the loophole. It was just to prevent rewarding these financial traitors with government contracts.
The House leadership -- that would be your speaker, Dennis Hastert, and your majority leader, Dick Armey -- going against the will of both the House and the Senate, took out the "Wellstone Amendment," sponsored by the late populist senator. It would have prevented runaway companies, those that set up mailboxes in Bermuda in order to avoid paying their taxes, from getting government contracts related to homeland security.
They replaced the Wellstone Amendment with a toothless provision that affects no company.
The polite term for these corporate tax-dodgers is "corporate inversion" or "corporate expatriates," but they are tax cheats, pure and simple. They don't move anywhere, they just get a shell address so they won't have to pay their share of the taxes. And guess who gets stuck paying their share instead? And now we're going to reward these tax cheats with government contracts.
Here's Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts on how it works:
"Let's take Tyco, formerly of New Hampshire, now of Bermuda, for example. Tyco avoids paying $400 million a year in U.S. taxes by setting up a shell headquarters offshore, but it was awarded $182 million in lucrative defense and homeland security-related contracts in 2001 alone. If Tyco had just paid its tax bill, Congress could easily have paid for 400 explosive detection systems (EDS), which are badly needed to protect U.S. travelers at airports around the nation.
"Or let's examine corporate expatriate Ingersoll-Rand, formerly of New Jersey, and now also in Bermuda. Ingersoll-Rand earned as much last year in U.S. defense and homeland security federal contracts as it avoids in U.S. taxes annually merely by renting a mailbox in Bermuda and calling it 'home.' If Ingersoll-Rand paid its U.S. tax bill, Congress could easily afford to fund the Cyberspace Warning Intelligence Network, estimated to cost $30 million, or it could also buy 400,000 gas masks for American citizens."
If this is what Republicans want to stand for, fine. Their leadership has thwarted all efforts to have a debate and vote on a separate bill, the Corporate Patriot Enforcement Act, a bipartisan bill to deny benefits to corporations that flee to tax havens.
And why would Republicans do such a despicable thing? Well, let's look at the lobbyists hired to fight the offshore provision: former Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole (paid by Tyco), former House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, Bush family confidant Charlie Black, former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Livingston, former Sen. Dennis DeConcini and Reagan White House Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein.
The D's, plus Sen. John McCain, tried to get this and other obnoxious special-interest provisions taken out of the bill. So the R's promised to "tone down" the offensive amendments with corrective legislation -- sometime next year. But incoming House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has already announced that he agreed only to "consider" such changes, not make them. Don't put any money on this prospect.
The Homeland Security Bill was 35 pages long when President Bush, who had long opposed it, did a 180 in the summer and pretended he invented it. He decided to support it instead of ignoring the proposal by Democrats. By then, the bill had become a 435-page behemoth, larded with pork and special-interest legislation.
The other provisions tucked in the bill to reward other Republican contributors are almost as disgusting. I admit that the amendment protecting the Eli Lilly Co. from future lawsuits is a fine example of really fast service for a contributor.
It was just a few weeks ago that The New York Times ran the first serious look at thimerosal, the vaccine preservative that may be related to autism, and -- wham, bam -- no problem for the Lilly company. (And don't give me that bull about how it's just an arbitration panel, parents can still sue, yadda, yadda, yadda. The purpose of that stinking amendment could not possibly be clearer. The Lilly Co. bought itself a very nice piece of legislation indeed.)
It's one thing to pass this kind of special interest legislation. It's another to call it "patriotism." That could gag a maggot.
Molly Ivins is a syndicated columnist.
Columnist Ellen Goodman is on vacation.