Those who can’t remember the past are doomed to live in 1984
Sometimes I think our politicians are already talking Newspeak — the language described by George Orwell in the novel “1984.”
As Syme explained it to Winston Smith, the object of Newspeak was to cut the language to the bone, to eliminate enough words until every concept ever needed would be expressed in one word. When this was achieved, no one would be able to conceive of thought crimes. Even the slogan “freedom is slavery” would be gone, because there would be no word for freedom.
Take the Nevada State Democratic Party press release sent out Tuesday. It took umbrage and issue with Republican Sen. John Ensign and Senate Republican candidate Sharron Angle for opposing a bill that “would have closed tax loopholes for corporations that outsource jobs, while rewarding small manufacturers that bring jobs to the U.S.”
The release said they opposed “a measure that would have saved American jobs.”
In a self-referential nod, Phoebe Sweet, communications director for the Nevada State Democratic Party, quoted herself in her press release as saying, “While Sen. (Harry) Reid is fighting for every American job — and especially for jobs for Nevadans — Sharron Angle and her buddy John Ensign are fighting for tax breaks for big corporations that ship American jobs overseas.”
The bill would have ended what is called a tax deferral. Now American companies pay the taxes in whatever country they maintain overseas operation, but then pay the difference between that tax and the U.S. corporate tax — currently at 35 percent, one of the highest in the world by far — only when the profits are repatriated. In other words, the tax is deferred. The Democratic bill would have stopped that and, they said, created an incentive to bring jobs back to the U.S.
A Tuesday Wall Street Journal editorial pointed out the flaw in the rationale:
“Mr. Obama believes that by increasing the U.S. tax on overseas profits, some companies may be less likely to invest abroad in the first place. In some cases that will be true. But the more frequent result will be that U.S. companies lose business to foreign rivals, U.S. firms are bought by tax-advantaged foreign companies, and some U.S. multinational firms move their headquarters overseas. They can move to Ireland (where the corporate tax rate is 12.5%) or Germany or Taiwan, or dozens of countries with less hostile tax climates.”
Instead of saving jobs, the bill would have cost jobs.
The editorialists pointed out that this has happened before. In 1986 a deferral on foreign shipping taxes was eliminated. In the next eight years the U.S.-flagged fleet was cut from 737 vessels to only 412, as U.S. firms sold ships to foreign companies not subject to the tax.
But no one seems to remember that.
Microsoft has threatened to move its operations overseas if such a tax change is made.
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Winston was smoking one of the last of his Victory cigarettes before the next day’s ration and watching the telescreen. “It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”
