Control over America by the 1 percent is complete, courtesy of the two-party system:

An analysis published Friday by the renowned economist Gabriel Zucman shows that in 2018, U.S. billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans for the first time in the nation’s history, a data point that sparked a new flurry of calls for bold levies on the ultra-rich.

Taxes on corporations have been declining for decades. During that period both Democrats and Republicans have been running the show:

The effective federal corporate income tax rate:

1950: 50%
1990: 25%
2020: 13%

Stop asking "but how we will pay for it?" Restore the corporate tax rate.

That is how we will pay for it.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) May 3, 2024

Corporations are living very well while the rest of us struggle to survive:

And what do they do with those profits? Layoff workers.

Between 2018 and 2022, Tesla paid its top executives $2.5 billion and paid $0 in federal income taxes.

Tesla's board is actively fighting for a $47 billion pay package for Elon Musk.

And they just announced layoffs of about 10% of their workforce.

Tax corporate greed. pic.twitter.com/1XNdcfdES6

— Americans For Tax Fairness (@4TaxFairness) April 25, 2024

This is nothing but looting by the wealthiest at the expense of everyone else:

Major U.S. banks shaved about $21 billion from their tax bills last year — almost double the IRS’s annual budget — as the industry benefited more than many others from the Republican tax overhaul.

By year-end, most of the nation’s largest lenders met or exceeded their initial predictions for tax savings. On average, the banks saw their effective tax rates fall below 19 percent from the roughly 28 percent they paid in 2016. And while the breaks set off a gusher of payouts to shareholders, firms cut thousands of jobs and saw their lending growth slow.

This is what happens when you live in a corporate dictatorship. The truth is suppressed. If only we had a press that was as courageous as this fine woman:

A woman was removed from the West Virginia House of Delegates on Friday after she used her testimony about a fossil fuel-sponsored piece of legislation to list industry donations to state lawmakers.

Lissa Lucas ventured to Charleston to voice her objections to the proposed bill, HB 4268, which would give oil and gas companies the right to drill on private land with the consent of just 75 percent of the landowners. Current law mandates energy companies obtain 100 percent approval before they can develop land, allowing a single person to hold up drilling.