ThinkProgress filed this report from Pella, Iowa.

As Americans struggle with a sputtering economy and persistently high unemployment, renewed attention is being focused on corporations that avoid paying taxes, leaving taxpayers to cover their unpaid bills. Already, we’ve seen a number of major corporations, many of which brought in huge profits, avoid paying corporate income taxes altogether — from Bank of America to Boeing to General Electric.

Yet corporate tax dodgers have found a willing shield in the Republican Party. From Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) to presidential hopeful Herman Cain, GOPers are lining up to protect corporate interests in the tax code.

The latest corporate defender is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. During a presidential campaign stop in Pella, Iowa on Monday, Gingrich discussed corporate tax dodgers like General Electric. However, rather than advocating we pursue tax cheats or close down the loopholes that allow them to skirt the corporate income tax, Gingrich proposed an alternative solution: lower the corporate tax rate to a level that corporations would be more willing to pay. Specifically, the former House Speaker called for reducing the corporate income tax rate by nearly two-thirds to 12.5 percent:

GINGRICH: We ought to cut the corporate tax rate down from 35 percent to 12.5 percent. And ironically, for our liberal friends, General Electric would pay a higher tax at 12.5 percent, because at 35 it pays them to hire lots of lawyers to get around all the taxes and they pay virtually no taxes. But at 12.5 they’d fire the lawyers and write a check to the government. So ironically, you’d get more tax, but also you’d liberate about a trillion dollars overseas of money which is currently locked up in profits but they don’t want to bring home and pay high taxes on.

Watch it:

Why stop there? Why not cut the rate to 9 percent, like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is posing? Surely there are some corporations who would be more likely to actually pay their corporate income taxes if the rate were 9 percent instead of 12.5 percent?

In all seriousness, Gingrich is espousing a backwards notion of the way government and corporations ought to be interacting. In most people’s view, government is there to act in the people’s best interests by maintaining a level playing field for all people and ensuring that everyone pays their fair share towards society. In Gingrich’s view, government is there to act in the corporations’ best interests by setting corporate tax rates at whatever level CEOs say they’re willing to pay.

To read more about corporate taxes, check out ThinkProgress’ coverage of how the United States has the second lowest corporate taxes in the developed world, six ways in which conservatives encourage and abet corporate tax dodging, and more about which corporations are avoiding their tax bills.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) — when he’s not busy trying to protect the nation’s biggest banks from consumer protection regulations — has issued legislation to “reform” the US Postal Service. “Congress can’t keep kicking the can down the road on out of control labor costs and excess infrastructure of USPS,” Issa has said.

But it seems like Issa is far more interested in attacking the Postal Service’s workers than he is in actually fixing USPS’ fiscal problems. As the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s David Madland and Zane Farr found, Issa’s bill includes a provision that would allow a “Solvency Authority” to unilaterally void USPS’ collective bargaining agreements (much like the “emergency managers” empowered by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) to nullify labor contracts):

Rep. Issa’s proposed Postal Reform Act isn’t the frontal assault on collective bargaining being pushed by Govs. Scott Walker in Wisconsin and John Kasich in Ohio but instead closely adheres to the strategy of Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to empower “emergency” managers to unilaterally modify collective bargaining agreements. Such powers effectively end any real ability for workers to bargain collectively.

Rep. Issa’s bill would create a Solvency Authority that can “after meeting and conferring with the appropriate bargaining representative … reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms or conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement.” That’s virtually identical language to the Michigan law that allows the emergency manager to “after meeting and conferring with the appropriate bargaining representative … reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement.”

Issa has expressed admiration for the union-busting efforts of Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), saying Walker’s “actions to cut spending and address over-compensation of public employees are putting his state government in a stronger financial position.” Making it quite clear that Issa is more interested in busting labor than solving USPS’ problems, he “rejected the approach of the other prominent Republican bill on this topic — introduced in February by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) — that addresses the Postal Service’s underlying financial issues without giving emergency managers the power to overturn collective bargaining.”