As we’ve been documenting, several multinational corporations (along with their Republican allies) have been pushing Congress to enact a tax repatriation holiday, allowing them to bring money they have stashed offshore back to the U.S. at a dramatically lower tax rate. Usually, money brought back to the U.S. is subject to the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

The corporations pushing for a tax holiday claim that it will allow them to bring funds into the U.S. that they will invest in domestic operations and job creation. However, Congress approved a repatriation holiday in 2004, only to see companies use the money to line their executives’ pockets. The holiday also encouraged corporations to stash more money overseas, because they figured they could sucker Congress into approving holidays over and over.

The Obama administration, as well as some leading Republicans on the relevant tax committees, have thrown cold water on the tax holiday idea. Not to be deterred, a group of corporations, have launched a new website — WinAmerica — to try to convince policymakers of the wisdom of another holiday. It includes pictures of smiling workers and extols the supposed virtues such a tax holiday would provide.

However, many of the corporate supporters behind the WinAmerica campaign already use the various loopholes and giveaways in the corporate tax code to drastically lower their corporate tax rate. Here’s what these companies begging for a new corporate tax cut currently pay in corporate income taxes:

On their website, these corporations claim “providing American businesses with incentives to invest at home is a common sense solution that will immediately inject up to $1 trillion into our economy and provide businesses with the certainty they need to help get Americans back to work.” However, Kristen Forbes, who was on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers when the last repatriation holiday was approved, said that the holiday “didn’t accomplish the stated goals of bringing jobs and investment to the US.’’

The Congressional Research Service actually found that the largest beneficiaries of the last tax holiday cut jobs over the subsequent two years. So while “WinAmerica” might be good for corporations and their executives, it’s undoubtedly a loss for everyone else.

*Tax rate is for 2010 or 2009, depending on the latest data these companies have made available. Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

As we’ve been documenting, several multinational corporations (along with their Republican allies) have been pushing Congress to enact a tax repatriation holiday, allowing them to bring money they have stashed offshore back to the U.S. at a dramatically lower tax rate. Usually, money brought back to the U.S. is subject to the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

The corporations pushing for a tax holiday claim that it will allow them to bring funds into the U.S. that they will invest in domestic operations and job creation. However, Congress approved a repatriation holiday in 2004, only to see companies use the money to line their executives’ pockets. The holiday also encouraged corporations to stash more money overseas, because they figured they could sucker Congress into approving holidays over and over.

The White House, as well as some leading Republicans on the relevant tax committees, have thrown cold water on the tax holiday idea. Not to be deterred, a group of corporations, have launched a new website — WinAmerica — to try to convince policymakers of the wisdom of another holiday. It includes pictures of smiling workers and extols the supposed virtues such a tax holiday would provide.

However, many of the corporate supporters behind the WinAmerica campaign already use the various loopholes and giveaways in the corporate tax code to drastically lower their corporate tax rate. Here’s what these companies begging for a new corporate tax cut currently pay in corporate income taxes:

On their website, these corporations claim “providing American businesses with incentives to invest at home is a common sense solution that will immediately inject up to $1 trillion into our economy and provide businesses with the certainty they need to help get Americans back to work.” However, Kristen Forbes, who was on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers when the last repatriation holiday was approved, said that the holiday “didn’t accomplish the stated goals of bringing jobs and investment to the US.’’

The Congressional Research Service actually found that the largest beneficiaries of the last tax holiday cut jobs over the subsequent two years. So while “WinAmerica” might be good for corporations and their executives, it’s undoubtedly a loss for everyone else.

*Tax rate is for 2010 or 2009, depending on the latest data these companies have made available.

Earlier this month, Richard Clarke, who served for both Democratic and Republican Presidents, including a stint as the cyber security czar for the Bush administration, denounced the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for plotting with a group of military contractors to hack into progressive groups. Clarke was in DC speaking at a cyber security conference hosted by Symantec. Although Clarke focused his remarks about the growing threat of global cyber terrorism, ThinkProgress spoke to the longtime public servant about the ChamberLeaks story we originally broke.

According to documents first reported by ThinkProgress, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s attorneys began working with three military contractors — Berico, HB Gary, and Palantir — to come up with a proposal to discredit groups like ThinkProgress, the SEIU, StopTheChamber.com, MoveOn.org, and others. The tactics proposed included spying on families, using malware computer viruses to steal private information, using fake documents to embarrass liberals, and creating fake identities to infiltrate their targets.

Clarke denounced the scandal in no uncertain terms. Noting accurately that the Chamber “took foreign money in the last election,” a story also uncovered by ThinkProgress, Clarke said the Chamber had potentially conspired to commit a “felony”:

FANG: Hi. You talked a lot about classifying and recognizing cyber security threats, but you mostly focused on foreign threats. I’m curious about a story that broke last month, that the US Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest trade association, based here in DC, had contracted or attempted to contract military defense firms like HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico, to develop proposals to use the same type of cyber warfare tactics normally reserved for Jihadi websites against left-wing activists, trade — labor unions, and left of center think tanks here in America. What do you think about that type of threat from a lobbyist or a corporation targeting political enemies, or perceived enemies here in the US?

CLARKE: I think it’s a violation of 10USC. I think it’s a felony, and I think they should go to jail. You call them a large trade association, I call them a large political action group that took foreign money in the last election. But be that as it may, if you in the United States, if any American citizen anywhere in the world, because this is an extraterritorial law, so don’t think you can go to Bermuda and do it, if any American citizen anywhere in the world engages in unauthorized penetration, or identity theft, accessing a number through identity theft purposes, that’s a felony and if the Chamber of Commerce wants to try that, that’s fine with me because the FBI will be on their doorstep in a matter of hours.

Listen here:

Clarke, the author of a new book called Cyber War, was right to point out that hacking into progressive groups constitutes a felony. There are a number of federal and state statutes that prohibit the theft of private computer information.

Recently, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) formally requested documents from the NSA and Defense Department relating to contracts with two of the firms involved in this scandal, Berico and HB Gary. Nineteen other lawmakers have called for a wider investigation.

The United States is one of the only countries in the developed world that does not guarantee its workers some form of paid sick leave. However, two cities — San Francisco and Washington, D.C. — have passed their own laws to guarantee workers paid time off when they’re sick.

In 2008, Milwaukee, Wisconsin became the third U.S. city to require paid sick leave for workers, when voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum, but the measure has been tied up in the Wisconsin courts ever since. Today, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals finally ruled that the law can move forward. The Wisconsin Supreme Court deadlocked over the issue last year, giving the Court of Appeals the power to affirm the law.

However, Wisconsin’s Republicans are now moving legislation to block Milwaukee, or any other Wisconsin city, from ever implementing the law:

Republican legislators have drafted a bill that would prohibit municipalities from setting paid sick leave requirements that exceed state requirements. State law requires firms provide sick leave, but not paid time off. The proposal passed the Wisconsin Senate on a 19-0 vote on March 3, and awaits a hearing by the Wisconsin Assembly on Labor and Workforce Development. Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) supports the legislation, said communications director John Jagler.

Wisconsin’s state Republicans — along with Gov. Scott Walker (R) — have already made their contempt for workers well known, passing a bill that stripped public employees of their collective bargaining rights. But refusing to provide paid sick leave to workers is short-sighted, dismissing the myriad benefits such a policy provides.

After all, the U.S. economy loses $180 billion in productivity annually due to sick employees attending work and infecting other workers. And lack of paid leave not only means sick employees coming to work, but sick children being sent to school by parents who can’t afford to take time off to care for them.

The common argument against providing paid sick leave is that it will drive up costs for businesses. However, the Drum Major Institute released a study examining San Francisco’s paid sick leave law and found “no evidence that businesses in San Francisco have been negatively impacted by the enactment of paid sick leave.”

Wisconsin’s Republicans have already demonized their public employees in order to pass union-busting measures and propose draconian cuts to health care and education. Denying workers paid sick leave, which Wisconsinites voted for by a huge margin, would be adding insult to injury. Protests against the legislature’s move to block the paid sick day measure are taking place at noon today.