While Clinton Backed 2011 Trade Deal, Sanders Foresaw Panama Papers Fiasco
Published on
Tuesday, April 05, 2016
by
Common Dreams
While Clinton Backed 2011 Trade Deal, Sanders Foresaw Panama Papers Fiasco
'Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and
large corporations to evade US taxes,' Sanders told Congress in 2011.
by
Lauren McCauley, staff writer
Shocked about the Panama Papers? Sen. Bernie Sanders saw it coming back in
2011. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/cc/flickr)
Who could have predicted that the global tax evasion by the world's
ultra-rich, made public this week with the release of the Panama Papers, was
ushered in with the help of a free trade agreement?
Turns out, Sen. Bernie Sanders did.
In fiery speech before the U.S. Senate in 2011, Bernie Sanders declared his
"strong opposition" to the "unfettered free trade agreements" with Korea,
Columbia, and Panamaagreements that were being pushed for by both President
Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sanders' current
rival for the Democratic nomination.
"Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and
large corporations to evade U.S. taxes by stashing their cash in off-shore
tax havens," Sanders stated. "And, the Panama Free Trade Agreement would
make this bad situation much worse."
Watch Sanders' entire speech below:
Sanders continued:
Each and every year, the wealthy and large corporations evade $100 billion
in U.S. taxes through abusive and illegal offshore tax havens in Panama and
other countries.
According to Citizens for Tax Justice, "A tax haven . . . has one of three
characteristics: It has no income tax or a very low-rate income tax; it has
bank secrecy laws; and it has a history of non-cooperation with other
countries on exchanging information about tax matters. Panama has all three
of those. ... They're probably the worst."
Mr. President, the trade agreement with Panama would effectively bar the
U.S. from cracking down on illegal and abusive offshore tax havens in
Panama. In fact, combating tax haven abuse in Panama would be a violation
of this free trade agreement, exposing the U.S. to fines from international
authorities.
In 2008, the Government Accountability Office said that 17 of the 100
largest American companies were operating a total of 42 subsidiaries in
Panama. This free trade agreement would make it easier for the wealthy and
large corporations to avoid paying U.S. taxes and it must be defeated. At a
time when we have a record-breaking $14.7 trillion national debt and an
unsustainable federal deficit, the last thing that we should be doing is
making it easier for the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations
in this country to avoid paying their fair share in taxes by setting-up
offshore tax havens in Panama.
Sanders was in the minority with that view and shortly thereafter the
Panama-U.S. Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) was passed and signed into law,
a move that was lauded by Sec. Clinton as an example of the Obama
Administration's commitment to "deepen our economic engagement throughout
the world."
What's more, as International Business Times senior editor David Sirota and
others have pointed out, the Obama administration even included a loophole
in the deal "that allows Panama to sidestep new tax transparency provisions"
included in the trade pact.
Though the world was stunned by the leak of 11.5 million documents from the
Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, which detailed how government and
corporate officials around the world erected shell companies to stash
billions of dollars in to avoid tax liability, much of those activities were
not necessarily illegalthanks to agreements such as the Panama TPA.
"Tax avoidance is an inevitable feature of any tax system, but the reason
this particular form of avoidance grows and grows without bounds is that
powerful politicians in powerful countries have chosen to let it happen,"
Vox's Matthew Yglesias wrote Sunday. "As the global economy has become more
and more deeply integrated, powerful countries have created economic 'rules
of the road' that foreign countries and multinational corporations must
follow in order to gain lucrative market access."
Indeed, reclaiming an economy that has been "rigged" for the one percent is
the hallmark of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, and it is a theme
that has galvanized voters and fueled primary upsets across the United
States.
On Monday, 22,000 people demonstrated outside the Parliament building in
Reykjavik, Iceland calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Sigmundur
Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who is just one of the world leaders implicated in the
leak. Observers speculate that is just the beginning of the popular backlash
to the revelations.
Though there has been little reporting on what Americans have been exposed
in the Mossack Fonseca data dump, there are already murmurs that the Panama
Papers can provide the necessary boost for Sanders to overtake Clinton.
"All of the presidential candidates will be questioned about the scandal.
And nobody is going to be under more pressure than Hillary Clinton,"
columnist Matthew Turner wrote at the Independent on Tuesday. "For some
Americans, she is the embodiment of a 'global elite,' while Bernie Sanders
is its antithesis."
Turner continues:
But this more than a battle of candidates, it is a battle of ideas.
Globalization, heralded by the likes of Hillary Clinton, has enabled the
richest in society to exploit the system while ordinary working people pick
up the tab. This has been going on for decades; as a political family, the
Clintons have done nothing about it. Hillary continues to describe her
opponents policy platform as pie in the sky, yet corporations paying
their fair share of taxes could easily fund many of Sanders proposals. The
longer this scandal this kept alive the more beneficial will be for Sanders.
And if any more skeletons in the Clinton closet see the light, it will
parachute Bernie Sanders into the White House.
Sanders has not yet released a statement on the Panama Papers, but in an
interview on Monday he sharpened his attack on "greed, recklessness and
illegal behavior on Wall Street," telling the New York Daily News:
A rigged economy is when you have corporations making billions of dollars a
year in taxes, billions of dollars a year in profit, and not paying a nickel
in taxes. A rigged economy is where you have companies able to shut down as
a result of trade agreements that they have written, and move abroad and pay
people pennies an hour. That is a rigged economy. A rigged economy is when,
in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, the top one-tenth of
1% now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%.
"If that's not a rigged economy," Sanders adds, "I don't know what a rigged
economy is."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
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While Clinton Backed 2011 Trade Deal, Sanders Foresaw Panama Papers Fiasco
Published on
Tuesday, April 05, 2016
by
Common Dreams
While Clinton Backed 2011 Trade Deal, Sanders Foresaw Panama Papers Fiasco
'Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and
large corporations to evade US taxes,' Sanders told Congress in 2011.
by
Lauren McCauley, staff writer
53 Comments
Shocked about the Panama Papers? Sen. Bernie Sanders saw it coming
back in 2011. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/cc/flickr)
Who could have predicted that the global tax evasion by the world's
ultra-rich, made public this week with the release of the Panama Papers, was
ushered in with the help of a free trade agreement?
Turns out, Sen. Bernie Sanders did.
In fiery speech before the U.S. Senate in 2011, Bernie Sanders
declared his "strong opposition" to the "unfettered free trade agreements"
with Korea, Columbia, and Panamaagreements that were being pushed for by
both President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
Sanders' current rival for the Democratic nomination.
"Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy
Americans and large corporations to evade U.S. taxes by stashing their cash
in off-shore tax havens," Sanders stated. "And, the Panama Free Trade
Agreement would make this bad situation much worse."
Watch Sanders' entire speech below:
Sanders continued:
Each and every year, the wealthy and large corporations evade $100 billion
in U.S. taxes through abusive and illegal offshore tax havens in Panama and
other countries.
According to Citizens for Tax Justice, "A tax haven . . . has one of three
characteristics: It has no income tax or a very low-rate income tax; it has
bank secrecy laws; and it has a history of non-cooperation with other
countries on exchanging information about tax matters. Panama has all three
of those. ... They're probably the worst."
Mr. President, the trade agreement with Panama would effectively bar the
U.S. from cracking down on illegal and abusive offshore tax havens in
Panama. In fact, combating tax haven abuse in Panama would be a violation of
this free trade agreement, exposing the U.S. to fines from international
authorities.
In 2008, the Government Accountability Office said that 17 of the 100
largest American companies were operating a total of 42 subsidiaries in
Panama. This free trade agreement would make it easier for the wealthy and
large corporations to avoid paying U.S. taxes and it must be defeated. At a
time when we have a record-breaking $14.7 trillion national debt and an
unsustainable federal deficit, the last thing that we should be doing is
making it easier for the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations
in this country to avoid paying their fair share in taxes by setting-up
offshore tax havens in Panama.
Sanders was in the minority with that view and shortly thereafter the
Panama-U.S. Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) was passed and signed into law,
a move that was lauded by Sec. Clinton as an example of the Obama
Administration's commitment to "deepen our economic engagement throughout
the world."
What's more, as International Business Times senior editor David Sirota and
others have pointed out, the Obama administration even included a loophole
in the deal "that allows Panama to sidestep new tax transparency provisions"
included in the trade pact.
Though the world was stunned by the leak of 11.5 million documents from the
Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, which detailed how government and
corporate officials around the world erected shell companies to stash
billions of dollars in to avoid tax liability, much of those activities were
not necessarily illegalthanks to agreements such as the Panama TPA.
"Tax avoidance is an inevitable feature of any tax system, but the reason
this particular form of avoidance grows and grows without bounds is that
powerful politicians in powerful countries have chosen to let it happen,"
Vox's Matthew Yglesias wrote Sunday. "As the global economy has become more
and more deeply integrated, powerful countries have created economic 'rules
of the road' that foreign countries and multinational corporations must
follow in order to gain lucrative market access."
Indeed, reclaiming an economy that has been "rigged" for the one percent is
the hallmark of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, and it is a theme
that has galvanized voters and fueled primary upsets across the United
States.
On Monday, 22,000 people demonstrated outside the Parliament building in
Reykjavik, Iceland calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Sigmundur
Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who is just one of the world leaders implicated in the
leak. Observers speculate that is just the beginning of the popular backlash
to the revelations.
Though there has been little reporting on what Americans have been exposed
in the Mossack Fonseca data dump, there are already murmurs that the Panama
Papers can provide the necessary boost for Sanders to overtake Clinton.
"All of the presidential candidates will be questioned about the scandal.
And nobody is going to be under more pressure than Hillary Clinton,"
columnist Matthew Turner wrote at the Independent on Tuesday. "For some
Americans, she is the embodiment of a 'global elite,' while Bernie Sanders
is its antithesis."
Turner continues:
But this more than a battle of candidates, it is a battle of ideas.
Globalization, heralded by the likes of Hillary Clinton, has enabled the
richest in society to exploit the system while ordinary working people pick
up the tab. This has been going on for decades; as a political family, the
Clintons have done nothing about it. Hillary continues to describe her
opponents policy platform as pie in the sky, yet corporations paying
their fair share of taxes could easily fund many of Sanders proposals. The
longer this scandal this kept alive the more beneficial will be for Sanders.
And if any more skeletons in the Clinton closet see the light, it will
parachute Bernie Sanders into the White House.
Sanders has not yet released a statement on the Panama Papers, but in an
interview on Monday he sharpened his attack on "greed, recklessness and
illegal behavior on Wall Street," telling the New York Daily News:
A rigged economy is when you have corporations making billions of dollars a
year in taxes, billions of dollars a year in profit, and not paying a nickel
in taxes. A rigged economy is where you have companies able to shut down as
a result of trade agreements that they have written, and move abroad and pay
people pennies an hour. That is a rigged economy. A rigged economy is when,
in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, the top one-tenth of
1% now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%.
"If that's not a rigged economy," Sanders adds, "I don't know what a rigged
economy is."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
