A Government Accountability Office study due to be released today says that two thirds of US corporations and about 68% of foreign corporations doing business in the United States completely avoided any corporate income taxes between 1998 and 2005.

The GAO study did not investigate why corporations weren't paying federal income taxes or corporate taxes and it did not identify any corporations by name. It said companies may escape paying such taxes due to operating losses or because of tax credits.

More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined, the companies had $2.5 trillion in sales. About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts.

Link to article

In the case of privatization at the USPS, the latest GAO report reads more like a big April Fool's joke than reality and contains such ludicrous excuses for privatization that any competent person  would be embarrassed to make them.

crossposted from unbossed

You would think that amidst the GWOT we would be taking national security seriously and that seriousness would be demonstrated by a meaningful security clearance process. But not so.

crossposted from unbossed

A few years ago, Frontline aired an investigative report into the use of private contractors, including private security contractors mercenaries. link

That report was devastating in its findings, primarily that the use of private security contractors mercenaries was contributing to unrest and was taking the military away from its mission in order to protect the private security contractors mercenaries.

Crossposted from unbossed.

crossposted from unbossed

Yawn! So what else is new? Another Bush agency transformed from one that fulfilled its mission to protect the powerless and to crack down on law-breaking employers into one that completely refuses to do its job. Just another example of our unitary executive - make that uni-tarry executive - at work. Talk about your energy in the executive the ultra conservatives tout! I guess the WHD folks have found a burning bush to tell them what their life's mission is about.

crossposted from unbossed

This is about privatization. About five years ago, IT privatization was all the rage in the federal government. For reasons that have always escaped me, pro-privatization groups argued - successfully (and this is the part I find unbelievable) - that contracting out an agency's IT work is a no-brainer and would lead only to good.

crossposted from unbossed

Only a true chickenhawk president and his chickenhawk advisors could have brought the US military so low. The story is just pouring out from GAO this week in report after report. Yep! It's the shame ol' shame'ol!

We've all been there.  A project is supposed to be done and turned in to the boss and for what ever reason you just can't turn it in.  Maybe you blew the project off to go drinking.  Maybe you just need a little more time to finish the project to your satisfaction.  What ever the reason you need to weasel yourself a little time.  Blaming the dog is perhaps a little archaic, now we complain about the network going down or a virus deleting all our hard work.  So what did the FBI tell the GAO when it came looking for information on the $78,700,000 the FBI requested for a data mining operation that might violate our privacy?  Take the red pill and jump to find out.

Today I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Dr. Marjorie E. Kanof, Managing Director of the Health Care team at the GAO. She came to give my colleagues and I a general presentation on the GAO. What was perhaps unusual about the meeting was that it took place in Luxembourg, yes the little country wedged between Belgium, Germany and France (and the country with the highest GDP per capita in the world).

It was a meeting between colleagues, as she was giving her presentation to the European Court of Auditors, which is where I work. It was a fascinating presentation, and I was very impressed. I think that Americans can be very grateful for such a robust and sound organisation that tries to hold its Federal Government to account. Amazingly, their site has over 1 million hits a day, which I think is a very healthy sign of the level of interest in the activities of government.

A GAO report released yesterday indicates some gains have been made in Iraq since the surge, but a number of the stated goals of the surge remain unmet.  The report cites reductions in violence in Iraq, but also failures of the Iraqi security forces to be self sufficient and failure of the Iraqi government to enact key legislation, provide essential services, and spend its capital budgets.

Senator McCain and President Bush keep insisting the surge is working.  They hang their hats on the reduction of violence in Iraq that the surge is working.  But by every other benchmark outlined by the Bush Administration's New Way Forward strategy, their strategy is failing.  Increasing the number of US troops was supposed to give the Iraqi government the "breathing space" needed to develop into a credible governing body.  As the GAO report indicates, the Iraqi government is failing.

The GAO report faults the Departments of Defense and State for not having strategic plans in place beyond the surge's end date in July 2008.  Defense and State responded by saying no new plans are needed because the surge is working.

If it isn't one thing it is another for the people who agree to serve in our National Guard and reserve forces. If having to go to Iraq and Afghanistan wouldn't be a shock on their system enough, how about ignoring the requirements of their civilian occupations? That certainly won't help their return to civilian life.

Also posted at my little internet sandbox.  Now with less cat poop!

I know that most people who will stumble across this blog are aware that Republicans are not the party of "National Security."  The normal reasons we get into with our more politically elephantine acquaintances tend to involve discussions about The War on Terra, 9/11, torture, foreign policy and the like.

We also know about domestic concerns that are related to Terra, like inspecting cargo containers or physical access to power and water supplies.   What gets overlooked by us in our arguments are the more mundane things, like network security.

crossposted from unbossed

Wouldn't it be nice for a change to read a GAO report on how the Bush administration is using contractors that found reasonable performance standards were set, that there was good oversight, that contractors performed as required, and that if they didn't they were given the boot?

Well, you'll have to keep holding your breath when it comes to the State Department . . . whose Secretary would be . . . .?

Like me, I know you’ll be following the election returns today – but it’s imperative that we not lose focus on some of the issues in play that may be obscured by the election – and I can tell you that if you’re watching the returns on television news, there’s one story you’re almost guaranteed not to see tonight.

It’s now been two weeks since the New York Times published their story on the Pentagon Pundits.

I wanted to call out the cavalry here because we still don’t know exactly what was going on and exactly what steps were taken to try to shape the news. You can help make sure we find out.

President Bush insists his first priority is protecting the American people.  His policies at home and abroad, he likes to say, are designed to make us safer.  Some of these policies are highly visible, such as reducing Iraq to bloody rubble, or encouraging Israel to do the same in Lebanon, or siccing the rabid John Bolton on a cowed United Nations, or reading your mail and listening to your phone conversations.  The president receives as much credit as he deserves for these bold protective measures.

But some Bush administration policies protect us in far subtler ways, and it’s high time the president was recognized for them.  In the Departments of  Defense and Homeland Security, to cite just two examples, the Bush administration is making the big security picture a lot brighter by getting all those critical little things just right.

For those who didn’t see dday’s excellent diary about the very unimportant Government Accountability Office report out today, well, it is a doozy.

The title itself should bring back memories of the infamous August 2001 PDB titled "bin Laden determined to strike inside the US", as this one is titled The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas".

The first paragraph lays it all out with the following reiteration of what we have known for quite some time already:

GAO found broad agreement, as documented in the National Intelligence Estimate, State and embassy documents, as well as Defense officials in Pakistan, that al Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven in Pakistan’s FATA.

Over 6 1/2 years ago Osama bin Laden orchestrated the murder of nearly 3000 people living in the United States.

Three days after the horrific attack president George W. Bush blustered this to the press: (emphasis mine)

President Bush pledged anew Friday that Osama bin Laden will be taken "dead or alive," no matter how long it takes, amid indications that the suspected terrorist may be bottled up in a rugged Afghan canyon. The president, in an Oval Office meeting with Thailand's prime minister, would not predict the timing of bin Laden's capture but said he doesn't care how the suspect is brought to justice. "I don't care, dead or alive — either way," Bush said. "It doesn't matter to me."

Arf! Arf! Arf!  OK, not exactly in the window, but go to Craig's List or e-bay, and you can buy enough stolen US military equipment to make your own F-14 or credibly pose as a US officer. Among the items for sale are F-14 components, Night vision goggles containing an image intensifier tube made to military specifications, Army Combat Uniform (ACU) and uniform accessories,  Body armor vests and Small Arms Protective Inserts (SAPI), including advanced Enhanced SAPI (E-SAPI) plates, Kevlar helmets, flak jackets, gas masks, and military meals ready-to-eat (MRE).

crossposted from unbossed