( - promoted by Jay Stevens)
Smurfit-Stone Container Corp took home $654 million from US Taxpayers, while their net income was only $8 million in 2009
Over the past year I've written a few articles (here and here) about the US pulp and paper industry figuring out how to use an unintended tax loophole in the 2005 highway bill to basically transfer billions in US taxpayer funds right into their own packets.
Last May, the Washington Post provided extensive coverage of the black liquor boondoggle in an article that opened up with: "The Obama administration wants to stop billions of dollars of tax credits and direct payments to the paper industry under a tax provision originally intended to promote alternative fuels for motor vehicles." The same article included this statement from a US Treasury Department official, "Right now this does appear to be a transfer from the taxpayers to this industry."
Talk about a "redistribution of wealth!" Where are the tea-baggers complaining about "socialism" when you need them, eh?
Sadly, for the most part, this multi-billion dollar transfer of taxpayer funds to the pulp and paper industry hasn't gotten nearly the coverage it deserves by the mainstream press. That in itself is just really strange, especially since the US Government appears to be handing out taxpayer dollars like candy at Halloween and Americans of all political stripes are fed up and rightfully worried about our future.
Perhaps the mainstream newspapers in this country are a little gun shy about giving the pulp and paper industry a black eye. For example, here in Missoula, Montana the local daily paper - the Missoulian - over the past year has completely failed (unless I missed it somewhere) to let their readers know that the Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation (while in bankruptcy and closing mills in Montana, Michigan and elsewhere) collected over half a billion dollars from US taxpayers in 2009. To make matters more interesting, Smurfit's net income for 2009 was only $8 million. Seriously, is this not a "newsworthy" item?
The fine folks at the Dead Tree Edition blog have put together more detailed information about the black liquor tax credit, which includes a detailed scorecard showing which pulp and paper corporations profitted the most on the backs of US taxpayers. That blog post is pasted below or available here. - mk
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