The majority of Americans are getting screwed.

That is my conclusion after reviewing the four preceding articles in this series, in an attempt to wrap up everything for the end of the year.

Notice that I say the majority of Americans, because, really, some of us are quite well off right now and will be doing even better shortly, once the Bush tax cut plan is approved by Congress and signed into law.

After all, the $70 billion in corporate flight monies leaving the country annually (a number which has been growing larger since HMO’s paved the way in the early 1990s) is going toward large international companies and their subsidiaries (such as Tyco International, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Accenture etc.) who are operated by those members of the top United States income bracket I mentioned earlier.

This $70 billion is more than all the state budget deficits combined, whose dearth of money is forcing all states, to one extent or another, to cut funding to key areas. In Colorado, it happens to be the state funding of public schools, healthcare, welfare and others.

Some of these companies, notably Halliburton Company, are profiting quite nicely from the ‘war’ in Iraq and its aftermath, being awarded $7 billion cleanup contracts with a 7 percent commission on the $7 billion. Even that number is misleading, considering the $7 billion is a rough estimate at best and could potentially be much greater than that.

This money is being paid to the same Halliburton subsidiary that charged the U.S. government $2.2 billion for maintaining troop tent cities in Kosovo in the 1990’s. Who knows what the ultimate bill will be for cleaning up Iraq, from Halliburton or anyone else?

But no worries, since the people footing that bill will be you and me. After all, the individuals who will benefit most from Bush’s tax cut plan will be those same CEOs, presidents of corporations and individuals on the boards of trustees for the aforementioned “U.S.” companies who don’t pay their taxes to the United States, but those companies and the people who run them (or anyone with an income of more than $1 million) will find their taxes slashed.

The reasoning behind this is that they can cut expenses and hire more workers. But will it work?

After all, Congress isn’t helping.

The median income household in Denver paid $2,845 in federal income taxes in 2002. Out of that, military and defense got $746.05 while the payment on the national debt was a cumulative $644.01 ($168.87 on military, $475.14 on non-military) – and that’s just the interest payment on the debt, not the debt itself (estimated at six trillion dollars, but is potentially much more than that depending on how you calculate it).

Meanwhile, the tax cut would mean, for the people of Colorado, less than $100 for 47 percent of residents, only $315 in tax cuts for the middle 20 percent, and $28, 654 for the top one percent of Colorado’s population.

On the other hand, what Bush could do, instead of passing out tax rebates to wealthy individuals and corporations, is to pass economic legislation which may actually benefit the taxpayers and the economy, such as extending unemployment benefits and providing support to states, instead of forcing them to cut their budgets to such things as education and healthcare.

And the “Corporate Patriot Enforcement Act” is a shadow of its former self. It would catch $15 billion over 10 years (as opposed to $70 billion per year lost times 10 years = $700 billion) while opening up 18 new tax loopholes in order to plug one, and spending $83 billion on ‘simplification measures’ meant to make it easier to curb tax flight (one would hope at any rate).

So it would appear that the nation’s finances are in a vicious cycle of war, tax evasion and secrecy. The tax payers pay their taxes to the federal government, who cuts refund checks for large private corporations and wealthy individuals, as well as rewarding defense contracts to other corporations, who then take that money and place it in offshore holding accounts in Bermuda and other non-taxed locations to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.

Meanwhile, the aforesaid American taxpayers are also being laid off from their jobs in increasing numbers, and the tax refunds promised by the presidency are going towards the exact same corporations and individuals who are already in the top earnings brackets for U.S. income.

As of Thursday, May 22, a House-Senate conference committee has approved a $350 billion tax cut that will be implimented over a 10-year period, which by the time you read this is expected to have been signed into law.

Despite this measure, the taxes from these private corporations would be going back to the federal government, who would give out more tax breaks and refunds to people and groups that don’t need it, and further secret defense contracts to corporations aligned with the Bush administration.

Meanwhile, the people with jobs continue to pay taxes, and the people without jobs continue to receive nothing. As I said, the majority of American people are getting screwed. But for that small minority, life is looking pretty damn good.