Cockroaches, Cher, and an Obama Official Pushing a Grand Bargain

In case you don't get the joke in the title, it's a reference to the line "When the world is destroyed by a nuclear holocaust there will be two survivors: cockroaches and Cher."

Yesterday, Gene Sperling, the director of Obama's National Economic Council, was pushing for a "grand bargain" again:

Gene Sperling, the director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, said Sunday that Obama is offering congressional Republicans “a grand bargain on jobs. He has said he would be willing to do corporate tax reform that lowers rates to 28 percent, simplifies taxes for small businesses, but do it together with a major infrastructure investment.”

This isn't the same as the "cutting Medicare and Social Security and getting chump change from the rich" grand bargain, but it's also a plan clearly designed to curry favor from the 1%. 

 

Corporate profits have been hitting record highs recently.

At the same time, the share of corporate taxes as a percentage of total tax revenue has been at or near historic lows:

According to a USA Today analysis from October, 57 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 have paid effective tax rates of zero.  Moreover, a report from 2011 found that 30 major US companies had found ways to pay effective tax rates of less than zero.
Clearly, it's time to cut corporate tax rates!