Corporations That Paid ZERO Dollars In Income Tax Last Year Spent $450 Million On Candidates

55 major corporations in the United States paid zero dollars in federal income taxes last year, but don't worry, they still sent plenty of money to the government. The only problem is that this money came in the form of direct political donations and lobbying expenses, totaling $450 million for these 55 companies. As long as money talks, the millionaires and billionaires will get to play by their own set of rules that the rest of us could never even imagine. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

According to a new report titled the price of zero, at least 55 major corporations here in the United States with a combined income of $40.5 billion, these 55 companies paid $0 in income tax to the federal government of the United States in the year 2020, $40 billion in income, $0 in federal income tax. But don't worry folks because out of that $40 billion, $450 million combined did end up making its way to Washington, DC. So I guess in a way they paid the government, just not in a way that any of us would like to see because that $450 million that they paid to the government came in the form of lobbying and direct campaign donations. Zero in taxes, $450 million on lobbying and campaigns. And it's because, by the way, that they spend that $450 million on lobbying and com and campaigns that they're able to spend the zero on federal income taxes.

This is not a coincidence, folks. This is the way the game is played and you and I aren't even allowed to have a seat at that gaming table. The powerful elite in this country have the system rigged. I don't care if it's a conservative CEO, a liberal CEO. There's no such thing as politics when you have that much money and power in the United States, all there is, is money and power at that point. They pay off the right people. They pay off the right politicians on both the left and the right. They lobby the right people just enough to make sure nothing fundamentally changes for them and they continue to get away with it. They get these loopholes written into our tax code, folks. These tax loopholes that these 55 corporations use, the same ones that the other billionaires from the other report a couple of weeks ago use to not pay taxes, all legally.

These loopholes are not written in there all willy nilly. Okay. These are things that the lobbyists hired by these wealthy individuals go to Washington and articulate. They say, we want X, Y, and Z. And it's such a small loophole that only applies to so many people that nobody's going to even notice it exists. And they get their way because they fund the campaigns, the lobbyists go out there and do their jobs. Then the politicians do their jobs and the wheel just keeps on spinning and it keeps on rolling right over the rest of us. This report coupled with the ProPublica report from a few weeks ago, shows us that this system is rigged and until and unless we get rid of corporate money in politics in the United States, the problem's going to get worse. We're going to continue to get screwed, but the wealthy elite will keep on living their best life.