Another week, another irresponsible tax bill. On October 11th, exactly seven days after George Bush signed his fourth tax cut into law, Congress passed another mammoth tax bill, this time focused on corporate taxation. The new law started life as a laudable effort to get rid of a $5-billion-a-year tax subsidy for exporters that the European Union had complained about and the World Trade Organisation had deemed illegal. But it has ended up as a 650-page horror that adds endless complexities to the tax code and doles out favours to a cornucopia of special interests from tobacco farmers to bow-and-arrow makers. With no hint of irony, the bill is officially called the "American Jobs Creation Act of 2004". John McCain's famous description of the stalled energy bill as the No Lobbyist Left Behind Act could equally apply here.
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