Liberal are very agitated about Burger King’s decision to acquire Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons in a move that will allow the company to "invert" its headquarters to Canada and pay a significantly lower tax rate.
Their first instinct was to accuse the "unpatriotic" burger chain of treason. However, conflicting emotions ensued once they learned that "good" billionaire Warren Buffett helped financed the deal.
It doesn’t really matter though, does it? Because Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee in 2016, and anyone who thinks she is going to coddle Corporate America any less than the Obama administration has over the years is kidding themselves.
Many liberals seem to have accepted this reality, and are embracing corporations in increasingly shameless fashion. The left-wing juiceboxers at Vox Dot Com, for example, are sponsored by tax-evading corporate villain General Electric, and have recently started running sponsored content from Goldman Sachs. Yes, you read that right.
Former Obama aides are selling out and cashing in with abandon. Some have started consulting companies that have signed on to the effort to reign in the influence of teacher’s unions. Others have fled the White House for Wall Street.
Longtime Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen, who will appear with Hillary Clinton at a fundraiser next month, has been shilling for corporations for years. She even lobbied on behalf of BP during the gulf oil spill crisis. Rosen is currently advising the Cayman Island-headquarters nutritional company Herbalife, which is embroiled in a controversy encompassing every ugly aspect of the Democratic Party’s corporate cronyism. She recently told Bloomberg News, apparently with a straight face, that Herbalife’s incorporation in the Cayman Island was not for tax purposes.
It has been a sight to behold, and will only get worse once Hillary Clinton announces her presidential bid. Liberals have already rushed to defend her voracious greed, which is fueled by six-figure speaking gigs for Goldman Sachs executives and publicly funded universities.
Kind of a shame, isn't it? To think that a bunch of hippies squatting in a park in 2011 (Occupy Wall Street) failed to have any substantive effect on the political culture of mainstream liberalism.
Ironically, Republicans are the ones who seemed to have assumed the more anti-corporation stance of late. The GOP has not only managed to block a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the face of heavy lobbying from big business, the party is also taking on the Export-Import Bank, which helps funnel taxpayer subsidies to giant companies such as Boeing. Maybe that explains why corporate PACs are favoring Democratic Senate candidates over Republicans by a ratio of three to one in 2014.
Ready for Hillary?