Ya Know What? Cheap is Cheap.

It's not news news, but I'm confused by all the complaints I've heard lately about corporate taxes being too high in the United States. If that's true, then we should fix the problem, and it is a problem. It would surely drive corporations and their jobs to other countries with lower taxes. That's a bad idea to anybody's thinking, I would think. But then to prove it, out comes the report that Exxon made a $35 billion profit last year. That's $35 billion! That's BILLION! That's DOLLARS! Thirty five billion dollars! Profit. Not total income, but profit. Ok. Ok. But that's a lot of money. Of course they paid $15 billion dollars in taxes. That's almost 45% taxes. Forty five percent is a whopping tax burden. Maybe some folks don't think so, but I sure do. That only leaves $20 Billion dollars walking around money. Now I understand why corporations are squealing about the bite being taken out of them. There's only one problem with this picture. All of those $15 billion dollars in taxes are paid to other countries. That's right. Of the $15 billion dollars in taxes, $15 billion dollars of it goes to other countries. That leaves a whopping ?? Wait a minute 15-15 =0. They don't pay any taxes at all to the good ole United States of America. Uncle Sam gets a fat ZERO in tax revenue. So. If the U.S. of A. lowers it's corporate taxes, how much will the US of A get? How much is a minus tax revenue? And remember, Exxon and the rest of the big oil companies still have those sweetheart deals on drilling leases where they pay next to nothing or nothing at all and maybe get a little incentive too, I don't know. If you ask me, we could double their taxes and we'd still wind up with nothing. How is it that a 45% tax rate on $35,000,000,000.00 comes out to $0? Is that the new math or the old math?