Last week, 80 CEOs jointly published a letter in the Wall Street Journal calling for austerity spending cuts to deal with the deficit, in a new effort to “starve the beast” and slice funds away from public programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid, reducing their effectiveness to make their calls for privatization more effective. It’s the same old game that corporations and Republicans across the country have played time and time again, one that has the American people losing.

Senator Bernie Sanders, champion of the middle class and economic justice, published his own response- a scathing condemnation of their hypocrisy and blatant opportunism:

“There really is no shame. The Wall Street leaders whose recklessness and illegal behavior caused this terrible recession are now lecturing the American people on the need for courage to deal with the nation’s finances and deficit crisis. Before telling us why we should cut Social Security, Medicare and other vitally important programs, these CEOs might want to take a hard look at their responsibility for causing the deficit and this terrible recession. Our Wall Street friends might also want to show some courage of their own by suggesting that the wealthiest people in this country, like them, start paying their fair share of taxes. They might work to end the outrageous corporate loopholes, tax havens and outsourcing provisions that their lobbyists have littered throughout the tax code – contributing greatly to our deficit. Many of the CEO’s who signed the deficit-reduction letter run corporations that evaded at least $34.5 billion in taxes by setting up more than 600 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens since 2008. As a result, at least a dozen of the companies avoided paying any federal income taxes in recent years, and even received more than $6.4 billion in tax refunds from the IRS since 2008. Several of the companies received a total taxpayer bailout of more than $2.5 trillion from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. Many of the companies also have outsourced hundreds of thousands of American jobs to China and other low wage countries, forcing their workers to receive unemployment insurance and other federal benefits. In other words, these are some of the same people who have significantly caused the deficit to explode over the last four years.”

He then released a list of the eighteen CEOs who are responsible for triggering the recession, destroying the middle class, corrupting our politicians, underpaying their workers, and outsourcing jobs overseas.

These are the names of traitors who have forsaken their people and nation to worship at the altar of greed:

1) Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $1.9 billion tax refund.

Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? Over $1.3 trillion.

Amount of federal income taxes Bank of America would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.6 billion.

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2) Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $278 million tax refund.

Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $824 billion.

Amount of federal income taxes Goldman Sachs would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.7 billion

3) JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon

Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $416 billion.

Amount of federal income taxes JP Morgan Chase would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.9 billion.

4) General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $3.3 billion tax refund.

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Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve? $16 billion.

Jobs Shipped Overseas? At least 25,000 since 2001.

5) Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $705 million tax refund.

American Jobs Cut in 2010? In 2010, Verizon announced 13,000 job cuts, the third highest corporate layoff total that year.

6) Boeing CEO James McNerney, Jr.

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? None. $124 million tax refund.

American Jobs Shipped overseas? Over 57,000.

Amount of Corporate Welfare? At least $58 billion.

7) Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Amount of federal income taxes Microsoft would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $19.4 billion.

8) Honeywell International CEO David Cote

Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $34 million tax refund.

9) Corning CEO Wendell Weeks

Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $4 million tax refund.

10) Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $74 million tax refund.

11). Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $55 million tax refund.

12) Deere & Company CEO Samuel Allen

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $1 million tax refund.

13) Marsh & McLennan Companies CEO Brian Duperreault

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $90 million refund.

14) Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs

Amount of federal income taxes Qualcomm would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.7 billion.

15) Tenneco CEO Gregg Sherill

Amount of federal income taxes Tenneco would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $269 million.

16) Express Scripts CEO George Paz

Amount of federal income taxes Express Scripts would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $20 million.

17) Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman

Amount of federal income taxes Caesars Entertainment would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $9 million.

18). R.R. Donnelly & Sons CEO Thomas Quinlan III

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $49 million tax refund.

These are astonishing numbers. There are billions of dollars missing from the federal budget because huge multinational corporations don’t pay any taxes while crying for spending cuts and austerity measures placed on the backs of the American people. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate really confronting these issues, and we must hear his message. We cannot allow the proud heritage of American democracy to slide into the dark pit of oligarchy, where the worker becomes a serf and the mega-rich rule like lords.

Many thanks to True Activist.com for the story.