"They also deserve to pay their fair share of the taxes to the country that enabled them to be rich."
They surely do, and right now they are paying more than their "fair" share. And the country just didn't enable them to be rich, they made them rich-forced them to be rich even.
"And I guess you were unaware that that includes health care and pensions, and that in Germany that is provided by the state, and therefore is not included in the cost of labor."
Those programs themselves are at least partially funded by the American taxpayer, who currently provide the bulk of defense spending for continental Europe. If we were to withdraw this support by pulling our assets out of Europe, countries such as Germany would be forced to make the very tough choice of whether or not to maintain expansive social programs and forego having a robust defensive strategy, or to cut social programs and make up the defense gap out of their own tax receipts.
"According to your link, the unweighted average corporate tax as a percentage of GDP in OECD countries is 3.4%, the weighted average is 2.5% and the United States is 1.8%. What was your point again?"
Your original point was that EFFECTIVE TAX RATES, as opposed to your new focus on PERCENTAGE OF GDP, was the lowest of the G20. That is simply not true as can be found starting on page 35 of the CBO deliverable. In short, you are not even responding to your original argument-presumably because I just demonstrated it to be false. I'll do you a favor and break it down for you.
Top Statutory Median Tax Rate for OECD (2002): 35%
US Statutory Tax Rate for OECD (2002): 39%
Effective Maginal Corporate Tax Rate for 2003: 23%
Upper quintile, select OECD: 23%
But don't believe me, read past page 27 and you will find the same thing. The reason for this is simple-the US has a much larger economy. Corporate tax revenues simply make up a smaller portion of aggregate revenues. What you didn't mention is the fact that Germany has much lower corporate taxes (1%). Given your apparent infatuation with that countries policies, should we be working to the point where our Corporate taxes represented a similar portion of the GDP?
"And where did the infrastructure come from that allowed them to do all of that?"
For your question to be accurate, you would have to rephrase it to question which infrastructure specific to those companies (as opposed to that available for public use) facilitated their growth. I am not aware of any. If you are, please let me know.
"You don't think they should have to pay to maintain all of that?"
By themselves? Of course not. And they don't. Why should Dell alone pay for streets in Austin that everyone else drives on? Why should Microsoft pay for airports in Redmond that everyone uses. Why should apple alone be responsible for funding public schools that most people attend?
"You think those people could have been as successful somewhere other than the US?"
No. Because in very few other places is innovation rewarded the way it is in the US. And if they had been elsewhere, you would not have anywhere near the level of consumer goods you have today. I can at least attest to the fact that you like your computer, which probably would be no where near what it is now if it hadn't been for a friendly business environment.
