Taxing business is an oxymoron that the Democrats love to belabor. The truth is that the government never really taxes businesses--it taxes the consumers. Businesses incorporate taxes into their prices, so it's a double whammy to pay sales tax on top of every purchase.

Let's look at two theories of taxation: one is that it is a source of revenue for government to do its job; another is that it is a means of changing or controlling behavior. Historically, the point of taxes was the latter, to control behavior. If something is taxed more, people do less of it, like smoking or drinking.

The truth is that taxes do the latter very well and the former not well at all.

Government is extremely inefficient, and giving it money leads to waste. Ask anyone at all who works in the government, and they'll tell you how at the end of the year, the departments go in to a spending craze because if they don't spend their budget, they lose it. And worse (in their opinion), if they don't spend it, they get less next year.

But back to taxing businesses. Corporate income taxes are a favorite target of the Democrats because big business is so "evil." Nevermind that it produces products and services we want and like, and nevermind that big busineses employ hundreds of thousands of people. And to top it off, corporations give many people nice benefits, like healthcare and retirement plans.

The United States has one of the highest rates of corporate taxation in the world. That's why many corporations have operations in other countries, to blunt their tax burden. Since they are responsible first to their stockholders, this action is in the best interests of their stockholders.

Taxes on corporations are merely added in to the prices of goods, but yet in political campaigns, corporations are often held up to be such bad citizens because they, according to the Democrats, should pay more.

I think it's a waste of time to argue about whether corporations should pay more or not because all raising their taxes does is lower the amount of money corporations have to invest in hiring more people, paying higher salaries, and also results in higher prices. The Republicans apparently understand all that, which is why they consistently oppose higher corporate income taxes.