Speech. Good to have you with us tonight. Thanks for watching, were a country that wants everything to work. Were a people that can correct things when we want to to make things work. This story tonight is a classic example of how our tax system must be adjusted. Can we use that word . We need to make adjustments. We start tonight with big Financial News that could cost you some money. Now, if youre in business and someone comes to you and says treasury will have to come up with 20 billion over the next ten years to meet all of its obligations, youre going to be thinking, whoa, we better raise the rent here. Somebody has to pay. Now, keep that in mind in the context of story that earlier today burger king announced its planning to buy canadian fast food chain had a few whoppers as you can tell and they are good too. The deal is going to be 11 billion. It is the largest fast food chain in candcanada. It would create the Third Largest fast food chain. This is going to be a big deal in the fast Food Industry. The canadian dpost, what they have to do is approve this merger, they protect workers and want to know whats in it for them, for their country. Burger king, you want to do this deal . Whats in it for canadians . Thats how they view it. Burger king is obligated to make the case that this deal will be beneficial to the canadians. Now the mega burger deal is being backed by Warren Buffett, throwing 3 billion into the merger. He thinks its going to be a profit center. When good old warren talks, a lot of people listen. Originally both Companies Said the new global Head Quarters would be in canada. Leaving the country. This news instantly sparked outrage in the United States. Burger king would have joined the growing list of u. S. Companies moving overseas to do what . Avoid paying taxes. This is where the adjustment has to come into. Sharon brown is worked up about it, and i heard Bernie Sanders talk about and Sherrod Brown is calling for a boycott. Burger king always said have it your way. My way is to support two ohio company thats havent abandoned their country or customers. Burger king is setting the table to make a bunch of money in our country and yet avoid paying taxes. Well, it looks like public pressure and that kind of talk got to burger king because the Company Released a Statement Today saying, wait a minute. Were not moving, were just growing. Our headquarters will remain in miami. The decision to create a new Global Quick Service restaurant leader with tim hortons is not tax driven. Its about Global Growth for both brands. Burger king will continue to pay the federal state and local taxes and whopper, the whopper isnt going anywhere. Thats good to know. For them to come out and say its not tax driven, got a pretty Good Communications director in that outfit. Thats a hard sell. It caused confusion on wall street. Cnbc speculated only separational headquarters would stay in florida . Part of this deal is to move the actual headquarters to ontario from miami, which is where burger king is head quartered. I believe they are making it clear operational headquarters will stay in miami. Whos calling the shots, whos not calling the shots . Whos paying money to the treasury. Only time will tell whether burger king will move headquarters to another country. If burger king skips out of paying u. S. Taxes, the backlash will be severe. Earlier this month, wahl greenz pharmacy got rid of plans to move their headquarters overseas and president obama is not too happy about all of this. This growing number of u. S. Companies dodging taxes. A few weeks ago president obama called out the Corporate Tax evaders. Its not fair. Its not right. The lost revenue to treasury means its got to be made up somewhere and that typically will be a bunch of hard working americans who either pay through higher taxes themselves or through reduced services. Its something that would really bother the average american, the idea that somebody renounces their citizenship but continues to entirely benefit from operating in the United States of america, just to avoid paying a whole bunch of taxes. Well, thats a long way of saying, we need to make some adjustments in our tax code. Let me emphatically state. I have nothing against the whopper and burger king is not breaking the law. They are doing what we are allowing them to do. The corporations are doing what were allowing them to do. This is more of an ethical story and loyalty story to country and workers than it is to anything else. The president is exactly right, someone will have to pick up the tab for these unpatriotic companies. Pick up the tab, in other words if the country is going to be running and we have those obligations, smik homebody has pay. If they are allowed to go overseas and well be shorted 20 billion, its estimated that if nothing is done, tax inversion will cost this country the treasury 20 billion over the next decade. Youre in business, can you come up with that money . Somebody has to pay. What does this lead to . Income inequality. Its going to be a greater burden on the wage earners, corporations claim their taxes are too high. Although the Government Accountability office says the United States corporations really when you throw them all together pay 12. 6 . Thats the effective tax rate when you do all of the loopholes that are set up for them. One in four corporations in this country pay zero tax. You think thats fair . Back in 1952 and were going back a half century and more, the Corporate Tax in this country accounted for about a third of the total revenue that came into the treasury. That number today, its less than 10 . So this is the adjustment im talking about. You want medicare and medicaid and Social Security and be able to Fund Education and do infrastructure . Wheres the money coming from . We have set up a system for us to turn poor. Weve set up a system without any adjustments lawmakers arent touching this to be a third world country. Keep in mind the fast Food Industry is a low wage industry. Many employees qualify for government assistance. Corporate profits, hows wall street . Pretty good as of late, wages have flat lined over the years. Were having a hell over the conversation over that whopper, arent we . This is another example how we get income inequality in this country. The adjustment that has to be made is that our lawmakers who are idealogically driven and dont want to do anything for workers and families in which country who refuse to go back to washington and compromise and be able to pencil out and most of them have never run a business and pencil out exactly okay, wheres the money coming from, the republican answer is, lets just cut the hell out of everything and lets have no government. Lets just get rid of it. Its easy. That will be our way forward. Thats not right. This isnt right. Burger king is not wrong. They are playing within the rules. They are making i think an unethical and unpatriotic decision if it unfolds this way. Weve allowed them to do it. The corporations have cash whipped big time the campaigns to keep the right people in office so they set up the tax system so we allow them to do this. And voter turnout is going to be down in the mid terms . Give me a break. We ought to be outraged as a country that this possibility is even on the table for a corporation. Now reverse this for a moment. What if this opportunity was on the table for you . You make 60,000, 70,000 a year and tax guy says, hey, i can cut your obligation in half. Human nature is you probably jump at that. There has to be an adjustment. We have to get real and have a serious conversation about our tax code. It aint at 25 . Its not at 35 for corporations. Its down below 15. Just look at mitt romneys tax return. Get your cell phones out. Tonights question, if burger king moves its headquarters to canada, will you ever eat another whopper . Text a for yes and b for no. You can leave a comment on our blog. Well bring you the results later on in the show. For me lets me bring in james hoffa, good to have you with us tonight. Good to be here. Does this set the table for average americans to feel the pinch if something isnt done . Your thoughts. The money has to come from somewhere. We have to run this country. When you see somebody like burger king trying to pull this stunt where they move they might burn their passport, thats what they are doing. This is unpatriotic. This is wrong. This is like not paying taxes. General electric pays no taxes. This is a new wrinkle and now you move out of the country and you dont pay american taxes anymore. This is ridiculous. It can be solved so simply by congress. Now, the democrats are against the president this and where are republicans . They are americans, they should be as angry as you and i are to say this is wrong. This money has to be made up and going to come out of the skins much average american, the guy working two and three jobs. This is the wrong thing and we have to stop it. Hopefully the pressure we put on them right now you made a good point, the operational headquarters. What does that mean . Does it mean they have another head quarter which is the Corporate Headquarters . They are playing word games. I hope this is dead because i think millions of americans like you said, were not buying any more whoppers. You mean you would advocate a boycott of burger king if this continues . Absolutely. This makes me angry. Im going to get wrappers and mail them to the ceo and say this is it. I didnt eat these, Something Like that. This is something that shows outrage and one of the things were saying is, weve got elections coming up in november. Everybody says the country is going the wrong way. Wheres the outrage about Something Like this . That says i pay my taxes. Who are they not to pay their taxes . Who is General Electric or boeing not to pay their taxes . Wall greenz got the message and they stopped. A company that made pills in ireland and moved to ireland to pay lower taxes. This is a loophole that has to be stop. The biggest problem is income inequality, the top ceos are making 330 times a person makes at their company. Its going through the roof right now. They are making the money and Everybody Knows people out there that work at burger king and mcdonalds and working two jobs, 20 hours a week. And they still cant make it. Thats the outrage that we should have right now. And its time for corporations to stop this nonsense and for congress to close this loophole and say enough aenough. Well, its very clear the way burger king responded today and back pedaled somewhat and found the verbiage you alluded to, meaning Corporate Headquarters and operational headquarters, that kind of underscores they are a little touchy about this. Shouldnt this be a signal to lawmakers that people do want change. They do want fairness put into the tax code thats going to help the wage earners. And so you have written a lot about income inequality. Is this the framework that takes us down that road . This is part of this huge discussion of whats going on in the country about right now everything you read is that wages have stagnated and weve recovered from the recession. But yet people are working more and more, getting two and three jobs but no one is moving up. The only way you can get a raise today maybe the states are basically slowly moving up to minimum wage. The president moved up to minimum wage on federal workers in some parts and thats the only way people people can get a raise. Thats ridiculous. So much money being made in this country right now they should be proud to give raises to keep good people working. James hoffa, good to have you with us. Appreciate your time. Let me bring in e. J. Dionne. If i go to burger king, am i eating an immoral hamburger or unethical hamburger . I dont think its fair but which we become so politically exhausted that we dont get outraged about anything anymore, people have thrown up their hands, we can change this and congress isnt going to do anything. What do you make of all of this . Thats a real danger now. But i think this burger king story could end up being a good news story. What youre seeing here is genuine outrage by consumers who have real power here over burger king. I mean, its average americans and all kinds of americans who eat whoppers and all of the other stuff they serve at burger king. And burger king looked out there at these protests and said, wait a minute, this could be a problem. And i have a soft spot for Warren Buffett and hated the idea he was involved in a deal that was primarily about tax inversions and it looks like its not. Lets hope this is going down the road that they suggested later today, that this is about merging two Successful Companies to make a more Successful Company and not tax inversions. One other point, you hit it exactly right in your intro when you said this is an ethical story and loyalty story. How do corporations make money . Yeah, they make money by producing a good profit but its like that old Elizabeth Warren speech, people drive on roads to get to burger king. A lot of burger king employees qualify for government benefits and people have money in their pockets because they are here in the United States of america. I think this corporate inversions issue affects not just liberals, i think a lot of conservatives say this is an issue of patriotism. If you make money in the u. S. , you ought to share in the burden of financing the government that provides services to americans. How do you write that into a law . I mean, its very simple, i think, you cant park money offshore and do business in the shores and make money off our people. I think thats pretty easy. One profound thing that is different between tim hortons and burger king, tim hortons employees have guaranteed health care. In america, we just have access to it. They dont have to buy it. Correct . No doubt. Thats a very big deal. Canada has had a single payer system for a long time. It is not something that workers in canada have to worry about. And that has to be where were going. Obamacare is a step in the right direction. Its a substantial step especially for lower income americans but hurts the corporate bottom line. Weve said for years that theres more Health Care Money in american car than there is steel. And so weve got to think about how we get farther than we are now providing health care in the canadians have shown us a good example on that. The global economy, the genie is out of the bottle but there has to be a sense of fairness where you money your money and who has to pay into the system and we have set and allowed this system to be set up for things like this to happen. Thats where the adjustment has to come in. Its an election issue. E. J. Dionne. Remember to answer tonights question, like us on facebook at wegoted. We have the podcast for you there too. Congressmen are skipping out of town and washington, d. C. And town Hall Meetings and why they are afraid to face the folks back home . A new study sheds light on how dangerous the keystone xl pipeline really is. Stay with us. Rear right back. Wondering what that is . That, my friends, is everything. And with the quicksilver card from capital one, you earn unlimited 1. 5 cash back on everything you purchase. Not just everything at the hardware store. Not everything, until you hit your cash back limit. Quicksilver can earn you unlimited 1. 5 cash back on everything you could possibly imagine. Say it with me everything. One more time, everything and with that in mind. Whats in your wallet . And with that in mind. If energy could come from anything . Or if power could go anywhere . Or if light could seek out the dark . What would happen if that happens . Anything. For over 19 million people. [ alex ] transamerica helped provide a lifetime of retirement income. So i can focus on what matters most. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. Transamerica. Whats happening, time for trenders, where you can join the ed team, facebook. Com edshow and you can get my podcast, every day, wegoted. Com and ring offire radio. Com. I did a podcast today about burger king with senator Bernie Sanders. The social media nation has decided on the top trenders voted on by you. No money down. The number three trender, not a cheap suit. Boehners lawsuit is nothing but a big dog and pony show. He breaks about his willingness to change it unilaterally. President obama has issued the least amount of executive orders in recent history. It seems to me like an enormous waste of effort. Its egregious, preposterous. 350,000 price tag on the lawsuit. This is wasting more taxpayer dollars. Ill take your case but im going to have to ask for 1,000 retainer. Its in my view our responsibility to stands up for this institution in which we serve. Hes willing to take your money and sue the president. The number two trender, game on. Madden football season in america is a competitive time. Youre the best. Video games, this is a big event. Fans sack stores for the latest madden game. Comes out every year, always huge changes in madden. Madden nfl ranked among the top video games in america, bringing in 4 billion for electronic arts. New roster lineups and new animations. This is where legends are made. And todays top trender, skipping town. Town halls are becoming increasingly rare. Have a great vacation. You too, bob. They stopped being what we think of town halls and became political shout fests with cameras. Means town hall theatrics like this. Im not a lobbyist with all kinds of money, stuff it in your pocket. Pick what you guys did. Hear our voice are a thing of the past. Become gotcha moments for political opponents. How can the truth