Obama Shafts Google

Google head Eric Schmidt should have gotten himself a real job in the Obama administration, like say, Tim Geithner, maybe that would have insulated his firm from punitive taxation. Via Michelle Malkin, San Jose Mercury News:

In the tech industry's first major disagreement with the Obama administration, Silicon Valley companies are voicing alarm about a proposal that could require corporations to pay billions of dollars in U.S. taxes on foreign earnings.
The administration wants to change a long-standing law that allows American companies to defer paying these taxes as long as the funds are kept overseas. That could have a big impact on a number of U.S. corporations, especially tech giants such as Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems and Oracle, which report that overseas markets account for half or more of their sales.

"It's probably our biggest concern right now. Certainly, it's the biggest issue where we disagree with the Obama administration," said Ralph Hellmann, senior vice president of the Information Technology Industry Council, an industry lobbying group. "On a Richter scale of 1 to 10, this is about a 20," added Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, who is leading a delegation of valley executives to Washington this week. [snip]

Industry representatives say the provision gives them a level playing field on which to compete overseas against foreign companies, since many countries have a lower corporate tax rate than the United States. They argue that foreign sales are increasingly important in a global economy, and that healthy overseas operations help support domestic jobs.

What's the likelihood that our President Barack Obama will stand with them, the job creators, hmm?