America Illinois Ends Cash Bail I
It will sway the criminal justice system toward the off ender and forget about the victim, say police. BY MARISA HERMAN
llinois will this month become the fi rst state in the country to eliminate cash bail. The Illinois Supreme Court
ruled 5-2 that a provision of the state’s SAFE-T Act, which ends cash bail, is constitutional and can go into eff ect on Sept. 18. Cook County State’s Attorney
Kim Foxx called the ruling “a monu- mental milestone toward achieving equal justice for all in Cook County and Illinois.” But National Police Association spokeswoman Betsy Brantner Smith disagreed. “What no cash bail now says is,
once again, we are going to sway the criminal justice system toward the off ender and forget about the vic- tim,” she said. “This is going to have a negative impact.”
While those who support ending
cash bail contend that the system “allows rich people to run free and poor people to have to stay in jail,” Brantner Smith said that isn’t how it works at all. “All bail is designed to do is to
motivate people to show up in court to prove their innocence or be con- victed,” she said. “It’s not racist. It’s not designed to be racist.” Brantner Smith said she fears
that counties located in southern and central Illinois — where there are fewer cops and resources — will struggle the most with the forthcom- ing change, with those more rural areas combating an uptick in prop- erty crimes, shoplifting, and burglar- ies.
The Illinois Fraternal Order of
Police lambasted the court’s deci- sion, saying it “confi rms Illinois’ sta-
NEW BILL Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signs a criminal justice reform package into law, making the state the first to fully eliminate the use of cash bail.
tus as the state of lawlessness and disorder.” Foxx said the move would address
“the historic inequities in our justice system.”
“Everyone deserves a fair shot at
justice, regardless of their ZIP code, paycheck, or the color of their skin. Ending cash bail is in line with our values and is a critical step toward economic and racial justice.” New York and New Jersey are
among several states that have reduced cash bail, but no state has eradicated it entirely.
Big Pharma’s Big Tax Dodge They only paid 3% on global profit, compared to average rate of 21%.
BY LEE BARNEY T
he six biggest U.S. pharmaceutical companies reported $215 billion in
domestic sales last year, but paid only about 3% of their global profit in taxes, far below the average corporate tax of 21%, Business Insider reports. Big Pharma succeeds at getting away
with this by shifting profits and patents abroad, which is permitted in the IRS tax code; the Caribbean and Europe are two of their favorite no-tax off shore destinations. Of the eight biggest U.S.
pharmaceutical firms, only one, Gilead, reports the majority of its income in the U.S. The remaining seven paid the IRS $2 billion on their $108 billion global
18 NEWSMAX | SEPTEMBER 2023
profit in 2022. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., investigated
AbbVie, maker of the immunosuppressive drug Humira, and found it booked 99% of its 2020 profit outside of the U.S. In 2022, AbbVie even reported a $5 billion loss at its U.S. operations. Merck, maker of Keytruda, claimed to
earn just $1 billion on $27 billion in U.S. sales in 2022 — but, curiously, a $15 billion profit on $32 billion in sales overseas. One way the U.S. government could end this accounting chicanery would be to levy a 15% tax on U.S. companies doing business overseas. Another would be to limit pharmaceutical companies’ tax credit claims for profits on intellectual property originally developed in the U.S.
BIG PHARMA/SKORZEWIAK/SHUTTERSTOCK / ILLINOIS/PHOTO COURTESY OF REP. SONYA M. HARPER
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