DeLay & the GOP's Love of the Caribbean

Over the years, the Republican Party has been unwilling to crack down on shady offshore financial dealings that shirk American law. For instance, Republicans opposed Democratic efforts to close a tax loophole that allows companies to purchase a mail drop in a Carribean island, claim they aren’t U.S. companies and thus evade their U.S. tax obligations. While GOP lawmakers publicly switched their votes when the provision initially passed, they ultimately killed the provision (and others like it) behind closed doors. They also turned a blind eye when 60 Minutes reported that Halliburton used offshore subsidiaries in places like the Cayman Islands to shirk U.S. national security embargoes and do business in places like Iran and Iraq (see more in this previous post).

And now, maybe we get a clue as to why: The Washington Post today reports that House then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R) used “a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas” to hide the fact that business lobbyists were funding his lavish overseas trips. The Post notes while DeLay publicly claimed “that the trip was sponsored by a Washington-based nonprofit organization,” in fact it was being funneled through this offshore company, which was also spending almost half a million dollars to lobby DeLay and other lawmakers. Because the U.S. hasn’t tried to crackdown on these practices, the Post notes that “it is unclear precisely how the money was transferred from the Bahamian-registered company to the nonprofit.”

In other words, maybe part of the reason the Republican Party has been so unwilling to crackdown on this abusive use of offshore tax/regulatory havens is because the GOP has been engaging in this abuse behavior itself.