A screenshot of the Fix the Debt campaign’s logo.

As you read this, powerful corporations are working with groups like the Campaign To Fix The Debt are pushing Congress and President Obama to pass a “Grand Bargain” that would include cuts to corporate tax rates and Social Security and Medicare benefits.

We shouldn’t beat around the bush as to why these corporations are doing this. They want to see this deal enacted so that they can make billions of dollars from reduced taxes while Americans are asked to sacrifice their Social Security and Medicare benefits.

The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) just released a report looking at some of the corporations that support the Campaign To Fix The Debt — such as Microsoft, General Electric, and Goldman Sachs — and what they would gain if the “Grand Bargain” they seek were to be passed.

The IPS report concludes that if one of the tenets of the corporate plan — a proposed territorial tax system that would exempt foreign earnings from U.S. taxes — were passed, the 63 publicly held companies backing the Fix The Debt campaign would get as much as $134 billion.

It’s time for the media and politicians to stop taking the Campaign To Fix The Debt seriously. It is obvious that the group is being backed by powerful corporations because its recommendations would make them money, not because it has any serious solutions for our debt or the economy.