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Right now, the United States is leaking money. And not in small amounts—we’re talking $100 billion every year. That’s the cost of letting multinational corporations shuffle their profits into tax havens, where they pay little to nothing. It’s a trick enabled by outdated tax rules that allow companies to pretend their profits were earned wherever tax rates are the lowest, even when their customers and workers are here at home.

This isn’t just a number on a spreadsheet. It’s $100 billion that could be used to pay down the national debt, fund new infrastructure, or provide tax relief for middle-class Americans struggling with the rising cost of living. Instead, middle-class families and small businesses end up carrying more of the burden while some of the wealthiest companies in the world skate by.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s a plan—a globally backed one, in fact—to put a stop to this. The OECD’s Pillar agreements are designed to make sure corporations pay taxes where they actually do business, not just where they park their headquarters. At the same time, they set a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%, so countries can’t just slash taxes in a “race to the bottom” to attract big companies.

But here’s the challenge: getting this through Congress. The concern, particularly among conservatives, is that these agreements might make the U.S. less competitive, discouraging investment and job creation. That’s where we need a smart balancing act—one that combines these global reforms with powerful incentives for domestic investment.

The Case for a Balanced Approach

Let’s start with the OECD agreements. They tackle one of the biggest problems in our tax system: profit shifting. Right now, companies can register intellectual property in tax havens and then charge their U.S. operations hefty fees for using it, making their U.S. profits “disappear.” These agreements would put an end to that, ensuring companies pay their fair share where they actually operate.

But critics raise a valid point: what if these changes push companies to invest less in the U.S.? That’s why we need to pair the Pillar agreements with something that boosts investment and growth here at home—like full expensing for research and capital investments.

Full expensing sounds wonky, but it’s simple: it lets businesses immediately deduct the cost of investments like new equipment or research and development. Instead of dragging those deductions out over years, companies can write them off right away, making it cheaper and easier to grow. This isn’t just theoretical—it’s been shown to boost GDP and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Why This Matters

Think about the big picture. When corporations shift profits offshore, the rest of us pay the price. Local businesses compete on an uneven playing field, workers miss out on opportunities, and the government is left with fewer resources to invest in everything from schools to clean energy.

The Pillar agreements fix this problem by leveling the global tax playing field. And by adopting them, the U.S. wouldn’t just be protecting its own tax base—we’d be setting an example for the world. If we lead, other countries will follow, and that strengthens the global economy as a whole.

At the same time, full expensing ensures that we don’t just plug revenue leaks—we grow the pie. By making it easier for companies to invest in innovation and expansion, we can ensure that the U.S. remains the best place in the world to do business.

The Bottom Line

This isn’t about punishing corporations or picking winners and losers. It’s about fairness and balance. It’s about making sure everyone pays their share while giving businesses the tools they need to thrive.

Congress has a chance to do something big here: to protect federal revenues, support American workers, and make our economy stronger and fairer for the long haul. But it takes a balanced approach—one that combines the Pillar agreements with pro-growth policies like full expensing.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. If we don’t act, the “race to the bottom” will continue, draining resources and widening inequality. But if we do this right, we can secure America’s economic future while showing the world what smart, fair tax policy looks like. It’s a win-win—and it’s time to make it happen.

Executive Summary:

Facial recognition technology (FRT) are interwoven into contemporary society, enabling perpetual digital surveillance of over 64 million Americans. FRTs are inaccurate, unregulated, and legally unaccountable. Historical patterns of biased policing intersect to create a biometric arsenal where African Americans, Latinx, and Women are mistakenly matched at higher rates. Using existing systems of accuracy, auditability, and accountability, the DOJ must create a precedent for law enforcement to harness the benefits of FRTs that minimize the threat to an individual’s civil liberties and rights.

 

Introduction: 

As FRT increasingly becomes more used by law enforcement, so do public concerns regarding the fairness of trials and the protection of constitutional rights. FRT inaccuracy and inaudibility pose a direct threat to Americans’ civil rights, liberties, and privacy, while the lack of legal accountability indirectly impacts marginalized communities.

The Problem:

It is challenging to regulate the collection of images of one’s face, and have created a federal database overrepresenting African Americans, Latinx, and Indigenous communities more than white communities. Black individuals are five times more likely to be stopped by police officers than white individuals, and incorporating FRT into a system with existing systemic discrimination enables innovative forms of precise discrimination. This is reflected in the demographics of the United States incarcerated population, where Black and Latino beings make up 56% of the incarcerated population but only 32% of the overall population.  The excessive policing of certain groups increases the chance of early criminal legal contact, furthering a cycle of entrapment within the criminal legal system. Examining these consequences in a court of law, FRT evidence favors the prosecution. It creates an uneven playing field where more and more individuals are denied their constitutional right to a fair trial.

The Solutions:

The National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST) can test for accuracy and racial bias. As this text exists, the DOJ must mandate entities using FRT programs to participate in NIST accuracy and racial bias tests. The results should be publicly reported and aligned with the standard of accuracy provided by the NIST for continued usage by law enforcement.

Eyewitnesses are pivotal in administering justice, but eyewitness accounts are not perfect. Eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful conviction in more than 75% of the first 183 DNA exonerations in the United States. FRT is similar to human-based eyewitness accounts. Thus, the DOJ must require all law enforcement agencies to adopt and apply the DOJ Procedures for Conducting a Photo Array to facial scans. These measures decrease the chance of mistakenly identifying an innocent person and align facial scans to the same standard as eyewitness accounts.

Lastly, existing legal precedents lack provisions for modern tools like FRT. Brady v Maryland established the “Brady Rule”, which mandates the prosecution to disclose “exculpatory” evidence. This adaptation of a prior legal precedent establishes a standard of materiality that can be applied to forthcoming technologies, ensuring legal accountability for digitally derived evidence. If Brady counts human witness identification as material that establishes probable cause, the same should be applied to facial scans obtained through FRT.  This adaptation protects the state from future legal challenges and the defense in providing defendants with a fair trial utilizing all necessary information to establish innocence.

Conclusion:

Plessy v Ferguson stated new technology necessitates evolution and more protective constitutional analysis, and United States v. Jones echoed these concerns regarding digital policing technologies. FRT enhances law enforcement and the state’s capabilities, but if misused, it negatively impacts specific groups of people and their constitutionally protected civil rights and liberties. For FRT to be an equitable and sustainable tool for the criminal legal system, we must adapt to technological revolutions that positively benefit our society.