Bob McIntyre, the Director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said: "Well, on paper, the corporate tax rate is 35 percent, but because there's so many loopholes, so many shelters- well, we did a study, looking at companies through 1998, 250 of the biggest, and their average rate by 1998 was 20 percent, not 35. And lately, we think the rate is down to about 15. In other words, companies are paying less than half of what they're supposed to...From 1950 to 2000, corporations averaged about 17 percent of the federal taxes. And all of a sudden, now, down to 7 percent- 7 percent of the government paid for by corporate taxes. So yeah, they're paying a whole lot less than they used to, and the rest of us are picking up the tab for it."