I am a little upset about this....

[geckosfeet]

Kind of an interesting interactive analysis of some budget proposals. Shows how the decreases and increases proposed by the various factions compare to each other. The thing that stands out most to me is the alignment of decreases in SS and Medicare spending. Especially SS. (What is being "decreased" in SS anyway? This is a funded benefit.)

Analysis of Obama's budget finds a higher tax burden for most Americans

Honestly - I am OK with paying $150 more a year in taxes - if it means national health care and improved SS funding! But basically we are paying down the debts incurred from enriching the wealthy and bailing out corporations and waging perpetual war.

Granted, The O budget decreases defense spending a good bit, but I fully oppose reducing funding for SS and funding for medicare. We should be moving that ball in the other direction. My jaw dropped when I saw how seniors and the sick are being thrown under the bus.

Corporations are sitting on huge piles of cash that they accumulated over the last 15 years or so. The rich continue to get richer. And now it appears that we are poised to take more from the poorest and least able among us to continue the policy of selective enrichment.

The battle over the 2014 budget

[HiPointDem]

1. "the alignment of decreases in SS and Medicare spending. Especially SS." indeed.

both parties' aim is to cut social benefits.

[donnasgirl]

5. How do

You like being screwed by the very people you vote into office, I know I don't and in the next election I stay home.

[liberal N proud]

2. There is no representation for the middle class, poor and elderly in Congress

They only answer to the corporations and the 1%!

It is taxation without representation.

[SoCalDem]

3. They only dance with the "one that brung them"

We are the worker bees who have no representation, and are only occasionally (and accidentally) helped from time to time.. Any little bit of largesse granted us, is quickly snatched back at the first opportunity.

[Scuba]

4. Sorry, we're not using your extra tax burden to pay down the debt.

We're giving it to big oil, big pharma and the other industries that own congress.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Really? Only if you're a smoker and use standard deduction on > $100,000 income.

"But the study also finds that some Americans of more modest backgrounds would face more taxes. Some people earning between $100,000 and $200,000 a year would pay about $150 more, while some earning less than $100,000 a year would pay less than $100 in additional taxes.

The higher taxes would result primarily from two proposals in Obama’s budget.

One would raise taxes on tobacco products, affecting rich and poor smokers alike — the tax on a pack of cigarettes would increase from $1.01 to $1.95.

The second proposal is more technical, affecting the value of the personal exemption and standard deduction as well as the income thresholds for different tax brackets. These are adjusted upward each year to account for inflation."

[Doctor_J]

7. Medicare & SS benefit cuts:

repukes study: ~250B

House GOP: ~125B

Obama ~500B

president wants to cut benefits twice as much as the Repukes' committee, 4 times as much as the House Repukes. It is pretty clear from these charts that the president is far to the right of even the teabaggers. Aren't you glad we elected a Dem?