2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumSunday talk show guest suggest the 47% don't
I heard more than one guest on the Sunday morning news programs suggest that they would not be averse to discussing the need for the Federal Government setting a minimum Federal Tax that all income levels would pay. I believe the justification for this idea was they felt this would give every American a sense of having "skin in the game". I believe I heard Tim Cain, Deval Patrick and someone on "Up with Chris Hayes" express similar sentient.
My thought is that lower income people who pay all the taxes they are legally required to, pay a far higher price to be a citizen of this nation than any billionaire ass-wipe. The person that will break down your door and rush into your burning house to pull your family to safety will never be someone from the 1 %. When a gunmen wielding an automatic weapon opens fire in a public place one of us low life free loaders will be the ones to place ourselves between them and the public. While the 1% plans how to distribute the wealth of the world between them it is us moochers that will be sent to war to lay down our lives to assure their financial domination. Skin? The common has and continues to contribute more to this nation than all the billionaires who will ever live.
Shame on the Democrats on the news programs today that did not remind the Republicans and the news moderators of the great sacrifice that we make every day that is greater than any token monetary assessment that would make us feel like we were real Americans.
Ford_Prefect
(7,901 posts)"Shame on the Democrats on the news programs today that did not remind the Republicans and the news moderators of the great sacrifice that we make every day that is greater than any token monetary assessment that would make us feel like we were real Americans."
Well said h8okra.
The idea that everyone must always be paying cash for their rights of citizenship ignores the fact that many already have contributed and often do in much greater proportion to our relative income. It is the old canard that "we" are somehow unworthy, irresponsible and needy children restated once more. Every time one of the apologists repeats this idea it re-enforces the stereotype that human dignity is purchased on a cash first basis in America. An old capitalist rant completely at odds with the moral and historical roots of American democracy and community.
truth2power
(8,219 posts)should be?
Why, one would almost think the Dems and Repubs are on the same side. Otherwise, why couldn't the Dems fight back?
Cosmocat
(14,564 posts)that republicans are SO far to the right, unwavering and only move further to the right when given an inch while democrats are operating in a manner that they are willing to give some.
This is their way of trying to seem reasonable in the face of a policy discussion.
It does no one any good, because the Rs point to one person who in reality or contrived are not willing to discuss it, and scream THEY ARE UNCOMPROMISING, and the media obediently parrots that meme.
aandegoons
(473 posts)Is a penny more they have to pay in benefits. This will just cost everyone more.
It is idiots like these that shame our country. I would bet as a percentage of their pay the poor in this country have more skin in the game than the rich. I would also be that the poor do more for the security of this country than the rich do.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)LiberalFighter
(50,934 posts)That the wealthy have more income that is not taxed than the poor does. Look at Rmony he had millions that was not taxed for deductions. The guests on the shows need to understand that and be prepared to hit the hosts with the question. "How much of your income is not taxed?" If they are total assholes they probably know. Follow up that question with some figures. How much the standard deduction is and the amount for personal exemptions. And letting the viewers know that a family of four with both standard deduction and personal exemptions regardless of their tax bracket had $26,000 of their income exempt from taxes. Those in the middle class and upper class incomes likely have much more of their income exempt from taxes before the tax rates are applied.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... police and fire protection for their factories and other properties, highways to ship their goods... the list goes on and on.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)Payroll tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, and maybe some others I am forgetting.
TXKIM
(1 post)AMERICA IS NOT A COMPANY AND WERE NOT FOR SALE!
We just bailed out CEOs. We dont need them running our country.
The Republican Party keeps screaming there's no money so we have to slash the benefits of our poor and middle class. They continue to call them freeloaders and say Mr. Romney is correct. They dont realize how many of them do not actually pay income tax but payroll tax. They dont know what tax deductions /Gov. dole benefits like child credit, earned income credit, home deductions, they actually get. They think when they get their "refund check" its truly just because they have overpaid their taxes and nothing more. When they think of the Gov. dole they only think of food stamp fraud (which may be a myth just as who the 47% were or the voters fraud or that it may be a very small percentage either way it could easily be fixed with stricter legislation requirements, limitations, and tracking). It's was to see fraud in your own class but what kind of fraud goes on in the top 1% class? What is Corporate welfare? They need to be educated. They are voting against their own self interest.
REMINDER: People on welfare didnt cost us 15 million jobs and trillions in savings. People on Wall Street did
Ezra Klein has pointed out that the working poor in America arent avoiding responsibility, theyre drowning in it. And thats obvious to anyone who has any sense of whats going on in our economy.
This IS A WAR on the middle class. Warren Buffett, a billionaire, has said, Theres a class warfare, all right. But its my class, the rich class, thats making war, & were winning. The wealthiest 1% now own about 40% of the nation's wealth and make 700x more. We paid for the bailouts and now we are stuck with the bill. The top 2% have enjoyed special tax breaks of4% for over 10 years that Bush put in place. All we want is for those tax cuts to go back to where they were. We are talking about the top 2% of the wealthiest people and 4% in taxes that Bush decreased which is just another way Republican policies got into this debt mess and so many families ended up on Gov. welfare in form or another in the first place.
Here is a fun little factoid from Bruce Bartlett, who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, writing in The New York Times: : "During the 1990s, about 24% of filers had no income tax liability, but this number took a big jump during the Bush Administration as Republicans added a large child credit to the tax code. The percentage of filers with no income tax liability rose 25.2% in 2000 to 36.3 in 2008.
The working people who dont pay income tax, that is by and large the result of Republican policies, said Michael Linden, director of tax and budget policy at the Center for American Progress,
BUT super-rich vehicle and driving force of the Republican party don't want to lose their Bush tax cuts and other lobbied loop holes and deductions so they scare the American people with all this BS about big Gov., redistribution, socialism, etc. Money is redistributing alright but from the bottom up not the top down. We dont want our child credit, earned income credit, social security, VA benefits, Medicaid/Medicare, house deductions slashed and taxes raised on the middle class so the top 2% wealthiest can enjoy more Corporate WELFARE! (which most Americans do not even realizes exist or what they are or how they negatively affect our economy and cost tax payers billions.)(A great article I could not include is What Exactly Is Corporate Welfare and Why Should We Care)
They also scare us with lies saying if you tax the rich then it will be bad for the economy stating that the wealthy create jobs, buy most of the consumer products needed in a healthy Gov. and push the famous myth, if we give to the wealthiest the wealth will trickle down but these are ALL LIES too. (Americans really do not understand these are lies, nor how to fight back with knowledge of the facts.)
The super-rich & Corps. Do not create jobs because their tax bill is lower & they spend less on regulations. In case you hadnt noticed, corporate profits R up Most companies dont even know what to do with the profits theyre already making. Meanwhile, the wealthy dont create jobs, & giving them additional tax cuts wont bring unemployment down. Americas super-rich R already garnering a bigger share of US income than they have in 80 years. Theyre using much of it 2 speculate in the stock market.
The Republican response is that if anything, the tax rate on the wealthy should be lower, because they are the job creators and their money trickles down to everybody else.
This would be a convincing argument if there were any evidence for it.
However, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have been in effect for more than 10 years now, and we are in the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Giving tax cuts to wealthy people is not fixing the economy........
It is clear the tax cuts for the super -rich are not creating jobs, but even more damning for trickle down economics is the fact the economy was much healthier under Bill Clintons administration than it
is now even though the top tax rate then was 39.6 percent, as opposed to the 35 percent we see today. A rate which is are not very high compared to our fellow industrialized nations.
The country actually did better when the wealthy had a higher tax rate.
President Clinton, taxed the wealthy. Many Republicans said this would lead to a recession, "kill jobs," & so increase the federal deficit. (sound familiar?)
This tax increase resulted in:
US's longest peacetime economic expansion
23 million new jobs in 8 years
increase in the median household income by $6000 over 8 years
federal spending cuts of 3.2% of GDP
high tax revenue, elimination of federal deficit, & the first
surpluses in 40 years,
and low inflation
The way to get jobs back is to get American consumers to spend again.
Consumer spending is 70 percent of the nations economic activity.
MOST of it comes from the middle class and those aspiring to join the middle class.
Americans need jobs but every time Obama or Democrats. Try to create /stimulate jobs they have been blocked purposely and solely for political gain even though they KNOW it severely harms Americans and weakens our great country.
Further, It is the Democrats not the Republicans who created jobs, increased wealth and have overall less debt:
Almost 2/1 private sector JOBS were created under Democratic Administrations then Republican 42-21.
In all income levels except the top 1%, PERSONAL income growth rates under Democratic presidents well exceeded income growth rates under Republican ones.
The US gross debt has skyrocketed under EVERY Republican administration from the beginning of Nixons 2nd term onward
Despite the fact there is no reason to believe lowering taxes for the wealthiest Americans helps everyone else and that our top tax brackets are not very high compared to our fellow industrialized nations, what is the Republican solution?.......
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romneys tax plan heavily favors the wealthy, according to the Tax Policy Centers recent study. His plan would lower the top rate to a historically low 28 percent. Lowering the top tax bracket in a time when the government has NO money raises some obvious questions. How would President Romney make up for this huge loss of government revenue?
He has not said.
We should start a petition or something that Americans can unite and join together stating we want the top 2% wealthiest Bush tax cuts to be repealed. Its been over 10 years. Not to mention the capital gains tax caps, wealthy tax loopholes, and other unjust corporate welfare. If they want to declare war on our most vulnerable and those who work for a living rather than living off dividends and capital gains, well give them a war. Most of all I hope the media will educate us on this as it has about who the 47% are. Americans truly just do not know and have been lied to by the fact free Republican party.
Abraham Lincoln "I see in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. The money powers preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throws light upon its crimes
..
I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me & the financial institutions at the rear, the latter is my greatest foe
Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, & the Republic is destroyed." -Abraham Lincoln,
This is essentially a People's contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men -- to lift artificial weights from all shoulders -- to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all -- to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.
Abraham Lincoln in his first address to congress
This is a compilation of current news articles and other documents.
TexasTowelie
(112,204 posts)I think that you will like it here.
avebury
(10,952 posts)oldsarge54
(582 posts)We DO try not to flog a dead horse. Clinton had eloquently blasted Romney's comment behind closed doors. The common folk have already written Romney off as an relict from the gilded age. Now we just have to ensure that everyone votes, and purge the house of the Tea Party, and take the fillibuster in the Senate away. The common people have not been forgotten, they have been vindicated.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)And it crops up big time during elections years.
GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)are children and retired folks.
h8okra
(74 posts)i was half asleep when i went on this rant. I also do not know how to edit my text so the edits I made did not make it into the post. That means that there are missing words and incomplete thoughts in my post. I apologize for that. I guess I need to post more to properly learn how the system works. Thank you for responding despite my editorial shortcomings.