Congressional House Leader John Boehner(R-OH) Is Hoping The Middle-Class Cannot Do Tax Math

Congressional House Leader John Boehner(R-OH) Is Hoping The Middle-Class Cannot Do Tax Math

Countering President Obama’s plan to avert the fiscal cliff released last week, House Republicans unveiled their own plan this afternoon that is presented as a major gesture of compromise as it finally puts tax revenues on paper and with House Republicans’ endorsement.

The big question, of course, on the fiscal cliff negotiations is what happens to tax rates for the wealthiest Americans — Democrats want them to go up, Republicans want them to stay the same. Realizing that they have to offer some kind of revenue increases, Republicans have been searching for a way to do that that doesn’t actually raise tax rates and thus violate Grover Norquist’s pledge. Boehner did that today in his proposal, which keeps revenues where they are today (by extending the Bush tax cuts on the top 2 percent of Americans), but calls for the elimination of tax deductions.

Boehner does this by leaning on the Simpson-Bowles plan, which, in case you haven’t been watching “Morning Joe” or reading David Brooks, was put forward in 2010 by a deficit-reduction commission convened by President Obama and co-chaired by former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles.

Setting a target of $800 billion in new revenue, Boehner writes in his letter to Obama, “Notably, the new revenue in the Bowles plan would not be achieved through higher tax rates, which we continue to oppose and will not agree to in order to protect small businesses and our economy.”

Boehner has one key thing very wrong, though, as others have already noted. While the entire purpose of Boehner’s tax plan is to preserve the tax breaks for the top 2 percent, the Simpson-Bowles plan begins by allowing those rates to go up by assuming the expiration of all the Bush tax cuts. It then eliminates deductions and uses the money saved to reduce all tax rates a bit. Boehner’s plan does the opposite: It assumes the extension of the Bush tax cuts and then tries to find ways to pay for them by eliminating deductions.

The problem with this approach is that it’s basically impossible to raise any significant amounts of money without hitting the middle or lower class. Capping deductions gets you closest to that goal, as the wealthy are the most likely to take advantage of deductions, but it still doesn’t quite add up.

A $50,000 deduction cap would yield about $760 billion, just shy of what Boehner is aiming for. That cap would mostly impact the rich, according to the Tax Policy Center, but not entirely. At least 4 percent percent of the increased tax burden would fall on the lower 80 percent of Americans.

That might not seem like much, but think about that this means. Essentially, Republicans are proposing a way to preserve tax cuts for the wealthy by likely increasing taxes on the middle class, even if just a little.

So conservatives do not mind raising taxes as long as they are raising taxes on sales clerks, teachers and truck drivers. Boehner seems to think Republican leadership is a contest with Paul Ryan (R-WI) to see who can be the best at pretending to be a wonk who understands numbers. His offer is a joke, What's Wrong With the Republican Fiscal Cliff Counteroffer.

Rupert Murdoch's Wacky Anti-American Fox News Pushes Conspiracy Theory That DOJ Wants To Release Gitmo Terrorists Onto U.S. Streets

America Panders to The Plutocrats: Apple, Google, Microsoft Avoid Taxes By Keeping Billions In Profits Offshore

America Panders to The Plutocrats: Apple, Google, Microsoft Avoid Taxes By Keeping Billions In Profits Offshore

The Microsoft logo. Microsoft and other companies have been accused of using complicated schemes to avoid paying taxes.

American multinational corporations have something in common with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, aside from being people, too: They both keep a lot of their income overseas to cut their tax bills.

Companies such as Microsoft and Apple quietly dodge billions of dollars in taxes each year with potentially illegal schemes to move their profits offshore, according to a Senate subcommittee report released on Thursday.

"Some multinationals use our current tax system to engage in gimmicks to avoid paying taxes they owe," Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations, said in a hearing on Thursday. Levin described "a system used to shift billions of dollars of profit offshore and avoid billions in taxes."

Microsoft, Apple, Google and Hewlett-Packard were among the companies Levin singled out for criticism over their tax-avoidance practices, but they are not alone. Most multinational companies pay a tax rate well below the 35 percent rate mandated by law. Some avoid paying taxes altogether, or even get the government to pay them money. These loopholes cost the U.S. government billions of dollars in revenue that could be used to help close the budget deficit.

Using complex schemes to shift U.S. revenue overseas, Microsoft was able to avoid paying taxes on $21 billion in revenue between 2009 and 2011, amounting to about half its total U.S. sales, according to the subcommittee report. The company avoided paying $4.5 billion in taxes, or about $4 million per day, during that time, according to the report.

Using similar schemes, Levin said, Apple avoided taxes on $34.5 billion between 2009 and 2011, and Google has dodged taxes on $24 billion.

Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, used a series of constantly revolving short-term loans between itself and its subsidiaries that have helped it avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes since at least 2008, according to Levin. Though he didn't say how much money H-P has avoided paying, Levin did say that H-P has kept billions of dollars in cash offshore -- more than $17 billion in 2010, for example -- that it would then "lend" to its U.S. parent company in a steady stream.

"HP has complied fully with all applicable provisions of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code and auditor Ernst & Young has consistently reviewed and approved the accuracy of HP’s financials," Hewlett-Packard responded in a statement emailed to the Huffington Post. "HP has always had an extremely productive and professional relationship with the IRS, who has permanent offices at two of our facilities and has been continually auditing HP since the filing of our 1962 tax return. They have never raised any concerns about these programs. We are disappointed to see what appears to be a politically motivated attack on one of America’s largest employers.”

Apple and Google did not immediately return requests for comment. A Microsoft representative was scheduled to address the subcommittee later on Thursday.

"In conducting our business at home and abroad, we abide by U.S. and foreign tax laws," Microsoft said in a statement emailed to the Huffington Post. "That is not to say that the rules cannot be improved -- to the contrary, we believe they can and should be. U.S. international tax rules are outdated and not competitive with the tax systems of our major trading partners."

The ranking Republican on the subcommittee, Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), defended the companies, saying they were following the letter of the law to avoid what he called onerous tax rates and an overly complex tax code.

"This is perfectly legal tax avoidance," Coburn said, arguing that the 35 percent corporate tax rate mandated by law is twice that of the average rate around the world. "They take advantage of every loophole we have created in the tax system. There is nothing heinous in that. Nothing illegal in that."

Levin responded that he wasn't sure, but it seemed "highly dubious" that Hewlett-Packard's revolving loan program, for example, "complies with current tax law." He also blamed the IRS for lax enforcement of that law.

Just because something is legal does not mean it is ethical. All of these companies depend on U.S. infrastructure and the U.S. military to create a safe and economically advanced country that makes it possible for these companies to even exist.

Freaky conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer has accused Amb. Susan Rice of totally unfounded misdeeds, FLASHBACK: When Krauthammer Excused Condi Rice For Pushing "Defective" Iraq War Intelligence

The Republican Speaker of the House is clueless, John Boehner(R-OH): No ‘Difference’ If Revenue Comes From Middle Class Or Super Rich

House Republican Leader Fails To Understand His Idolatry for Millionaires Lost Conservatives The Election

House Republican Leader Fails To Understand His Idolatry for Millionaires Lost Conservatives The Election

Bernie Sanders rebuts the ludicrous argument that Americans gave Republicans a mandate to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy:

    Well, I think the objective facts disagree with that assertion. The Democrats gained two seats in the Senate, did better than anyone dreamed. The Democrats gained more votes in the House, gained a few seats in the House. President Obama won a resounding electoral college victory and won the popular vote, I think by two and a half million votes. [Note: It's actually 3.3 million as of now.]

    To suggest the Republicans did well in this election makes no sense at all.

    President Obama was very clear. He spoke about this all of the time: if reelected, he is not going to extend tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. He was reelected. Many of us ran on a similar program. We were reelected.

    So I think Mr. Boehner has got to understand they lost, and let the wishes of the majority of the people in this country prevail.

Rep. Boehner (R-OH) is the House Republican Speaker. One of, if not the most important campaign issue that tripped up Romney and conservatives was that America had a choice between making the working poor and middle-class pay for the recession that conservatives started to fiance continued tax cuts and even more tax cuts for millionaires. Conservatives have decided that once again elections do n ot matter. Boehner and the rest of the Republican Cult have declared undying idolatry of the Koch brothers and the president of Exxon. Everyone knows there is no talking reason with a cultist.

Fox News Sunday Guests Debunk Laura Ingraham's Whopper That Obama Refused To "Compromise On Pretty Much Any Issue" . When Republicans say the word compromise it is always code for not give conservatives hostage takers everything they asked for.

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Republicans Try To Censor Report That Shows No Connection Between Low Taxes For Millionaires and Economic Growth

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Republicans Try To Censor Report That Shows No Connection Between Low Taxes For Millionaires and Economic Growth

The New York Times reports that on September 28 the Library of Congress's nonpartisan Congressional Research Service withdrew, under pressure from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R.-Ky., and other Senate Republicans, a widely-circulated study concluding that since 1945 tax cuts have had no measurable impact on economic growth. I have cited the study repeatedly since its September 14 release, and so have many other journalists and academics within what Karl Rove once scornfully called the “reality-based community.” The withdrawal won’t have any impact on the report’s availability, except perhaps that more people will read it now. That's because CRS reports are never released to the public anyway. (Its Web site is useless unless you're looking for a job there.) They’re released to members of Congress. Then the interesting ones trickle out onto nongovernmental Web sites or those of individual senators or representatives. McConnell can tell the New York Times all he wants to take down its copy of the report, but he probably won't bother, because it’s public information and it has no conceivable relevance to national security.

The withdrawal is, nonetheless, outrageous. McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told the Times that the CRS report wasn’t just criticized by Republican senators; it was also criticized by what the Times (in a paraphrase) calls “people outside of Congress.” I wish the Times had taken the opportunity to say who these “people outside of Congress” are. You can probably guess. There’s the conservative Heritage Foundation. And there’s the Tax Foundation, a conservative nonprofit (not to be confused with the Tax Policy Center, which is non-ideological and nonpartisan but has nonetheless been vilified by the right for pointing out that Mitt Romney’s proposed tax cut benefited the rich at the expense of the middle class). The author of the CRS study, Thomas Hungerford, has written many excellent studies on themes directly or indirectly related to income distribution, and that’s made him a conservative target for some time. This past April, Kevin Hassett of the conservative American Enterprise Institute (a prominent income-inequality denialist and Romney adviser doomed never to live down his co-authorship, shortly before the dot-com bust, of a book titled Dow 36,000) testified before Congress’s  Joint Economic Committee that a different Hungerford report was “radically at odds with the literature. I relish academic debate, and think that authors serve a valuable service when they challenge research. But a CRS report that is supposed to inform about the consensus of the literature that veers so far from that activity is a disservice to Congress, and the taxpayers.” When Hassett cites “the literature” he means “the literature acceptable to AEI hacks and their Republican allies in Congress,” or what Jacob Weisberg has felicitously labelled “the Conintern.”

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What’s the matter with the CRS report? Well, it calls the Bush tax cuts “the Bush tax cuts,” which is somehow deemed partisan but in fact is merely explanatory. The Bush tax cuts were tax cuts passed when George W. Bush was president. Bush proposed them, pushed them through Congress, and signed them into law. Even Republicans call the Bush tax cuts “the Bush tax cuts.” The CRS report also stands accused of making reference to “tax cuts for the rich.” This is unacceptably hurtful, I suppose, to a group that any sensitive person would know to call the “special-incomed.” As it happens, though, my PDF search of the CRS report reveals that nowhere does the phrase “tax cuts for the rich” appear. The word “rich” does appear here and there, but always in a neutral context, such as, “Under both definitions of the top of the income distribution (i.e., the rich) the income shares were relatively stable until the late 1970s and then started to rise.”

I'm not sure why Mitch and his gang of lying sleazebags thinks this report is so special. The reports have been showing for years that the wealthy just squirrel away their wealth when the taxes on their unearned income are low -  15 Things Conservative Republicans Do Not Want You to Know About Taxes and the Debt. The nation's infrastructure gets beaten down, we spend less on science research, and on education and the environment. The general quality of life goes down because the wealthy are allowed to be piggish with the total GDP produced by the nation.This is a link to the report to download - for as long as the link is good anyway.

Romney’s Tax Secrecy: Did He Get Away With It?

Bill Clinton Cites Economist Republican Kenneth Rogoff To Argue Obama Needs Four More Years

What Liberal Media? The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin Helps Spread Romney's Sleazy Lies

What Liberal Media? The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin Helps Spread Romney's Sleazy Lies

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is facing a torrent of criticism from Democrats, tax analysts, and even a stray conservative or two over the lack of specifics in his tax proposals. But as per usual, there is one person who's standing by Romney, ready to fabricate any excuse she can in defense of the GOP candidate: Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, who is defending Romney's lack of detail by arguing (falsely) that President Obama doesn't have a tax plan.

Romney finds himself in this situation after both he and running mate Paul Ryan appeared on Sunday morning news shows and repeatedly declined to identify the tax loopholes they'd close to pay for the steep tax cuts their plan would put in place.

Rubin, who recalibrates her opinion on the specificity of Romney's tax plan depending on how it better serves Romney's interest, argues today that Romney's level of detail is less important than Obama's alleged failure to release a tax plan:

    The media have accused Romney of being nonspecific about his tax plan. (At least he has both an individual and corporate one; the president does not.) He explained: "I can tell you that people at the high end, high-income taxpayers, are going to have fewer deductions and exemptions. Those -- those numbers are going to come down. Otherwise, they'd get a tax break. And I want to make sure people understand, despite what the Democrats said at their convention. I am not reducing taxes on high-income taxpayers. I'm bringing down the rate of taxation, but also bringing down deductions and exemptions at the high end so the revenues stay the same, the taxes people pay stay the same. Middle-income people are going to get a break."

    This won't fly with the media (the same people who never ask Obama where his tax plan is or where his entitlement reform plans are), which will continue to press him for details.

For the moment, let's set aside the spectacle of someone with a Washington Post byline criticizing the media for wanting too much detail. The assertion that President Obama has not released a tax plan is flatly untrue.

It's right here, as part of the president's FY 2013 budget proposal. The Tax Policy Center has a whole section of its website devoted to the tax provisions contained therein. You can critique Obama's plan, disagree with it, argue that it has insufficient detail, but you can't say it doesn't exist.

With regard to corporate taxes specifically, the president released a plan in February for overhauling the corporate tax code, which one can read here. It calls for cutting the corporate tax rate and closing specific loopholes and tax expenditures (for instance, taxing carried interest as income and ending "last in, first out" accounting).

This is after all the election cycle where the masks have come off the radical conservative movement - they hate facts, they hate fact checkers - they're running on winks and secret handshakes. Its like a club that speaks in a secret language only they know and understand. "Just trust" them, they'll get around to some details about how they're going to increase spending yet cut tax revenue to pay for it when they are elected. We had that before, it was called the Bush presidency. The one that took a budget surplus, ran up the biggest debt in history, cut taxes for millionaires and crashed the economy. M's Rubin is not just a boot licking liar, she is a dangerous ideologue for the cult of conservatism.

Paul Ryan (R-WI) is a serious wonk who knows his stuff as long as you do not start to use any analytical tools, like arithmetic.

His Royal Highness Mitt Romney Wants To Be President So He Can Give Himself an $80 Million Dollar Tax Cut

His Royal Highness Mitt Romney Wants To Be President So He Can Give Himself an $80 Million Dollar Tax Cut

The U.S. tax code may be difficult to grasp, but understanding the presidential candidates' plans for it doesn't have to be. President Obama wants to raise his own taxes, while Mitt Romney wants to dramatically reduce the already small slice he pays to Uncle Sam.

Of course, that simplification doesn't shed light on just how dramatic President Romney's windfall for his family would actually be. Mitt's plan, which the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center forecast would cut taxes for the richest five percent of earners while increasing the tax bill for the other 95 percent of Americans, could slash his own annual IRS payment by almost half. And by eliminating the estate tax, the $250 million man would potentially divert $80 million (and possibly more) from the United States Treasury to his own heirs

On Friday, Governor Romney defended his mystery finances, declaring, "I have paid taxes every year. A lot of taxes. A lot of taxes." But when he announced Sunday that he wants "something dramatic" to boost the economy, he must have been speaking about his own.

Here's why.

At the end of 2012, the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 will expire. Among other changes to the tax code, President Obama wants to let the top 35 percent tax rate for income over $250,000 to return to its Clinton-era level of 39.6 percent and implement the Buffett Rule guaranteeing millionaires pay a minimum 30 percent effective tax rate. Obama would also end the "carried interest exemption" that allows Mitt Romney and other similar financiers to pay under 15 percent to Uncle Sam each year. In contrast, Romney would not only make the Bush tax cuts permanent, but deliver a 20 percent across-the-board tax cut. Upper income taxpayers would not only see their rate slashed to 28 percent, but would benefit by the elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

While conservatives and their friends in the media have decided we have a deficit problem, we in fact still have a revenue problem. They are at their lowest level since the Reagan years - the last time we had a major recession. The major reason conservatives want to frame the issue this way is to make everyone believe we can cut spending to balance the budget. The only way to do that is to gut the safety net programs like Medicare.

Why Does Mitt Romney Want To Restrict Voting Rights For More Than 900,000 Ohio Veterans?

Scott Brown (R-MS) has a well deserved reputation for being lazy. So lazy that he is letting his buddies at the Anti-American Fox News do his attacking for him, REPORT: Fox Spends Over 43 Minutes Smearing Elizabeth Warren. Why is Scott Brown afraid of doing his own dirty work. Would making these kinds of false smears ruin little Scotty's fabricated image as a nice guy.

For Capitalism and Democracy to Survive America Must Let Go of Economic Policy that Entrenches Poverty, Coddles the Wealthy

For Capitalism and Democracy to Survive America  Must Let Go of Economic Policy that Entrenches Poverty, Coddles the Wealthy

As much as they claim to loathe government, right-wing policy makers adore government assistance to the nation’s superrich.

The economic policies, including weakened regulation of the financial industry, pushed by a party that has become behold to the superrich ushered in the Great Recession and the gaping economic inequality that the nation seems to be slowly awakening. Yet likely not fast enough. The number in poverty is on track, The Associated Press reported in July, to reach “levels unseen in nearly half a century,” and wiping out gains to lessen poverty that were seen in the 1960s. These economic policies center on tax cuts for the wealthiest, dwindling social services, along with weak regulation of the financial industry.

“The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year,” Columbia Business School Professor Joseph Stiglitz wrote last year. “In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent.”

Stiglitz noted in the same article how woefully out touch the wealthiest are – they can take care of themselves just fine and are numb to the plight of a family of three that must somehow survive on an annual income of less than $38,000.

So what can be done to reverse the situation? It appears rather hopeless, since the superrich are also the most powerful and have been able to keep alive the economic policies that have benefited them at a great cost to everyone else. During this year’s ACS National Convention Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University law school professor and longtime advocate for the nation’s most vulnerable said the shrinking middle class must become far more vocal in calling for an end to disastrous economic policies.

In a recent op-ed for The New York Times, Edelman , also chair of the ACS Board, said we know “what we need to do – make the rich pay their fair share of running the country, raise the minimum wage, provide health care and a decent safety net, and the like”

But to do all those things, Edelman said the people in the middle must vote in way that represents “their own economic self-interest.” In other words the middle class needs cease identify with the super wealthy. As long as people in the middle identify more with people on the top than with those on the bottom, we are doomed,” he wrote.

In his Times’ op-ed Edelman sounds a positive note, citing the Progressive era and actions following the Great Depression, in the effort to push economic policies that advance the fortunes of many people.

But the work is daunting. The nation’s social safety net, as Edelman and others have long noted has taken a beating due to right-wing economic policy. In his new book So Rich, So Poor, he details the devastating impact to minorities and single parents that a tattered social safety net has wrought.  

Stiglitz noted a year ago in his Vanity Fair article that the powerful few often stand in the way of policy that would improve the lives many more people. But they do so at their peril. “The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live,” he wrote. “Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.”

Why does how many of the middle-class identify with the interests of the 1%. Some studies have shown that many of the middle-class think that some day if they work hard they will be part of that 1%. Yet the data suggest the chances of moving up the economic ladder - something Americans took for granted from the FDR administration through at least the 1990s - is no longer the norm. Because politicians cater to the 1% that is how economic policy is slanted.

Poor guy who dared punk Chik-fil-A over its hateful policies was fired and is getting death threats.

Rupert Mudoch's Anti-American Fox Evening News Show Lies About Military Voting In Ohio. A new conspiracy myth that Obama is trying to keep the military from voting early. A complete lie. Ohio has tired to make it harder for seniors, students and minorities to vote and that is a violation of federal law.

I can describe Mitt Romney’s tax policy promises in two words: mathematically impossible.

Tis The Season For The Limitless Gutter of Republican Elite Lies

Tis The Season For The Limitless Gutter of Republican Elite Lies

When it comes to the economy, too many Americans continue to be numbed by the soothing sounds of conservative spin in the media. Here are three of their more inventive claims:

1. Higher taxes on the rich will hurt small businesses and discourage job creators

A recent Treasury analysis found that only 2.5% of small businesses would face higher taxes from the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

As for job creation, it's not coming from the people with money. Over 90% of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, real estate, and personal business accounts. Angel investing (capital provided by affluent individuals for business start-ups) accounted for less than 1% of the investable assets of high net worth individuals in North America in 2011. The Mendelsohn Affluent Survey agreed that the very rich spend less than two percent of their money on new business startups.

The Wall Street Journal noted, in way of confirmation, that the extra wealth created by the Bush tax cuts led to the "worst track record for jobs in recorded history."

2. Individual initiative is all you need for success.

President Obama was criticized for a speech which included these words: "If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own...when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together."

'Together' is the word that winner-take-all conservatives seem to forget. Even the richest and arguably most successful American, Bill Gates, owes most of his good fortune to the thousands of software and hardware designers who shaped the technological industry over a half-century or more. A careful analysis of his rise shows that he had luck, networking skills, and a timely sense of opportunism, even to the point of taking the work of competitors and adapting it as his own.

Gates was preceded by numerous illustrious Americans who are considered individual innovators when in fact they used their skills to build upon the work of others. On the day that Alexander Graham Bell filed for a patent for his telephone, electrical engineer Elisha Gray was filing an intent to patent a similar device. Both had built upon the work of Antonio Meucci, who didn't have the fee to file for a patent. Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb was the culmination of almost 40 years of work by other fellow light bulb developers. Samuel Morse, Eli Whitney, the Wright brothers, and even Thomas Edison had, as eloquently stated by Jared Diamond, "capable predecessors...and made their improvements at a time when society was capable of using their product."

If anything, it's harder than ever today to ascend through the ranks on one's own. As summarized in the Pew research report "Pursuing the American Dream," only 4% of those starting out in the bottom quintile make it to the top quintile as adults, "confirming that the 'rags-to-riches' story is more often found in Hollywood than in reality."

3. A booming stock market is good for all of us

The news reports would have us believe that happy days are here again when the stock market goes up. But as the market rises, most Americans are getting a smaller slice of the pie.

In a recent Newsweek article, author Daniel Gross gushed that "The stock market has doubled since March 2009, while corporate profits and exports have surged to records."

But the richest 10% of Americans own over 80% of the stock market. What Mr. Gross referred to as the "democratization of the stock market" is actually, as demonstrated by economist Edward Wolff, a distribution of financial wealth among just the richest 5% of Americans, those earning an average of $500,000 per year.

Thanks in good part to a meager 15% capital gains tax, the richest 400 taxpayers DOUBLED their income and nearly HALVED their tax rates in just seven years (2001-2007). So dramatic is the effect that anyone making more than $34,500 a year in salary and wages is taxed at a higher rate than an individual with millions in capital gains.

There's yet more to the madness. The stock market has grown much faster than the GDP over the past century, which means that this special tax rate is being given to people who already own most of the unearned income that keeps expanding faster than the productiveness of real workers.

And one fading illusion: People in the highest class are people of high class.

Scientific American and Psychological Science have both reported that wealthier people are more focused on self, and have less empathy for people unlike themselves.

This sense of self-interest, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and other sources, promotes wrongdoing and unethical behavior.

Can't help but think about bankers and hedge fund managers.

Paul Buchheit is the founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org)

In another age a moderate conservative ( remember them) called this phenomenon voodoo economics - where you redistribute the capital produced by American labor to the top of the pyramid. Why? Well there are many reason people buy into this. One is that low to modest income conservative Republicans are obsessed with someone getting $4 in food assistance they fell they don't deserve, but do not care about the plutocrats at the top taking most of the value produced by the work they do. Working class Republicans are happy to make their plantation masters happy as long as those people over there - the nebulous other - does not get a few pennies in assistance during tough times. Tough times created by the plutocrats they vote into power. A great example of people not acting in their own rational self interests.

Conservative Evangelical Leaders Blame Liberals, Media For Aurora Shootings, Say Only Christian Victims Will Go To Heaven

Democrats Crush Republicans as Capitalists in the White House

I think its great that CNN has an affirmative action program for the brain dead, Erick Erickson Brings Fox's Bogus Small-Business Attack On Obama To CNN. And I thought Erick was going to lead the American Dish Detergent Revolution.

Elizabeth Warren Vindicated as Fox News Use Argument That Rich Don't Make It On Their Own

Elizabeth Warren Vindicated as Fox News Use Argument That Rich Don't Make It On Their Own

Last fall, right-wing pundits at Fox News and elsewhere savaged Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, after video circulated of the former Obama administration official explaining that because business moguls take advantage of infrastructure and education funded by taxes, "[t]here is nobody in this country who got rich on his own." This morning, an unlikely group offered up comments strikingly similar to Warren's: the hosts of Fox & Friends Sunday.

During a segment on wealthy Americans who renounce their citizenship to avoid paying taxes, Clayton Morris offered up this advice to such persons: "Get out of here. But the point is, you've made all this money on the backs of the infrastructure, taxpayers that got you there, the roads that taxpayers pay so you can drive back and forth to work to get rich on a regular basis, and now you're going to leave so you're not going to pay taxes."

Alisyn Camerota added, "[A]re they just greedy? I mean, are they just -- after this country allowed you the entrepreneurial spirit, the freedom to make all this money, now you're going to leave it? I mean, that does send the message that you care more about your money than you do about your country."


Compare their comments to those Warren made during a campaign stop in August while pushing back against claims that asking the wealthy to pay more in taxes is "class warfare":

    WARREN: There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there -- good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did. Now look. You built a factory, and it turned into something terrific or a great idea -- God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

There are some differences, of course. Fox & Friends being what it is, the segment concludes with the hosts determining that "the answer" is to "be part of the solution" by "stay[ing] here and... fight[ting] for better tax laws," followed by a series of jokes about European toilets. But both make the case that the private sector success of the wealthy is driven by government investments funded by the public. Fox, of course, has long been a chief promoter of the very claims of "class warfare" Warren criticized.

In October, Fox News' Andrew Napolitano responded to Warren's comments by labeling her a "crazy lady." Reason magazine editor in chief Matt Welch called them "the best advertisement I've seen in a long time for limiting the size and scope of government" and "terrifying." Other right-wing commenters termed her remarks "dunderheaded" "piffle" that made her sound like a "guileless, fevered Marxist."

It remains to be seen whether the right will similarly target the "Marxist[s]" on Fox & Friends' curvy couch.

The least Fox News could do is send Warren a check for co-opting her speech. But like your average conservatives, the Fox News propaganda channel tends to take what it wants, earning it or creating something themselves would just be too much work.

It's Not About the Damn Ponies

It's true that Romney makes most of his annual income off of dividends and capital gains he earns by investing his fortune. But he made $374,327.62 in 2010 on speaker's fees alone. That's a figure, by the way, that Romney characterized as "not very much" money. Kathleen Parker thinks people are just hating on the Romneys' success out of some kind of pony-envy, but we're really appalled about something completely different. We're appalled that he wants to cut way back on programs to help the poor and middle-class survive and advance in our society at the same time that he wants to hand out a $250,000 annual income tax break to millionaires. Over a four-year presidential term, that would be a million dollar tax break to everyone who made a million dollars a year for those four years. You can't make a proposal like that when you are worth a quarter of a billion dollars and then complain about the budget deficit and call for massive cuts in social spending, and then think you'll be above criticism.

As for Ann Romney's horse, Ms. Parker doesn't get into the specifics for a good reason. Apparently, the Romneys formed a corporation to deal with this horse, and they declared a $77,000 loss in 2010 for that corporation. If the corporation ever makes any money by, for example, breeding this Olympic-performing horse, they can write off those losses. And you thought the Olympics were about amateur sports!

Romney says our taxes - the lowest they have been in fifty years - are too high. Yet here we are subsidizing Romney's expensive hobby. Mitt and Ann are welfare queens, simple as that.

If they gave Olympic Gold Medals for lying, Mitt Romney would have a mansion full of them. Character does matter. Romney says he is a man of character and morals. When can the American people start to see some of that character and morality? After the election will be too late.

What is Darrell Issa (R-CA) Hiding In His Fast and Furious Witch Hunt

Darrell Issa Shows Contemptible Disregard for the Constitution

He failed to build a credible case or a credible coalition for his initiative. After a day of increasingly ridiculous posturing, Issa secured the contempt citation he sought. But is came on a straight party-line vote that rendered the decision all but meaningless.

The chairman's heavy-handed style invoted the reproach that the contempt vote was "nothing more than a political witch hunt," as People for the American Way president Michael Keegan termed it.

“To be sure, Congress has a legitimate interest in investigating Operation Fast and Furious, but Chairman Issa and Republican majority on the Committee appear to be more interested in scoring political points than in getting to the bottom of what happened," argued Keegan, who added that, “The hoops the Committee is demanding the Attorney General jump through illustrate that these contempt hearings are as partisan as they are extreme. Over the course of this ‘investigation,’ the Committee has ordered the A.G. to produce documents whose confidentiality is protected by federal law, has refused to subpoena Bush Administration officials to testify about their knowledge of the operation during their time in office, has refused to allow public testimony from officials whose testimony counters Issa’s partisan narrative, and has repeatedly rejected the A.G.’s efforts to accommodate the committee, making compliance all but impossible."

Issa's actions undermined not just his own credibility but any sense that he and his allies might be acting in defense of -- or with any regard for -- the Constitution.

As TPro has already noted Issa has no case. he also seems to be following a political agenda rather than uncovering any new facts. Throughout his "investigation" he has refused to follow the trail back to a conservative Republican administration. fast and Furious does sound like it was a boneheaded idea, but it was an idea and action that started before Holder even took office.

New NSA docs contradict 9/11 claims - “I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released," an expert tells Salon. Conservative Republicans lied and thousands died. If Issa is concerned about justice how about prosecuting Bush and former administration officials for treason.

Middle class could face higher taxes under Mitt Romney - Republican plan, analysis finds

Tech Companies Make Billions But Pay Lower Taxes Than Middle Class Families

Tech Companies Make Billions But Pay Lower Taxes Than Middle Class Families

Apple and several other major tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, have been pushing for what’s known as a tax repatriation holiday, which would allow them to bring money they have stashed overseas back to the U.S. at a much lower rate than the standard 35 percent. As we have noted over and over, a repatriation holiday enacted in 2004 just provided a windfall to corporations and did not achieve any of its policy aims. And corporations, of course, proceeded to stash even more money overseas in the hopes that Congress would adopt another holiday somewhere down the line.

And as a new report from the Greenlining Institute found, tech companies are already doing quite well when it comes to lowering their tax bills. In fact, the top 30 tech companies in the Fortune 500 paid an effective tax rate of 16 percent, after making $181 billion in profits last year. Apple, despite its billions in profits, is paying lower taxes than middle class families:

    The tax rate paid by these companies has plunged – from 23.6 percent in 2009 to 19.9 percent in 2010 and 16 percent in 2011. The hypothetical top corporate tax rate of 35 percent is almost entirely a fiction.

    The tax rate paid by Apple, the world’s most valuable company with a stock valuation that passed $500 billion in March 2012, has dropped even more dramatically. With profits soaring past $34 billion last year, the company’s tax rate fell from 24.8 percent in 2009 to 14.7 percent in 2010 and 9.8 percent in 2011. Apple’s tax rate over the last three years was less than that of middle-income Americans with average household incomes of $64,500 per year; its 2011 tax rate was lower than that of American households making an average of $42,500 per year.

Tech companies use a variety of activities, including shifting profits offshore to low- or no-tax jurisdictions to make their tax bills dramatically drop. And a Politico review of financial documents found that the companies pushing hardest for a repatriation holiday have moved hundreds of billions of dollars overseas, counting on Congress to provide them with yet another misguided tax break.

One of the great conservative Republican lies is that taxes are so high corporations will not hire. Those corps are making enormous profits, paying historically low taxes. Which means once again that conservatism is not a political movement as much as a deranged cult of pathological liars.

What Mitt won’t say in public - At a fundraiser he thought was private, Romney outlines specific cuts and brags about the “gift” of Hilary Rosen

Koch brothers Puppet Scott Brown(R-MS) Helps Defeat Buffet Rule Than Calls Elizabeth Warren ‘elitist’

What Liberal Media - Cleveland Editor Pushes Bogus Paul Ryan(R-WI) Budget Plan

What Liberal Media - Cleveland Editor Pushes Bogus Paul Ryan(R-WI) Budget Plan

In a March 22 column, Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Kevin O'Brien commenced a pedantic cheerleading session in support of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) controversial new budget plan. After glibly comparing Senate Democrats to preteen children, O'Brien argued that Ryan's infamously austere cuts "would not cut government far enough fast enough." Unfortunately, O'Brien's slash and burn philosophy of congressional budgeting ignores the real-world impact those cuts would have on fellow Ohioans.

He wrote:

    If [Democrats] admit that entitlements are devouring revenues at an alarming and ever-increasing rate, they won't be able to demagogue Social Security and Medicare anymore.

    If they admit that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that they passed all by themselves isn't going to do the main things they promised -- save money and insure the uninsured -- they open themselves to accusations that they knew all along that it was a scam. And the accusations would be true.

    If they admit that they fully intend to just keep packing the nation's bedroom closet with debt until it explodes, the voters might punish them.

    So, no honesty, no discussion, no vote, no budget.

Of course, O'Brien ignores the realities of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's (PPACA) successes and the harsh human element of Ryan's plan. The PPACA is two years old, and according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, plenty of previously uninsured Ohioans are now covered as a result of the law. More than 2,000 Ohioans with pre-existing conditions are now covered, and more than 80,000 young adults in the state have gained coverage. The health care security of more than four million residents is no longer threatened by lifetime caps on their coverage.

And as for entitlements, O'Brien doesn't tell his readers that under Ryan's budget (which again, he doesn't think goes far enough), more than 1.8 million vulnerable Ohioans will be at risk of losing food stamp benefits and slipping into hunger. This is according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which yesterday released a detailed look at how Ryan's budget would devastate children, seniors and people with disabilities. From the CBPP:

    House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget plan includes cuts in SNAP (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) of $133.5 billion -- more than 17 percent -- over the next ten years (2013-2022). [...]

    The overwhelming majority of SNAP households are families with children, seniors, or people with disabilities.  Almost three-quarters of SNAP participants are in families with children; more than one-quarter are in households that include senior citizens or people with disabilities.

By ignoring this grim picture, O'Brien hasn't simply missed the significance of the cuts. He's revealed volumes about where his priorities lie. As he noted:

    [A] budget isn't just a statement of spending and income expectations. It's also a statement of beliefs -- a numerical representation of what is important.

A true statement, to be sure; and Mr. O'Brien's budget proposals reveal just what -- and who -- is important to him.

Ryan's plan is such a joke that conservatives are not even promoting it. It actually increases the debt. One of the reason none of Ryan's half-baked schemes for the budget work is because they all include massive tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.

Guns don't kill people, hoodies do. Geraldo might want to lay off the whiskey, his logic is getting more wobbly than ever.

Socialists of the Week - The 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates

Socialists of the Week - The 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates

The Republican Party is catching flat-tax fever — and setting up an epic election-year fight with Democrats over whether wealthier Americans should pay higher taxes or get tax cuts.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney became the latest to punch the tax button Wednesday, telling a Virginia audience that he'll soon update his economic proposal to spell out ways to flatten the tax code.

His vow came just a day after rival Rick Perry grabbed headlines and talk-show chatter with a proposal for an optional flat 20 percent tax on income. Both followed Herman Cain's pitch for a flat 9 percent income tax as part of his 9-9-9 plan, which helped him jump to the top tier of candidates for their party's 2012 nomination. Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann endorse a flat tax, too.

The flat tax — so called because it offers one flat rate for taxpayers in all income groups while taking away many or all deductions — would simplify taxes. It also would almost certainly give big tax cuts to wealthy Americans. Republicans believe that cutting taxes, especially on the wealthy, helps to spur investment, economic growth and hiring.

At the same time, most of the Republican candidates are proposing other changes that also would mean big tax cuts for high-income Americans, such as eliminating taxes on dividend income or capital gains, and eliminating the estate tax, called the death tax by Republicans.

Their push comes at the same time that Democratic President Barack Obama is pushing to raise taxes on higher-income Americans. He's proposed raising taxes on those making more than $200,000 and has endorsed a push by Senate Democrats to raise taxes on incomes above $1 million.

The debate comes as new data show that the very wealthiest Americans have greatly increased their share of U.S. income in recent decades. The richest 1 percent claimed 17 percent of American income in 2007, more than double their 8 percent share in 1979, according to a report this week from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Protest over growing income inequality is also among the motive issues driving the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations around the country.

Polls show that a solid majority of Americans favor raising taxes on the wealthy. But that's anathema in the Republican Party, where tax cuts, particularly for higher incomes, are popular. Seven in 10 Americans say that policies of Republicans in Congress favor the rich, according to a New York Times poll published Wednesday.

There's little doubt the Republican presidential candidates' proposals would cut taxes on the wealthy.

Most would eliminate taxes on all or some profits on investments. Most of those taxes now are paid by wealthier Americans.

Most also would eliminate the estate tax, which applies only to estates of $7 million or more and is paid by about 3,270 families each year, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, both respected center-left think tanks in Washington.

"These are really wealthy families," said Roberton Williams, an analyst at the Tax Policy Center.

A flat tax on income would take away some deductions but lower the rate. Perry, for example, would cut it to 20 percent. Gingrich would cut it to 15 percent. The wealthiest Americans now pay a 35 percent marginal rate on income above $379,950. A detailed analysis by the Tax Policy Center found that the Cain plan would mean an average tax cut of $455,000 for those with incomes above $1 million.

Romney once criticized a flat tax proposal in 1996 as a boon to the rich, going so far as personally taking out newspaper ads in early primary states to rip the proposal from then-candidate Steve Forbes.

"It's a tax cut for fat cats," Romney said then.

When he unveiled his economic agenda this year, Romney said he would pursue a "long-term goal" of a "flatter, fairer, simpler structure." But he also said he wouldn't change any of the existing personal income tax rates.

On Wednesday in Fairfax, Va., he said, "I'll lay out some additional ways to make the tax code more flat."

While the Republican tax proposals would give tax cuts to the wealthy, the candidates have backed away from the appearance of raising taxes on lower-income Americans.

Cain at first denied that his plan would raise taxes on poorer Americans, then changed it after the Tax Policy Center found that the 84 percent of taxpayers would pay more under Cain's plan.

Gingrich notably would keep the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps lower-income families offset their payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security. "Preserving the EITC and Child Tax Credit are critical to ensure that the optional flat tax system does not unfairly target low-income Americans," Gingrich says in a website chart comparing his flat tax to Perry's.

Romney points to his proposal to limit tax cuts on dividends and capital gains to incomes below $250,000. "My view is that a key to the tax policy is to reduce the tax burden on the people who have been hurt most by the Obama economy, and that's the middle class," he said Wednesday.

Gingrich and others have noted, however, that the limit would mean little because people below that threshold pay few taxes on dividends and capital gains.

And Perry would give all taxpayers the option of sticking with the current tax system, meaning no one would have to pay more than they would under today's rules.

 As one can see from the chart above, conservative economic policies are a perverted redistribution of wealth. The people who work the hardest in the U.S. have the least wealth. Most of the top 1% in particular make most of their income from the comfort of their overstuffed leather lounge chair via capital gains from stocks, not from work. The rabid Right, which has come to fully control the radical redistribution policies of the Republican Party says the wealthy already pay most of the federal income taxes. So we should be crying crocodile tears for them. Common sense should tell every American - and the polls seem to indicate most Americans understand that the people who own a disproportionate amount of the nation's wealth should indeed pay most of the taxes since they are the group that owns the most. If taxes went back to what they were during the Clinton administration the very wealthy would still be paying lower taxes than they did in the 1960s.

This is What Conservatives Think Capitalism is: The Average Bush Tax Cut For The 1 Percent This Year Will Be Greater Than The Average Income Of 99% of American Workers

This is What Conservatives Think Capitalism is: The Average Bush Tax Cut For The 1 Percent This Year Will Be Greater Than The Average Income Of 99% of American Workers

As Occupy Wall Street protestors continue to demonstrate across the country, congress’ fiscal super committee failed to craft a deficit reduction package due to Republican refusal to consider tax increases on the super wealthy. In fact, the only package that the GOP officially submitted to the committee included lowering the top tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, even as new research shows that the optimal top tax rate is closer to 70 percent.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who co-chaired the super committee, explained that the major sticking point during negotiations with the GOP was what to do with the Bush tax cuts. With that in mind, the National Priorities Project points out that those tax cuts this year will give the richest 1 percent of Americans a bigger tax cut than the other 99 percent will receive in average income:

    The average Bush tax cut in 2011 for a taxpayer in the richest one percent is greater than the average income of the other 99 percent ($66,384 compared to $58,506).

“The super committee failed to grapple with the extraordinarily costly Bush tax cuts for the richest—tax policies that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cost more in added federal debt than they add in additional economic activity,” explained Jo Comerford, NPP’s Executive Director. Frank Knapp, vice chairman of the American Sustainable Business Council, added in a statement yesterday, “the high-end Bush tax cuts are a big part of the problem – not the solution…It’s obscene to keep slashing infrastructure and services for everybody on Main Street to keep up tax giveaways for millionaires and multinational corporations.”

The Bush tax cuts have done nothing but blow up the federal debt and hand billions in tax breaks to the Americans who needed them least.

Conservatives want America to believe the top 1% work the hardest so they should reap obscene levels of reward. It that out real world experience. In the real world those who make millions a year work the least. They are not scientists or even brain surgeons or great teachers. So we're not paying them for their "intellectual" contributions. Every one of these millionaires got their money riding on the backs of people who provide the work and services that millionaires takes gigantic profits from.Let's have a day without labor. America would soon shut down. We need a fair and just capitalism not crony conservative capitalism.

Federal Workers Are Underpaid Compared To Their Private Sector Counterparts, Despite What Flawed Republican Study Says

Federal Workers Are Underpaid Compared To Their Private Sector Counterparts, Despite What Flawed Republican Study Says

To hear Republican presidential primary candidates tell it, the federal workforce under President Obama has experienced ballooning job growth and huge wage increases. Such claims are a staple of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) stump speeches, and for months, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) has promised to bring the rest of the workers’ pay into line with comparable employees in the private sector.

Speaking at the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity annual summit Friday, Romney repeated this pledge, saying the pay gap between public and private workers “must be corrected.” “Public servants shouldn’t get a better deal than the taxpayers they work for,” Romney added.

But if Romney truly wants to match the pay of public employees to that of private workers, he would have to give the federal workers a raise, according to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And such a raise wouldn’t be a small one — according to the report, federal workers are underpaid compared to their private sector counterparts by an average of 26.3 percent, and that gap is widening, the Washington Post reports:

    The federal government reported Friday that on average, its employees are underpaid by 26.3 percent compared with similar non-federal jobs, a “pay gap” that increased by about 2 percentage points over last year while federal salary rates were frozen.

When asked if, given the BLS report, Romney was promising to give federal workers a raise should he become president, a Romney campaign spokesperson sent ThinkProgress a report from the conservative Heritage Foundation that said federal workers “receive 30 to 40 percent more in compensation than private-sector employees” once wages and benefits were included. “The federal pay system gives the average federal employee hourly cash earnings 22 percent above the average private worker’s. Including benefits raises the average compensation disparity to between 30 and 40 percent,” James Sherk, the report’s author, wrote.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) took an extensive look at the Heritage study, however, and found that it was riddled with errors and “methodological problems that call into question the validity of its findings and recommendations.” The Heritage study, for instance, used a BLS survey with a much smaller sample size than the one normally cited in such reports, leading to distortions in its analysis of federal worker pay. In fact, POGO found that the less reliable data distorted Heritage’s wage differentials by 21 to 146 percent.

When I was growing up a lot of the older adults - relatives and their friends - who worked for the government used to complain about their pay, but they always ended by saying that at least they have more job security than the big corporations that would lay off thousands of people every year. I think that is why some people still prefer government work even though state and federal government has slashed payrolls over the last 5 years.

Poll: 50 Percent Say GOP Is ‘Intentionally Stalling’ Economy To Hurt Obama