When it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthy, President Bush can truly say, “Mission accomplished.”
The richest 1 percent of Americans received about $491 billion in tax breaks between 2001 and 2008. That’s nearly the same amount as U.S. debt held by China — $493 billion — in the form of Treasury securities.
Do you want our government to mortgage more of our nation’s future to finance tax breaks for the rich?
Tax cuts have already helped the richest 1 percent — whose annual incomes average about $1.5 million — increase their share of the nation’s income to a higher level than any year since 1928 on the eve of the Great Depression.
Wall Street’s five biggest firms paid “a record $39 billion in bonuses for 2007, a year when three of the companies suffered the worst quarterly losses in their history” and are eliminating thousands of jobs as losses mount from the subprime mortgage market collapse, reports Bloomberg.
The International Monetary Fund says the United States is in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, we are borrowing money with interest to finance tax cuts for Wall Street executives.
For Americans below the top 1 percent, the tax cuts have been a giant swindle. The bottom 99 percent of taxpayers were left with a bill of $3.74 in debt for every $1 in federal tax cuts from 2001 to 2006, reports Citizens for Tax Justice. Only the top 1 percent came out ahead.
Meanwhile, the federal budgets for environmental protection and housing for the elderly have been slashed more than 20 percent since 2001, adjusted for inflation, the Community Development Block Grant budget is down 32 percent, and the lack of health insurance is an epidemic.
Most households aren’t even earning as much as they did in 1999, adjusting for inflation. But the 400 taxpayers with the highest incomes doubled their incomes between 2002 and 2005.
According to the latest IRS data, which excludes tax-exempt interest income from state and local government bonds, the richest 400 taxpayers reported an average $214 million each on their federal income tax returns in 2005 — up from $104 million in 2002.
As the Wall Street Journal observed, “It’s also important to remember that these figures don’t represent wealth or even lifetime earnings — merely income for a single year.”
Thanks to tax cuts, it’s now common for the nation’s richest bosses to pay taxes at a lower rate than workers. The 400 richest taxpayers paid only 18 percent of their income in federal individual income taxes in 2005 — down from 30 percent in 1995.
“The drop in effective tax rates for the top 400 filers,” the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, “worked out to a tax reduction of $25 million per filer in 2005.” It would take 673 average workers earning $37,149 a year to reach $25 million today.
While tax cuts help the superrich compete over who has the biggest submarine-carrying superyacht, Katrina survivors are being hit with foreclosures, and neglected levees and bridges around the country are a disaster waiting to happen.
Most of the provisions of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. President Bush wants to make them permanent.
The richest 1 percent of households would receive nearly $1.2 trillion in tax cuts from 2009 through 2018, reports the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
How much is $1.2 trillion? More than all the debt accumulated in the nearly 200 years from George Washington through Ronald Reagan’s first two years in office. That’s before adding interest payments on the borrowed $1.2 trillion.
Tax cuts for the wealthy fuel rising inequality along with rising debt and neglect. Taxpayers with annual incomes above $1 million in fiscal year 2012, for example, would increase their after-tax income by 7.5 percent thanks to an average tax cut of $162,000. The poorest 20 percent of taxpayers would get an average tax cut of $45 — and decaying public services.
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama promise to end the tax breaks for the wealthy. Republican candidate John McCain wants to extend them. What do you want?
Holly Sklar is co-author of “Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us” and “A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future.” She can be reached at hsklar@aol.com.
Copyright 2008 Holly Sklar
Thank you Holly. Now could we get some MSM coverage on this? How about shouting from the rooftops? How about those offended, bitter, individuals in Pennsylvannia - are they paying attention?
The NO BILLIONAIRE LEFT BEHIND program has been W’s biggest success story. That program will contniue to cost the rest of us a lot of dough for a long time.
The real war conducted by Bu$hCo was not on terrorism, but a “class war” on the average American family…done by slealth…and greed….with MSM complicity distracting Americans with junk TV and misfeasant journalism…
“The cruelest lies of all; are told in silence” [Millemeum Project]
The time has come for the women and men of the United States to step up. For far too long generations of Americans have passed the buck to those that followed. The sins of the parents are visited upon the children. If we don’t lay our lives on the line now and break this vicious cycle, there won’t be many more generations that survive.
I recall seeing a program some time ago; might have been National Geographic, History Channel, Discovery, I can’t remember which. In any case, it showed how the simple act of abandoning a nomadic lifestyle had caused the decline and eventual demise of certain groups of hunter-gatherers. Apparently just settling down for too long in one place can be a fatal error. There was a great deal of archaeological evidence from various settlement sites clearly showing how the exploitation of local resources had provided a very comfortable life at first. But after a fairly short period, as the populations grew and the settlements expanded, things began to fall apart. The structures built later and near the apparent collapse of the settlements showed a steady decline in quality and increasing evidence of failing resources. Some skeletal remains showed signs of poor nutrition and extreme hardship. Finally either the sites were abandoned or everyone starved. It wasn’t clear which.
Some would argue that sedentary agriculture was the first step on the slippery slope down which we are all now careening at breakneck speed. It can even be linked to the beginning of the current critical cycle of global climate change we are currently facing.
I’m not really sure when it started but for a long time now generations of Americans have been adopting increasingly wasteful lifestyles at an ever higher cost to their successors. I suppose the Industrial Revolution is the point where our ability to use technology finally caused us to abandon our common sense completely. We became so obsessed with what we could do that we neglected to consider what we should do. We opened the floodgates of rampant capitalism which actually took control as the result of an 1886 Supreme Court case called Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific. A statement by the judge, a mere two sentences, gave corporations the same rights as persons under the fourteenth amendment. It’s been all downhill from there.
From that day forward those corporate persons have been brainwashing Americans and much of the rest of the world, with an ever more sophisticated and obfuscatory program of indoctrination, that it was right and good to consume everything imaginable with reckless abandon. Bills were written and passed into law giving these immortal and immoral entities more and more power with less and less restraint. With rapacious greed and unbridled lust for power as their driving forces, these corporate behemoths have become instruments of conquest used by a relatively small number of psychopathic Free Market Capitalists / Libertarians. They have infiltrated and taken control of every aspect of our lives from public education to life and death decisions regarding our health care. They and the politicians that serve them have driven us to the very brink of utter disaster. Yet, as we stare over the precipice, into the yawning abyss of extinction, we can’t help but wonder if we have any balance left on that gold card. That new high definition plasma TV would be really sweet. As I have detailed in an earlier essay the money worshippers now own nearly everything, including the souls of the American public.
So this is our dilemma. We can do as our fathers and mothers did to us, as theirs did to them, and pass this disaster on to our children. The problem is there will soon be no chance for salvation. If we don’t fix this now, our children won’t be able to. It will be too late. The proverbial tipping point to an extinction event will soon be passed. Our children, our grandchildren will be faced with the lives of slaves or refugees on a planet on its way to being uninhabitable. They will stand at the edge of oblivion and there will be no way back unless we stop the cycle.
Every adult American; every man and woman, every grandparent, mother and father must break the hold of the corporate death machine. We can no longer follow the Pied Piper of consumerism. That path leads to annihilation. Business as usual means offering up your children as a sacrifice to the false god of capitalism.
Stop spending.
STOP BUYING THINGS YOU DON’T NEED!
Cut up your credit cards. Don’t drive unless it’s absolutely necessary. If you were insane enough to buy a gas guzzling SUV sell it. If you can’t sell it let it be repossessed. Withdraw your money and close all your bank accounts before the banks fail. Pay cash for everything you can. When you need clothes go to a store like Savers. If you have to mail payments for bills send money orders. If you have any substantial savings use what you can to make your home energy independent. Get as far off the grid as possible. Go solar or wind or both. Localize in every way you possibly can.
DO WHATEVER IT TAKES!
If we stop feeding the monster it will starve or at least morph into something we can possibly live with.
WAKE UP!
The debts of the past have finally come due, with interest. We must meet our obligation to the future.
Accept some pain and suffering now or condemn your children and grandchildren to agony and death.
coldwarbaby@hotmail.com
Re:ColdWarBaby47
Couldn’t agree with you more. The problem is re-educating a public that has the consumer mentality ingrained into their psyche while being re-enforced with that crap everyday. I just read today for example that John McCain proposes a gasoline ‘tax break’ this summer. That’s it, encourage MORE waste!
The government is currently an enemy of the people (except for that 1% of course!) but it doesn’t have to be that way. The only way it can change though is to reverse what you accurately described as the “sophisticated and obfuscatory program of indoctrination” that has been going at full steam for over a generation now.
I suggest that we can do some thing at the grass roots level by advertising books, media, and films in local papers. Organize community -re-education seminars exposing the crimes that corporate America and their lackeys in D.C. have committed. Send mass emails out to everyone pointing out the dangers of electing corporate politicians as well as alternative candidates who don’t represent special interest groups.
I’m not sure if the general malaise that has gripped our citizenry can be overcome, but I’m willing to try.
There are a lot of disturbing numbers in the article… but most importantly, there are a lot of different numbers. A complicated progressive tax structure actually benefits the rich, as they can pay accountants to find them legal means to avoid it. So, the poor pay a low % or nothing, the rich evade it, lumping the middle income earners with the bill.
The fairest and actually most progressive option is the Fair Tax, a flat rate, so everyone pays the same %, the poor don’t pay it (as they get a rebate on the first $XX,XXX) and as the rich simply can’t avoid it, they pay a lot more. Think about it, the rich don’t get their wealth from income anyway, they get it from capital gains and interest (which is taxed at a much lower rate). Taxing consumption would mean they pay everytime they purchase something.
The Fair Tax is the most progressive form of taxation - that truly targets the rich. This is not a partisan issue anymore, Presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Mike Gravel both support it.
Check it out, with an open mind: http://www.fairtax.org
http://rebelconservative.blogspot.com
What do I want? I want a towel so I can remove my vomit from my keyboard.
ColdWarBaby47 says it well: “the money worshippers now own nearly everything…”
ColdWarBaby-
Free Market Capitalist is an oxymoron. Capitalists do not want a free market, they want to use the power of the state to entrench their positions of power, they favour government by and for the wealthy elite, corporate welfare, unreasonable patent rights etc. The capitalists have successfully tricked people into thinking these things are synonymous, when they are inherently contradictory.
I am a passionate free marketeer, but equally passionate anti-capitalist. I agree entirely with your sentiment, STOP BUYING STUFF YOU DON’T NEED! Especially from large soul-less corporations. That is living anti-capitalism, that is revolution from the bottom-up.
Call in ‘well’ and take the rest of this Bush year off! Life is much too short to spend all of it slaving for the top 1% - turn off your TV, read a book and laugh with your children.
The question remains the same…why do some people think they are worth so much more than others? the eye of the needle should be of consideration,,,,but we know the wealthy only pay lip service to religion, which as Napolean said, …”Religion is what keeps the Poor from murdering the rich…”
@devil1
Hey you go right ahead and feed your IRA.. lot of good all that worthless paper is gonna do when there is no affordable food / water to be had..
Keep your head up your ass, but don’t come a gunning for MY food/ water.. My local neighbors and myself are all getting armed and organized to fend off the likes of you..
As a side note , quite a few “wealthy” Americans have been coming around our “neck of the woods” seeking to buy large chunks of land, forested and water laden land i add, they know something the sheeple don’t is all i can assume.
luckily most, sadly but not all, the locals tell em to take a hike
devil1 …Is there anything we should infer from the user name you chose for yourself? Very clever.
There’s a websight called “Right Wing News” …I think you would be happier over there… it’s a regular fountain of hate …you would feel right at home.
The only terrorists we need to worry about are Osama bin Bush and Osama bin Cheney! They are evil! Impeachment is too good for them!
Don’t forget the neocon terrorists William Osama bin Kristol, Douglas Osama bin Feith, John Osama bin McCain.
We are being ripped off.
So who do the thieves want us to vote for?
President George W Bush ran on a platform of being a compassionate, conservative Christian and he delivered just what he promised. He felt compassion for the super rich (preferably oil rich) billionairs, then he showed conservative thought by giving them the surplus that Bill Clinton had built up in eight years with his tax cuts for the rich. Finally he showed Christianity by realizing that Jesus said “the poor will always be with you” so he does not worry about them. The Repubs can be depended on to do what they promise.
The Dems, however are really smart, as instead of keeping these disgraceful figures in the public discourse, they spend most of their time running down the two people that would do something about this, their own candidates. Consequently, the Repugs may have a good chance of continuing their destruction of the country.
We should have a 90% landslide vote for either Obama or Clinton after the past seven years and probably could have if we could pretend we are Repugs and get behind our own people. What do we need, a depression where people are homeless and hungry before we can unite to stop this ruination of our country and quit all of the nit-picking nonsense?
I’m one of the 99%, i vote democrat,for two reasons. #1 every time a republian get’s in office they stick it to the people,#2 there’s not another party to vote for. We need to get rid of 99% of all of them and vote in americans (real americans) who will work for the people ,not for themselfs,and big buisness. to start with we need to abolish the IRS.
Excellent article. As is the case with almost all the horrors we enlightened Americans discuss and try to stop, all the things in this article are obvious, and publically-accessible. But - thanks to the right-wing spin machine and it’s mouthpiece, the “MSM,” - the masses remain oblivious to what is going on right in front of their noses every day, year after year. And even if you pointed it out to them, they are too indoctrinated into the System to understand, or even give a fuck.
The coming fall of America - economically first, then on all levels afterwards, like dominos - is going to remake the world. As horrifying as it will be for millions of us, it will nonetheless be a good thing in the long run, for the rest of humanity. We will - hopefully - wake up from our sheep-like slumber and stare into the abyss of Reality. Won’t have a choice, since reality will be bashing us all over the heads. Even dumbfuck koolaid-drinkers like devil1 (absolutely PERFECT user name, btw) won’t have a choice but to see the ugly reality of their belief-structure, and what it has done to the country. As so many have stated: if you know the Truth of what is coming, prepare yourselves, get ready for it, and get your house in order. Let the rest of the unfortunate sheep, and the enablers like devil1, reap the bitter harvest they have sown.
Not only vote Democratic, but join your local party, go to meetings, pay your dues and TAKE OVER! The DNC are a bunch of twits, go local where people hear you. That way you can take control of the party and your country. Winning elections takes hours of grunt work.
COLD WAR BABY: Thank you for sharing your passionate posting. I agree with 98.4% of it!
Siouxrose___ Have been meaning to ask you a question. You wrote a week or so ago abour a July 4th Cancer Sun event. Was that this coming summer or a later one and what is the significance of that? Also as George W Bush is a Cancerian, does that enter into the picture? Just wondering and know that you are knowledgable on those matters.
To rebel_conservative,
Yes to the Fair Tax. Corporations can avoid taxes on “profit”. The Fair Tax is included in the price of their production, so they can’t escape it. Taxes on corporations are all really a consumption tax. Also, with the fair tax we end up taxing overseas goods as well as domestic goods. Now, we only tax the domestic production. It makes no sense.
The money the corporate elites get nevers shows up as Gross Adjusted Income (AGI) on their tax returns, like our earned income does. It’s hidden as stock options and Capital Gains and other loopholes. How about we have a progressive tax on Capital Gains and eliminate the taxes of earned income below say $80,000/ year. 3/4 of americans wouldn’t have to file a tax return, and we’d finally go after the corporate elites who have been ripping the rest of us off for years.
My significant other is a conservative. He is against letting the tax cuts expire, not because he is anywhere near the tax bracket that those tax cuts affect in any meaningful way, but because of the monumental waste and corruption by the government. The corruption and lack of oversight of Katrina and Iraq funds, the recent article detailing the frivolous use of Government credit cards without oversight, etc. He says that we should eliminate the monstrous waste, then we’ll talk about raising taxes. He and I agree to disagree, but I haven’t come up with a good argument to counter his. I say we need the funds. He says the government already has the funds to take care of what needs to be taken care of, but it is wasting it needlessly.
I want as does Ron Paul to abolish the progressive income tax and the IRS along with the Federal Reserve banking system so I don’t have to support this type of legalized robbery of 99% of the American people.
But of course most of us love our government enslaving us buy stealing the fruits of our labor just as long as the Dims. and the Repugs take turns on our collective asses.
ColdWarBaby47 April 15th, 2008 12:28 pm
I also agree with 95% of your statement .Not sure how you tie Free Market Capitalism to Libertarians though.
Warren Buffet said that he did not need the tax breaks. Bush in the state of the union said something like “if they want to give it back, the IRS takes checks”. That sort of cynical comment should not come from a president. Bush has more gall than a junkie. Oh, he was a cocaine addict and alcoholic..close enough.
What if we just asked the rich people to give the money back, by explaining to them that not only are they embarassing themselves, but they really are hurting lot’s of people? Yeah, I know they like to claim that they already give generously to charities, and they beleive they are entitled to their fair share of the wealth based on their own hard work, superior intelligence, talent, and god given right, however…I know, you know, and they really do know they are stealing from the rest of us.
To a thinking person money is uncool!
Only a grass roots progressive movement will drive the greed-evil out of dodge city. Let’s just remind ourselves how sweet it is to practice our progressive agendas. We get: 1.) the most delicious food, 2.) the most nutritious food, 3.) the least expensive food. And that’s just the food! We also get…. heh heh - lots more - you’ll find out when you “break on through” to the progressive side.
workreno, many libertarians support the zerosum game of predation/exploitation. There seems to be two factions of libertarian - it’s hard to keep up with all these specialized categories - seems easier to stick with single dimension range from right to left. Right is class hierarchy, domination, oppression, exploitation, violence, destruction, associated with elites, with the current cult of “laissez-faire” capitalism, militarism, imperialism. Left is just the opposite, associated with the people, with progressivism, and all the peace, justice, equity, and all that. Balance between left/right doesn’t really make sense. The elites only deserve the same share of resources as everyone else so 100% left is about optimum public policy.
KERNEL: From an energetic perspective, the U.S. having established itself as an ENTITY on JULY 4 continues to resonate with any planetary aspects made to that “degree” of the sign of Cancer. It’s all based on the cosmic dial which works like a giant rotary apparatus, or more truly, like cosmic clockworks where various dials all configure into the mix of this thing we call time; and it’s imbued with qualitative characteristics.
January 4 would oppose July 4, and January 4 would be 13 degrees of CAPRICORN. Currently Pluto, which in Eastern mysticism would qualify as the “Shiva/Vishnu” personae, is heading there… thus it will OPPOSE the U.S. sun. Pluto rules atomic power, vengeance, and the darkest side of human nature. The ruler of the sign of Scorpio, it is in this one of the 12 chambers of time, that FORGIVENESS must be learned so that “the sins of the fathers” are not indefinitely replicated, each time with graver and graver weapon systems.
Just as music consists of octaves, the same middle C repeating up the scales… the planets also operate through octaves. The Ancients did not know about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and as each planet was discovered, so, too was a new energy system that radically altered our planet. Prior to Pluto’s discovery, Mars was seen as the god of war and “inspiration” behind all armaments. Pluto is the UPPER octave of Mars. I was given (sometimes very powerful mystical messages come THROUGH me) an understanding that the use of the A-bomb, which actually DID split matter, became a turning point for mankind. The adage, “Let no man tear asunder what God hath joined together” is a very powerful one. Cycles of violence have escalated to include the use of the bomb, and continue to reverberate there after to the point where now, the so-called world leader in democracy is posturing candidates each of whom thinks its appropriate to speak of yet larger wars and worse weapons to “prove” their legitimacy as viable leaders. My God! How this nation has fallen to Mars rules, and therein comes the boomerang of Pluto.
Many feel this land of privilege has been spared any direct war due to its God-given status of being blessed. The opposition of Pluto is going to break the nation down to rebuild it one way or another. While outside attacks are possible given the provocation of recent and distant US foreign policy; the real enemy as we on this site recognize has come from WITHIN. It truly IS a Cancer, and yes Bush IS a Cancer, and the nation is also a Cancer, and many would argue as it plays “landlord to the world” devouring OTHER peoples’ resources (through bayonette diplomacy, if any) that it operates quite LIKE the disease.
There are many factors that contribute to the celestial mix. Suffice it to say that the planetary pattern approaching at the end of 2009 and well into years thereafter, is one of GREAT conflict and the key planets involve all set challenges to AMERICA, by virtue of its sign. (There are other sub factors, too involved for this discussion.)
Peace, social and economic justice, human rights
www.carolmillercongress.com
Every time I hear something like this, I feel so disgusted to live during these times.
What scares me is that McCain is doing as well in the polls as he is. My hope is that once we know who is the Dem choice, that this will change. Millionaire politicians like to keep giving back to their base–just like Bush. He owed a lot of people for stealing the last 2 elections and he has really paid them back for the favors, millions of times over…
What I remember while Clinton was in office was that everyone was doing better-those at the top and those at the bottom. Why is it that the super-rich don’t want this? It’s only a matter of time, if it keeps going in this direction, before their lives will be directly affected. I guess it’s then and only then will they care about doing something.
Siouxrose___Thank you for the explanation of the astrologic factors ahead. Looks like turbulent times for awhile.
KERNEL: Just as storm systems break to let the rays of sun through, there happens to be a very auspicious configuration THIS year around election day. The Hebrew star of David is also a symbol of two sets of equilateral triangles, and these triangles represent the elements. The 3 water signs harmonize with the 3 earth signs, just as water is needed to bring life to the elemental forces of the ground/earth/soil. The same holds true for the magnetic interplay between the 3 fire signs and the 3 air signs.
If 4 of the 6 points are “loaded” (as per the analogy to loaded bases in baseball), that’s quite auspicious. Right around November 11 the sun will be at 18-19 Scorpio, with Uranus at 18-19 Pisces, Jupiter at 18 Capricorn, Saturn at 19 Virgo, to anticipate the year’s only full moon in TAURUS, sign of the, Earth Mother, and all Her abundance. It’s a great time to buy real estate, the economy should show signs of temporary improvement, and perhaps the election will raise levels of hope or promise.
On the other hand, Scorpio is the sign of vengeance, so where mass consciousness is at will dictate whether the Scorpio emphasis becomes rebirth or degeneration. The Capricorn planets tend to favor the elites, old bastions of power and those who use tradition as their claim to authority. Pluto-Capricorn is a LONG cycle, and the one that will be instrumental in bringing very powerful transformation to this nation (and quite a few others as we enter 2010, which of course anticipates the Mayan prophecies around 2012.)
To see a GREAT video of when and how the consumerism all started and get involoved in stopping it see www.TheStoryOfStuff.com
Every one should see The Story of Stuff! Please share this link widely.
… ColdWarBaby47 said: “I’m not really sure when it started but for a long time now generations of Americans have been adopting increasingly wasteful lifestyles at an ever higher cost to their successors.”
I had a Dr ask me what I’m investing in, Lead and black powder was my answer.
mairs, your significant other is correct. Govt wastes/hemorrhages cash to the Pentagon. Cutting out the aggressive foreign policies would allow defense spending to go elsewhere.
That doesn’t negate the moral need to tax the rich at a vastly higher rate though.
rtdrury Wishful thinking will not “Change” any thing.Do you recall LBJ’s deadly administration?Vietnam ring any bells?
People that vote for “progressives” such as Clinton and Obama in hopes of changing anything other than total destruction of the Constitution and Bill of Rights are beyond my comprehension.
“A wise and frugal government,which shall restrain men from injuring one another,shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement,and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.This is the sum of good government…”
Thomas Jefferson
The only 2 sides in this country are the top side and the
bottom side.
open-minded Yes I remember when Clinton was in office.
Oklahoma City and Waco
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4298137966377572665
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4298137966377572665
Swaheal Right On!