Romney and His Tax Returns

If Romney does not release his tax returns people will think that what's in the returns is much more damaging than the continued criticism he gets for not releasing them. My guess: It would show how hypocritical his tax plan is, which lowers taxes on rich people like him and raises them for most other Americans. What kind of rationale, other than sheer greed--can you offer in favor of lowering taxes for people who already--legally--skirt most of what they are supposed to pay?

Releasing the tax returns would only serve to expose the limitless greed of wealthy robber barons like Romney, and would lay bare the false rhetoric according to which lower taxes would spur job creation. In fact, empirically, we know the reverse to be true: higher taxes--with job credits for keeping and creating jobs in America--would create jobs. Nothing else will.

If You Read Nothing Else For The Rest Of The Year, Read This

Go to The Daily Kos, and read A Voice From the 1%. It speaks about the perspective of the Occupy Wall Street movement as seen from a person who "made it" in life.

I was particularly moved by this passage, which is obvious to those with an ounce of perception and intellectual ability, but not to the typically brainwashed right-wing American:

I was not amazed but disgusted when John Boehner and his crew tried to justify the extremity of their position by rebranding the wealthy as "job creators." While true in a very basic sense, it obscures the fact that jobs are a cost that is voluntarily incurred only as a result of demand. Hiring has no correlation at all to profits or to income - none. Let me keep more of my money without increasing customer demand and I will do just that - keep it. Perhaps I will spend a little more of it, though probably not, but even if I do it won't help the economy very much. Here is another secret of the well-to-do: we don't really buy much more stuff than everyone else. It may be more expensive stuff, sure, but I don't buy cars, or appliances, or furniture, or anything else more frequently than the average consumer. The things I do spend more money on are services such as travel, entertainment, restaurants and landscaping, none of which generate well-paying middle class jobs. There, in a nutshell, is the sad explanation of what has happened to the American economy over the last 25 years of "trickle down" economics.

With this cherry on top, which answers the most irritating criticism that conservatives like to triumphantly level at the OWS movement, i.e. that no one really knows what the protesters stand for (as if it should stump anyone with a brain):

As George Orwell wrote in "Homage to Catalonia" about fighting fascists, I don't always need to know what I am fighting for when it is clear what I am fighting against.

This Is Why I Find The New Republican Breed Unbearable

Paul Ryan is slowly but surely becoming the face of the Republican party of future years, the supposedly "serious-thinker" in-chief. And still he says stupid, misleading, and irritating things like this:
"[It] appears that the politics of division are making a big comeback." Of course, he is saying it without a hint of irony. But to Congressman Ryan's credit, it is always hard to see a problem clearly when you're part of it yourself.

For decades, the Republican Party has fostered division in this country with its policies and with its rhetoric. It finds no shortage of socially useful programs to slash or defund, while it opposes any tax increases for those who have more than they could possibly ever need, or spend.

For 2 years Republicans talked about the dangers of death panels coming to American health care if we let "Obamacare" become the law of the land, when in fact death panels are a staple of the American health care system. (Tell Rep. Ryan to read Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans, Wendell Potter's account of how the America health insurance sector plays Americans for fools is not. Wendell Potter was a VP at Cigna, he should know. Or suggest that he watches Michael Moore's "Sicko", a portrayal so accurate of the American health care system that even Fox News didn't find anything bad to say about it.)

For years Republicans have said that they would not support any tax hikes. But now their true message is finally surfacing: They don't want to raise taxes on the "job creators" (their wealthy übermasters), but it's okay to raise them on those who cannot afford a tax increase (the poorest in particular). That would be the effect of any flat tax plan, a Republican wet dream, that did not include significant exemptions for those in the lowest income tiers.

Actually, Think Progress has it right, in a post titled Talking About Income Inequality Isn’t Dividing America, Actual Income Inequality Is.

I Support A Flat Tax

I do. For corporations. So no corporation can get out of paying taxes. You pay 20%, no loopholes.

And, to foster employment in the United States, there should be a penalty v bonus scale system, to reward companies that keep employment in the United States, and to punish companies that outsource plants and work.

Realize that even though corporate taxes in the United States are among the highest on the planet, as Republicans like to say on Fox News and to any organization that offers them a mic to spew spin at, that is true just in terms of statutory rates, not for effective rates. Many companies pay no tax. So you support a flat tax? Start by supporting a flat tax system for those who systematically use the law to pay no tax at all, and who use profits to destroy small businesses and export jobs abroad: large American corporations.

Fucking Liars and Their Fucking Talking Points

Thanks to the incomparable Joan McCarter of Daily Kos for drawing my attention to this chart, which exposes naked the Republican lie about the fact that too many Americans don't pay their fair share and pay no taxes.

Mark Cuban's Money

You might know him as, among other things, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He has a boatload of money and, apparently, he is not looking at paying high taxes as class warfare.

So be Patriotic. Go out there and get rich. Get so obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes, your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write. Your 2nd thought will be “what a great problem to have”, and your 3rd should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you. (Mark Cuban, on his blog. Emphasis added.)

When he says "helping to support millions of Americans" I am sure he does not mean what Republicans usually mean, which is "helping to support leeches who do nothing and expect stuff in return." He means those who, try as they might, will never have the skills, the opportunities, and the blessings that a Mark Cuban earned. Well said.

Here Are Your Job Creators

When Republicans say that we can't raise taxes on the rich because they are the job creators, they must be thinking of these two:
Borders
Cisco
And remember, the idea is that not raising taxes is the key to job creation. It makes you laugh when you look at this.

And I am listening to Grover Norquist, the insufferable servant to the powerful who is saying that government should not raise taxes under any circumstances, including the debt ceiling deal proposed by the President, which says raise taxes one dollar for every four in spending cuts. Go to hell, Grover.

Corporate Tax Whiners

You know the meme that corporations are overtaxed, that the tax rates on corporations in the United States is one of the highest in the world, and that cutting all kind of taxes (corporate, capital gains, and individual taxes on millionaires and billionaires) would create jobs? Well, it's a meme, as I said. But don't believe me: Check out Marie Diamond's article at Think Progress.

The Only Serious Plan To Cut The Deficit

Paul Ryan and President Obama are both demagoguing on how to address the deficit. I don't say so, Paul Krugman does. I don't have a Nobel Prize, he does.

In Let's Take a Hike, Krugamn also says that the only serious plan to address the deficit and balance the national budget comes from... are you ready? The Congressional Progressive Caucus. Yes, progressives, a.k.a. liberals, the very people accused by Fox and by Republicans marionettes in Congress of wanting to destroy America. Imagine that.

The Truth About Taxes According to the Wall Street Journal? Yeah, Right.

The opinion of the Wall Street Journal is given way too much weight in discussions about the economy. I have often heard the distinction made that the WSJ has excellent reporters and a daft editorial board. Perhaps it is so. But the reporting will suffer if the editorial board is populated by idiots in service of the rich who write the kind of idiocies that Jeffrey Sachs exposes in this short op-ed for the Huffington Post.

Tax Day Is Gone, But Not The Silly Rhetoric

Republicans like to pretend that they know how to fix the deficit and budget problems: just slash taxes and spending, and tax revenues will grow and the deficit will decline. That is their recipe for fiscal success. Except that it omits facts: yes, slashing spending could reduce the deficit (at the expense of the neediest Americans, including children--because the culture of life... well, you know all about that holy crap) but the if the revenue side continues to falter, largely because of Republican fiscal policy, then how much exactly needs to be slashed.

NPR had a more realistic take of things yesterday, on Tax Day. You can read it or listen to it. The report is called Looking At Who Pays What In Taxes.

Frankly, I am fed up with Republicans telling me that taxes for the rich need to be cut, when the amount of taxes they actually pay has declined from 26 to 17% over the last 20 years and their income has grown more than that of any other income group. You should be too.

Tax Breaks in Bizarro World

If by Bizarro World you mean the United States, that is. But wait: isn't Bizarro World suppose to be the opposite of what earhtly things? That may not be a bad idea, given how ass backwards we earthly things are doing things (at least in the U.S.=

Read how Tom Cruise, Gov. Hickenlooper (D-CO) and a host of tax dodgers pay close to nothing in taxes on their 200+ acre properties.

Then, also from Think Progress, read how Gov. Scott (R-FL) is seeking to slash teachers' pay to fund corporate and property tax breaks.

The Attack on Unions and Corporate Tax Dodgers

Read Stop the Corporate Tax Dodgers, a timely post by Chuck Collins, co-author with Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes and director of Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Robert Reich on the Need for Strengthening Progressive Taxation

Looks like this is Robert Reich's week. Here is another post, from last Sunday, in which Reich advocates lower tax rates for all those making less than $250,000, and higher taxes for everybody else. Or, as he puts it, "It's called progressive taxation.".

Soon after his Sunday post, his proposal found a few critics. Here is Reich's response to them.

Correlation is Not Causation, But...

Economist Mike Kimel has a very interesting post about what happens to various economic indicators as the top marginal tax rate varies. For example, writes Kimel, "higher top marginal tax rates have been associated with faster, not slower real economic growth. Conversely, lower top marginal tax rates have coincided with less economic growth."

This is not new news, but it is a good reminder that when conservative think-tanks and conservative media predict that higher tax rates are bad for employment and the economy they are at best using data that are unsubstantiated by facts to scare you and, at worst, intentionally deceiving you.

The Abominable Tax Deal

Robert Reich, on Obama's latest capitulation without a fight.

Republicans 80,000,000,000 - America's Middle Class 0

The President, this President, is a tool.

With some help from some corrupt Dems, but mainly of his own doing, President Obama has once again agreed to capitulate to Republican demands: The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are going to be extended for 24 months, in exchange for an extension of unemployment benefits for 13 months. That is good news for the unemployed, and even better news for people who did not need more money in the first place. Notice how the deal is lopsided in favor of the country's true owners.

Russell at Obsidian Wings put it best: "I must have missed the memo where the Democratic POTUS is the Republican leadership's marketing liaison."

Progressives are at a loss for words to describe the betrayal they have had to endure for the last 23 months. Reagan must be celebrating the Republicans' good fortunes in hell.

A Diplomat I Am Not

My letter to the White House on the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

Dear President Obama:

Your first two years in office have been truly dsappointing for progressives. A watered-down health care reform that leaves predatory insurance companies and health care providers in charge, relief for Wall Street and not Main Street (like many Americans, my mortgage is under water, why not allow me to write off my loss, as a one-time measure?), the Afghan War surge, and overall timid policies that have contributed to the resounding Demoratic losses in the mid-terms.

Don't you think it's time to mobilize your base, by sending them the signal that you are working for them and not for the über-rich and powerful?

If the GOP insists that the condition for the Bush tax cuts to be extended for the middle-class is also to extend them for the richest 1-2%, then I am willing to give my tax cuts up. Let all tax cuts expire, then let the Senate introduce a bill to give the middle-class even bigger tax cuts, and let the GOP. vote against such a bill. Let the American people understand who the GOP really works for, and maybe, just maybe, Americans will vote for you and Democrats in 2012. As the lesser of two evils, obviously, but an easy choice nonetheless.

Sincerely,

Stupid Poll

From CNN's home page, this has to be one of the stupidest polls ever published:

Would you support a 15 cent per gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax to help rein in the U.S. debt? [Emphasis added.]

Think about that: Someone is pushing the idea that "to help rein in U.S. debt" we should add a 15 cent per gallon tax to gasoline? I'll give CNN the benefit of the doubt and assume that this proposal was advanced by someone outside of CNN, and that CNN is simply reporting it as a poll to gauge popular sentiment.

Whichever the case, is that the most idiotic proposal you ever heard to help rein in the U.S. debt?

At a time when Congress is pushing for an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% in America, someone thinks that we should be increasing gasoline taxes by 15 cents per gallon.

The problem with this country is that few understand the concept of regressive taxation v progressive taxation. Taxes that apply indiscriminately to everybody take a bigger toll on the poorest amongs us. They should never be implemented as a means to primarily increase revenue.

Use of regressive taxation should be limited to cases in which the government (local, state or federal) is trying to discourage a particular elective behavior, for example a cigarette tax aimed at discouraging smoking is still regressive (it impairs the ability of the poor to smoke more than it does the very rich) but it is an understandable compromise to discourage an undesirable behavior. Likewise, a gasoline tax aimed at discouraging gasoline usage for environmental purposes, while hitting the poor harder than the rich, is an acceptable use of regressive taxation IF the region where it is implemented already has adequate transportation alternatives.

Note that the key for acceptable uses of regressive taxation should be directed not only at undesirable behaviors, but elective ones. In other words, you can choose to smoke but don't have to, and you can choose to drive everywhere but don't have to. On the other hand, taxing milk, toothpaste or bread should never be entertained (and in fact sales taxes does not apply to certain basic items in most states), because such items are not elective in nature, but basic needs of human beings in a civilized society.

This kind of reasoning touches on a larger topic, that of flat taxes. I have a couple of very good friends who say they support a flat tax. I doubt that they understand the basic unfairness of a flat tax system (one in which everybody pays the same tax rate, regardless of income level), and I strive to explain it to them every time we discuss the subject. One of the most underappreciated effects of a regressive tax system, such as a flat tax system, by those who support it is the rise in income inequality, the level of which has already reached unseen proportion in over one hundred years.

FYI, the NOs are prevailing on the YESes by a 23% margin (63 to 37%). But the fact that 37% of the people support the regressive proposal suggests that a fairly large portion of the American public has accepted as valid a rhetoric that rewards interests opposed to its own (the super rich v. the poor's). Therefore, educating the public should be the top priority of progressives in this country.

If progressives spent as much time educating the public on important issues such as the unfairness of flat or regressive taxes as they spend on making and counting get-out-the-vote calls before election day (not to mention the time they spend patting each other on the back), we may see a public opinion shift in battles that we should be winning resoundingly, and which we are losing instead.

Quote for Conservatives, from a Conservative

In the age of Barack Obama, many rank-and-file conservatives have been more upset about redistribution of a different sort – the kind that takes money from the prosperous and ''spreads the wealth'' (as Obama put it, in his famous confrontation with Joe the Plumber) down the income ladder.

This kind of spending can be problematic. But conservatives need to recognize that the most pernicious sort of redistribution isn't from the successful to the poor. It's from savers to speculators, from outsiders to insiders, and from the industrious middle class to the reckless, unproductive rich.


From “The Class War We Need”, by conservative New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat,