FAIR’s recent study of the Sunday morning network shows documented a distinct right-wing bias in the guestlists. Republicans and conservatives were everywhere; progressives and people of color, not so much.
Since the study was released, there left-leaning commentator/TV host Tavis Smiley has been on two shows, CBS‘s Face the Nation (4/22/12) and ABC‘s This Week (5/6/12)
The latter showed how a guest like Smiley can broaden the discussion– at one point he invoked Martin Luther King’s critique of militarism to talk about current U.S. policy. And he talked about poverty:
I think we have to all agree here, though, that neither Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney are speaking to the angst of the poor. Every politician who runs for the White House, Jake, thinks they can campaign by talking about the angst of the middle class. The middle class of this country as we know it is disappearing. You have the perennially poor. You have the near poor. And you have the new poor.
We believe that the new poor are the former middle class. So you can’t have a campaign now where we just talk about the angst of the middle class without talking about the poor. That’s what’s missing in this context.
Unfortunately, regular panelist George Will and Fox News host Greta van Susteren redirected the conversation to more familiar terrain–one where poverty is about too much dependence on government, and student loan debt isn’t such a big deal:
VAN SUSTEREN: But even with the poor, it’s sort of the morality issue, but there’s also–it’s sort of the, you know, almost the selfish issues, because as the poor class grows bigger and bigger, the entitlement grows bigger and bigger, and we have bigger and bigger economic problems. So there’s morality issue and also the question, it’s a real drag on the economy, if we don’t help them and don’t inspire…
(CROSSTALK)
JAKE TAPPER: And, George, you and I were talking about this earlier. You think that we’re witnessing the birth of a new entitlement, with the president’s push on student loans.
WILL: Well, look what happened. It’s a slow-motion, almost absentminded creation of a new entitlement, exactly at the moment when the entitlement state is buckling under the weight of its already existing commitments. Five years ago, Congress says, well, let’s cut in half the interest rate on certain student loans, from 6.8 to 3.4.
TAPPER: 6.8 to 3.4, yeah.
WILL: We’ll do it, they said, temporarily. Well, now we’re coming up against the expiration of that, and they’re saying, well, let’s temporarily move it on yet again.
TAPPER: But Romney supports that, as well.
WILL: I understand that. And that’s why this is a bipartisan example of how entitlements — because once you do this, once you extend it again, you’ll never go back to 3.4 percent.
SMILEY: But when student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt, and we want to label that an entitlement, we don’t call corporate welfare an entitlement. I just — I don’t see….
WILL: Of the two-thirds of the people who graduate from college with debt, the average debt is something under $30,000 total. That is just about the one-year difference in earnings between a college graduate and a high school graduate. We’re talking about a pittance a month.
That “pittance,” it’s worth remembering, doubled between 1996 and 2008. Then again, George Will frequently told viewers that there was nothing to be worried about in the housing market. The perfect TV pundit: Often wrong, while suffering no consequences.
I’m sure Will considers $30K a “pittance”.
For him, it’s walking around money.
For a college graduate who might consider themselves lucky to find a job that pays that, it’s something else.
But Will’s the shill for those who profit off of others’ misery, which they consider their legitimate “entitlement”.
To update a quote from one of his role models …
Let them eat cake?
If they can find a bakery dumpster.
lets see…$30,000 at 3.4% paid off in five years $544.41 per month $6528 per year
$30,000 at 6.8% paid off in five years $591.21 per month $7092 per year
does that sound like a “pittance” to anyone when grads who can find jobs make
an average starting salary of $50,034 [the number for 2011]
——————–
going back to 6.8 would add $2820 to the total cost of a $30k loan
just read this at npr
“A new Rutgers University survey finds just half of those who graduated from college between 2006 and 2011 are working full time. Burdened by student loan debt, and with wages depressed even for those with jobs, many say they no longer believe that education and hard work will necessarily lead to success.”
—————–
i’d add that a single person without kids and no mortgage who is making $50,034 and filing a 1040ez is paying an effective income tax rate of approx 16% plus half [7.5%] or all [15%] their social security.
How about the “temporary” Bush tax cuts, Will? New entitlement for the one percent is okay?
Poverty is easy to fix – the way is easy, but there is no will to look for a solution. CBA’s or Community Bank Accounts , that used the money from a single war, would end poverty in the US, and you would never spend a penny.
By using the interest on the money set up in Community Bank Accounts – that money never stops coming in because the capital is never spent – you would slowly end poverty. You also direct the banks holding the money to allow for loans only to that community. Thus there is twice as much money to help the community.
Fix poverty without spending a penny? Easy. The will to do it. Not yet there. That makes it hard.
George Will is nothing more than a troll. A highly misinformed and snarky troll.
Dear George Will and Greta Van Susteren:
I would like to offer up the Reality Check Challenge:
First: create a resume of yourself as you were when you graduated from college.
Next: subscribe to at least one job board , and send out resumes.
Third: create a facebook page, just as you were in college.
Last: Wait and let us know if anything happens.
Part II
First: Create a current resume using exactly where you are in life, EXCEPT change your name. : )
Next: subscribe to an old people’s job network and send out resumes.
Third: create a facebook page with photoshopped pix, as you and then add in an old movie star’s nose. ( We wouldn’t want you to be recognized!)
Last: Wait and let us know if anything happens.
Now, you have two different columns that you could each write ( the job search for both your young and then your old selves) . People would love to read about what happened to you along the way, plus did you had any interviews, and if you had any job offers. Was it an hourly job? Did you get benefits? Was it F/T or P/T?
A REALITY CHECK column is what is needed for those who write columns about the state of jobs in the economy of the world. Lots of us would even buy a newspaper to read about your experiences!
I think that the public needs to see how you two, George and Greta would do in this “brave new world” of America. I also think people should write to your bosses and suggest how wonderful this brave new world of reality check investigative reporting could be. I just know that they could sell a lot of papers with this! : )
As someone mentioned, why aren’t they talking about the entitlements that the wealthy and corporations receive in the form of huge subsidies and tax breaks?
We have millionaire farmers receiving ag subsidies and corporations who haven’t paid federal income tax in years.
We need to reframe the discussion about entitlements to include the big give-aways to the wealthy.
Poverty does not mean dependence on government money or entitlements. The poor and the newly poor are here with or without entitlements. Perhaps it will take an increase in poverty to kick the corporations away from government feeding troughs and entitlements so that programs designed to support natural persons can thrive.
The corporate welfare to the petroleum industry ($80 Billion/year) for just one year would eliminate poverty in America completely, and prevent it from recurring for a decade. So why is the American government paying (it’s not even an “investment”; they get nothing back) companies that are breaking profit records every year instead of helping the poor?
The Rich don’t want them to. No one can be rich unless there are hundreds of people who are poor in compensation. Money is a Zero-Sum equation. When someone has more money than they need, someone else (usually a lot of others) have less money than they need. It is mandated in the Constitution that the government rectify this imbalance of money by taxing the rich and investing in the poor; yes “Redistribution of Funds” is demanded by the American Constitution. Funny how the Republicans never seem to notice that when they’re hammering the 2nd Amendment and beating their breasts like barbarians.
Here’s a reality check. Poverty hits both ends of the age continuum. Young people 20 to 40 (it’s expanding) and old people 55 and above, have both been hit with the extraordinary economic circumstances we’re in (thanks to corporate interests and the great guys like those at Morgan Stanley, a crazy tax code, etc.) Reality hit me a couple years ago as I was enjoying my adequate retirement, traveling and spending as I pleased. (Being pretty fiscally conservative, I’m very careful with my money). My wake-up call came when, 3 years ago my son became one of the unemployed – it was the economic downturn in construction. So now, on my less than $50K per year, I’m supporting myself and a family of 4. Yes, the new high school grad. needs funds for college as will the two siblings. The high school grad. has for most of his life been designated “disabled.” He does have a disability, i.e., a back full of metal that keeps his scoliosis in check. But guess what? Now that he’s 18 he’s not disabled anymore and that very helpful check isn’t in the bank – boom! Am I broke 90% of the time? You betcha! Maybe I should apply to Fox to become a “news analyst” or some kind of panalist. After all, I’m pretty smart and savvy and they need a liberal to balance things. Since Mr. Will and I are about the same age, we could balance each other. And, yes, I sure do have opinions.
I hear a lot of folks here saying to end poverty all you need is this boatload of cash, or that boatload of cash.That is the old biblical axiom of” teaching a man to fish”.That kind of move will not stop poverty.It will feed like a plantation system the effects of poverty and keep those effected quiet.The only way up is a robust economy.How to do that is the seminal question.
Well said McBob!
McBob…….Whos a whatsit what a wha?What constitution says that?Explain that statement please.And what you call welfare for the oil companies is a joke and you must know that.Your figures are the type the left throws around as if it is gospel.Why don’t you look up the oil companies testimony before congress where they laid bare these lies and raked the government “prosecutors” over the coals with the real figures.Indicating how much they pay in taxes(unbelievable) vs profit and investment(exploration).They also produced the records of their infrastructural costs (Massive).Dwarfing these supposed run away train profits.See it is very easy to paint people/companies in a bad light.Something the left is expert at.Must be frustrating though when they answer back showing the deception.And……You cant equate taking profits from profitable companies- that will be directly transferred to the poor as a zero sum game, as if all things being equal that is an intelligent economic argument.It is socialism.And you sound like a socialist.We can not help the poor by creating a nanny state that takes care of enough of their needs to keep them quiet and voting for the man with bread in his hand.There is something intrinsically evil…..debilitating…..as I called it “a plantation system” that robs the pride of a man about this.Yet this class warfare ,so un American to its core- is the game of the left.As I say often…..You keynesian economic ideas have failed.Your liberal president with his super majority was a nightmare for this country.The idea that we can print and borrow and spend our way to prosperity has been shown to be a joke.At the crux of every mistake is to tax the so called rich to pull your bacon out of the fire.Pal there aint enough money in the world to do that.Come November we will turn this ship of state 180.
Give you a heads up.We in the Tea party looking at the numbers feel it is time to move beyond the presidential race.We believe Obama has already lost unless something drastic happens.We will be working hard on the Senate races.The movement turns its eyes that way.What did Nancy P call us?Oh yeah astro turf.Ineffectual.We shall see.We look forward to engaging you in honest debate before the American people.
The country’s three largest oil companies produced $80 billion in profits last year and the oil industry currently has an estimated $58 billion in cash reserves.
The tax breaks they receive total about $4 billion a year.
The so-called Tea Party is nothing more than the party of neo-feudalism. It has no real solutions to any of the nations real problems, because its ideology is unworkable outside of the idealized and unreal world of perfect and infallible capitalism.
Now I get it! michael e has posted preposterous claims on another blog. I wondered why. Now I understand. He says he is a Tea Partier.
Look, I am an old-timer. I’ve been around the block a few times, heard bunko artists and soothsayers galore, and along the way I learned to separate fiction from fact. I’ve also become wary of lawmakers who rail against big government while at the same time drawing very comfortable wages and benefits from said “big government”. Talk about having it both ways! (Talk about hypocrisy!)
A perplexing problem arises when senior citizens, who make up the largest demographic group that benefits from social programs, are at the same time disproportionally more sympathetic to the right-wing push to abolish them.
Social Security is one example. Without Social Security tens of millions of us would be living in abject poverty. Medicare and Medicaid are other cases in point. Without them medical debt would force millions of elderly people like us into bankruptcy. Less “fortunate” old people would simply die because they would not be able to afford life-saving care.
We seniors will have to make up our minds. If we want to continue to enjoy Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid benefits, and if we want to insure the same for our children and grandchildren, we must vote for lawmakers who support those programs. We cannot have it both ways.
Currently, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has launched an attack on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Tea Party operatives are sponsoring his mean-spirited agenda, and so are Republicans presidential hopefuls.
Sadly, large numbers of seniors have aligned themselves with the Ryan crowd and with the millionaires who are bankrolling the Tea Party. Those seniors are being misled. If they continue their support for politicians who are out to gut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid they will succeed in cutting off their noses to spite their faces. They cannot have it both ways.
“Free-market” liars tell us Social Security is going broke. The truth is that it will have a surplus of $4.6 trillion by 2023. Why are we being lied too? Because the same Wall Street gangsters that caused the economic crisis now want to sink their talons into the Social Security Trust Fund, and some Members of Congress are carrying the water for them! Privatizing Social Security is what they really want!
A number of politicians want to withhold funding for Medicare and Medicaid and then turn those life-saving programs over to private insurers. If that ever happens we will see our medical costs skyrocket just like they have for those under 65. Remember, prior to the enactment of Medicare, over 50% of the seniors in our nation lacked medical insurance. Medicare and Medicaid are life-savers, and cannot be replaced with insurance sold by companies that value profits over the well-being of people!
There is no shortage of revenue sources. If corporations and wealthy investors – both foreign and domestic – and the richest 2% were required to pay their fair share, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other essential human services could be adequately funded.
Doomsayers tell us that the national debt and yearly deficits “are going to leave future generations in debt”. Then they turn around and add to the national debt by granting more tax relief to the likes of General Electric, Microsoft, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and EXXON-Mobil. Those Robin Hoods-in-reverse have already done enough damage! The disparity of wealth and income in the United States is greater today than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1920s. The once vaunted “middle class” is a vanishing breed.
Unless an overwhelming number of seniors (the largest demographic group that benefits from entitlements) get our act together the legacy we will leave to our children and grandchildren will be high unemployment, prohibitively expensive medical care, and insecurity in retirement. Instead of listening to propaganda from mouthpieces for the military/medical/industrial complex, listen to senior organizations like the Alliance for Retired Americans, the Older Women’s League, and Social Security Works. They will tell us the truth! Seniors can’t have it both ways. We cannot enjoy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and at the same time support enemies of those life-saving programs.
michele e…are you paying attention?
Rich A.: You’ve said it all. I couldn’t have said it any better.
Thanks for that, Rich A. And no, definitely not, is the answer to the last question you posed.
And yes, the Tea-baggers (their original name that they gave themselves, and that I will, out of respect for their Elders, always use) are a bunch of immoral, imbecile thieves and cheap-jack hustlers and aging, frightened simpletons. Paul Ryan (The Nincompoop–again, a name Bagger elders routinely call him in privite and that I will use, in public, out of respect for those chumps) doesn’t have the sense that God gave a handful of gravel. The Baggers are monumentally stupid, avaricious, and prone to grandiose statements that reek of witless lies and deep yearning for a capitalist/totalitarian dystopia. These are the yokels who were thrown out trying to steal third (from first, bypassing second) whilst running backwards with their pants around their ankles, and then insist that the rules are unfair and a lib conspiracy and they actually hit a triple. That’s who is trying to take over our crippled democracy, and the worst thing is that the very people who caused all the death and destruction (the Republicon Party and it’s business and banking masters) are the very monsters who completely own and control the witless Baggers.
I love your choice of words, Tim N! Unfortunately, this is the gang that wants to “take back” the country. The reason they believe in what they believe is because it’s what they believe.
Rich A
Thanks for your input but I must say it is filled will liberal cliches and fear mongering.Knowing Paul Ryan and his input into the greater discussions as I do – I must say that your take on him is “interesting”.Interesting in wondering what Paul Ryan it is you are talking about.There must be some other because the tags you are throwing about have nothing to do do with the man who is attempting to help but this country back on a paying basis.I would say your take on the tea party falls along those same lines.Fear mongering and sky is falling talk.Rich The tea party is simply people trying to reaffirm and reinstate constitutional values back into a government that they feel has stepped far beyond any mandate ever imagined by our founders.Normal people trying to rein in government excess along with the new religion of a super empowered FED that takes as its right intrusion into our lives primarily through taxation,and takeovers of the key points of our lives(ie healthcare).And by the way it is not a party at all.It is people who want to be heard along those lines who will go home at the end of the day ,back to their jobs and families.Although the left mocks it…..we used to call it American values.The left will try to change the debate in any way they can away from their horrific failures.They will say the right is against woman and seniors and hobbits and whatever else they can fob off.We in “the tea party” will try to have honest debate (and elections) and discussions concentrating on the key problems this country is now dealing with. We look forward to hearing the lefts side on these matters.We hope they will present their case open and unvarnished in an honest airing of their agenda for this great country in the future.We will do like wise.Let America decide.
You say you are an old timer.Well then I will take it for granted you don’t buy into this class warfare “fair share” nonsense our community activist n chief is always throwing about to get elected.It is a load of crappola.Not even worth the discussion.You say you have been around the block.What block is that exactly?I to am a recovering Dem.You sound like you are still in denial.
Tim as always your key contribution is personal attack and derision of anyones right to see things differently than what you believe.And Tim……. don’t answer for me, or talk for me in any way.Speak for yourself.That effort alone should fill your time.
Elaine you love Tims choice of words?Im a little shocked to be honest.You like words that heap derision and slander,insult and pornographic vitreol upon people practicing free speech in open political debate?How do you feel about those who call our president a nigger?Or Hilary a rug muncher?We have all heard the jokes and the slander.To me they are low brow.To you they are now part of a lexicon that you…LOVE?I thought more of you.Clean up your act my dear.Become either a part of those who wish to raise the bar, or end up playing limbo with those who crawl on their bellies under it.
Frankly, I don’t care what you think of me. Tea baggers are, indeed, stupid and avaricious. I especially find it amusing when old tea baggers cheer for Paul Ryan who would like nothing better than to voucherize Medicare and put seniors back into private for-profit plans, costing them thousands in out-of-pocket expenses. But there they are….cheering for more budget-busting Bush tax cuts which cost 2.5 trillion over 10 years while simultaneously cheering for austerity. Either they’re shills for corporations or they are still unable to connect the dots and understand that austerity is targeted for them.
To all –
michael e deserves no further attention. The words he chooses while feebly trying to justify Tea Party venom are not acceptable in a public discussion. They are the words that one might find seeping under the door of a Klavern meeting.
We haven’t even been able to teach michael e how to paragraph.
This is a very sad situation; not only does he misapprehend the world we live in, he does not learn through DIRECT OBSERVATION.
Rich, Elaine and Cass…..If I were to say “ALL” libs are idiots.Morons.Evil thieving fiscal pedifiles and so on- it don’t make it so.Yet in your world…it would.You float rhetoric about …..You then Believe it AND defend it.Amazing.What Elaine just wrote about Ryan is uninformed hyperbole ,or non comprehensible talking points.Take your pick.Read Mr Goldbergs book “the Tyranny Of Cliches”.It deconstructs the way you folks believe the world to be.And lays waste to your foolishness.Read it, and get some free mental help.
So you call us tea baggers and should we follow with some filthy retort?This is a normal day trying to talk to your ilk.We will hope for honest respectful debate( and elections) involving the problems this country must deal with.Some of you may step away from liberal progressive ideology to do that.The rest of you I suppose will be left to Carp about it on FAIR blogs.Come November you will have plenty to carp about it.Lions and Tigers and bears oh my!!!!
The Ryan plan has a number of goals
1. More tax cuts for the rich
2. Increased defense spending
3. Serious cuts to social safety net programs.
You’ll note deficit reduction isn’t one of them, because Ryan’s never been a deficit hawk. He voted for Bush’s Iraq war, all of the war funding supplementals and Medicare Part D.
The plan turns Social Security into a voucher plan for everyone currently under 55.
P. Ness: We can also add that the Republicans say they have no plans to pay for the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. They also said that they had always intended for the rates on income and capital gains, enacted during the Bush years, to be permanent. So much for deficit reduction. In fact, the are even more heavily slanted towards the wealthy.
Rather than learn from past mistakes, Republicans double down on a failed fiscal policy for the benefit of good friends and campaign contributors.
Elaine you might as well say that the republicans want rates on ALL Americans ,and the corporations they own, to come down- to allow for more expansion of business ,and private investment.That is a true statement without varnish.
You on the other hand want rates to go up….. on anyone and everyone making above some random number,and pretty much All corporations.That to allow for more expansion of the FED and their ability to invest in the things they believe are needed.We definitely are not on the same page.
P.NESS
Show me where Ryan has said the words “my goals are more tax cuts for the rich , serious cuts to social security, and I plan to turn SS into a voucher system for everyone under 55”.I need to see that sentence.I have heard him speak a number of times shooting down this liberal framing of his ideas.I have never heard him say anything close to that.Im just wondering if there are new developments I am unaware of.Or is that just someones opinion of his work?Yours ?
AS far as increased defense spending that is the job of the president to decide.Any budgeting on that is speculative at best.
Does anyone know if House Resolution 568 passed? This is the one that ties the hands of the president politically by opposing any policy that would rely on containment as an option to dealing with Iran. The fiscally conservative Republicans (and some Dems) would like to back the U.S. in another war by passing such a resolution.
If we deal with poverty, we might have to pass up a chance to fight another war. Deficit reduction and austerity apply only to little people, particularly in Republican land.
micheal e. –
Oops, there you go again. You’re spouting fables! Tax cuts for corporations and their wealthy investors create jobs? Yup, but not in the U.S. The Reagan tax cuts gave corporations the extra dough they wanted to close factories here and move them offshore. That was the beginning. Bush I sort of tread water. Clinton ushered in NAFTA, WTO, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, and GOP sponsored “welfare reform”, a move that turned out to be anti-woman and anti-child. When history gets around to grading Clinton he will get a D at best. Bush II, however, will get an F -. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from regulating financial markets to overseeing Wall Street, from hugely expensive Medicare Part D, that rewarded pharmaceutical companies, even though they manufacture 47% of their generic drugs in China, 39% in India, but just 14% here at home to tax gifts to the wealthiest 1%, Bush was a disaster.
Facts are tough to counter, but I know you’ll give it a whirl. Here is some advice: Set aside your right wing primer filled with absurd clichés and speak straight from the heart. Who knows, a veil may be lifted in the process and you’ll discover the Koch brothers and other Tea Party honchos have been using you.
Well Rich you jumped across the years there,but let me say this……Because of the outcome I would probably give Clinton and Bush an F minus.Obama as well.Want me to go back further i will.We gave them our money and this was the result.
But more to a simpler point.Does giving more money to corporations create jobs?Let me use an example.Friend of mine owns an insurance concern.Wanted to build a new building in town and hire around 27 people.Well after his accountants shook it out they advised against it.On reasons of taxation.Now because he is established and has capital and is secure, we are talking about only points or even fractions of points that guided that decision.Of course new businesses trying to get established deal with this dilemma from a much harder starting point.This is the real world truth that stretches across the land.It looks different in accademia or Obamas white house, or even liberal talking points.But you simply cant say(I dont think you can)that business does better with LESS capital.Clinton yesterday reached out to Obama and said “look you can tax me at 100% and you wont fix the budget”.He basically went down the line and disagreed with all obamas policies to fix the budget(listen to it please).Leads me to wonder why he is endorsing him.
You say I should speak from the heart.Well I know people need help.We need to get beyond politics .I don’t think with this president who is so divisive,such an ideolog,and I believe legislatively incompetent we are making a dent.I think Mitt will be a breath of fresh air.I think you will see all economic indicators move upward the second he is sworn it.Proving the wet blanket this man has been to our rebuilding.Now if you are to say those economic indicators mean nothing- except the rich get richer and they are simply going to put their money in their mattresses we are back to square one.Look the way I made money is to invest.To expand.To risk.That is a constant in this game.I have never met a wealthy person who has not passed through that portal.
Rich A: Don’t forget to add that corporations are sitting on two trillion dollars. Lots of capital.
Further, Tax Justice Network estimates as much as $337 billion a year is lost from tax havens. Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that another $200 billion could be retrieved just by collecting taxes from Fortune 500 companies at the 26% rate paid from 1987 to 2008. A lot of the anual $1.3 trillion in special deductions, loopholes, etc. goes to the top quintile of taxpayers. One estimate is $250 billion a year just to the richest 1%.
Romney will continue to send the money to the top. The only difference is that he’ll try to double down on it.
Re: the Ryan budget
More tax cuts for the rich..yes or no?
More social safety net [food stamps, etc] cuts …yes or no?
Increased defense spending…yes or no?
Turning Social Security into a voucher system for everyone currently under 55…yes or no?
fox news 5/10/12
In a 218-199 vote mostly along party lines, the House approved a Republican-backed bill which would prevent a $55 billion Pentagon cut, as well as an 8 percent cut to domestic agency operating budgets.
The bill achieves that by making cuts to domestic programs like food stamps and health care.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/10/house-republicans-move-to-overhaul-debt-ceiling-deal-to-protect-military/#ixzz1v2vWjnZU
A new report by EPI finds that since 1995, the wealthiest of the wealthy in this country have gotten far more tax breaks than those in the middle- and lower-income brackets.
The average effective federal tax rates have fallen more than 9 percentage points for the top 0.01 percent of households and more than 6 percentage points for the remaining households in the top 1 percent.
Effective tax rates also have fallen for households between the 20th and 99th percentile, but by less than 3 percentage points.
http://www.epi.org/publication/taxes-fallen-furthest-top/
“Clinton yesterday reached out to Obama and said “look you can tax me at 100% and you wont fix the budget”.He basically went down the line and disagreed with all obamas policies to fix the budget.”
No, he didn’t.
Bill, yesterday: “This is just me now, I’m not speaking for the White House — I think you could tax me at a 100 percent and you wouldn’t balance the budget.” We are all going to have to contribute to this, and if middle class people’s wages were going up again, and we had some growth to the economy, I don’t think they would object to going back to tax rates [from] when I was president” – before the Bush tax cuts.
He added, “We can’t be in a position where one of the negotiating partners says ‘that’s non-negotiable. Not only will we not raise taxes, we want the Bush tax cuts and we want more tax cuts and we want the right to disregard what the Congressional Budget Office says that our budget will do.’ You can’t do that,” Clinton said. “It’s hard to have a deal if there’s no arbiter.”
michael e.
You wrote, “Clinton yesterday reached out to Obama and said “look you can tax me at 100% and you won’t fix the budget”. He basically went down the line and disagreed with all of Obamas policies to fix the budget (listen to it please). Leads me to wonder why he is endorsing him.”
Clinton is hardly an economic scholar. Look where his neoliberalism got us. Noted economists Joesph Stilitz, Linda Bilmes, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich offer differing points of view.
Clinton is a politician. He’ll say whatever he thinks needs to be said to get some press coverage. I will be quite candid: As a voting Democrat for 50 years my opinion Clinton quite low. He’s a huckster.
Sure businesses need money. So do the homeowners facing foreclosure because the bankster gangsters cooked the books…and got bonuses for doing so! When, however, Eisenhower was president the top tax rate was about 92%! Somehow, someway, corporations still made enough money to modernize their plants and mass produce products and they increased their profits in the process. A sociopathic ideology entered the world of economics in the 70’s. Economist Milton Friedman and a few other social engineers proclaimed that corporate CEOs and Boards of Directors had no social responsibility whatsoever. They said the only responsibility of corporatists is to make as much money as they can for their stockholders. Huh? No social responsibility? That borders on the sociopathic. We all have social responsibilities.
Politicians latched onto that dogma and began passing laws in support of the lunacy.
Here is the result: There has been a massive transfer of wealth. It began in the late 70’s. Today the disparity in wealth and income in the U.S. is greater than at any time since the Great Depression. That is a fact. Corporatism is the reason. Continuing to stick up for crooked corporate magnates who get away with living outside the law is akin to self-flagellation. Ditto for their Congressional water-carriers. There is a class war! It has been going ever since the first worker was enslaved to set the first stone in the first pyramid in ancient Egypt! Our job is to see to it that the scales held by Lady Justice are evenly balanced. Today, they are so far out of whack that balancing them will be a monumental undertaking. So why listen to the same sociopathic-economic dogma that got us in to the fix we are in?
Lastly, do me a favor. Go to http://www.healthcare-now.com/ to learn about single payer health care. Do some research. Follow some links. You’ll find that we can save $400 billion each year while covering everyone for everything. (By the way, michael, the number of people without health insurance is 50 million.)
Rich I think I do understand single payer healthcare.Im in the field and I must tell you most physicians i know are not for it.I think it would lead to a downturn in medical care.Quotas.More interference in Dr patient relationship and responsibility.I think it would put all private insurance out of business.And although even Obama wont use the term(single payer)as his ultimate aim, I do believe it is his goal to have government in charge of everyones health.The ultimate prize as it were. Of course when we see or project the bill it is easy to join hands with Elaine and just say we will first set up an arbiter/judge who will decide who has too much money.He on our behalf will take it from them , because as with every fiscal problem …..that is the fix.There is not enough money in the world to do all we need to do.And believing wealthy people are a money tree to be picked at will is just fairy tales.Taxing our rich at 100% may pay for this or that for a short time, but then game is over.The golden goose is dead.I have a friend (Med Dr) who has a private healthcare investment fund.He has maxed for he and his family at 2100 dollars a year.Far cheaper and more comprehensive than standard insurance.Not to get to deep into it, but there are other ways.Ways that work far better than any power grab by the president.He actually did a great service by putting forward a stupid plan.I hope it drives the new president to work on a solution.
You said we all have social responsibilities.Well till i was 30 I made little money.If you went to work for a union at 18 you did far better than me for probably near 15 years.Prime years .Youthful years.Now that was my choice.I lost that time studying,struggling,and accumulating massive bills.I cant see demanding recompensation from those union workers for my 15 years .I did not demand they support me in any lifestyle.Now as i work my ass off and some of them get ready to retire I don’t say a word.My hair has shown grey.My best years behind me.It was my choice.But now as my pay day begins I am enemy number one to the left.To be fleeced.Driven dow in my earning potential and lifestyle till mine matches those who did what with their time?Because in a snapshot in time- I have too much.They too little.It is so easy to point at faceless corp directors and CEOs and to say they don’t deserve what someone is willing to pay them.Do you honestly believeGeorge Clooney deserves 30 million a movie while the grips make 15 thou for the same time period?Or Jeter make so much more than the poor beer guy who runs up and down the stadium while Jeter chews gum in the dugout?Lets just make it all even.You would answer me that you dont want to take ALL their money.Just a hell of a lot more of it.See you set the rules.We pay the piper.Then you come calling for more.It is misplaced envy.You need to set the bar.Then agree to leave us the hell alone.
michael e.
What is the old saying? Oh, now I remember…”You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink”.
I provided a link so you could do some independent research, but you opted to [once again] mouth tired old loony-right sound bites about the government wanting to control us. What part of “publicly funded, privately delivered health care” don’t you understand? Medicare is single payer! Now go tell a senior to give it up because you think it is government run.
Such hypocrisy on the right! They make a big deal about “keeping government out of our health care” (as if government wanted in it in the first place) but then the same righty wing-nuts want the government to prohibit a woman’s right to choose or a gay person’s right to marry who they want.
Michael, you say you’re getting grey? Thank your lucky stars some liberals passed Medicare in 1964. At least you’ll have Medicare insurance [publicly funded, privately delivered] to cover your health care needs when you retire.
Here is the link again. http://www.healthcare-now.com/
Use it! Educate yourself!
Rich i know all about the” Healthcare now movement.”That was Marilyn Clements baby ,God rest her soul.A good woman,but I never agreed with her.Sorry.
I always thought the ballooning cost of Medicare was bewildering to her, and saddened her to the core.She could never envision the same pattern to any single payer system.I think is is obvious.But Im always optimistic.Maybe the left or right will figure out a formula to fix medicare first,and then we shall see.We must all agree though that simply saying “take from the so called rich” is nothing more than a feel good moment.It wont get us there
By the way Rich i believe the conservative movement is on the wrong side of the table on gay marriage and abortion.Abortion I understand their motivation..Especially late term though I dont agree- on the final balance.But it is a totally understandable argument.As far as gay marriage????Why anyone would care about who wants to be silly enough to join our little club in the 70-80%divorce rate I have no idea.Come on in people the water is fine!