Tweet
Gallup comes to the same conclusion as other polls I’ve seen: people want to let the Bush tax cuts that focus on the ultra-wealthy expire.
A majority of Americans favor letting the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration expire for the wealthy. While 37% support keeping the tax cuts for all Americans, 44% want them extended only for those making less than $250,000 and 15% think they should expire for all taxpayers [...]
The president’s views on ending the tax cuts for wealthy Americans are in line with the views of the majority of rank-and-file Democrats. Meanwhile, the majority of Republicans want the tax cuts extended for all taxpayers, regardless of their income level. Independents’ views fall between those of the two groups, but a majority (56%) would seem to endorse the idea of not extending tax cuts for higher-income Americans, whether or not they want them extended for middle- and lower-income Americans.
That’s a majority, but only a bare majority for Republicans of 54%. 43% of Republicans would allow the high-end tax cuts or all of the tax cuts to expire.
I wonder how this would change if the public knew that the “middle-class tax cuts” would actually benefit the rich at a higher level in real dollars than the middle class. I think that number wanting them to expire would shoot up. But nobody has informed the public of this, so that’s where we are. The Obama policy has the most support in the country.
And this could potentially turn Republicans in knots:
Q: Let me ask you though, I certainly hate paying higher taxes. Most people do, I’m sure corporations do as well, but how do we get out of this mess of the last couple of years — and I look at the federal deficit — how do we get out of it without doing some kind of taxation?
HATCH: Well, we may not be able to.
Now, Hatch needed to backtrack and say that taxes shouldn’t be raised on the top 2% or on oil companies. This leaves only the middle class, or vague, undefined “spending cuts.” Both are political traps for Republicans.
In this case, good policy is good politics. If Democrats had a united front, they could easily toy with Republicans over the Obama tax plan without much trouble, and expose the other party as slavishly devoted to the rich.
But that’s not the world we live in, and so instead, this whole thing could get delayed until after the elections. Kevin Drum has this right.
If your income is low — and probably a fair number of the 56% who want Bush’s tax cuts for the rich repealed are low-income voters — politicians simply don’t care. If you’re middle class they care a little more. But if you’re rich, then they really, really care. And it’s safe to say that most high earners are opposed to repealing tax cuts on high earners. That goes for all Republicans and a growing number of Democrats too. So what seems like a no-brainer isn’t as simple as it looks. Economically it makes sense to repeal Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, and a majority of American citizens are in favor of it. Unfortunately for them, they belong to the wrong majority. They’re not rich themselves, and increasingly in America, that means their votes just don’t count.
103 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL News Desk
which is the reason why the GOP tries to conflate this issue with hurting small businesses
Something is wrong. Obama usually sides with something only a small percentage of the people want.
If this becomes too popular (I wouldn’t call 44% “massively popular”), he is going to flip flop to be on the losing side.
If by “super rich” you mean people like the CEO of Walmart, and the people on the board of directors at Microsoft, doesn’t raising their taxes ultimately affect “the little guy”?
If you raise taxes on people, that’s less money they would have to spend on new employees. Right?
Yeah, right. Drum has this about as right as he did the public option.
This is a MASSIVE fail on the part of a president who WILL NOT lead — even on issues that are popular with the public. He was for the public option, but it was just a sliver. He is for letting the tax cuts for the rich expire, but won’t veto a compromise.
He is a joke.
the democrats, (including this blog) are still talking about this on the republican terms
the supposed “tax cuts” for the wealthy weren’t free, they came from somewhere, they came from middle class assets, our infrastructure, our medicare, medicaid, education at the local level, higher education, they came from social security
they weren’t cuts they were loans, nor were they marketed as cuts they were marketed as “investments” supposedly they were going to give a higher return then they cost
that higher return never materialized, nor did any sane person believe they would
the investment into the wealthy’s coffers came from the middle class, those are our assets, that’s our money.
“allowing tax cuts for the wealthy to expire” is not nearly the right vernacular
“directing the investment back to what works rather then what contributed to these economic hardhsips” is the way to talk about this issue
Yes. Dems just seem to refuse to speak from points of strength. Dems are out to get us, I think. And that is NOT snark.
We tried to start calling it a Tax Shift during the Bush era. Didn’t take, I guess.
The rich will have to step up their donations to their whores in Congress so they’ll ignore what the public wants. SOP in DC.
Democrats should pound the Republicans on this. Don’t let them claim to be deficit hawks AND keep their windfall tax cuts.
we shouldn’t have called it a tax shift, we should have called it an asset shift
taking tangible middle class assets and investments and giving them to people who had more money then they could possibly spend
we use republican arguing points instead of our own
You’re right but less than two months before an election is not the time to redefine terms. Gotta keep it simple enough to convey in soundbites.
Not really. The evidence is clear that the rich take their salaries and use them to play in hedge funds and other gambling transactions. Any actual investments are made in other countries, by and large. Most new manufacturing occurs in other countries, and they actively seek money from wealthy Americans. That explains why we are running huge trade deficits in the middle of a recession.
To give you some idea of what’s going on, look at the front page of the business section of the New York Times today; there is a picture of a wind turbine coming from China. The purchaser is the US Army. Here’s a link.
More generally, what you are saying is a form of trickle-down theory. Several of the writers here, including me, have explained why this is a silly idea.
Finally, you mention some categories of wealthy people, but those are not the really rich. The really rich have enormous fortunes, in the tens and hundreds of millions, and I assure you that money isn’t going to be used to hire any more people than they need to take care of their kids and their mansions.
Well, we still call them the Bush tax cuts, as atrios is pointing out. If you wanted to design a way to lose most effectively you could not do worse than to follow the Democratic Party’s current strategy.
The framing on this issue has been all wrong. Instead of talking about extending the Bush tax cuts or letting them expire, we should’ve been casting it all along as a choice between allowing the automatic Bush tax hikes to take effect or not. That way, we could be claiming that we’re in favor of tax cuts (for the middle class). And the tax hikes for the upper-income earners could be rightfully blamed on Bush.
I think “trickle-down” works better than taxing people to death. Can you help me out and link some of those posts explaining why it’s a bad idea?
The rich might be able to take a portion of their salaries to play in hedge funds. That’s their right, I guess. I admit i don’t know too much about that kind of thing.
I still fail to find any kind of reason why taxing “the rich” is such a great idea. If the U.S. starts having such high taxes, then businesses will move elsewhere.
I wonder where the point of deminishing returns is for buying Congress.
Why don’t you go to red state. We just aren’t all that in to you!
you’re asking the wrong question, the real question is “has it ever worked” and the answer is an unqualified “no”
contrary to popular belief, taxes serve a purpose, they fund programs we want, we voted for, those programs in almost every case cost us far less in tax dollars then they would if private industry ran the institution
for instance, school, beaches, parks, roads, water to your house, electricity, all of these cost far more when compared to their private counterparts, for instance beech clubs, resorts, bottled water, private schools all cost far more then the publicly supplied alternative
you can target markets that need help but tax reduction for an industry that is not struggling cannot possibly do anything but take money from these programs we vote for
the principle of “trickle down” has never ever EVER been proven to work, it’s simply propaganda so that labor votes against itself
consider this simple reality;
labor comes before product, (obviously) product comes before profit (obviously), making believe profit comes and then labor is simply propaganda, and giving more profit to the top hoping more then you give them will become jobs is asking for more out then you put in, which obviously defies all known laws of phisics
good point
ALL products that are produced from slave and child labor, produced with unsafe working conditions and poisenous to our envirnment need to face a commenserate tariff that off sets the expense these products cause to our economy
funny, the tea party’s claim is the antithesis to the founders original tea party, the original boston tea party was a revolt against the removal of tariff, not a revolt of adding taxes
Less taxes makes them invest oversees. Already saw that in practise last decade and is a fact. Our tax cuts led to totalitarian regime economic boom.
If government collects revenue it has to invest internally. Too many checks and balances to make that happen. Already saw that happen in practise and is a fact. 1950s is a good example. After a brutal global war USA had the biggest economic expansion in its history which is a huge anomaly and could happen only because of progressive taxes.
BTW with the progressive tax system we have the rich are taxed at the same level as FDL bloggers and FDL readers for the income FDL bloggers and FDL readers make. Only the income they make above and beyond is taxed higher. Since those revenues are from the shared resources maintained by the government due to taxes like schools creating next generation of work force, highways to transport goods around, clean water for creating consumables etc. it is a fair method of taxation and the incentive to earn more who are willing to hard and smart is still there.
The best evidence that the Bush tax levels aren’t doing anything stimulative is that they’ve been in place during this entire recessionary period.
in addition to that excellant point which very few people understand, there is an even more important point;
since middle and lower class spend the majority of their income, the majority of their income is retaxed at the local and state level.
the wealthy who spend a fraction of their income on taxable services and goods are not retaxed on the majority of their income
even with a progressive tax the lower and middle class pay a far greater percentage then the upper class
that’s the first thing
the second thing that isn’t even considered, the upper class use a far greater percentage of resources, including but not exclusively economic resources, the tax does not pay for that extra use either
but democrats never want to point these things out and it’s to their own peril
True. Lets separate Tea Party Agitators and Tea Party sponsors who tapped into agitators despair of not being able to make ends meet. If we have truly progressive taxation of 1950s tea party agitators will benefit due to reduced taxes and it is the tea party sponsors who have to cover the short-fall.
and that some of the greatest economic growth occured during clintons’ taxes, and fdr’s we have to add
The thing is, the cycle repeats itself, which is why more demand=more need for workers. It also means more demand=more sales=more profit=more labor. It also means more tax revenue, unless you hike taxes which eats into your profit, so you have less money for new hires. When it comes to larger corporations, less money also means less opportunity for growth, and therefore, less jobs.
If that was what most of our tax dollars went to, I’d have no problem with it. But a lot of money is spent on social programs, aka “spreading the wealth around”. Also, where’s your evidence these things would cost less and be less efficient if it wasn’t government-run? Compare the Post Office vs FedEx or UPS.
“…. that’s less money they would have to spend on new employees …”
They’ve had 6 or 7 years to spend their tax cuts on new employees. They haven’t done it. Why would they change their mind now?
Or you could argue it was the GOP-controlled Congress that forced him to cut spending.
As far as FDR, wasn’t it the post-war boom that helped the economy, not taxes?
Where are you getting this from? How do you know they didn’t spend money on new employees? And, what, you’re gonna give them just “six or seven” years, and that’s it?
Obama is already on board giving the rich a tax cut on the first $250,000 of their income, saying that the rich get a tax cut under his plan – so it is indeed a tax cut for everyone. But Obama today signaled to the GOP that he would cave on the tax cut for the rich by STARTING his comment by saying that there was room to negotiate on the tax cut for the rich = no line in the sand.
expose the other party as slavishly devoted to the rich
But David, the DEMOCRATS are slavishly devoted to the rich, too. That’s why the idea would never fly.
you couldn’t argue it was the gop that forced him to cut spending, his plan almost failed for not being to big
where are you getting this stuff, fake news stations?
first, the cycle doesn’t “repeat” labor comes before product, product before profit, you get more profit with more labor, you don’t get more labor with higher profit margin, higher profit margin gets squerilled away, it’s physics
next, you know a company didn’t spend money on new employees when they open shop overseas, which the majority did, thanx to those tax breaks
simple stuff
the wealthy are there to gather more wealth not to create jobs in case you didn’t know it
the only method for getting profit directed at jobs is to tax the profit unless they reinvest in their own company in the states, this is win win for everyone
I have had enough of your posts, you need to do some research before you post fuax news propaganda
off for the day
Well-said!!!
Perhaps you might try reading the rest of the comments… enlightenment awaits you.
joffen I’ve seen you here recently, and you seem mostly trying to learn something. If that’s true: then good and welcome. You may not end up agreeing, but if you’re sincere in your questions, then I congratulate you for seeking information.
Another thing to consider is this: during the Bush years, the tax cuts for the super wealthy were enacted and have been in force up to now. WHERE is this great “jobs creation” that those tax cuts were supposed to produce? Do you see lots of jobs being created here in the USA these days now that the super wealthy enjoy such low taxes?
I sure don’t. In fact, over the past few decades those wealthy business owners have done nothing except move a tremendous quantity of jobs to offshore locations – initially in Mexico and more recently to Asia. It’s no longer factory and manufacturing jobs (those blue collar jobs, by the way, used to pay a living wage here in the USA not so long ago) that have been shipped overseas. Now we are seeing more and more white collar jobs go away, too, not just in terms of phone call centers, but even such jobs as lawyers and paralegals, accounting, auditing, etc.
Think about it. Currently these super wealthy business owners are “enjoying” a huge tax break, but the only jobs that they are creating are overseas… for third world people who will accept paltry wages often in unsafe conditions and living in crummy conditions (I’ve traveled a lot and seen a lot with my own eyes).
What will be the difference if former tax rates are re-enacted? I don’t see anything that will be different in terms of jobs creation, myself, but the USA may be able to collect some more funds to for worthwhile things in the USA, like improving our failing infrastructure. Why shouldn’t these extremely wealthy people help to pay for roads and bridges, etc?
Can you point to any numbers that support your suggestion of increased demand? None of us here can.
“…. unless you hike taxes which eats into your profit, so you have less money for new hires….”
There was an interview on NPR yeaterday with a small businessman in Ohio. His response to the accelerated depreciation proposal, “I don’t need more equipment, I need more customers.”
Make no mistake, the minute the demand for his product exceeds his ability to produce it, he will hire more workers and buy whatever he needs to meet the demand. In the interum, tax cuts are simply windfall profits and produce nothing except a reduction in government services.
How did “his plan” almost fail “for not being too big”? What does that even mean?
How looong does it take? In that past 6 or 7 years, these wealthy people have created tons of jobs overseas. How many years do they need to be wheedled and cajoled to create jobs here? Ain’t gonna happen my friend. That ship has sailed.
Exactly. If people don’t have money to “demand” the products that people produce, then small and large businesses have no incentive to hire more workers. A big part of the issue is that US citizens and small businesses are tapped out and not buying anything.
Maintaining tax cuts for zillionaires does nothing to address this imbalance. All that happens is that the zillionaires continue to invest mostly overseas or in hedge funds.
“Where are you getting this from?”
Google “job growth under Bush”. Take your pick of 128,000 hits
Read more: Job growth under Bush was worst since WWII – Jacksonville Business Journal
[modnote: please provide link for quoted material.]
Ok, I think there are more issues in that post than just taxes. Isn’t it true that companies “ship jobs” to Mexico because of NAFTA? Who signed that into law? Bill Clinton.
If you hike taxes, how will that convince businesses that America is a good place for investment?
I said this before, if government just spent tax dollars on roads, fire and police department, and the military, simple stuff like that, it would be fine. I’m not making the argument that taxes aren’t neccessary: they are. It’s just that, to fix the economy, you should lower taxes and reduce spending.
The economy isn’t in a recession because “the rich” don’t pay high enough taxes!
As far as companies paying “a dollar an hour” or whatever in the third world, what’s the cost of living in Cambodia? A dollar an hour is probably 8.50 an hour here!
I don’t have a lot of time to go into detail, but that refers to issues during the 1930s & 1940s when FDR created the New Deal, which including a lot of government spending on the Public Works programs. Then, as now, the super wealthy dramatically opposed such spending, even in the face of abject poverty and misery for much of the US population.
The argument then, as now, was that the gov’t spending under the FDR admin was sending the US into a giant deficit, which would be bad, horrible, wrong, all that junk (to be brief).
In fact, the New Deal was very stimulating to our economy because it put money in the hands of the middle and lower classes, who SPENT the money on STUFF… hence creating DEMAND, which resulted in more jobs creation. WWII, itself, was also very stimulating for our economy. As opposed to now, during WWII the government spent the money here in the United States to build military “things” (tanks, airplanes, ships) and hired US workers to do it (including women = you may have heard about Rosie the Riverter).
In today’s wars, that money is not being spent as much here in the USA. Some stuff is built here, but some is built overseas.
Our manufacturing industry has almost totally been shipped off-shore. The USA no longer makes anything here. But I’m getting off-track.
The point is that FDR spent big on the New Deal stimulation, and it worked, much to the dismay of the extremely wealthy. The wealthy didn’t like it because they made much more money when citizens were poor, impoverished and hungry.
Hence, Obama’s stimulus was much too small. Many economists have stated this over and over using FDR as the example he should have followed. Read up a bit on history, and you will see.
You won’t get any arguments here about that fiasco. I daresay most of the regulars who post here agree with you on that and were more than ticked off that Clinton did that. But we see Clinton as yet another conservative who sold out the country. NAFTA’s a disaster and not just for the USA; it’s a big reason why the drug cartels are running Mexico, but that’s another story.
Again, I agree somewhat with you that the answer isn’t “just” to raise taxes, but seriously, the taxes were cut, and this country LOST jobs, our infrastructure is going to hell in a handbasket, and so on. These wealthy people make a lot more than you may realize. Back in the 1950s, under Republican Ike Eisenhower, the upper tax rate was 90%, and the country did very well in those days. Many new businesses were developed, along with many, many jobs. We’re not talking getting even close to that tax bracket.
And by the way, when was the last time you visited Cambodia??? Try living there sometime and see how easy it is. Your attitude towards those in the third world is very cavalier. I’ve spent a good deal of time in the third world living without basics like running water, toilets, electricity, clean food, etc. Are you seriously telling me that it’s “ok” for people to be forced to live in grinding poverty like that with very low life spans in order to further enrich insanely wealthy zillionaires in the western world? you may be fine with that, but I’m not. Everyone should have a living wage; there’s no reason that it cannot exist except for greed, gluttony and sociopaths.
“…. Obama’s stimulus was much too small. ..”
And only a small portion went to direct job creation such as building roads or repairing bridges. Large percentages went to tax cuts and proping up state and local governments to prevent layoffs of teachers, police and other government employees.
Yes, although at least the propping up of State gov’ts did result in less gov’t employees losing jobs. I agree, though, we definitely need a massive public works program that actually creates NEW, different jobs to hire those currently unemployed or underemployed, and not just infrastructure jobs (which not everyone can do).
“….the upper tax rate was 90%, and the country did very well in those days …”
In those days executive pay ws about 30 times the average workers pay. Today executive pay is over 300 times the average workers pay and when adjusting for inflation the average worker has not received a raise since 1970.
And they NEVER will count as long as the party that supposedly represents the not rich knows they can always take their votes for granted.
If the not rich continues to reward the D’s with their votes even when they represent the rich instead of the not rich, then there will NEVER be any reason for them to change.
It really is that simple. Not rocket science, not eleventy dimensional chess, just simple: If someone knows they CAN take your vote for granted, then they WILL take your vote for granted. And when they are free to take our votes for granted, they’re free to not represent our interests. And if you don’t believe they already do take our votes for granted then just read the comments here. We’re basically scolded for even discussing the possibility of not giving them our votes.
So when you choose to support that, then you’re going to get the EXACT Democratic Party you deserve.
How would taxing the salary and stock perks of the CEO of Wal-Mart affect Wal-Mart’s ability to hire new workers? The guy was making $18M plus a few years back, so you argue that he is somehow naturally entitled to the salary he earns so that now Wal-Mart must compensate him for the taxes he pays? What about the five family members who own Wal-Mart and control $18B each despite having nothing to do with its operations, who have never done any work there, managerial or otherwise? Watch Jamie Johnson’s film (he himself inherited $1B on the day he turned 18) for a good description of what these people contribute to the economy in exchange for the billions they inherit, i.e. nothing.
If lowering taxes led to economic growth, we’d have the fastest growing economy in the world.
Instead we’re nearly in another great depression. The myth that lower tax rates leads to economic growth has been debunked by decades of data now. But feel free to ignore actual data and facts and instead believe whatever Rush and Glen tell you. After all, they also ignore actual data and facts too.
Two other very, very good points, about which many citizens are unaware.
I happen to own securities/stocks (less these days now that it’s a giant ponzi scheme/casino), but over the years, I watched CEO salaries go up, up, up, up, up, up…. insanely. What some do not realize is that CEOs of the larger businesses and corporations all sit on each others’ boards and all scratch each others’ backs.
The kinds of salaries and perks upper level mgmt has in corporations today is way over the top. I have no hesitation about increasing their taxes. They’re not going to create any more jobs here in the USA regardless. They will create jobs if and only if there is demand for the services.
BTW, you are looking for links to “authorities”, here are two (the latter person holds a Nobel Prize in economics).
The other thing that’s gauling – and can be pointed out – is that when the CEOs “fail” and run their businesses into the ground (or get in trouble in some other way), they all get kicked out with a golden parachute of millions of dollars.
How many “average workers” out there mess up in their jobs so badly that they get fired, BUT are given millions when given the sack??? And then on top it, they don’t have to pay very high taxes on those millions (and they sure ain’t gonna create any “new jobs” once their fired).
It’s quite a nice little racket that they’ve got going for themselves, and convincing citizens that they shouldn’t have to pay their fair share of taxes has been yet another rip off on top of everything else.
WHY do people think we should keep coddling and wheedling up to these excessively overpaid billionaire tax-welfare kings and queens?
We are having a discussion on taxes not third-world countries or Mexican drug cartels. The point I was making about Cambodia is that living in a country like that, a dollar will get you a lot further. The conditions of those countries have nothing to do with American capitalism. Companies go to those countries, pay people a (to them) very decent wage for their hard work. How is that exploitative?
Anyway, some people seem to not like capitalism no matter what. So every time something happens, they blame capitalism. America is a very powerful country. It is NOT coincidence that our economic system is capitalism.
Look at the economies of East Germany vs West Germany. West Germany was waaaaaay more better off than East Germany. The Berlin Wall was built to keep people IN! These are facts.
There’s a stereotype about the rich that I think is unfair. They have families and friends. They bleed and can feel pain. They are just like you and me.
If I invent a product to sell, and it sells well and I make a profit, what’s wrong with that? I’d love to make enough money so that my children, and their children’s children can still profit from my success. Isn’t that the American dream?
I don’t buy the idea that there are rich CEO’s and their families that just sit around or never worked or managed a thing in their life. If they did, their companies wouldn’t be so successful, and they wouldn’t be rich.
Former Lucent & Hewlett-Packard CEO, Carly Fiorina, was highly compensated, yet off-shored over 3000 jobs from HP and some similar amount from Lucent. In both cases, Fiorina ran both businesses into the ground. Lucent no longer exists, and it took years for HP stock to increase in value after Fiorina ran HP into the ground. Fiorina, like most of her overpaid CEO colleagues, was a corporate welfare DIVA, who demanded that HP purchase her a private Lear Jet to fly her hither and thither. Neither Dave Hewlett or Bill Packard ever ran the company like she did.
Yet when the Hewlett and Packard heirs finally came back and kicked Fiorina out on her butt, Fiorina got paid a GIANT amount of money to get lost. My stocks LOST a LOT of value. I had PAY that incompetent twice over for NOTHING!!!! For losing MY money.
This story is more common than it’s not. Citizens need to realize that these overly-coddled CEOs are not doing the country any good. Raise their taxes back to the prior levels, please.
Well there you go: YES the “conditions of those countries” have EVERYTHING to do with American capitalism. If you cannot or will not see that, then I’m not sure if you’re really interested in learning about what’s going on.
Good luck.
Gotta run now; other stuff to do. I’ve done my dash.
If you really can’t see how that’s exploitative, then you’re not looking.
HINT: Don’t look in “those countries.”
So we should raise taxes on the wealthy as a…punishment? Taxes are (supposedly) for revenue raising purposes only. If a CEO makes poor decisons, yes, the stock prices drop, but that’s the risk you make when you by shares in a company. What also happens, is the CEO gets fired as a direct result of stock prices dropping!
I wonder how this would change if the public knew that the “middle-class tax cuts” would actually benefit the rich at a higher level in real dollars than the middle class. I think that number wanting them to expire would shoot up. But nobody has informed the public of this, so that’s where we are. The Obama policy has the most support in the country.
OpenLeft’s Paul Rosenberg has been writing on this:
http://www.openleft.com/diary/20095/just-how-bad-is-obamas-progressive-middleclass-tax-cut
Even when Obama does something right, and “sets his foot down” on something, he screws it up. His proposal includes:
The middle-class tax-cut package the Joint Tax Committee analyzed does not extend the reduction in the tax rate on dividends for couples with incomes over $250,000 (and singles over $200,000). President Obama has proposed, however, that the dividend top rate for high-income people be permanently set at 20 percent, rather than being allowed to return to its pre-2001 level of 39.6 percent. If Congress follows that approach and incorporates this proposal into a middle-class tax-cut package, the average tax cut that high-income households will receive from enactment of such a package will be considerably larger than the figures just cited, and the dollar amount by which the average tax cut going to high-income households exceeds the average tax cut for middle-income households will be significantly larger, as well.
Once again, we have a president (a nominal Democrat at that) who believes that unearned income should be taxed at a lower rate than wage income, despite all the issues surrounding fairness and about the real contribution of each to the economy.
My question is—why not let the Bush tax cuts expire, ALL of them, then introduce a separate bill to lower those on middle- and lower-class wage incomes only? Make the Repugs fight THAT one with their anti-tax shtick.
StewartM
No, I don’t see how it’s exploitative. I think it’s the complete opposite. Please explain how paying a person for their hard work is exploitative.
Also, how are American companies powerful enough to control the governments of several countries???
Well, that is what they’re doing. The Bush tax cuts will expire, period. So ANY continuation of ANY tax cuts will be done with a new, sperate bill.
It’s exploitative to the workers here. That company is now expecting workers here, with our costs of living, compete with workers who can work for $1 an hour, or even $1.00 a day. It’s a race to the bottom where every worker in the world will have to compete with the lowest wages on the planet. And they will be forced to accept substandard wages if they want a job. THAT’S exploitative.
And in answer to your second question, that’s precisely what tarriffs are for. The US can’t force other governments to change, but they can, through tarriffs, force goods imported here using substandard paid labor to cost more and thus give businesses using American labor a chance to compete.
As OFG points out, conditions in the underdeveloped world like Indonesia cannot be separated from capitalism and the global economy. By any standard the living conditions in, say, Indonesia for the average person were much better prior to its conquest by the Dutch and integration into the world economy. According to studies from the time of the conquest by the Dutch Indonesian people could survive nicely while spending a fraction of the labour-time they now do in factories. It is easy to say, well, they are so poor now that they would be thankful for any wage now. A good analogy might be this: let’s say you have everything you own in your wallet and I steal it from you. I then offer you a job cleaning my toilet for $1 dollar a day USING the money I stole for you. Are you grateful? You use that $1 to buy a meager portion of food that you wouldn’t otherwise have, but it is impossible to say that you have benefited from the entire history of how you came to be in a situation where you are desperate for food. The problem for fighting a theft is that pickpockets are in the open and obvious, whereas the sorts of wholesale thefts perpetuated by capitalism are masked. As Woodie Guthrie once put it: “As through this life you travel, you’ll meet some funny men: some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen. But as through this life you ramble, and through this life you roam, you’ll never see an outlaw throw a family from its home.”
Long history here to learn if you are willing. Read The Jungle about meatpacking, Learn about the US history of child labor laws, 14 hour work days, six days a week, learn about TR and trustbusting, and (moving to the present) read up on Chinese suicides at Foxconn. Do you know what the Chinese at Foxconn call working there? Slave labor.
The US tax payer have given $15 trillion propping up bankrupt companies during the Wall St implosion:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/bailout-costs-vs-big-historical-events/
I believe in capitalism, but we don’t have it. we’re starting to look much more like a centrally controlled economy, just like the USSR.
And absolutely essential for our economy to work. The deck is now stacked against this in the US. It’s now easier to live the American dream in Europe. It turns out that a “free market” is a bit of a myth, what we HAD (until we de-regulated) was a fair market that gave everybody an honest chance – even the little guy in his garage.
That’s why everybody is also getting out of the stock market – because it’s a increasingly rigged game:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/retail-investors-flee-market-even-record-market-crash-ytd-domestic-flows-stocks-are-negative
Look at Walmart. Old man Walton built it from the ground up, and back in the day it was stuffed full of products made in the USA; his kids made it the single largest importer in the US by using slave labor in China. If we return to an oligarchy from a meritocracy, we’re going to end up being run by the kids of the successful, not the people that actually were smart and successful.
“It’s exploitative to the workers here.”
I used to do field service work in refineries and chemical plants in Mexico. By American standards, safety standards were non-existent and environmental standards were worse. Do Americans want to have to compete on that playing field?
Obama and the Democratic Senators just could not be bothered to get rid of the filibuster when the had the perfect opportunity back in January 2009 with new rules for the Senate; this shows be that they were not serious about actually passing progressive legislation with only 51 votes; no, they much preferred to keep the filibuster in place and thus allowing the Repubs to block progressive legislation with 41, 42, 43, 44 or 45 votes. Then the Dems could complain and point their little fingers and whine… Dems and O. : what a pack of worthless creeps.
o/t: in other news, American domestic religious bigotry endangers American international imperial bigotry (2 occupations for the price of 2)…
Sometimes I yearn for the old days, before 24/7 cable noise and the internets… Back in pre-1995 days, we never would have heard from this idiot moron in Florida; at most, his little insane bigotries would have possibly gotten a little story in a weekly Florida newspaper. Now our vile stupid clueless hysterial corporate media has to blast us with all these rantings of worthless right-winger nut jobs… Even TP has to get in on the act sometimes, by magnifying stupid little right-wing pecadillos, while at the same time they can’t really bother to talk about US imperialism, US war crimes, GOP election stealing with Diebold, Obama’s shredding of Habeus Corpus, and Obama’s evil robotic drone murders of Islamic peasants in Pakistan (who are no threat to anybody).
This used to be called the “triple whammy”: first, US taxpayer funds are used to prop up corrupt dictatorships (Indonesia under Suharto a perfect example); second, jobs migrate to the dictatorship; and third, wages fall in the US. This “race to the bottom” has made places with poor working conditions and environmental standards the lowest common denominator that essentially subverts US democracy: how can we vote to change our living conditions, wages, workplace safety, environmental standards when companies have a veto power by relocating to places that lack them, and then sell their shit back to us?
I wouldn’t either. But if you read the whole thing, you’ll see that 59% favor ending the tax cuts for the rich, while only 37% favor keeping them. That’s 59-37, and I would call that massively popular.
This is such a no brainer. People are mad as hell watching the massive bailouts of the very same rich people that drove the world’s economy off a cliff.
Tax rates have been at idiotic lows for thirty years now, and all that’s happened in that thirty years is the US economy has been gutted, and the middle class has been destroyed.
We should be discussing moving upper brackets to 50% or more.
And btw, this is also yet ANOTHER example of how liberal the American public is. The naysayers like to point to polls showing very few Americans self-identifying as liberal as “proof” that the country is Center-right. Yet on issue after issue, the public supports liberal positions.
The conservative position is tax cuts for the well-off. As you can see, not supported. The conservative position is continuation of the wars, also not supported. The public option consistently polled in the 60′s, and single payer even polled a majority in lots of polls.
Folks don’t like to “admit” being liberal because the right wing, with the aid of the GOP/media complex, has spent 30 years disparaging the term. Successfully. But IMO, those that rely on that as an excuse to accept watered down “policy wins” are not serving the cause well, because on issue after issue the public does support liberal solutions. It is merely the elected politicians that don’t.
And that is why we should change our elected politicians to ones that will stand up and proudly and loudly fight for liberal causes. After all, in a lot of cases the majority will agree. Single payer is a good example. You pass single payer and fund it appropiately, then the American people, after seeing the world as we know it won’t end, will end up liking it and not liking any politician or party that supported ending it. I’d bet my last dollar on that. And the right wing agrres, which is why they so desperately fight against it. They know once we get single payer, we’ll never go back.
Fact is there are a number of dem senators who want to extend the tax cuts for the wealthy b/c they have too many high earners in their states or they are just blue dogs. Fact also is that the lower classes tend not to vote and this year even less. Not so for the wealthy and they have the tea party on their side, who tends to influence a lot of people who are only marginally involved in politics. So bitch about it all you want the fact is the Pres and his people have an uphill battle. I have said all along that in the end they will extend the cuts for everyone unless they can come up with a deal or get enough votes, which still do not seem likely. I am certain, yes certain, they are trying to make it work but miracles may have run out. So go on and bitch some more.
You’re goddamned right I’m going to bitch. Any politician that votes for extending the cuts for the rich while we have a catfood commission saying we must cut social security because we can’t afford it deserves bitching, deserves being voted out of office, and deserves to be [self moderated to avoid making the mods do it]
Especially when an overwhelming majority of Americans agree.
We do zero to protect American jobs. In fact we subsidize and incentivize American companies to outsource our jobs. Banks receiving TARP money still continue to outsource customer service jobs, and 80% of stimulus money for green maufacturing jobs of wind turbines is outsourced to low income countries. We’ve got taxpayers subsidizing companies who ship their jobs oversees. Gee, I wonder why people are upset. It’s no secret as to why we’ve had flat wages for 30 years and why we have an unemployment problem.
I’ll do u one better. Where is Madame Defarge when we need her?
We all know none of this makes any sense from our perspective, but the Village is part of Reagan world were u give everything to the rich because they’re rich. Reason , good politics , smart economics none of it counts in Reagan World. Rich people get what they want when they want it and that’s that. What the rest of us think is less then irrelevant.
Then why is the Obama administration fighting to lower the tax on dividends to 20 %? Why is this disheartening parroting of the Republican shtick that sitting on one’s duff and using money to make more money is more important to the economy and should be rewarded with a lower tax rate than making money from one’s labor doing things which are tangibly real?
More Obama drinking the Reaganomics Kool-Aid, it seems.
StewartM
Another problem that I have is that it’s not just that the Dems like to hike taxes, they spend the money like…it was other people’s money. They are way too loose with spending as it is. They make cuts where they shouldn’t (the military) and spend more of things that should be cut (welfare). They’ve got their priorities mixed up big time.
rotflmao — and we all know there’s not a dime wasted in defense spending.
aHAHAHA — stop me before my side splits wiiide open
“They make cuts where they shouldn’t (the military)…”
The United States spends more on the military than every other country in the world combined. How is that possibly necessary?
http://truemajority.org/oreos/
more from true majority
http://truemajority.org/csba/priorities.php
The U.S. spends more on our military than most countries because we use it more often. I think there are countries in the mid-east that spend more (as a share of GDP) than we do, but still.
The same goes with healtcare. The reason we spend more on healthcare is because it’s better quality. It’s like comapring a used car to a mercedes. One is better, and it costs more.
We are ranked 37th in health care outcomes in the world. I call that model T quality.
Joffen: until you and other conservatives are ready to be serious about cutting needless spending on our military, then I find your comment about how Dems just want to spend money on welfare beyond ridiculous and into being quite insulting.
I spent a lot of time today (which I did freely) discussing the need for jobs and improving infrastructure. NOT ONCE did I talk about welfare, and notice: no one else did here, either. YOU DID. Why are you suggesting that now? You might want to consider my question with some thoughtfulness. Who here talked about welfare EXCEPT you? And why did you?
Secondly, WHY are we so “obligated” to have a huge military? The fact is: we’re not. Who assigned us the role of police force to the world? We did. We can bow out of that at any time.
It has been proven over and over that Bush LIED to get us into an unnecessary, useless and way too expensive war in Iraq (if not Afganistan) for no reason other than for all those super wealthy folks – who you seem to want to give magnimous tax cuts to – to make money out of that war – either thru defense contract spending often on no-bid contracts or on Iraq oil, amongst other things.
What I don’t get is why conservatives are always so darn willing to spend and spend and spend and spend on killing people, bombing countries back to the stone age and not getting much of anything out of it (except that the wealthy laugh all the way to the bank).
Our health care sucks. If you think that this is the mercedes of health care, then you’re not trying very hard to see reality.
Over in England.
“Coalition”, huh.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/10/coalition-cuts-poor-tuc
I agree. Many of my conversations with conservatives seem to go this way. I’m willing to proceed as long as people are polite. That said, we’ve rounded this corner numerous times.
There is this cosmic disconnect, I fear, where – to me – it seems as if conservatives just want to toss money at zillionaires for no real reason other than that – somehow, somewhere, some day – these zillionaires *might* decide to “create jobs.” You can quote facts and figures ’till your blue in the face disproving this concept, but they all seem to get back to the same RushGlenn talking point (interestingly enough) about how “rich people bleed, too.” I’ve heard that quote so often, I cannot count how many times. And Joffen said it here today. They must really say that a lot on Fox, I guess.
And then, wait for it: it’s simply the best to spend insane amounts of money on the military (where it’s been endlessly proven how much waste there is, if nothing else), but geez, let’s get our knickers in a twist about welfare, which is what? Like less than one half of one percent of the GDP or something? God forbid we should feed a poor person when we could kill someone halfway across the planet at great expense.
Makes no sense, but there you have it.
Hey, I wasn’t trying to change the subject. What I was saying fits with why I don’t want the Dems to raise more taxes. Our priorities on taxes and spending are two sides of the same coin.
Do you want me to respond to the rest of what you wrote, about Bush and Iraq and all that, or are you going to jump down my throat again?
It has always puzzled me as to why fat cat Democrats continue to raise taxes.
Then, along came the search for a new Secretary of the Treasury. Turns out Obama had to hunt high and low for a Democrat that at least looked honest. He finally settled on minor tax cheat Timothy Geithner because it became increasingly obvious that honest Democrats are exceedingly rare. Yes, they love to raise taxes because they don’t pay them anyway.
The Los Angeles Times just released the fact that 41 Obama White House aides owe $831,000 in back taxes!
So much for a moral and ethical government.
I hope enough of this kind of dirt will continue to come out and the American voters will act accordingly.
Taxing the crap out of the rich is monumentally stupid since they are the ones that hire people, invest in the nation and build companies.
The Bush tax cuts must be renewed and made permanent.
It’s a shame all the brilliant “progressives” can’t think of anything better for the country than the Bush tax cuts but let’s run with the entire package.
Last guy in WH to hike taxes: Republican
Last guy in WH to cut defense: Republican
Last guy in WH to cut welfare: Democrat
Federal budget deficit under last Republican: almost tripled
Last time Federal budget deficit dropped: Democrat
You must be talking about George H. W. Bush? If I had to guess…the reason Bush hiked taxes is because he had a Democratic Senate. Presidents don’t write tax laws, Congress does. But you know that…
Same thing with cutting defense spending. Guess who controls defense spending? Congress. The Dems controlled Congress when Bush I was President.
Yeah, but who controlled Congress when that happened? Republicans. The President does not write tax law.
Yeah, a huge surge in military spending with two wars will do that.
If I am wrong about Bush II cutting defense spending, feel free to correct me.
Now to all of those here that continue to insist that we must learn to have a dialogue with those from the other side, please explain to to me how someone living in reality could possibly have a productive dialogue with teh level of rightwing propaganda and fantasyland displayed in this very thread.
When 45,000 people die every year because of our healthcare system AND we’re ranked 37th in the world in outcomes and someone insists that this is high quality, how far down into the rabbit hole must you be to even comprehend that?
Or our priorities should be in spending more on killing people and less on helping people. I wish those folks would respond in threads like this so I could learn how we’re supposed to have such a dialogue, because IMO I may as well be talking to my couch as to try and even respond to this alternate universe where the sky is obviously green and the grass is red.
Yes and no, Joffen. Compare what you – via your taxes – spend on the military v. what you – via your taxes – spend on welfare, and then come back tell me how we’re talking about “2 sides of the same coin.” I think your it’s a very, very false equivalency to compare spending on the military with spending on welfare. I could only wish we spent as little on the military as we spend on welfare.
I do get upset about that false equivalency bc I feel that you aren’t doing your homework (sorry if I sound rude, but that’s how it feels to me) when you compare the two. I feel like that’s lazy thinking to toss out that unbridled spending on the military – without any really good reason to do so other than “that’s what we do” – as some sort of comparison to spending on welfare. It’s lazy; it’s a false equivalency; and frankly welfare isn’t what’s driving us into the hole.
In my youth I was quite the pacifistic peacenik; in some ways I probably still am. But my main concern with current spending levels on the military is due to my fiscal conservativism. We, as a nation, are being bankrupted by these unnecessary wars. These wars are serving to enrich the extremely wealthy at the top, and yet, conservatives (witness the other conservative here now chiding us) just want to keep to giving tax breaks to zillionaires on the false expectation that they’ll somehow “create jobs” but only if we coddle up to them with continued low taxes.
We’ve given you lots of links, lots of facts, Joffen, and you keep giving me the same “arguments” with no facts to back them up… other than that it’s your “feeling” that zillionaires will – somehow, somewhere, at some unspecified time in the far distant future – “create jobs.”
I don’t see, my friend. But I wish you well. Thanks for the conversation. Respond if you want. I really gotta go now.
One parting thought: if you read up on your history, you will learn that over and over again empires have crashed and burned basically because of the same things that we’re seeing now in our society: a very small percentage of people own the biggest amount of the wealth; there’s a loss of the middle class (hence cutting demand) and a continued lowering of income on the middle and lower classes; and the imperial gov’t continues to extend itself way beyond it’s borders, engaging in spying, wars and various other expensive nation-building exercises (most of which are of fiscal gain to the rich and powerful at the top but come at the expense of the rest of the population).
Don’t believe me? Go read your history, my friend. What we have happening here is as old as mankind. You may want to think I’m a leftie kook who’s stupid or something; that’s your choice. But I surmise that you might also – somewhere inside of you – be seeking real information.
I really encourage you to read some history – try Rome, try Alexander the Great, try Ghengis Khan. They’re interesting and exciting, but also very real and very insightful.
Gotta run. Cheerio.
It does stagger the imagination. Something about living in denial…
Things are not that simple. Military spending is not about “killing people”. It is about protecting our national security and national interests. The issue of welfare spending isn’t simply about “helping people” either. I believe people should be more self-reliant. It should be a shame to be on welfare or social assistance, even if it’s necessary.
No issue is so black and white.
As far as our healthcare goes, I know it’s not perfect. But I guess in a universal healthcare system, no one would die while waiting for a doctor or treatment, right? Someone with a severe injury wouldn’t have to wait hours on end in the ER?
It’s easy to knock an argument down if you simplify it too much. That’s ot the world we live in.
The welfare system is supposed to be there for people who absolutely need it. It’s obviously become more than that. The U.S. spends an awful lot of welfare and the military, I guess we just disagree on what is necessary spending and what is not.
Also, I’m sure some of you have read that the stimulus has cost more than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2009/01/29/us-stimulus-to-cost-more-than-iraq-afghan-war-so-far/
How do you square that with what some people here say? How are those two wars bankrupting us and not the Democrats’ misguided spending priorities?
I googled “U.S. ranking health care.
http://smartgirlnation.com/2009/06/popular-ranking-unfairly-misrepresents-the-us-health-care-system/
You know what? Maybe…just maybe…my opinions are actually based on real things…!
Can I just add one more thing: please don’t insult me by implying that I’m mindlessly getting fed b.s. by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. I mean, come on. I don’t say you’re being brainwashed by MSNBC and Michael Moore, do I?
We’re all just anonymous people here. I wouldn’t know any of you if you were living next door. But I know a few things about each of you already. I know you hold your values dear. I know you have reached your views through careful deliberation and thought. Is it too much to ask you to view me the same way?
Bold mine. IMO it’s too much to ask, because I have ZERO respect for folks that share this “I’ve got mine and fuck everybody else” mentality. None.
Almost everything you’ve said resembles right wing talking points instead of reality, so the only way you’re repeating them is that you’re getting fed this bs, and it is bs, from somewhere.
And as far as insulting goes, I have a hard time thinking of anything more insulting to me than saying because I’m disabled and taking disability payments every month from the government that I should be ashamed. You can shove that shit right up the place where the other shit resides.
My mom is disabled and gets a check every single month from the government. Without that check, she wouldn’t have any money for food and shelter. That’s what I meant by, “even if it’s necessary”. I suppose I could have phrased it differently, in fact, I should have. However, I sure as hell do not have that “I’ve got mine and %$@# everyone else” mentality.
If a certain group believes certain things, I guess you can describe them as “talking points”. I guess Muslims have “Mohammed talking points”, Jews have “Jew talking points” and so on.
Reminder that comments which include namecalling or insults will be removed from the thread.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
A six year difference in average life expectancy between Macau (#1) and the U.S. (#49) apparently shows that we should all be following Macau’s model of health care? Suuuure.
Nobody is getting punished here. Everybody is putting in fair proportionate share to the common pool to improve shared resources for the future creation of goods and services.
In Progressive tax system we have the rich are taxed at the same level as FDL bloggers and FDL readers for the income FDL bloggers and FDL readers make. I hope previous statement was not a revelation for you regarding punishment aspect. Only the income they make above and beyond is taxed higher. Since those revenues are from the shared resources maintained by the government due to taxes like schools creating next generation of work force, highways to transport goods around, clean water for creating consumables etc. it is a fair method of taxation. The incentive to earn more who are willing to hard and smart is still there. They end up richer than rest of the bunch who are willing to work from 8 to 5 PM and spend rest of the time with bah humbug activities
At the blogs here we look at the policies and the results all based on facts and logic. Main worry on the site here if you followed for sometime is we are not going back to Pres. Eisenhower progressive top 90% rates which showed not only America can take care of its own returning GIs by providing college education but also our allies and previous foes by getting them back on feet, having the biggest economic expansion in the history of our country without driving deficits sky high as seen now. No wonder paid MSM never talks about Pres. Eisenhower and Pres. Theodore Roosevelt since main stream will realize who progressive taxation has kept and will keep USA as the sole super power in the world with its economic engine expanding.
There is so much misdirection in this comment, I don’t even know where to begin.
So I will go with this:
Detail for us please the results you say are achieved by going light on the rich, with George W. Bush’s tax cuts as an exemplar.
Show your work, please. Charts, graphs, stat sheets, whatever you can conjure up will be fine. Explain how giving back to the rich increased employment. Explain how anything but the housing
marketracket went the way your assumptions predict. Oh, wait – the housing racket – never mind. You won’t get much help there.IOW, Explain the Bush Boom.
(From Rising Hegemony via The Sideshow)
“One member of the DLC’s executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively–meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.”
One more piece of the puzzle falls into place: Koch Industries and a couple of Koch executives are behind the DLC. Rahm Emanuel once headed the DLC. He rubbed shoulders with these conservative Koch kooks. Koch Industries, with its John Birch Society background, infiltrated the Democratic Party through the DLC within years after one of the Koch brothers failed in his Libertarian Party bid, basically, it appears, to turn the Democratic Party into a weak-sister conservative branch of the Republican Party.
Thus, all the Blue Dog Democrat conservative candidates over the years, literally driving a wedge between the Democratic Party and labor unions, undercutting the traditional liberal progressive policies of the Democratic Party, strengthening the wing-nut Republican Party in the process. I had not realized that the vast right-wing conspiracy was so vast, so pervasive, so evil, and so dangerous to our democracy.
It will take more than God to save America from this kind of conservative evil. And we shouldn’t look to the Obama administration. It has too many close connections to the John Birch Society-tainted Koch Industries-infiltrated DLC.
Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Protection Agency, even if a recess appointment is necessary? Not if the Koch-controlled DLCers have their way. Why hasn’t President Obama used his power of recess appointments to ram his nominees past the obstructionist Republicans in the Senate, instead letting so many nominees (like Dawn Johnsen) die on the vine, both last year and this one? Same reason. President Obama and many of his top officials are in bed with the DLCers-Kochers.
And so many other moves by President Obama now make sense in light of this new information about the DLC-Koch connection. The response to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster afterward, as well as the Obama administration leaving so many industry-friendly Koch-types in place at MMSA beforehand. Not prosecuting former Bush/Cheney officials for crimes they committed. The relatively weak healthcare reform bill, with no public option or universal single payer making it past the DLC-Koch formulative stage. The Obama administration keeping in place, and even defending, some of the most anti-American policies of the previous Republican administration, keeping alive the “unitary executive” abomination for the next Republican president to exploit. President Obama establishes a “bi-partisan” deficit commission which then veers off into addressing Social Security, even though Social Security adds nothing to the deficit. And President Obama refuses to threaten the use of his veto power if Congress dares to take up the Bush tax cuts by years end, sending him a bill to sign, instead of Congress doing nothing and just letting the Koch-friendly Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. President Obama appears to be up to his neck in Koch.
And just like Koch and the DLCers hanging together, Koch and the Teabaggers hang together, too, making the DLCers and Teabaggers Koch-suckers.