taxes

Robert Reich Debunks 6 Big GOP Lies About The Economy

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Worth watching. The lies are these – (watch the video to see how he debunks them):

  1. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations will trickle down to benefit the middle class and the poor. Corporations are having higher profits now than we have seen in 35 years. Ratio of profits to wages is higher now than it ever has been since before the Great Depression of the 1930s.
  2. If you shrink government you create jobs. (No, you get rid of jobs that way.)
  3. High taxes on the rich hurts the economy. (No, the economy grew when the US did this under Eisenhower.)
  4. Debt is to be avoided and it is mostly caused by Medicare. (No, if debt is properly used to grow the economy, it becomes a smaller part of the budget because of increased revenue and Medicare has the lowest overhead of any health insurance plan out there.)
  5. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (No, its solid for 26 years. Social Security is solid beyond that if the rich pay the same percentage in social security taxes as the rest of us do.)
  6. We need to tax the poor. (This is what Republicans have been proposing when they say any “tax reform” needs to involve all Americans because poor people pay no income tax. The poor have no money and taxing them will not solve our budget problems.)
Continue ReadingRobert Reich Debunks 6 Big GOP Lies About The Economy

Pay your damned taxes, deadbeat

“Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of Society, as it is for him to make land originally. Separate an individual from Society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire… He cannot become rich…. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands produce, is derived to him from living in Society; and he owes, on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilisation, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.”

Thomas Paine – “Agrarian Justice”, 1797

Continue ReadingPay your damned taxes, deadbeat

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CNN: Money Fact check: Plumber Joe’s taxes

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According to CNN Money small business owners will not see an increase in taxes.

McCain has entrepreneurs spooked about tax hikes, but fewer than 2% of small business owners (that you can check them out here) would pay more under Obama’s plan.

…

Should small business owners fear for their wallets if Obama is elected? Not the vast majority, business and tax experts say.

…

Third, even if you’re one of the rare business owners making enough money to be affected by Obama’s proposed tax increases, you still won’t see a big hike in your tax bill.

McCain’s claim that Obama “will increase taxes on 50% of small business revenue” – the line he used in the second presidential debate – is incorrect because of how income is taxed.

If a business owner falls into the top bracket, that doesn’t mean that all of his or her income is taxed at the highest level.

For example: If a small-business owner makes $210,000 in taxable income, he edges into the 33% bracket, one of the two top tax rates that Obama would like to raise.

But he would pay the higher tax only on the amount that exceeds the cutoff – in 2007, the two top tax rates applied to single filers with income of $160,850 or more and joint filers with income of at least $195,850. As a single filer, this business owner would see his federal taxes increase $1,475 under Obama’s plan, which calls for raising the 33% tax rate to 36%.

“While Obama does favor raising the top two rates, the quote is not true because not all the small business income of those in the top two rates is taxed at the 33% and 35% rates,” said Gerald Prante, a senior economist at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

The bottom line: McCain’s claim only works by using an overly broad definition of what counts as a “small business” – and even with that definition, fewer than 2% of business owners would be hit by Obama’s proposed rate increase. For those who are affected, the increase would be levied only on a part of their earnings, not all of them.

Continue ReadingCNN: Money Fact check: Plumber Joe’s taxes

The Myth of Big Government Liberals

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Atrios has a dead-on post about the myth of “Big Goverment Liberals.”

I don’t know any “big government liberals” in the sense that Andy means. I don’t know anybody who gets a stiffy at the thought of raising taxes and increasing government spending as a share of GDP just for the hell of it. Liberals I know tend to think there are things government should do and we should, roughly, figure out how to pay for those things, though we’re not entirely allergic to deficit spending. When taxes have to go up to cover interest and debt repayment costs no liberals I know are going to go “YAY! HIGHER TAXES! WOO HOOO!”
For a long time the Left was tarred as idealistic utopians, addicted to ways of doing things no matter what the consequences. I have no real opinion on whether that criticism was ever true, but in any case it’s something which has been embraced wholesale by the Right. They have a small government fetish, and that fetish is linked almost entirely to the top marginal federal income tax rate. Liberals have no such corresponding fetish for “big government” even if they tend to be fans of some government programs conservatives like to demonize as being “big government liberalism.” No one’s going to enjoy sweeping up after Bush’s fiscal train wreck.

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When you pay attention to work, you miss all the good stuff

For the past couple days, StAllio! has been covering a fun controversy brewing in Indiana politics concerning the “Bloody 8th” congressional district race between Republican incumbent and right-wing loony John Hostetler, and his hottie Democrat opponent, Sheriff Brad Ellsworth.
Ellsworth’s daughter is an IU student, and happened to have a facebook page where she’s alleged to have had pictures of herself holding what might have been a bottle of beer, or might have been a bottle of root beer. I’ve seen the pictures, and I couldn’t tell. Similarly, Maggie Daniels, the daughter of Mitch Daniels, had pictures that appeared to show her engaging in underage drinking on her facebook page.
Fellow IU student Joshua Claybourn has a blog at In the Agora, where someone provided links to these two facebook pages. Claybourn, being a Republican and an employee supporter of Hostettler, proceeded to send the Ellsworth link to the newspapers, while concealing the Daniels link.
Chaos ensued, Claybourn was attacked, then he tried to cover up his involvement, blah blah blah. Go read the story at StAllio’s page, which has been published on Atrios, BTW. I’m so jealous.

Continue ReadingWhen you pay attention to work, you miss all the good stuff

President Washington Used Electronic Wiretaps

“President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.” — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales while testifying before congress on illegal wiretapping
No, I’m not shitting you, he really said that, and you can see the video yourself.
Can I also point out that aside from the fact that there weren’t electronics in Washington’s time — he was also fighting the Revolutionary War. You know, the one we had before the Constitution that makes this stuff illegal. So, technically, if he had some electronics with medium voltage cable, and, you know, so did the British, he would legally have been allowed to wiretap them, on accounta, we didn’t have a government yet.
But can I just point out that Gonzales is one of the brilliant minds running our country?

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Economics and Republican fantasy

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I’ve said it before, but let me repeat it: There is a finite amount of money. I’m not a communist… I love capitalism. But reality prompts me to point out that we don’t have unlimited amounts of cash.
If we increase our spending at the same time we cut taxes, we’re going to wind up with a huge debt that we can’t pay. If we can’t pay the bills now, how are we going to pay them in the future? In the future people will have become attached to tax cuts, and they won’t want to pay more. They’ll also be attached to government services that they don’t want to give up. We will never be able to get out of debt.
When are the Republicans ever going to get a grip on reality? I don’t carry any debt in my own life. I certainly don’t want the government to do so. We need a good democratic presidential candidate…. and fast.

Continue ReadingEconomics and Republican fantasy