Welcome to the Grand Illusion
Yes, I welcome Styx fans.
Well, it seems we sort of have another Super-Committee working to find a "grand bargain" to solve our very serious debt problem. Omigosh, did you hear? The debt limit had to be raised - again. We have to do something.
Yet, we the people are being asked to accept a "grand compromise" between Republicans and Democrats.
However, the Republican position going in to negotiations is - the Ryan budget. This budget promises to balance the budget in ten years. But they start on the revenue side with a brand new idea for Republicans - tax cuts, and in another huge break with precedence, they are tax cuts where the rich get most - if not all of the benefits.
The Ryan budget DOES call for increases in tax revenue, but they do not say how that will happen in combination with the tax rate CUTS which they do specify. They say they will close loopholes and eliminate deductions (maybe that darned standard deduction that all those working people take to avoid paying their fair share). They cannot specify the loopholes because then people would be able to do the math and show their plan simply WILL NOT WORK. It is apparently a faith-based plan requiring Jesus to return and instead of turning water into wine, he will turn tax cuts into increases in revenue. Praise the Lord.
So, we start this Grand Illusion with one side having a position based on some combination of fantasy and lies. And some parts of the media will blame Democrats who do not "compromise" with such dishonest brokers.
Are Democrats saying very much about this basic problem in this 'negotiation"?
But what about the dishonesty of the Democrats? Not to raise the spectre of a dreaded false equivalency, but Democratic Politicians do not seem very honest to me either - most of them anyway.
First of all, by acting like a "grand bargain" is even possible or would somehow be beneficial. Second, by being half-hearted about revenue increases. Obama has proposed the Buffett rule, for one, which would raise a mere $50 billion or so over the next decade.
One thing they clearly can't talk about is their own Ryan-like deception. The fact that many of them already voted in favor of almost $6 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade.
Yes, I said almost $6 trillion - a number you have probably never heard. I had been using the number $3.7 trillion http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022130101
but it turns out I was wrong, or mis-led.
See, that $3.7 trillion number does not include the AMT patch, which was also made PERMANENT as part of the ATRA-(zine) legislation which was passed with Democratic votes and signed by Obama. The cost of THAT was kept hidden because, as Congress always does it (why?) it was already included in the baseline and thus the $1.9 trillion which it will cost over the next decade was not included in the cost calculations.
Isn't it wonderful how our politicians can sweep facts right under the rug?
So the real total (until I discover even MORE tax breaks swept under the rug) is $5.6 trillion - almost $6 trillion.
Now, because I am kind of obsessive about it, let's look at how the $5.6 trillion in tax cuts which DEMOCRATS passed are distributed. I already did this for the $3.7 trillion. Who gets the $1.9 trillion from the AMT patch?
The media will tell you it is the middle class. CTJ (Citizens for Tax Justice) disputes that. http://www.ctj.org/pdf/amtpatchisnotstimulus.pdf
Because that chart is for the Senate proposal from 2009, I cannot be sure those numbers hold for the ATRA's AMT patch, but they are the only numbers I had and since the AMT patch is pretty standard, they should be close.
They show that only 2.5% of the benefits of the patch go to the top 1%. Which is pretty good. But an astounding 43% go to the top 5% and an even more astounding 92.6% of the benefits go to the richest 20%.
So the AMT patch provides tax cuts to the top 5% of $817 billion over the next decade. Combined with the $1.3 trillion in tax cuts from ATRA gives them $2.1 trillion in PERMANENT tax cuts - to the richest 5%.
Well it sure will be nice if the Buffett rule gets $.05 trillion of that back.
But that is something that Democrats are not going to talk about - those $2.1 trillion in tax cuts for the richest 5% that they just voted FOR. Nor will they mention the $4.15 trillion in tax cuts for the richest 20% that they just voted for.
That's the Democratic Party's lie. That they will not bother to mention something like "hey, if we are concerned about the debt, how about undoing the $2.1 trillion in tax cuts we just gave to the richest 5% of Americans"
Of course, if they tried to talk about it, the richest 5% would probably fire them and buy another Congressperson, and as for the media? Well, they are largely owned by the richest 5% too.
But I have this Grand Illusion that I can help to make those two numbers part of the public discussion.
$2,1 trillion in tax cuts for the richest 5%
$4.1 trillion in tax cuts for the richest 20%
Remember them, use them, email them to your Congressperson and your local newspaper. Show me a "grand bargain" that reduces the deficit by more than $4 trillion.
= new reply since forum marked as read
"The New York Times has used" the quintiles to define class. It has assigned the quintiles from lowest to highest as bottom fifth, lower middle, middle, upper middle, and top fifth.[
Instead of laying that on the Times, making it sound like some concoction of the Librul Media or the M$M, it should say "Some social scientists use"
The quintiles, from that, are
bottom 20% - under $20,260
2nd 20% - under $38,515
middle 20% - under $62,434
bottom 60% - under $62,434
4th 20% - under $101,577
top 20% - over $101,577
top 5% - over $186,000
Although the Times chart is kinda cool http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_01.html
Except it makes me no longer a Eugene Debs ("if there is a lower class, I am in it"
As a janitor, I was at the 12th percentile, but as a janitorial supervisor I am 23rd percentile. Education should not be included, in my opinion. My master's degree puts me in the 97th percentile for education, but since one of the main points of education is to get a better paying job with more prestige, being 97th percentile in education is kind of a moot point if you are still 12th or 23rd percentile in occupation.
Apparently they use individual income instead of household income. My individual income puts me at 56th percentile and household income puts me at only 35th. I think household income is more relevant than individual. For wealth, they put me at 85th percentile, which is ridiculous. I had to adjust that down since I am far closer to $100,000 than I am to $500,000 and they lumped that whole group together.
Still puts me at 45th percentile, maybe because I am old. Well out of the bottom 20%.
Where do I have to start?
Do we agree that 2+2=4?
Is the square root of 43,046,721 equal to 6561?
*Can we agree on that?
Okay, moving on
On January 1, 2013 Congress passed a disgusting bill called the American Taxpayer Relief Act (or ATRA for short) and the next day Obama signed it.
*Are we still good, except for your quibble over the word 'disgusting'?
Democrats in the House voted for this excrement by 172-16
Democrats in the Senate voted for this excrement by 50-3
*Still good? (except for the descriptor?)
Instead of passing that bill, Congress COULD have passed a bill changing the tax structure. They could (in theory) have done anything they wanted with tax rates, the tax structure, etc., etc., etc.
They did NOT have to pass the stupid bill that they passed, and Obama did NOT have to sign it. "There are always alternatives." (saith Mr. Spock)
*Do we still agree on that? That's true, right?
Now, perhaps we get to the heart of the disagreement. What was the impact of that odious piece of legislation?
Now, the Joint Committee on Taxation - not me, mind you, but the JCT says the bill ATRA will reduce revenue. It is a $3.7 trillion tax cut. But that does not include the $1.9 trillion lost due to the permanent AMT patch.
This is where Obama disagrees. Obama likes to use the Republican baseline, the Republican perspective. Perhaps because that baseline makes him look like less of a weasel.
the Whitehouse site says this:
"The relevant point of comparison isn't current law, it is “current policy” – those policies that were in place on December 31st, the day before all of these changes were scheduled to take effect. Different organizations, ranging from the Bowles-Simpson Fiscal Commission to the House Budget Committee, have considered this current policy baseline to be the appropriate reference point, since it measures changes relative to the status quo, rather than the mix of expiring provisions and policy changes that would likely never be implemented."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/01/01/american-taxpayer-relief-act-reduces-deficits-737-billion
Note well WHOSE side Obama is taking there. The side of Bowles-Simpson and the side of the Republican lead House Budget Committee.
Taking that perspective Obama and Congressional Democrats could have just kept ALL of the Bush tax cuts, except $1 and called THAT a "tax increase" instead of a massive tax cut.
And what did we used to say about the Bush tax cuts?
Was it that most of the benefits went to the rich?
Presumably we wanted to end that outrage and that is one of the reasons we voted for Obama and Democrats. It certainly was for ME.
The very people who betrayed us by NOT ending that outrage.
Instead of getting rid of most of the Bush tax cuts, they voted to make most of them permanent.
Well, according to Obama's perspective (and the Republican perspective), keeping 100% of the Bush tax cuts and making them permanent is NOT a huge tax cut.
I say that it is.
And I say the same thing about making 85% of the Bush tax cuts permanent. And I say the same thing about the permanent AMT patch.
Look at the facts and see WHO benefits from those laws.
As to what the Whitehouse wrote about "changes that would likely never be implemented"
Well, that depends, does it not, on what people fight for. We elected Obama because he promised "change you can believe in" and said "yes we can".
Instead of making those changes or even FIGHTING for those changes, Obama opted to betray us, and took Congressional Democrats (at least some of them, others of those oily slimebuckets doubtless went willingly (yes, Herb Kohl, I AM looking at you))
I am quite sure all of this verbiage will not convince you, or force you to admit the truth that you really know, and you will just respond with something like "more spin" or "more nonsense" and maybe a few 
thrown in just for the heck of it, and to be aggravating, or even some nonsense about how "the tax structure is progressive".
But I am always happy to kick my own thread, and there I have laid it out, in ways that hopefully even a sixth grader could understand.
