December 28, 2012

"Rubin and his allies control the Democratic Party with their money"

"Rubin and his allies control the Democratic Party with their money at the moment. Their financial power will not be easily overcome. However, it is important that people understand that the Rubin-Clinton team is every bit as much about redistributing money from the rest of us to the very rich as the Republicans."

From Dean Baker http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/26-0

"Their financial power will not be easily overcome."

There seem to be those here who suggest that those of us from the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" are not loyal Democrats because we would attack the perfidity of the Rubin wing of the Democratic Party.

Let me once again link to, listen to and quote Ted Kennedy

"I am asking you to renew the commitment of the Democratic Party to economic justice"

"The serious issue before us tonight, is the cause for which the Democratic Party has stood in its finest hours ... our cause has been, since the days of Thomas Jefferson, the cause of the common man, and the common woman. Our cimmitment has been, since the days of Andrew Jackson, to all those he called "the humble members of society" - the farmers, mechanics and laborers. On this foundation we have defined our values, refined our policies and refreshed our faith."

A deal that heavily favors the top 20% over the bottom 40% is NOT a deal worthy of that heritage.

The Rubin wing is happy to accept and fight for such a deal, but I am not. Nor am I willing to just roll over and accept their domination of the Democratic Party. No, I will stand with the bottom 75%, the common man and the commom woman and hope that they will join together to take our party back.

December 23, 2012

the AMT is not a middle class tax

from Citizens for Tax Justice

http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2012/11/despite_what_youve_heard_the_a.php

"If Congress departs from its annual tradition of steeply reducing the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), 57 percent of the tax will be paid by the richest five percent of Americans and 91 percent of the tax will be paid by the richest fifth of Americans. If Congress does reduce the AMT as usual, almost all of the tax will be paid by the richest five percent of Americans.

The AMT is one of the factors contributing to the hysteria in Washington about the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the point at which several tax cuts expire and several spending cuts go into effect at the end of this year. Lawmakers and observers often mistakenly portray the AMT as a tax that will affect middle-income Americans if it is not controlled."

From 2009, the top 20% got a whopping 92.6% of the benefits from the AMT patch. The top 5% got 43% of the benefits.

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/amtpatchisnotstimulus.pdf

Yet the M$M spreads the message that "we need to patch the AMT to help the MIDDLE CLASS"

I don't think the top 20% is part of the "middle" and the top 5% certainly is not.

December 19, 2012

the tax side of Obama's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad deal

First, a caveat, I cannot be sure that the proposals of today are the same as the proposals of 2010. They have many layers, these proposals do.

But, inevitably, keeping the Bush tax cuts for the first $250,000 in income means that those with more than $250,000 in income will still get tax cuts on that first portion of money, and under that plan somebody with $2 million in income gets bigger tax cuts than somebody with just $70,000 in income, especially if dividends are STILL given favorable treatment.

According to Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), that meant that the top 1% got $40 billion worth of tax cuts per year. The top 4% got another $40 billion and the rest of the top 20% got another $80 billion. The top 20% gets $160 billion and the bottom 40% gets only $42 billion in Obama's original plan. The 2010 plan.

I still think that plan is awful, to favor the top 20% so much over the bottom 40%.

This proposal may have changed from 2010, I don't have that information. But it appears to not have changed, according to CTJ. They show Obama's current proposal bringing in $104 billion in revenue per year, which is about what they showed for the 2010 proposal.

So I still think the $250,000 threshhold favors the rich too much and would like to see ALL the Bush tax cuts expire and have Democrats propose tax cuts that would not favor the rich.

Obama has now proposed, according to many news sources, a $400,000 threshhold. Which means another $16 billion in tax cuts per year - the whole $16 billion going to people with incomes over $250,000. The total over ten years is $222 billion in EXTRA tax cuts going to those with incomes over $250,000. The bottom 20% only get $14 billion, but what the heck, let's offer the top 2% another $16 billion on top of the $40 billion plus they would get from the original deal.

Boehner's counter-offer, which is very likely to pass the House, gives another $33 billion a year in tax cuts - all of it going to those with income over $400,000 - the Republican base, the haves and the have-mores. Yep, Republicans are proposing another $454 billion in tax cuts on top of the $3.2 trillion that Obama is proposing, because they are very worried about the deficit. And they insist that $3.7 trillion in tax cuts (with about a trillion of that going to the richest 1%) have nothing to do with the debt.

It's important though, if you have a Democratic Senator, that they hear from you to vote AGAINST Boehner's deal.

links

for the original deal http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxcompromise2010.pdf

for the new proposals http://www.ctj.org/pdf/latestfiscalcliff.pdf

December 10, 2012

elimination of deductions does not raise near enough in the long term

Because the income at the top keeps growing.

In 1995, the average income of the FAB 400 (the top 400 incomes) was $50.8 million by 2007 it had grown to a whopping $344.8 million. Higher rates would impact that extra $290 million, but eliminating deductions would not. Because all deductions are effectively utilized at $50 million, so there are no more to take to shelter that $290 million.

Just figuring $290 million times 2.6% times 400 is a tax cut of $3 billion per year - and that's just from the top 400, to say nothing of the other multi-millionaires.

It also amounts to an average tax cut of $7.54 million per plutocrat.

And then Republicans will say things like "The country is broke" or "we cannot afford this" or "we cannot afford that".

But we CAN afford $7.5 million tax cuts for each of the 400 richest people in America?