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The Rich Pay State and Local Taxes at Half the Rate the Rest of Us Do

Source: AlterNet

February 20, 2015

Roads are crumbling, bridges require repairs, schools need upgrades and public pension systems remain underfunded. How can states and cities find the money to address any of these problems? One way could be through their tax codes.

According to a new report, if the rich paid the same state and local tax rate as the middle class, states and cities would have hundreds of billions of dollars more a year in public revenue.

Last month, the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the poorest 20 percent of households pay on average more than twice the effective state and local tax rate (10.9 percent) as the richest 1 percent of taxpayers (5.4 percent).

That preceded the new report from the left-leaning groups Good Jobs First and the Keystone Research Center which finds that if tax laws were changed to compel the highest income earners to pay the same rate as everyone else, states and localities would rake in up to $128 billion a year in new revenue. If just the top 1 percent of earners were compelled to pay the typical middle-class tax rate, the report says the change would raise more than $68 billion in new annual revenues.

Read more: http://www.alternet.org/economy/filthy-dirty-rotten-stinking-hotel-fines-couple-leaving-bad-review

Real Time with Bill Maher: A System of Racism (Contains Violent Footage)

From last week's show:

'Frozen' Niagara Falls drawing tourists to winter spectacle

Source: AP

Feb. 20, 2015 10:20 AM EST



NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — The winter's deep freeze has transformed Niagara Falls into an icy spectacle, encasing the trees around it into crystal shells and drawing tourists who are braving below-zero temperatures.

The Niagara River keeps flowing below the ice cover, so the falls aren't completely frozen over. But the massive ice buildup near the brink has become a tourist magnet for the second straight year after several relatively mild winters.

Visitors have been flocking to Niagara Falls State Park, next to the American Falls, one of three waterfalls that make up the natural attraction. Days of subzero temperatures have created a thick coating of ice and snow on every surface near the falls, including railings, trees and boulders.

Things aren't expected to thaw out soon: Temperatures dipped to 7 below zero in Niagara Falls on Friday morning.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2905de37b9884896b8cceab8eed53ea7/frozen-niagara-falls-drawing-tourists-winter-spectacle

Clinton foundation’s global network overlaps with family’s political base

Source: Washington Post

February 18 at 9:30 PM

Since its creation in 2001, the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has raised close to $2 billion from a vast global network that includes corporate titans, political donors, foreign governments and other wealthy interests, according to a Washington Post review of public records and newly released contribution data.

The total, representing cash and pledges reported in tax filings, includes $262 million that was raised in 2013 — the year Hillary Rodham Clinton stepped down as secretary of state and began to devote her energies to the foundation and to a likely second run for president.

The financial success of the foundation, which funds charitable work around the world, underscores the highly unusual nature of another Clinton candidacy. The organization has given contributors entree, outside the traditional political arena, to a possible president. Foreign donors and countries that are likely to have interests before a potential Clinton administration — and yet are ineligible to give to U.S. political campaigns — have affirmed their support for the family’s work through the charitable giving.

The Post review of foundation data, updated this month on the group’s Web site to reflect giving through 2014, found substantial overlap between the Clinton political machinery and the foundation. Nearly half of the major donors who are backing Ready for Hillary, a group promoting her 2016 presidential bid, as well as nearly half of the bundlers from her 2008 campaign, have given at least $10,000 to the foundation, either on their own or through foundations or companies they run.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clintons-raised-nearly-2-billion-for-foundation-since-2001/2015/02/18/b8425d88-a7cd-11e4-a7c2-03d37af98440_story.html?hpid=z3

New York state lawsuit claims UPS shipped untaxed cigarettes

Source: AP

Feb. 18, 2015 12:20 PM EST

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York authorities have accused United Parcel Service in a federal lawsuit of shipping 700,000 cartons of untaxed cigarettes in the state between 2010 and 2014 despite an earlier agreement to stop.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and New York City Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter are seeking $180 million from Atlanta-based UPS, saying the cheap cigarettes increased smoking by New Yorkers while also costing $29.7 million in lost tax revenue.

The lawsuit claims UPS shipped unstamped cigarettes from at least six unlicensed vendors on Indian reservations.

UPS denies it knowingly shipped cigarettes, saying it agreed in 2005 to stop delivering cigarettes to consumers nationwide.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6f7f8460c26c47fb8e4931526265ca1b/new-york-state-lawsuit-claims-ups-shipped-untaxed

Fox and Friends Beyond Outraged at Holder: He’s ‘Tougher on Fox’ Than on ISIS

Published on 18 Feb 2015 - Text from Mediaite:

Attorney General Eric Holder called out Fox News yesterday for fixating on the Obama’s administraton’s terminology for ISIS. “If Fox didn’t talk about this, they would have nothing else to talk about, it seems to me,” said at the National Press Club.

The morning troika at Fox & Friends were beyond outraged by this. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” said a flabbergasted Elisabeth Hasselbeck. “You have 21 Coptic Christians beheaded on a shoreline. You have 45 people burned alive, and this is on the heels of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive via video that we’ve all had to see that gruesome attack on humanity alone. Yet Fox is the problem? wow.”

“They want to kill us and yet the Attorney General, chief law enforcement officer for the United States of America, is bugged by the fact that Fox brings up the accurate point they are Islamic extremists, let’s call it Islamic extremism,” Steve Doocy said. “Obviously this administration talks tougher about Fox News than they do about ISIS, which, that’s sad.”