Shrub is pushing his "ownership taxes" plan as a consumption....

[whistle]

...tax plan, thus using quite different terms, but insisting that they are the same. He really has to be called on this whole tax strategy as another reThugliCon of misapplied terms, ideas and concepts that help the rich and burden the middle and lower working class Americans.

<snip>

September 15, 2004, The New York Times
CAMPAIGN 2004: THE BIG ISSUES
Taxes for an Ownership Society

hen President Bush talks about an "ownership society," hold on to your wallet. The slogan, like "compassionate conservative" before it, is sufficiently vague to mean many things to many people, and the few details that Mr. Bush has provided - encouraging more home ownership and offering new tax-sheltered savings plans - seem innocuous enough. But in tax terms, "ownership society" means only one thing: the further reduction, if not the elimination, of taxes on savings and investments, including taxes on dividends and on capital gains on stocks, bonds and real estate. That, in turn, means, by definition, a shift in the tax burden onto wages and salaries - or, put more simply, a wage tax.

The regressive results would be appalling. The richest 1 percent of Americans earn just about one-tenth of total wages and salaries, but almost half of all income from savings and investments - income that would be largely, perhaps entirely, untaxed in an "ownership society." In contrast, taxable wages and salaries make up almost all of the income of most Americans.

<more> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/opinion/15wed1.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=

Help me out please, this is a scam by Bush and the republican congress is it not? They are attempting to ram this through before congress adjourns for the election, so that they can make the claim that their policies will be good for the entrepreneurs and small business people. But I don't believe that one bit and they need to be fully exposed for the fraud that this idea is hiding.

[Joanne98]

1. The "ownership society" wasn't his idea. the IMF came up with it....

JOE STIGLITZ: TODAY’S WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS

by Greg Palast

The World Bank’s former Chief Economist’s accusations are eye-popping - including how the IMF and US Treasury fixed the Russian elections

"It has condemned people to death," the former apparatchik told me. This was like a scene out of Le Carre. The brilliant old agent comes in from the cold, crosses to our side, and in hours of debriefing, empties his memory of horrors committed in the name of a political ideology he now realizes has gone rotten.

And here before me was a far bigger catch than some used Cold War spy. Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist of the World Bank. To a great extent, the new world economic order was his theory come to life.

I "debriefed" Stigltiz over several days, at Cambridge University, in a London hotel and finally in Washington in April 2001 during the big confab of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But instead of chairing the meetings of ministers and central bankers, Stiglitz was kept exiled safely behind the blue police cordons, the same as the nuns carrying a large wooden cross, the Bolivian union leaders, the parents of AIDS victims and the other ‘anti-globalization’ protesters. The ultimate insider was now on the outside.

In 1999 the World Bank fired Stiglitz. He was not allowed quiet retirement; US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, I’m told, demanded a public excommunication for Stiglitz’ having expressed his first mild dissent from globalization World Bank style.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=78&row=1

It's the ARGENTINA plan. Greg palast is the best writer on the subject. Stiglitz is a whistleblower. the ownership society will BANKRUPT the middle class and collapse the dollar. But the Bushies don't care. they're getting paid by the banks to destroy America. big bucks for the bush family. Don't expect the stupid Republican voters to figure it out though. they'd have to read and they don't like too.

[CarolynEC]

2. "George Bush wants to hang the tax burden on your paycheck"

[Supersedeas]

4. Oligarchical Society--for the Have who want to own MORE (secrets out)

[CarolynEC]

5. Hmmm... I was going for something a bit more catch-phrase-y...

... but you're right! :hi:

[Joanne98]

3. Here's what Greg Palast has to say.........

Of all the bone-headed, whacky, breathtakingly threatening schemes George W. Bush tried to sell us in his acceptance speech is something he and his handlers call, "the Ownership Society." Sounds cool, "ownership." Everyone gets a piece of the action. Everyone's a winner as the economy zooms. All boats rise.

Sure. Behind the hooray-for-free-enterprise crapola is that dog-eared game-plan to siphon off Social Security revenues to pay for making Bush's tax cuts for the rich permanent.

Here's what the President has in mind. Social Security is an insurance plan. You pay in, you get back. But it's hard to get your money back when there's a war where the Clinton surplus used to be. It's not the war on terror, or the war in Iraq, though Lord knows those have cost us a bundle with nothing to show for all the lost loot. I'm talking about the class war that Dubya and his Dick Cheney have waged on the average working person.

We're talking an economic Pearl Harbor here. While firemen and policemen went running into falling buildings, the Bushmen were preparing to relieve some gazillionaires, such as say, the Bush family, of the need to pay the taxes that the rest of us pay. Work as a teacher, you pay Social Security and income taxes on every darn penny. Sit on your yacht and speculate in the stock market casino and you are off the hook on taxes on the "capital gains."

http://www.alternet.org/election04/19776/

An economic pearl Harbor. Sounds about right.....

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. A Nation Of Options Traders, Day Traders, Investors, Speculators

The Republicans want to force every single American to become an entrepreneur and speculator regarding their own lives. After being soundly burned in the stock market in the 1980's, I never touched it again and will never invest a dime in the stock market again. I want stability in my life. I don't want to stake my entire life savings, pensions, medical care, etc. in the vissicitudes of a fluctuating market where only the pros and insiders win. I don't want to have to obtain an MBA in addition to whatever other degree or field I pursue. I don't want to be forced to be a businessman just to survive in the society in which I live.

[They_LIHOP]

7. So gaddamn BACKWARDS it's pathetic...

If ANYTHING, we should be doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the GOP is suggesting here. The money that comes in for investors is basically FREE MONEY that is the result of their GAMBLING with the extra money that they bring in, or inherited, or wherever it came from. Similarly, capital gains via things like appreciation of one's home are also essentially 'pennies from heaven'(minus the $ spent on improvements, of course).

In most instances, we are talking about transactions wherein money is simply changing hands, where one party sees a profit for themself (the home seller, for example) and the other party sees a loss from their pocketbook (the home buyer). Another example is the investor making a dividend from the profitability of a company whose stock they've bought. Now, HOW does such a company make a profit? By paying their workers as little as possible, right?

Now, when these sorts of 'profits' happen, it is in no way indicative of any actual WORK being done. No substantive 'goods' are being produced in such transactions. Why not? Well, the house you sold was built long ago, so nothing is really built or made when you sell it. And 'producing dividends' is in no way a 'necessary' component of the process of producing goods or services. Many companies make lots of stuff but don't pay anybody dividends, correct?

All financial shenanigans aside (such as the hegemony of the US petro-dollar), the wealth of any nation is dependent upon what it PRODUCES. Resources must be converted to goods, or a service must be provided which ultimately facilitates goods being produced, in order for a country to prosper in the long run. Therefore it only makes sense that the nation's tax structure should be set up so as to encourage people to do so.

The GOP appears to think it best to set up our tax structure to reward already wealthy people for sitting on their duffs and gambling with, err, investing, their excess cash (which they themselves might NOT have even EARNED, if they inherited it...) with the end result of said gambling to be to REMOVE money from the pockets of the workers or the home buyer or whomever. A tax structure which sticks it to the PEOPLE who do the actual WORK, who produce the goods that contribute to the GNP, is a tax structure that will destroy the wealth, and eventually the fabric, of an entire nation ... but wealthy profiteers won't give a crap, they'll have long ago retired to the freaking Bahamas!

If this tax structure is pushed through it is the clearest indication to date that this country no longer deserves to be called a democracy. In a REAL democracy, this idea would never get out of committee, let alone get ink in a major publication.

Man, this whole idea just totally pisses me OFF. GOD! If ONLY we had:
1)a voting public that was on average at least reasonably well-educated on macroeconomics,
2) a voting public that was at least reasonably well-versed in the tenets of critical-thinking; specifically, and most imporantly, in the area of "logical fallacy"
3) a voting public that had not been systematically brainwashed by the media's deification of extreme wealth. This has led many to surrender to the notion that the rich are 'better', and hence more deserving, than everyone else. The elites have spent a lot of money over the years to create just that impression in the public's mind, and their investments will have paid off HUGE if they are indeed successful in getting this measure off the ground.
4)a voting public that was not so delusional that they vote for measures that favor the rich just because they imagine that someday THEY themselves will be rich, without realizing that to do so DIRECTLY undermines THEIR ability to ever eventually become rich ... 5) A media that actually fulfilled their duty in a democracy (i.e. "were not such blatant corporate whores") - said duty being to inform the public about all relevant actions taken by their government in order to facilitate their making the most intelligent and informed choices possible at election time...

IF the GOP are actually successful in seeing this plan through to completion, it will literally spell the end of the middle class, the end of all social spending programs, the end of our democracy, and eventually, the end of the Union itself. A tax structure like this is a perfect blueprint for creating a fascist plutocracy. For this, we will have the average freeper to thank!

We have GOT TO WIN in November, folks. We need the WH and the Senate at a minimum. Otherwise, we can all see where things are heading!!!

[whistle]

8. Does this sound like the last gasping death struggle of...

...Capitalism to anyone? It sure does to me.

<snip>

Marx and Engels got part of history right in The Communist Manifesto. "The bourgeoisie has played a most revolutionary role in history. The bourgeoisie has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former migrations of nations and crusades . . . The bourgeoisie has given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all nations, even the most barbarian, into civilization."

<snip>

"...the success of either system is dependant on the overall quality and spirituality of the population. The selfish and spiritually corrupt will take advantage whatever their situation, whether it's fat cats (wealthy company directors) awarding themselves huge pay rises in a capitalist setting, or those who refuse to contribute their fair share in a communist society."

Source: Communism and capitalism
Date First Written: 7th May 2004
© Jeremy Rogers, 2004

[PurityOfEssence]

9. "The Ownership Society": if you don't own stuff, you're not part of it

Losers don't deserve to exist, and they should be happy they're tolerated at all.

The deep, deep meanness and selfishness of conservatism is breathtaking sometimes...