Continue reading ‘Why Tax Cuts For The 1% Don’t Help The Economy’ »]]> Very simply stated.

If someone has a pre-tax income of $1,000.00 and the tax rate is 30% they would have an after tax income of $700.00

If we lowered the tax to 20% they would have an after tax income of $800.

Their after tax income increased $100.00 without them doing anything different.

Magnify that into millions or billions of dollars and now we’re talking hundreds of thousands or millions more retained without doing anything different.

Why would they risk their capital when there is no incentive to do so? Why not put it in a Hedge Fund which is taxed at an even lower rate? The massive amount of capital retained by major corporations is evidence of this. They are retaining billions of dollars, skimming the cream off the economy so to speak. The money goes offshore never to be seen again.

There are a lot of ways to improve the economy, but cutting taxes for the top 1% and Multinational Corporations isn’t among them.

Continue reading ‘Economic History Lesson For Conservatives’ »]]> Conservatives are forever saying that we must cut taxes on the rich in order to spur investment and create jobs. Despite the obvious recent history that should be evidence enough of the fallacy of that theory, they persist. So I’m going to take another approach. I’m going to use a 24 month period of time in our history that had an unemployment rate on average of 3%.

Top marginal tax rate 92%
Capital gains tax 26%
Private sector union membership 35% of total work force.
Corporate tax rate 30% on first 25,000. 52% over 25,000.

“…big-company CEOs in the U.S. earned about fifty times the pay of an average worker. Even then, that ratio was very high compared to other countries. But since then, CEO pay in the U.S. has skyrocketed in comparison to average salaries. By 1990, average CEO pay was about 100 times the average worker’s salary, and by 2000, it was more than 500 times that of the average worker.

In 2004, the New York Times reported comparative ratios of CEO pay to employee averages. In Japan, CEOs earned about ten times that of the average employee. In Germany, the ratio was 11 to 1, in the UK 25 to 1, and in the United States, 531 to 1! It is difficult to see how American companies can justify these huge executive compensations when these other countries, which much smaller CEO pay, have generally managed faster economic growth, greater productivity increases, and greater gains in their stock markets.”

It wasn’t too long ago. 1952-1953. One of the most prosperous periods in American history.

Here’s more from another prosperous period.

1993 deficit reduction: A Lesson on Tax Policy
CLINTON’S ECONOMIC PLAN: The Details; Clinton’s Plan: Austerity and Change

Continue reading ‘Romney’s Long Record Of Secrecy, Lies And Lack Of Accountability’ »]]> While Romney likes to tout is business experience, “rescuing” the Salt Lake City Olympics and as Governor, the truth is much darker. He has done his best to cover his tracks. At each step along the way there are destroyed documents. His version of the story keeps changing as new information comes available. In his wake he has left the government holding the bag on his failed business. Healthy companies looted for cash, loaded with debt and left to fail. The story is of unbridled greed with no regard for the people and communities harmed in the process.

Following in roughly chronological order of Romney’s career are excerpts from the links I’ve found. Also included are videos detailing some of Romney’s low lights. There is a lot here, but there is much more if you take the time to follow the links. But know this; the very reasons that Romney is saying we should vote for him, are the same reason that we should not. Romney represents everything that is wrong with our country. You’ll see a repeating pattern of behavior over 25 plus years. Please read, share and discuss.

The Federal Bailout That Saved Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney likes to say he won’t “apologize” for his success in business. But what he never says is “thank you” – to the American people – for the federal bailout of Bain & Company that made so much of his outsize wealth possible.

The trouble began in 1984, when Bain & Company spun off Bain Capital to engage in leveraged buyouts and put Romney in charge of the new operation. To free up money to invest in the new business, founder Bill Bain and his partners cashed out much of their stock in the consulting firm – leaving it saddled with about $200 million in debt. (Romney, though not a founder, reportedly profited from the deal.)

In fact, government documents on the bailout obtained by Rolling Stone show that the legend crafted by Romney is basically a lie. The federal records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Romney’s initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster – leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had “no value as a going concern.” Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC – the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers – out of at least $10 million. And in an added insult, Romney rewarded top executives at Bain with hefty bonuses at the very moment that he was demanding his handout from the feds.

In the end, the government surrendered. At the time, The Boston Globe cited bankers dismissing the bailout as “relatively routine” – but the federal documents reveal it was anything but. The FDIC agreed to accept nearly $5 million in cash to retire $15 million in Bain’s debt – an immediate government bailout of $10 million. All told, the FDIC estimated it would recoup just $14 million of the $30 million that Romney’s firm owed the government.

Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital

The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn’t stand for anything. He’s a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who’ll say anything to get elected.

The critics couldn’t be more wrong. Mitt Romney is no tissue-paper man. He’s closer to being a revolutionary, a backward-world version of Che or Trotsky, with tweezed nostrils instead of a beard, a half-Windsor instead of a leather jerkin. His legendary flip-flops aren’t the lies of a bumbling opportunist – they’re the confident prevarications of a man untroubled by misleading the nonbeliever in pursuit of a single, all-consuming goal. Romney has a vision, and he’s trying for something big: We’ve just been too slow to sort out what it is, just as we’ve been slow to grasp the roots of the radical economic changes that have swept the country in the last generation.

On Mitt Romney, Bain Capital and Private Equity

The interests of PE firms and their investors do not coincide with the companies that have been taken over, not in the way that Romney and his adherents would have you believe. In fact, they’re often at cross-purposes. You invest in a PE deal to make money – not to grow businesses. And not to create jobs.

Mitt Romney’s Federal Bailout: The Documents

Prior to releasing the documents, the FDIC allowed Bain & Company to scour and redact the records. Dozens of pages were blacked out entirely, on Bain’s claim that these nearly two-decade-old records contain secret “commercial or financial information.”

The documents also illuminate, for the first time, the reckless measures that Romney resorted to in order to secure a lifeline from the federal government.

Almost immediately, however, it became clear that Romney’s path to recovery was a complete failure. Bain’s revenues continued to decline, and the company was soon bleeding red ink.

The documents reveal that Romney had perverse leverage: The terms of the 1991 deal gave Bain the authority to reward its executives with massive bonuses, regardless of performance. If creditors refused to allow the firm to pay down its debt at a fraction of the legal value, in other words, Romney could begin to loot the firm’s cash reserves by doling out unmerited bonus pay.

Even though the firm was deeply in debt and losing money, Romney decided to place executive compensation above fiscal responsibility, paying out big bonus checks beginning in April 1992.

In May 1992, an analyst warned the FDIC that Romney’s firm had defaulted on the revenue targets of the 1991 loan agreement.

Worse, the bonus payouts had put Bain & Company on a path to bankruptcy

Attempting to cut its losses, the FDIC explored the option of selling its stake in Bain & Company. But by August 1992, analysts reported to the agency that Bain & Company had “no value as a going concern.”

By December 1992, Bain & Company had returned to its creditors, proposing a new bailout with even less favorable terms: The firm asked to repay its debts at “up to $.30 on each dollar.”

If creditors didn’t agree? Management would once again raid the company’s coffers to pay themselves fat bonus checks.

…government documents obtained by Rolling Stone reveal that Romney remained in an official capacity with Bain & Company well into 1993, and that he was intimately involved in finessing the firm’s bailout.

In the end, the FDIC — in concert with other creditors — capitulated, agreeing to Romney’s demands to do away with much of Bain’s debt.

The FDIC ultimately agreed to give Bain & Company a $10 million bailout (in the form of “debt forgiveness”). The reason: analysts working for the agency — through a company called RECOLL — believed that Romney’s firm would otherwise “fail,” and the government would see very little money from the firm’s dissolution after Romney doled out the final round of bonus pay.

To secure his bailout, Romney wrote a personal appeal on Bain & Company letterhead dated March 23, 1993, assuring balky creditors that his latest scheme would lead the firm back to “long term financial stability.”

The government records show that Bain & Company’s final agreement with the FDIC was signed just a week later, on March 31, 1993.

How Romney used the 2002 Olympics to benefit Bain

The SLCOC signed deals with corporations connected to Bain, including a deal with Sealy Mattress to supply mattresses for Olympic athletes. Bain held a majority ownership in Sealy. The SLCOC also made a deal with Marriott Corp. to become the official losing supplier and sponsor. Romney served on the board of Marriott.

When conflicts arose between Bain-affiliated companies and others, Romney attempted to remove obstacles. Romney served on the board of Staples, a company that agreed to spend $1 million more supplying the games than Office Depot — but Office Depot had already signed a deal. Romney offered the company $1 million to back out, which it refused.

Romney also cut perks to benefit Bain companies. He canceled the organizers’ free lunches to save money, but then brought in Bain-owned Domino’s and charged board members $1 per slice, a fact he doesn’t mention when bringing up the savings.

Mattel was another company to be brought on board, paying the SLCOC a fee of $1 million to produce likenesses of the Olympic mascots. Mattel had merged with The Learning Company, in which Bain owned a principal stake.

Mitt Romney Brought Bain Capital With Him To The Olympics

When Mitt Romney transitioned from working full-time at Bain Capital to running the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, he did not fully leave the private equity firm. That’s not just because he continued to sign documents and take a salary, or because he described himself as Bain’s CEO on the Olympics’ website, but because he brought with him Bain’s personnel, ethos and, most importantly, its clients.

In the fall of 1999, Romney signed the Provo-based nutritional supplements company Nu Skin to be a sponsor of the games. A Nu Skin subsidiary, Pharmanex, also inked a deal to dispense dietary supplements to the athletes and carry the Olympic rings on its products. The International Olympic Committee raised red flags — Nu Skin had settled several lawsuits and a Federal Trade Commission case over false advertising and claims that the company operated a pyramid scheme — and advised athletes not to take the supplements “because of concerns that they may be adulterated with steroids,” Mother Jones reported in 2011.

Romney insisted Nu Skin’s pills were clean. The company’s employees and bigwigs later returned the favor, donating tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns. Two shell corporations with ties to Nu Skin gave $1 million each to the Romney-backing super PAC Restore Our Future.

In a 2012 campaign video titled “Leader,” Romney declared that he “worked at one company, Bain, for 25 years” before leaving “to go off and help save the Olympic games.”

Fonnesbeck quibbled with that description.

“I have no complaints except for his attitude that he had come to save us,” she said. “My problem came when he just insisted on taking all the credit, and his attitude towards us in Salt Lake was ‘Oh you poor people, here I am.’”

Mitt Romney Olympic Archive Still Off-Limits

The archivists involved in preparing the documents for public review told ABC News that financial documents, contracts, appointment calendars, emails and correspondence are likely not included in the 1,100 boxes of Olympic records, and will not be part of the collection that will ultimately be made public.

“We don’t have that stuff,” said Elizabeth Rogers, the manuscript curator at the University’s Marriott Library. The decisions about what records to donate to the library were made by Olympics officials before they were shipped in 1,100 boxes to the university, she said. “That was done before we got it. I just know it wasn’t a decision we made. Everything we have will be available.”

Mitt Romney’s ’02 Olympics short on transparency

“…some who worked with Romney describe a close-to-the-vest chief executive unwilling to share so much as a budget with a state board responsible for spending oversight. Archivists now say most key records about the Games’ internal workings were destroyed under the supervision of a staff member shortly after the flame was extinguished at Olympic Cauldron Park, after Romney had returned to Massachusetts.”

“Transparency? There was none with [the Salt Lake Organizing Committee] when he was there,” said Kenneth Bullock, a committee member who represented the Utah League of Cities and Towns. “Their transparency became a black hole. It was nonexistent.”

“Any time there has been a breach of trust by people at the top, that organization is going to be placed under a microscope, and that is appropriate,” Romney said at a news conference on Feb. 11, 1999, the day he was named chief executive of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. “We will be viewed much more carefully than any other organizing committee, perhaps in the history of the Olympics, and we deserve to be so viewed. I believe we will come through with flying colors.”

Even within the organizing committee, access to information was sometimes restricted, according to Bullock, the committee member.

“Everything should have been accessible to the board, but it wasn’t because that’s not what Mitt wanted,” he said.

“It’s not about the inner workings of anything,’’ said Elizabeth Rogers, the library’s curator of manuscripts. “I haven’t seen anything particular to Mitt Romney.”

Salt Lake Organizing Committee officials confirmed to the Globe that most administrative records were destroyed in the months after the Games concluded.

Romney did not oversee the destruction of organizing committee documents. That task fell to Fraser Bullock (no relation to Kenneth Bullock), the committee’s chief operating officer and a former Romney colleague at Bain Capital, who took over as the Games’ chief executive when Romney left to run for governor of Massachusetts.

“Mitt didn’t have anything to do with any of those decisions,” Fraser Bullock said. “He was long gone, and it was really left up to the people left behind to decide what to keep and what not to keep.”

Romney staff spent nearly $100,000 to hide records

The move during the final weeks of Romney’s administration was legal but unusual for a departing governor, Massachusetts officials say.

When Romney left the governorship of Massachusetts, 11 of his aides bought the hard drives of their state-issued computers to keep for themselves. Also before he left office, the governor’s staff had emails and other electronic communications by Romney’s administration wiped from state servers, state officials say.

Those actions erased much of the internal documentation of Romney’s four-year tenure as governor, which ended in January 2007. Precisely what information was erased is unclear.

Romney got permission to destroy 150 boxes of records

Among paper records which Romney was granted permission to destroy were boxes whose labels indicated they contained material relating to criminal pardons and commutations and what are described as “Litigation Files (closed).”

Files in these categories which Romney was granted permission to destroy covered the years 1991-2006, which meant that they covered records generated by governors before Romney and also during Romney’s 2003-2007 term.

Also included were boxes containing material generated only during Romney’s tenure, including requests by individuals for appointments, a card index containing information about a summer job program and boxes described as containing a “Status Investigation File.” The was no indication of what the investigation file contained.

Eleven of Romney’s gubernatorial aides also were allowed to purchase the hard drives of the computers the state had leased for them and a central computer server in which governors’ office emails were routinely stored was also wiped clean before Romney left office.

Romney’s aides have also insisted that other governors had engaged in similar records cleanups.

However, Theresa Dolan, former director of administration for the governor’s office, said that in her 23 years as an aide to successive governors “no one had ever inquired about, or expressed the desire” to purchase their computer hard drives before Romney’s tenure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9RntChZKhg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk0a21KlHhk

The new story? Gillespie: Romney ‘retroactively’ retired from Bain Capital

Did Romney avoid taxes with Swiss bank accounts and Cayman investments?

The UBIT does not apply to IRAs and nonprofit groups if their holdings are with offshore investment funds, which is why the offshore blockers became such a popular mechanism.

An individual with Romney’s wealth and connections has plenty of reason to invest in the Cayman Islands or put his money in Swiss bank accounts. As Hines mentioned, the fact that the former Massachusetts governor has done so does not prove that he avoided taxes.

However, experts agree that blockers are an incredibly common vehicle for investors with holdings in the Caymans, and some doubt that Romney wouldn’t have taken advantage of them to protect himself from taxes on his IRA, especially given his history.

The statements from Romney and his campaign suggest at different times that the former governor might have used blockers to maintain his IRA’s tax-deferrable status and that he positively did not use such an investment vehicle — “there was no reduction, not one dollar of reduction in taxes, by virtue of having an account in Switzerland or a Cayman Islands investment.”

These conflicting statements alone suggest an attempt to shade the facts and mislead voters, even if we don’t have definitive proof that Romney avoided taxes on his IRA.

Investigation: Mitt Romney’s Offshore Accounts, Tax Loopholes, and Mysterious I.R.A.

While the Romneys’ spokespeople insist that the couple has paid all the taxes required by law, investments in tax havens such as Bermuda raise many questions, because they are in “jurisdictions where there is virtually no tax and virtually no compliance,” as one Miami-based offshore lawyer put it.

Bain Capital is the heart of Romney’s fortune: it was the financial engine that created it. The mantra of his campaign is that he was a businessman who created tens of thousands of jobs, and Bain certainly did bring useful operational skills to many companies it bought. But his critics point to several cases where Bain bought companies, loaded them with debt, and paid itself extravagant fees, thereby bankrupting the companies and destroying tens of thousands of jobs.

A full 55 pages in his 2010 return are devoted to reporting his transactions with foreign entities. “What Romney does not get,” says Jack Blum, a veteran Washington lawyer and offshore expert, “is that this stuff is weird.”

A $3 million Swiss bank account appeared in the 2010 returns, then winked out of existence in 2011 after the trustee closed it, as if to remind us of George Romney’s warning that one or two tax returns can provide a misleading picture. Ed Kleinbard, a professor of tax law at the University of Southern California, says the Swiss account “has political but not tax-policy resonance,” since it—like many other Romney investments—constituted a bet against the U.S. dollar, an odd thing for a presidential candidate to do.

Romney’s defense is that he never broke the rules: if there is a problem, it is in the laws, not in his behavior. “I pay all the taxes that are legally required, not a dollar more,” he said. Even so. “When you are running for president, you might want to err on the side of overpaying your taxes, and not chase every tax gimmick that comes down the pike,” says Sheppard. “It kind of looks tacky.”

The Romneys’ blind trust was created when Mitt was elected governor of Massachusetts. Curiously, the Romneys appointed Bradford Malt as their trustee. It’s certainly true that under Malt the trusts don’t appear to be as blind as they might be: for instance, in 2010 the Romneys invested $10 million in the start-up of the Solamere Founders Fund, co-founded by their eldest son, Tagg, and Spencer Zwick, Romney’s onetime top campaign fund-raiser; Solamere is now in the Ann Romney blind trust.

It is hard to know the size of these investments. Romney’s financial disclosure form lists 25 of them in an open-ended category, “Over $1 million,” including So­lamere and Elliott, and they are not broken down further. Romney hides behind a disclaimer that the fund managers “declined to provide such information” about their underlying assets. Many of these funds are set up in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, where a confidentiality law states that you can be jailed for up to four years just for asking about such information.

The Washington Post summarized the opinions of experts across the political spectrum by saying Romney’s disclosures were “the most opaque they have encountered.”

“This should not mean retired from the mother ship 10 years out and getting profits you had nothing to do with,” Sheppard says, adding that Romney can get away with it because of excessive “administrative indulgences” that have allowed a “perversion of the law in favor of a small class of overcompensated investment managers.”

Romney’s I.R.A. appears to have employed this lawful escape route, and his campaign has used language suggesting that it has. But that would mean the Romney camp’s claim that Mitt’s tax consequences of investing via the Cayman Islands is “the very same” as it would have been had he invested directly at home is simply not true. (Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul says Romney “gets the same benefit anyone would get from an I.R.A.,” but she did not respond to questions on whether his I.R.A. had used blockers or avoided taxes by investing via tax havens.)

His work at Bain was unquestionably good for himself and for Bain, but was it also good for the businesses he acquired, for their workers, and for the economy, as he claims?

Then brutal cost cutting began. Bain cut R&D spending to an average of 8 percent of sales, a little more than half what its competitors were doing. Cindy Hewitt, Dade’s human-resources manager, remembers how the firm closed a Puerto Rico plant in 1998, a year after harvesting $7.1 million in local tax breaks aimed at job creation, and relocated some staff to Miami, then the company’s most profitable plant. Based on re­a­ssur­ances she had received from her superiors, she told those uprooting themselves from Puerto Rico that their jobs in Miami were safe for now—but then Bain closed the Miami plant. “Whether you want to call it misled, or lied, or manipulated, I do not believe they provided full information about what discussions were under way,” she says. “I would never want to be part of even unintentionally treating people so poorly.”

Bain engaged in startling penny-pinching with the laid-off employees. Their contracts stipulated that if they left early they would have to pay back the costs of relocating to Miami—but in spite of all that Dade had done to them, it refused to release the employees from this clause. “They said they would go after them for that money if they left before Bain was finished with them,” Hewitt recalls. Not only that, but the company declined to give workers their severance pay in lump sums to help them fund their return home.

In 1999, generous pensions were converted into less generous benefits, wages were cut, and more staff members were laid off. Some employees contacted Norman Stein, then the director of the pension-counseling clinic at the University of Alabama law school, with a view to challenging the conversions. Stein says the employees were “extraordinarily nervous,” so fearful, in fact, that they refused to let lawyers even make copies of pension documents. “I have been dealing with pensions issues for over 25 years and I never saw anything like this,” recalls Stein. The spooked employees did not go to court. Stein says that, while breaking pension contracts like this was not unheard of, the practice at that time was “questionable,” adding that Dade may have saved $10 to $40 million from converting its pensions.

The beauty—or savagery—of leverage is that it can magnify any and all cash-flow boosts, such as this one. Take $10 to $40 million squeezed from a pension pot, then use that to create new, rosier financial projections to borrow several times that amount, and then pay yourself a big special dividend from the borrowed funds, many times the size of the pension savings. That is just what Bain Capital did: the same month it converted the pensions, it created new financial projections as a basis to borrow an extra $421 million—from which Bain, its co-investor Goldman Sachs, and top Dade management extracted $365 million in dividends. According to Kosman, “Bain and Goldman—after putting down only $85 million … made out like bandits—a $280 million profit.” Dade’s debt rose to more than $870 million. Romney had left operational management of Bain that year, though his disclosures show that he owned 16.5 percent of the Bain partnership responsible for the Dade investment until at least 2001.

Quite soon, however, a fragile Dade faced adverse conditions in the currency markets, and it had to start in effect cannibalizing itself, cutting into the core of its business. It filed for bankruptcy in August 2002 and Bain Capital departed. When Dade emerged from bankruptcy, its new owners invested in long-term R&D, and it flourished again.

Nor was this an isolated incident: Kosman lists five other “formerly healthy” companies—Stage Stores, Ampad, GS Technologies, Details, and KB Toys—Bain helped drive into bankruptcy, while making big profits.

Many Americans might react with a shrug to the idea of shady foreign money such as Robert Maxwell’s being invested here. But, says Rebecca Wilkins, of the Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit Citizens for Tax Justice, “It is shocking that a presidential candidate should think that is O.K.”

“I don’t want to give the Democrats a nice little present of having multiple releases.” – video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Tzp9Mf0qQ

Ann Romney: No more tax returns

Ann Romney said in an interview airing Wednesday that her husband has no plans to release additional tax returns, saying “it’ll just give them more ammunition” and insisting that “there’s nothing we’re hiding.”

“We have been very transparent to what’s legally required of us. But the more we release, the more we get attacked, the more we get questioned, the more we get pushed. And so we have done what’s legally required and there’s going to be no more, there’s going to be no more tax releases given,” she said in the interview by NBC News. “And there’s a reason for that, and that’s because of how, what happens as soon as we release anything”.

Is tithing what Romney’s hiding in his tax returns?

“Our church doesn’t publish how much people have given,” Romney tells Parade. “This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.”

Or could this be the problem with his Church?

Pointing out that his donation of $1,525,000 to the church reflected on his 2010 return was a mere 7 percent of the $21,646,507 million in adjusted gross income reported, Nevada political blogger Justin McAffee calculates that if “he made the same amount of income he reported in his 2010 tax return, every year for the past ten years . . . he would have made over $200 million,” and, if the percentage was consistently as low as in 2010, Romney may have “shortchanged the Mormon Church out of $6 million.”

I wonder why they didn’t say that in January? I wonder why Mitt’s Dad didn’t have a similar problem releasing 12 years of tax returns?

Another peek into the character of Romney can be seen in his handling of dissent and heavy handed approach to managing the convention and setting rules.

There Was Major Drama At The GOP Convention Friday, And It Ended With John Sununu Fleeing The Building

According to one source who was at the meeting, the saga ended with former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, the committee chair, hightailing it out of the building before committee members could submit dissenting minority opinions, or “minority reports.”

“The rules say that you have an hour after the meeting, but within 15 minutes, we couldn’t find [Chairman Sununu] anywhere,” Ryan, a Ron Paul supporter and member of Maine’s delegation, said. “Finally, we asked an RNC official if they had seen former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu. He said, ‘John Sununu! Everyone’s looking for him! But he left the building.’”

Grassroots Backlash Against Romney Campaign’s Rules Changes

“He is systematically trying to prevent minorities from having even any remote opportunity of being heard,” followed Virginia delegate Morton Blackwell to rave applause from the committee. “This is wrong, it’s gonna hurt us, it’s gonna hurt our presidential candidate.”

What about any of this suggests that Romney would be good for the country?

Continue reading ‘Stupid is as stupid does. Conservative ignorance exposed.’ »]]> Sometimes the level of bullshit rises to a point where it’s not simply enough to call it bullshit.

Chris Angelini, Cris (@ConserValidity)
Posted Sunday 19th August 2012 from Twitlonger

@gemimms @Emperor_Bob Ignorance and stupidity doesn’t change the facts – Educate yourselves

Chris if you’re going to call someone out, using words like “Ignorance and stupidity” you best have your facts straight or you’ll be the one shown to be “ignorant and stupid”.

The politics of Medicare have changed. For decades, Democrats have run Mediscare ads claiming that Republicans would end Medicare as we know it;

Yes, and they were and are right. The Romney/Ryan plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system does end Medicare as we know it. It puts seniors and those with a disability at risk of not being able to afford health care they need, because the insurance they can afford with the voucher may not offer the services, procedures and medicine they need. They’ll be right back to losing everything they own in order to pay for medical costs in what should be their “golden years”.

now we have Obamacare which turns the entire healthcare system upside down, effectively obliterating Medicare; which includes taking $716 Billion in benefits&services;from current recipients of Medicare to finance Obamacare, in order to make Obamacare look like it didn’t add to the deficit.

Imagine that, putting people before profits. I know that’s a difficult concept for conservatives to grasp. The health care system needed to be turned upside down in order to set it right.

That 700 billion dollar in savings also shows up in Ryan’s budget. The difference is that the Ryan proposal takes the money out of health care for other purposes than health care. None of the savings in ObamaCare came out of “benefits or services from current recipients of Medicare”. That is simply a lie or ignorance. Take your pick.

PolitiFact | Ryan’s plan includes $700 billion in Medicare “cuts,” says Stephanie Cutter “Cutter was right about the Ryan plan. We rate her statement True.”

Obamacare cranks down the price controls for hospitals, it guts Medicare advantage, the program that gives 1 out of 5 seniors private insurance options

They propose a voucher system for medicare and then attack ObamaCare for basically doing the same thing? Which is rather bazaar since that is not the case at all.

How Obamacare strengthens Medicare Advantage

“…and it creates the “Independent Payment Advisory Board” –this is a 15 member commission of unelected bureaucrats, whose decisions (UNLIKE ANY OTHER PART OF OUR GOVT) are not subject to judicial or legislative review (so even congress can’t over-rule them). Which is going to command Medicine: tell doctors how to practice, how they should be organized and eventually start to make case by case decisions on what treatment patients are allowed to receive. President Obama says Medicare is going broke, we got to do something and there is no other option – so let’s delegate all of these decisions to 15 technocrats.”

Ah yes, the BIG LIE. The only thing right in that whole statement was the number on the board. The fact is that for profit insurance companies are much more likely to refuse coverage.

The IPAB: The Center Of A Political Clash Over How To Change Medicare – Kaiser Health News

Independent Payment Advisory Board Will Help Reduce Health Costs — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

First of all, the Romney/Ryan plan does not affect anyone 55 or older at all.

That’s a nifty bit of politics thinking that people won’t object to others being screwed as long as they aren’t getting screwed themselves. Fortunately, most people aren’t as narcissistic as conservatives that can only think of themselves, their money and what’s in it for them. You can always tell when you’re talking to a conservative because they only want to talk about the money, not the people involved.

The aim of the Romney/Ryan is to bring costs downthrough competition and make seniors more price conscious if they have to go out and buy their own health insurance with Government subsidizes.

What if the voucher isn’t enough? What if the insurance they can afford to buy doesn’t cover what they need? What about pre-existing conditions? Is the option to sell everything they have to pay for expensive procedures, equipment, medication or other health services? Is the plan to have them spend themselves into poverty then they can turn to medicaid (if its available)?

But one of the Big Government Democratic charges is that seniors are helpless and aren’t up for that, this is beyond their capabilities and they will end up having to pay more; is that right? NO, the model is the Federal Employee’s Health Benefit Program which covers all federal Workers, including members of Congress. The premium support payments, the subsidies you are talking about, rises over time with healthcare costs. The idea is- just by having seniors pay at the margin, if they want the most generous benefits, they’ll instead start to push down on healthcare costs. Economic History unequivocally proves this will happen and that’s really what the system needs.

See that, that’s how we know Chris is a conservative. Not a word about quality of life. Not a word about quality of care. All about the market, as if suddenly competition is going to drive down prices. The problem is that nobody knows for certain what is going to happen in the future. A long hospitalization or long term care would be catastrophic. If competition hasn’t brought down insurance and healthcare costs yet, how is going to magically happen because of vouchers? The elderly and disabled aren’t profitable. What is the incentive for insurance companies to provide affordable premiums when competition hasn’t had any affect on premiums or healthcare? It doesn’t matter to the insurance companies whether they get a government voucher or if its a direct pay. Seniors and disabled are preyed upon by all sorts of con artists. They are targeted deliberately. Insurance companies are notorious for their taking advantage of the elderly and disabled.

You have now got a very clear choice: 1) See if we can reduce costs through voluntary incentives or 2) Let unelected bureaucrats, override your doctor and say no to your hip replacement saying you are too old. The latter plan, which is the Obama plan, is going to be a loser with everyone.

Seriously this is the most absurd argument or statement yet; “reduce costs through voluntary incentives”. Who is going to voluntarily cut their prices? What kind of incentives are going to be offered to insurance companies or medical professionals that will have them cut their prices? They already cry because Medicare doesn’t pay enough, yet the market is going to magically fix that? If the market was going to force lower prices it would have already happened. Prices are out of control and the Romney/Ryan voucher system will do nothing to stop that.

“The Independent Payment Advisory Board is an expert body charged with developing and submitting proposals to slow the growth of Medicare and private health care spending and improve the quality of care. The President nominates the board’s 15 members, who require Senate confirmation, for staggered six-year terms. The board must include physicians and other health professionals, experts in health finance, health services researchers, employers, and representatives of consumers and the elderly. To prevent control by special interests, health care providers may not constitute a majority of the board’s membership.”

They aren’t going to be deciding if Grandma gets a hip replacement or not. That’s just right wing fear mongering.

That’s why interestingly; this week, Democrats who have loved this issue for years, could not wait to get away from it to talk about Romney’s tax returns. The fact that Democrats don’t want the Medicare fight is a seismic change.

I know conservatives would love to think that. Truth is that Romney/Ryan are on the wrong side on Medicare. The fact is that the more informed people are on the Romney/Ryan voucher program for Medicare the less they like it. Most people want Medicare left alone, ObamaCare ensures that Seniors and people with disabilities will have access to health care. The Romney/Ryan plan destroys Medicare and adds uncertainty.

As far as Romney and Ryan refusing to release tax returns, until they do it’s going to be a question in voters minds. What is it they are hiding? Romney has failed to release a single complete return. There are legitimate questions regarding who he has done business with. What kind of loopholes he has taken advantage of. Why did he have that Swiss Bank account and did he take advantage of the 2009 amnesty for tax dodgers? It must be a pretty big deal if they would rather keep information hidden rather than release them to the public.

The job of a Presidential Campaign is to lead, Romney and Ryan doing so is the right thing and the only responsible option.

Responsible? If lying is responsible then I guess you could say Romney/Ryan are responsible. They can’t even get their lies straight.

New Romney ad pushes debunked claim against Obama

Continue reading ‘The One Thing That EVERY Business MUST Have To Be Successful Is…’ »]]> Customers.

What is the one thing every business must have in order to expand?

Customers.

What is the one thing every business must have in order to hire more people?

Customers.

How do tax cuts for the rich create customers

They don’t

How does deregulation create customers?

It doesn’t

How does government spending create customers?

With government purchases, payrolls, and benefits that puts money back into the economy for working class and poor families to spend.

If you want to hear hypocrisy, just tell a conservative that we’re going to close or downsize a military base in their district. Boy will they howl, not because of the military importance as they claim, but because they know what that military payroll means to the local community, businesses and private sector jobs.

80% of all US companies with employees have 10 or fewer employees. I’m sure they appreciate the tax cuts, it means more profits for the owners. The tax credits for hiring new people would be helpful if demand warranted new hires. The regulations that most effect these small businesses are at the local and state level. They could benefit from relief of some of those regulations, but Federal regulations on these small businesses aren’t as onerous as conservatives try to make us believe.

I think most of those small businesses given the choice of slightly lower taxes and fewer regulations or more customers, would pick more customers. Taxes and regulations don’t mean a thing if your business doesn’t have any customers. If you’re paying taxes, you’re making money.

That 80% of businesses are on Main Street not Wall Street. The problem with many politicians in D.C. is they are bombarded by lobbyists for Wall Street corporations. They mistakenly believe what is good for Wall Street is good for us all. It isn’t. In fact, more often than not, what’s good for Wall Street, Multi-National Corporations and the top 2% of households is bad for everyone else.

The tax cuts that were given to the top 2% and Wall Street corporations didn’t spur the economy. They didn’t invest it in businesses or expansion. They didn’t hire more people. Think about it, they kept more money for doing absolutely nothing different. Trillions of dollars that could have and should have been used to create jobs, expand education opportunities, rebuild and expand infrastructure, support local and state governments to keep and hire police, firefighters and teachers. Instead, that money was sucked out of the economy into the pockets of the uber-rich and multi-national corporations, estimated to be over 2 trillion

When they talk about the policy failures of President Obama, they should look at their own policies of tax cuts for the rich and multi-national corporations. Cuts that were suppose to create private sector jobs. They should look at their own failure to pass a single jobs bill since 2010 when they ran on the promise to create jobs.

The Republican Party and their millionaire candidates for President and Vice President are still pushing the ideas that have failed, not only here in America but around the globe. They’ll refer to Ayn Rand (Paul Ryan’s personal hero), Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises. They’ll be backed by billionaires like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson. “Free” market supporting organizations like the conservative Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute will beat their drums for lower taxes for the rich and deregulation. Sound familiar? It should because it’s all the same crap that they have been preaching seemingly forever. The same crap that hasn’t worked anywhere at any time to help anyone other than the ruling class.

The 98% are the real “job creators”. Without us, the 2% have nothing. We should act like it. Don’t fall for the snake oil that Paul Ryan is selling. Don’t support US House and Senate candidates that support the Ryan budget. Don’t support candidates that still believe in the fairy tail of trickle down economics. Don’t support candidates that don’t understand the difference between the businesses on Wall Street and the business on Main Street. Don’t support candidates that would cut the safety net that is only 13% of the Federal Budget in order to preserve lower taxes on the 2% and Multi-national corporations. Before they make any cuts to Social Security and Medicare, demand that they eliminate corporate welfare first. Demand that they close all loopholes that allow the very rich to avoid taxes on billions of dollars. People paid for their Social Security and Medicare benefits. How do large corporations and entire industries pay for their entitlements when 55% of them pay no federal taxes at all?

What has been proven to work is raising taxes on the rich, lowering the taxes on the working class and investing in America and Americans. That’s what Presidents Reagan and Clinton did.

What Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and the Republican Party want to do is slash government spending which will cause more unemployment, more foreclosures, more bankruptcies, more demand for public assistance, more cut backs at the local level to police, fire and education. But that doesn’t matter to the vulture capitalists. That doesn’t matter to those two millionaires that grew up privileged and never had to worry where the next meal was going to come from or where they were going to sleep safely out of the elements. They propose this while not even knowing if or when it pay off the debt or even balance the budget because as Ryan says “…we haven’t run the numbers on that specific plan.” That’s because Romney refuses to offer any number or specifics. I suppose we’re supposed to trust a man that won’t disclose his tax returns, destroyed documents for the period he was Governor and when he headed the Salt Lake City Olympics. A man that retired retroactively from Bain in order to have plausible deniability of any of the rotten dealings of the company during that period. That annual hundred grand per year is just chump change I imagine so he didn’t have to actually do anything to earn it. The CBO analysis shows that the Ryan budget would have virtually no effect on the deficit in comparison to no changes at all. So the Paul Ryan budget is all about political ideology, not sound economics. We can do better than that. We are better than that.

The best way to end deficits and pay down the debt is with a robust economy and wide tax base. You don’t get there from here by cutting spending. You get there by increasing tax revenues from the richest and investing that money back into America and Americans. Creating more opportunities for everyone. That is what the Billionaire party is against. They want us to believe that government is the problem. That “uncertainty” created by the government is the reason that the rich and large corporations have not expanded or created any new jobs. Which we’ve already debunked. They aren’t expanding because they are making more money without expanding. They can take those tax cuts and invest them in Hedge Funds that they only pay 15% income tax on. The game is rigged for the rich and they are desperately trying to keep it that way.

Continue reading ‘Conservative Narcissism: I don’t owe anyone anything.’ »]]>

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” ~ Benjamin Franklin – At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

It’s a good thing that America’s founding fathers like Dr. Franklin understood that in order to survive, then thrive, the citizens of the new nation had to depend on each other, stick together, because acting alone, independently, would mean certain failure.

The lengths Romneyites are going to trying to convince people President Obama’s remark on American business success is a socialist attack on business is stunning. It would be funny, but they really think that business success is the result of hard work. Nobody is arguing that effort is a key to success, but to think that is all it takes to be successful belies the facts. It’s an insult to all those hard working business people who fail through no fault of their own. If only individual effort is responsible for success, shouldn’t it follow that only lack of individual effort is responsible for failure? What’s disturbing about this is that Romney himself has said the same exact thing about the Government’s contribution to business success

You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together. ~ Henry Ford

In one exchange I asked: You think anyone could take their successful American business that they built from the ground up could do the same thing anywhere in the world? You don’t think that the “land of the free, home of the brave” has anything to do with the success of American businesses? You don’t think generation upon generation of American’s hard work, sacrifice and tax contributions has anything do to with today’s American business successes? We don’t owe anything to that common heritage? Nothing that came before us today matters at all? The lives lost fighting for the freedom we enjoy today doesn’t mean anything at all? We don’t owe a damn thing to anyone at all for our individual success?

In all seriousness they responded: “Bottom line, American businesses are successful not due to some collective effort of the society, rather that success is due to the hard work, investment, and risk taking of the INDIVIDUALS involved in a business. All this “collective” nonsense is jibber jabber.”

Two hundred and fifty years of American history reduced to – All this “collective” nonsense is jibber jabber.

How Inequality Hurts the Economy

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. ~ Babe Ruth

In a very real sense economies are like a team. Governments are one member of the team. In addition there are suppliers, shippers, buyers, trade groups, professional services and many more greater and lesser entities that are team members. This goes beyond the obvious infrastructure, banking and currency, trade agreements, education and adjudication that play a part in every business success, without which business wouldn’t be possible at all. They don’t even give their own family a tip of the cap for the role they played in raising them to be contributing adults. They ignore that the leading indicator of success increasingly is determined by how successful their family is. The “American Dream” Is Now A Myth

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. ~ Helen Keller

The greatest undertakings and accomplishments throughout all time weren’t the result of a single hard working businessperson. Christopher Columbus received government funding. Lewis and Clark was government funded. The Panama Canal, every Airport and Harbor are all government funded projects. The interstate highway system, The Grand Coolie Dam, The Tennessee Valley Authority all lynch pins to American commerce. No, successful business person, you didn’t build any of that and without it your chance of success would be greatly diminished if not impossible.

Nine Government Investments that Made Us an Industrial Economic Leader

Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together. ~ James Cash Penney

We are a consumer driven economy. The reason why tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare and a deregulation don’t work to turn around the economy is because they do nothing to increase demand. Before any business hires new employees, orders new equipment, builds new facilities, is if they have an increase demand for their product or service. Doesn’t matter if it’s the corner auto repair shop or a multi-national widget maker. So how do we increase consumer demand? We prime the pump with government spending. The stimulus would have been much more successful if we hadn’t wasted 40% of it on tax cuts.

This is why the idea of “uncertainty” being the reason why the richest and corporations aren’t investing in job creation is nonsense. The only thing they need to know is if there is a demand for their product or service. Also we’re experiencing a world wide recession. The austerity measures taken by other countries have hurt our economy as well. So we have persistent unemployment, leading to cut backs in both the private and public sectors. Cutting taxes for the rich is exactly the opposite of the action that should be taken. Why cutting government spending now would be disastrous.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. ~ Desmond Tutu

The even darker, more sinister, and evil part of Conservative Narcissism is that because they don’t believe anyone contributes to their success they believe they don’t owe anyone anything in return. They have health care, they don’t care if anyone else does. If you’re unemployed, that’s your problem. The same if you’re sick, homeless, disabled, hungry or elderly. Even though they benefited from taxes paid by previous generations, they don’t feel they have any obligation to future generations. Their money is theirs and taxes are theft. May as well put a gun to their head and take their hard earned money from them with the threat of death. They say “I don’t owe anyone anything. I got mine, you get yours.” The Compassionate Conservative Lie

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. ~ Henry Ford

The last time in American history that there was a budget surplus was during the Clinton administration. The idea was pretty simple really. Cut taxes for the vast majority and raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. Of course at the time there were all kinds of dire warnings of the disaster that would beset the country if these ill advised liberal policies were to take affect. See if any of these sound familiar:

“Clearly, this is a job-killer in the short-run. The impact on job creation is going to be devastating.” —Rep. Dick Armey, (Republican, Texas)
“The tax increase will…lead to a recession…and will actually increase the deficit.”
—Rep. Newt Gingrich (Republican, Georgia)
“I will make you this bet. I am willing to risk the mortgage on it…the deficit will be up; unemployment will be up; in my judgment, inflation will be up.”
—Sen. Robert Packwood (Republican, Oregon)
“The deficit four years from today will be higher than it is today, not lower.”
—Sen. Phil Gramm (Republican, Texas)
“The President promised a middle-class tax cut, yet he and his party imposed the largest tax increase in American history. We hope his higher taxes will not cut short the economic recovery and declining interest rates he inherited… Instead of stifling growth through higher taxes and increased government regulations, Republicans would take America in a different direction.”
—Sen. Robert Dole (Republican, Kansas)

Not only was the entire national deficit eliminated after raising taxes on the wealthy in 1993, but the economy grew so fast for the remainder of the decade that many conservative economists thought that the Fed should raise the prime interest rate in order to slow it down.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some blame President Obama for being divisive. They say he’s waging class warfare or playing the race card. They say he’s punishing success and purposely making people dependent on government. They say he has destroyed the economy. The amazing thing is that supposedly he’s done all of this in just three short years. But what has happened is three years of record corporate profits and record accumulation of corporate cash reserves. Still very sluggish economic growth, better than some parts of the world, but not as good as would be expected with that kind of profit. Is it class warfare to point out that the top 2% have prospered while the rest have suffered? Is it class warfare to suggest that we could have similar success as we saw post 1993 where everyone benefited from a more progressive tax structure that gave job creating consumers money to help grow the economy and create jobs? Is it class warfare to suggest that the government can help jump start the economy by investing in America and Americans? We can be a better country. But only if we recognize and act on the fact that we need each other, support each other and believe in each other to bring about a better future for us all.

Tax Cuts: Myths and Realities

Continue reading ‘Mixed Bag: Senator Murkowski, Student Loans, Taxes and Education’ »]]> The following are excepts from a Facebook conversation. Please feel free to join the conversation.

Lisa Murkowski – Today I voted against the Student Loan Bill which would solve one problem by making another worse. Raising taxes on employers will only decrease the chances that they’ll be able to add jobs and hire college graduates. I’m hopeful we’ll find a better, bipartisan way.
Press Releases – Press Office – United States Senator Lisa Murkowski
www.murkowski.senate.gov

Senator with all due respect I’m so tired of that nonsense. It’s clear there is no connection between taxes and jobs. What creates jobs is demand for goods and services. With people saddled with high student loan costs they have less to spend in the economy. Your vote just made the banksters happy. Who do you represent? What is your solution that isn’t more welfare for corporate America and Millionaires?

This is a slap in the face of working class families. The children of the rich don’t have to worry about student loans. They don’t have to work their way through college. They don’t need to be concerned about getting a job when they graduate, they can afford to buy a car, buy a home, get married, start a family all without the burden of hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Shame on you Senator.

Keith Hartley It amazes me that anyone can think that the “rich” dont pay taxes when the top 10% provide more than 70% of it, and taking all of their money each year would fix even the deficit let alone the problems in the american school system.

We currently have the lowest tax rates since the 1950′s. We give away billions in subsidies to large corporations, many of the largest pay zero federal income taxes like Exxon and GE. The rich benefit most from preferential tax treatment of dividends and interest. They pay as little as 15% like the billionaire hedge fund managers. Even Romney only paid 17%, about half that of a typical working class family. Increasing the marginal rate by 2% over a million and another 2% over a billion is not too much to ask. Closing loopholes that allow large multi-national corporations to avoid taxes is not too much to ask. US businesses benefit the most from a well educated work force. Our economy is in desperate need of Math and Science majors, as well as the many fields in Medicine. We are falling behind world wide because other countries are more committed to higher education. If cutting taxes created jobs we wouldn’t have the unemployment problem we have today. Our economy was much stronger in the 50′s when the top marginal rate was 91%.Top Marginal Tax Rate History

Small business owners need customers and clients, not tax breaks. They only pay taxes when they make a profit. If you don’t understand that, then you’ve never operated a small business.

We’re not going to cut our way out of this mess conservatives got us in. We have to invest in America and Americans.

Keith Hartley…no comparison to be made between a corporation and a self employed small business owner. Small business owners employ a high ratio of people to a given amount of profit, corporations do the opposite of that. self employed business owners pay a far greater tax rate then either individuals or corporations do. ALL of the tax plans that have come around from this admin have been to pit the so called “poor” individuals against the so called “wealthy” individuals and let the corporations off easy.”

So we agree, we need to increase taxes on the 1% and multi-national corporations. We can do this by closing loopholes. Taxing all income the same. Remove the cap on income subject to social security and medicare. (Cut the social security and medicare tax by half. Every business or individual earning less than $103k would receive an instant pay raise). Raise the marginal rate over a million by 2% raise it another 2% over a billion. Institute a minimum tax on income over a million dollars.

Keith Hartley“…are you seriously on about oil subsidies? they amount to literally pennies when compared to the size of the deficit. What about hybrid car subsides? what about ethanol subsides? what about so called “green energy” subsidies? they line the pockets of corporation at the cost of the individual citizens of this country.”

I’m talking about subsidies for all kinds of industries from oil to pharmaceutical. But oil is a good example. They make a record profit, some not paying a penny in federal income tax. Instead of creating jobs with the windfall they buy back stock. They are sitting record amount of cash. We would have been better off collecting the tax and investing it in America. If we are going to subsidize industries it should be those that are sustainable and less damaging to our environment. Oil doesn’t need the subsidies, alternatives do at this point.

Keith Hartley“You think that increasing spending on education will help the quality of education in America? how about getting the government out of education all together. The abysmal quagmire that is the united states lernin’ standards started during the carter admin when he started the department of education. Pretty soon schools realized that they could get more money by making school less difficult.”

If spending more money doesn’t make a difference then why is the cost per student higher for private schools than public schools. They are able to hire the best teachers. They have the lowest teacher to student ratio. They produce the best results. But this particurlar issue isn’t about cost of education. It’s about cutting the interest rate on student loans. Not writing off the debt. Not bailing them out. Just extending the interest rate cap for a year. Is that so unreasonable of a proposition considering the billions that we spend in other areas?

Keith Hartley“Those proposed tax increases do NOTHING to do anything to help anyone. Taxation is the problem. If it was, raising taxes could fix the problem whether or not anyone likes it. Whether the idea sounds good to you or not, there isnt enough money in the economy to close the deficit without destroying something along the lines of 50% of the economy.”

Are you a Ron Paul supporter? I already showed you the fact that the economy was better when the top marginal rate was 91%. I’m not suggesting we go anywhere near that amount, just modest increases and changes to the tax code.

Keith Hartley“I absolutely AM not someone that advocates tax breaks are the answer to our problems. the fix will be several hundred billion in spending cuts and a few hundred billion in revenue increases. these revenue increases could be achieved by – as you referenced above, eliminating the tax breaks for Democrat favoring General Electric, which hasn’t paid taxes since it was bailed out a few years ago.”

So you would be ok with allowing the Bush tax cuts expire for Millionaires? How about eliminating corporate loopholes and subsidies? I’m not a Democrat and I don’t care if it’s GE or BP not paying taxes on record profits. Bottom line is the top 1% are starving the country.

Keith Hartley“This is a very important difference between corporations and the wealthy…I will be one of the “wealthy” one day. I will have achieved that by doing a better job, working harder, paying for my own school and paying the debt off early that so many dems cant seem to do. It will piss me off when I am paying more taxes to support companies like solyndra and general electric so that they can be exempt of taxes or be paid to keep their doors open when I could instead be spending it on food, wine, vehicles etc. and be putting money into the pockets of others.”

“I’m going to be wealthy one day” Yes, that’s the American Dream alright. Do you have any idea home many American’s dream turned into a nightmare because of the Banksters on Wall Street? Through no fault of their own they lost their jobs, life savings, homes and businesses. Do you know the only thing that many of them have left? Social Security and Medicare. The things that conservatives want to turn over to private industry. These were good people who did everything like you said. Worked hard and produce better and faster. The company profits soared and their purchasing power declined. When the dust settled all they had left was the Government safety net. Yes there is a difference between corporations and the wealthy. Corporations get subsidies and the wealthy get preferential tax treatment on certain kinds of income. You think having money in your own hands instead of paying it in taxes is a good thing, But you don’t think people paying less interest on student loans, putting more money in their hands, is a good thing. How do you resolve that contridiction?

Keith Hartley“You really think that small business owners only pay taxes on profits? unless you can afford to pay someone to provide you with warren buffet tax evasion techniques you pay a larger minimum amount of taxes than anyone else does, FAR more than someone who makes the same amount of money in a year and works less than you.”

Have you ever owned or managed a company? I don’t think so. What drives hiring and firing of employees is demand. Taxes typically affect prices as it’s rolled into the overhead cost, like insurance. It’s not tax evasion, it’s taking advantage of tax loopholes and getting preferential treatment on certain types of income. I’m all for closing the loopholes and taxing all income from any source the same. That won’t be enough. We need to raise taxes on the richest of this country. We have always had a progressive income tax. We’ve allowed it to become less progressive and the country’s economy has suffered for it.

Continue reading ‘The US Debt’ »]]> Our spending problem is the bloated Military Budget, Corporate Subsidies, tax advantages for the rich, and preferential treatment of some types of income over income earned by labor.

We also have an income problem. We have the lowest federal tax rates since 1950. Tax cuts made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class in insurmountable debt. Lower taxes didn’t create jobs or strengthen the economy, at least not in the U.S. We need new tax brackets for each millionaires and billionaires.

The rabid right is willing to destroy the economy, push us into default on our debt in order to further their political goal of preventing election of Obama to a second term. That has been their sole goal from day one, at any cost to America or Americans.

Cutting government spending now will be disastrous for the private sector. “Why cutting government spending now would be disastrous.” http://bit.ly/bvTEuS

There are other alternatives as well: Budget of the Congressional Progressive Caucus: Fiscal Year 2012: Read the People’s Budget http://bit.ly/g7aep8 and my own 2 cents Nobody asked me, but here’s my solutions. http://bit.ly/bvTEuS

The best way to solve our debit and deficit problems is to revitalize the economy and create good living wage jobs. What has this congress done to improve the economy or create private sector jobs? Nothing, because that’s not in GOP’s best political interest. Our unemployment is high because the rabid right wants it that way.