Fair Taxation Requires More Brackets at the Top
Some of the most affluent Americans actually pay lower effective tax rates than many middle class Americans.
So many governors are hammering their budgets with a “we’re broke” message these days that it’s amazing our country hasn’t shattered into a thousand separate islands. More and more, however, rational voices are correctly asserting that we’re not broke.
The problem isn’t that the United States is out of money. It’s that a tiny sliver of households are under-taxed. The richest 10 percent of Americans own almost three-fourths of the country’s total wealth. Astoundingly, the most affluent 1 percent of Americans own more than one-third of our total wealth.
Currently, families earning $374,000 pay the exact same federal income tax rates as families with multi-million-dollar incomes, or even the handful who earn a billion bucks every year, such as the heirs of Walmart's founder. The lifestyles of the ultra-wealthy wouldn’t change in the least if they had to pay moderately higher income taxes. And it would boost our national economy.
The Fairness in Taxation Act calls for establishing five new tax brackets for incomes between $1 million and $1 billion, with rates ranging from 45 percent to 49 percent.
MORE
States broke? Maybe they cut taxes too much
In his new budget proposal, Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich calls for extending a generous 21 percent cut in state income taxes. The measure was originally part of a sweeping 2005 tax overhaul that abolished the state corporate income tax and phased out a business property tax.
The tax cuts were supposed to stimulate Ohio's economy and create jobs. But that never happened once the economy tanked. Instead, the changes ended up costing Ohio more than $2 billion a year in lost tax revenue; money that would go a long way toward closing the state's $8 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2012.
"At least half of our current budget problem is a direct result of the tax changes we made in 2005. A lot of people don't want to hear that, but that's the reality. Much of our pain is self-inflicted," said Zach Schiller, research director at Policy Matters Ohio, a liberal government-research group in Cleveland.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/28/111161/states-broke-maybe-they-cut-taxes.html#ixzz1JBQ5bT77
Why the Right-Wing Bullies Will Hold The Nation Hostage Again and Again
I hope the President decides he has to take a stand, and the sooner the better. Last December he caved in to Republican demands that the Bush tax cut be extended to wealthier Americans for two more years, at a cost of more than $60 billion. That was only the beginning — the equivalent of my cupcake.
Last night he gave away more than half the sandwich — $39 billion less than was budgeted for 2010, $79 billion less than he originally requested. Non-defense discretionary spending — basically, everything from roads and bridges to schools and innumerable programs for the poor — has been slashed.
The right-wing bullies are emboldened. They will hold the nation hostage again and again.
In a few weeks the debt ceiling has to be raised. After that, next year’s budget has to be decided on. House Budget Chair Paul Ryan has already put forward proposals to turn Medicare into vouchers that funnel money to private insurance companies, turn Medicaid and Food Stamps into block grants that give states discretion to shift them to the non-poor, and give even more big tax cuts to the rich.
MORE
Eric Cantor to Poor and Middle Class: Die.
Nothing gets my blood boiling faster than listening to the Sunday talking heads bloviate about how all those old people don't really need their Medicare anyway. Eric Cantor just couldn't wait to call Medicaid and Medicare recipients welfare queens this morning -- as if they don't pay for it with the taxes THEY pay (unlike our corporate person counterparts), while extolling Ryan's plan to gut health services to the entire nation. Really, his message (and Ryan's) is this: If you're under 55, die and die quickly so there's more for us.
Here's my response to Mr. Cantor. I would like for him to start doing more with less by immediately terminating his Federal Employees' Health Benefit Plan and shopping for his own health insurance. Then I would like him to imagine himself in a scenario where an aged relative comes to him needing a home and financial assistance because their health is so fragile they can no longer care for themselves. He will be faced with the reality of having to find a qualified home health care provider at his own expense because said indigent relative does not really "need" Medicaid, since they have Uncle Eric to rely upon. All of the expenses will be out of his own pocket.
But hey, he'll definitely learn how to do more with less.
Does Cantor not realize that more than half of Medicaid benefits go toward long term care for the elderly? Or maybe he does, and so the message is to die, and die quickly?
MORE OF THE AWFUL TRUTH HERE
