Now that we’ve started growing our economy, it has become a persistent theme… “We need money for this”; “we need money for that”; “we need money for both and for other things too”. “We need money”, pure and simple.. Am I not right? Pick up any paper. Listen to any radio newscast; read any internet news source…. (did you notice I completely ignored television entirely? You should ignore them too if you don’t already ).
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but (and this is a theoretical question…): when you want something that you don’t have….a) do you go asking for it among people who don’t have any themselves, or b) among people who have lots of it to spare?
Hmmm. I wonder…. (finger on chin; one eye looking at the sky) Should I ask those who have, … or those who don’t have….
Which makes Markell’s asking our Seniors to forgo their credit on school taxes allegedly to balance the budget, nonsensical.. Especially when the top 1% of Delawareans by simply adding a few lines to the tax code. can cough up $70 million a year… (enough to roughly fund 3 years of casino shortfalls) and not experience any loss of spendable cash,
So why would someone ignore those who COULD give, and threaten those who have NOTHING to give? There are probably many reasons, but none meet the level of good straight forward reasoning… For if you truly want something, asking someone who doesn’t have it is absolutely pointless….
What Seniors don’t have, the 1% does have; (that is why they are in the one percent.)
So, being theoretical again, wouldn’t it make great sense to turn the tables on Markell and actually go forward and spitefully raise the taxes on HIS friends, those in the top one percent, oh… let us say…. about the same percent that his tax hike would have hit Seniors pinching pennies on limited incomes… to around the percentage of a 100% increase….
So it would come out that on incomes over let us say, $100 million dollars, instead of the 6% they are currently assessed, (the exact same percent as someone earning $60,000) we would hit them with a 100% increase (another 6%) and bump that owed amount to 12%… We could then graduate the layers from 6% to 9% over a range of income levels.. and except for the rates on the top echelons, the percentages would still be lower than neighboring New Jersey.
This gives us $70 million in new revenue. Each and every year… We can even blow it on the casino’s if we want….
We need the General Assembly to respond to Markell’s challenge with a tax increase of this nature. Now, the point is really not so much of whether it passes or not.. But the point is that by having a progressive coalition sponsor and at the very least, put it on the floor, (especially those who hail from districts where doing such would make them a cult hero for life, and cost them zero switched votes since no millionaire would ever vote for them anyway), it becomes a bone of contention, and a topic of conversation in letters-to-the-editor pages across this state; on Al Mascitti and Rick Jensen; on WDDE and other WGMD down south, and gets talked about on both sides…
Because there is a funny thing that always happens when good ideas get talked about in the open, and one can hear both sides. They start to get followers. And as more and more followers pile on, as more and more support for this bill becomes apparent.. as more people start supporting what appears to be a very common sensical means of pulling our society back together, of fixing the broken door jambs that have been stepped over too long, of repairing leaking cracks too long ignored across our aged infrastructure (in both physical and human capital), then Jack will rue the day he ever threatened Senior with tax hikes they could never pay…. while ignoring those who can easily pay 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 times the amounts we will be asking of them.
And the idea that we have to cut back now on very essential stuff in what is now a richly growing economy, all because we don’t have money when it is there, right in front of us, dangling for us to take it: is plain stupid. Really… Would YOU not cash in a winning Powerball ticket because you didn’t want Powerball LLC. to lose any money over you? Somethings are smart. Some things are really dumb… Not cashing in a winning Powerball, or not raising the tax rates on the top one percent, are both…. about as equally dumb.
The point of placing this bill on the table, is that if we generate significant conversation and make a run at passing a 12% top state tax rate, or even just get that conversation out there, and get 500,000 Delawarean voter’s hopes up that yes, this legislature might finally do something responsible, and still fail by being one or two votes short… the very fact we did so helps it become far easier to have the General Assembly slip in and vote on the last day of session, a bill that raises the wealthy’s rates by 1%, or 2%, or 3%, or 4%…. And that, would be a godsend to Seniors…..
Society across the board has simply outgrown all this “cut taxes to grow” hype. We tried it; it failed; now we remember the good years back when taxes were a tiny bit higher and we were all, everyone of us, far much happier, far better off, and all of us facing what looked to be a very, very bright future. …
kavips 
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February 10, 2015 at 8:39 am
anonymous
Passed the Point of No Return
Something the fossil fuelers and .1%ers overlook:
The Earth doesn’t need them.
Through greedy free-for-all toxic by-product releasing, they have proven themselves to be her worst enemy and she will rid herself of their sick stupidity and carry on.
Left to their own evil ways, the greediest will deny their way Passed the Point of No Return (unstoppable CO2 and CH4 feedback systems,) their dollars and shameful senselessness will too late become apparent, to the most under educated – as well as the puppeteers of Big Coal, Oil, Gas and Gov, Inc. The sickness they dump (hazardous waste industrial by-products) upon the living planet, will be reflected back to them, as the most involved are outstandingly, the dumbest humans to ever roam the Earth.
Those who have the most, will loose the most. The millions of starving dust bin dump site scavengers of other continents, will loose what = being able to hover over toxic chemical waste fires to retrieve scrap metals, so they can eat a bowl of gruel to live another day on a trash dump. Meanwhile, most can’t imagine how the wealthy live on their ill-gotten gains.
The greedy, wealthy, politically powerful, have an uncontrolled sickness, that will be stripped of its pompous falsehood of better living through a chemically altered atmosphere, where money is made by dumping by- products for free. As is the case, the greedy will self destruct. The sad part is, they will destroy everything along with them in the process.
Passed the Point of No Return, will the wealthy be able to buy back an environmentally livable ecosystem?
Of course they can’t, their money will be useless against runaway Nature.
But ask them. As the global climate changes (as it has,) the storms come (as they do,) the ice caps melt (as they are,) the feedback carbon dioxide and methane bubble from the Earth (as it now is,) global temperatures rise (as they are,) the forests burn (as they have,) the sea level rises (as it shall,) economies suffer (as they are,) the cities fail (as they will,) the grid fails (as will happen,) technologies fail (as they can,) the crops fail (as they will,) cultures and civilization fail, (as is apparent,) do the .1%ers think the Planet will provide the greedy wealthy CO2 polluters with a livable environment, because they are ‘special ‘(destroyers of the livable planet?)
If they still think they can hoard and hide better than the less entitled, ask the wealthy, how will they single handedly shut down the world’s four hundred and thirty-seven nuclear power plants that ALSO depend on the Earth’s natural environment of cooling ice caps, cooling temperatures, cooling waters, normal sea levels, stable educated populations, a stable economy, a stable grid energy supply, stable local governments, stable nations.
http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/World-Statistics/World-Nuclear-Power-Plants-in-Operation
Here’s a better plan. Levy a substantial fee on all fossil fuels at the well head, mine shaft, or point of entry. Eliminate subsidies to the fossil fuel industries. The carbon (pollution) fee, which needs to increase in predictable steps over time, would be paid by fossil fuel companies and each month every legal resident would receive an equal share of the money collected, as a direct bank deposit or debit card. (It’s a plan smart republicans and democrats should like – money to the people, not government.)
There would be an increase in the price of fossil fuels and an increase price for products and services that use fossil fuels. The poorest individual 60% of the U.S population, who generally have the smallest carbon footprints per person, would receive more in dividends than they would pay in increased fuel and other prices. But as individuals, they are entitled to have a safe future planet for their next generations and their cooperation is needed. This plan would result in industries seeking alternative energies; this would keep politicians from funding dirty energy and robbing middle America to subsidize dirty energy. It would help the citizens pay their own bills and help keep the .1% from forever destroying the livable planet that rightfully belongs to all future generations.
Problems solved: Runaway CO2 pollution by fossil fueled industries. Initiative of energy concerns to switch to clean energy (which is a must for survival.) Cash for the common man to meet energy expenses or to invest in clean energy at home, (at double the value of CO2 monies when used for solar panels, wind, thermal, etc.) Participation of everyman in solving our fossil fuel addictions.
Tax the wealthy offenders, encourage clean energy production, reduce CO2 polllution, preserve the only natural environment that supports life as we know it.
The alternative: Doing nothing. Continue to let Big Oil and political psychopaths increase their present day wealth as they bring catastrophic scenarios to your future generations’ lives.
February 3, 2018 at 3:07 pm
Jeffrey Liakos
This is all fine and good, however, excessively high tax rates will drive wealth away from the United States. Why not have a simple flat tax of 25% on all incomes above $57, 000.00 and tax Capital Gains and dividends at the same rate?