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Stealing this from Steve Newton’s Whiskey. because a) it will be awesome, and b) it drives the message better than 5 of my paragraphs every could…
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“In Delaware, folks we have exactly the government we deserve and that the corporations paid for:
–An Insurance Commissioner gouging customers as a proxy for corporate interests …
–A Secretary of Education destroying our schools for corporate interests …
–DNREC committed to the continued gutting of the Coastal Zone Act for corporate interests …
–A Department of Homeland Security and Public Safety that spies on law-abiding citizens and shares the information with corporate interests …
If you’re beginning to see a pattern here, you’re correct.”
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Point Steve made whether he intended or not is that we don’t have a series of battles spread widely across the fields of opportunity. We have one enemy… And if both Delaware and America are ever to again have a hopeful future, it is this enemy we must capture, try, and hang… or behead… or open an airlock door into space…
Now if we can all unite against this enemy we can beat him… We did before, during the Great Depression. Basically we have to minimize the power this enemy has, and bring things back into balance… a balance that for the most part propels forward policies that benefit We, The People, our government, and our local business interests. ..
Here is all we have to do…
Raise taxes on the wealthy.
- 90% tax rate on incomes (both personal and corporate) over 400 billion.
- 80% tax rate on incomes (both) between 100 – 400 billion.
- 70% tax rate on incomes (both) between 50 – 100 billion.
- 60% tax rate on incomes (both) between 25 – 50 billion.
Stop there. The lower echelons are taxed adequately… Notice I said “billions”… What we attempt to do is penalize the accumulation of wealth in very few hands, and encourage the idea of paying less taxes by spreading money around… .. And even if no one ever pays that much in tax because they choose not to make that much money by spending as much as they earn… Everyone still wins. … …
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Secondly. Minimize the impact big money has on politicians… That can be done by returning America to the age-old notion that we force there to always be ties between money dumped and real human beings… If you want to give $100 million dollars to a candidate, you had better find 100,000 people who will donate it for you…. If you can’t, then probably the influence you are trying to impose, is not in the best interest of this nation….
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Third. Make it manditorily clear that anyone can form a union. That punishing anyone for union activity can result in fines and payments 5 times over what that individual would have made if they’d continued working.. Now bosses need to again make sure that their employees are happier without a union, than they would be if they had one. If they can’t do that simple thing, then a union most likely should have already been in place for decades….
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There are more, But none of them matter if the first and second issue are not addressed… Even the third is not critical.. But I want you, for just one moment, stop and imagine how nicer things would be if you were just making $10,000 more than you would be every single year of the rest of your working life.
Do steps one and two and it happens almost immediately. Now imagine how great a country this would be if everyone, everywhere was making $10,000 per year… This needs to be to where we steer…
Privatizing Schools. Gouging Health Insurance. Destroying the Environment. Increasing Domestic Spying. are like a cough, sneeze, runny nose, and scratchy throat… WE need an antibiotic to wipe out the sinus infection. Not cough drops, Nettie pots, Vapo-Rub, or walking around with a tissue stuffed up our nose.
There is one enemy… All parties must join and focus their death rays upon it…..
A tidbit upon which historians will agree, was ultimately why the Democrats were not able to capitalize on the phenomenal results of today’s thriving booming American economy.
Republican policies created this imbalance. But it is Obama who as CEO, gets the blame for its residual effects.
How to fix it? A marginally accurate 73% tax on incomes over $73 million would turn the tables nicely with no residual effect to the other 99.9% of the population…..
Last week I was overjoyed to pay $2.88 a gallon for gas. This week I was overjoyed to pay $2.78. But it shows exactly how little 10 cents a gallon really was.
Now, we don’t have new roads. Now we have congestion. Now our potholes take way too long to fix….
Now we won’t have 2,500 highway construction jobs we could have had… And you would never even know you were paying for them….
It is sad… just sad that the betterment of all Delaware’s men, women, and children, was put on the back burner so people could “pretend” they didn’t like “taxes”.
One wheel alignment because one hit one pothole, costs more than the invisible cost of 10 cents a gallon on gas under $3.00…..
Came across an amazing chart from the Paris School of Economic’s database. It allows you to customize your search for any time or place over the world.
My area of expertise is within the US and here is what I wanted to see: the percentage of national income earned by the top 0.01%…. not just the top 1%, but the top-tip 0.01%.
This shows the past 100 years of national income percentage earned by the top 0.01%. There are some very striking facts noticed by those looking at this data for the first time.
1) The year 2012 was one of the record highest, beaten only by two years during WWI when the rest of the world was embroiled in war, and our top echelon were selling to both sides…. If one extracts that exception, then in 2012 we gave the top 0.01% (one hundredth of one percent) more of our national income than at any time previously recorded.
2) The Great Depression did little to affect the income percentages (1928-1932); Roosevelt however (1933-onward), did a lot.
3) During America’s most prosperous times ever, after WWII made us the sole global economy, the incomes of the top 0.01% stayed under 1% of national income across the next 43 years. (1943-1986)
4) The Reagan Tax Cut of 1986 caused a doubling of the top 1%’s income in just 2 years. from 1% in 1986 to 1.99% in 1988.
5) The percentage again dropped under 2% after Clinton’s tax hike in 1992 causing a robust expansion, but passed that 2% mark in 1997 never to return.
6) During the “w” Bush years, the percentage continuously climbed peaking in 2007 and would have peaked higher in 2008 but the recession clipped the last two months off that year. Despite that, 2008 was the 2nd highest grossing percentage up to that time (discounting the WWI anomaly) across almost 100 years of data.
7) The Great Recession (2008-9) as did the Great Depression (1929-32), had little effect on the top 0.01% percentage of national income. At no point did their yearly take dip below 3%, a mark first crossed in 2005 (if one continues disregarding the anomaly of the First World War).
8) The rebound ability of an economy at large is hampered when more money collects at the top and is not returned as investment to the bottom. Though small in percentage points, those difference of those 3 percentage points ( from under 1.0 to 4.0) translates to $500 billion that did not impact our economy because it went to less than 31,000 Americans. Considering our TARP was passed only for $800 billion, we only saw $300 billion net running through our economy. because $500 billion of the $800 billion was handed over to less than 31,000 people then quickly whisked away to foreign bank accounts beyond the reach of the IRS.
9) Although difficult to state through all the multiple influences that impact economies daily, the extensive overview shown by this chart makes it clear that were we to have another great recession, we should first use the incomes of our top 0.01% to first rebuild our national economy as did Roosevelt, and not assume that those wealthy will do so voluntarily as did our creators and negotiators behind this current rebound.
10) Data from 2013 will be most interesting. The Bush Tax Cuts for the top 0.05% were rescinded that year, and at that point, our economy took off ( at least when Republicans weren’t threatening to shut it all down). If it does indeed show a drop in the top 1%’s income, then we will know that in order to have robust recoveries, those at the top need to be taxed more, not less.
As for politics, this needs to be taken to heart. Anyone who argues for less taxes on the top 1%, be they Democrat or Republican, needs to be shown the door…. We now have sufficient data to know with certainty, and from it, we can see all evidence points that higher marginal tax rates do benefit the middle class and subsequently the economy at large…..
This historical chart rings that out, clear as a bell at the end of a day’s trading…..
Today, instead of paying $2.84 for per gallon of gas, we’d be paying $2.94: the price of gas last Friday.
Now because we aren’t paying what we paid last Friday for gas, we can’t have improvements on any of our roads. We won’t be able to fill pot holes. We can’t properly plow the roads during snow time. Bottlenecks will remain bottlenecks with no plans to expand the highway system.
And there will be 7,700 fewer people working at high paying jobs in Delaware as a result…
Thanks Valerie Longhurst, for making Delaware a second tier state…… What on earth were you thinking?
This will be a brief teaser for labor day… Why, is the middle class (labor) suffering so much today…..
US Corporations get around the US’s high tax rate of 35% by stashing money offshore. The average corporation pays 12.6% according to the GAO in 2010…. This means that half of America’s corporations pay higher, and half of America’s corporations pay lower… HALF OF AMERICA’S CORPORATIONS PAY LOWER THAN 12.6%? REALLY?
During America’s boom times, when the middle class was almost guaranteed a job for life with a pension plan and a gold watch, corporate taxes were set as high as 52.8 percent. Later rates were lowered to 48 percent and then 46 percent. It was only after 1986 when they were lowered to 35% that the middle class problem begin to emerge….
Across history there is a direct relationship between higher taxes and higher wages… When tax rates are high, wage rates are high. When tax rates are low, wage rates are low. (As an additional benefit, the higher the taxes, the higher the employment level goes as well.) In fact there is such public good in charging the wealthy higher taxes with no downside, that is is literally amazing we aren’t doing it. Everyone benefits out the gazoo!)
The way America’s corporations get around this 35% rate, is by stashing cash abroad. There is $2 trillion of America’s money kept overseas, and not brought home to keep it from being taxed… You pay taxes. I pay taxes, yet corporations think they shouldn’t… How fair is that?
Keep in mind. This is by their own volition. They are not forced to keep that money offshore. They could bring it back anytime they wished. They choose not to do so… And that money is what funds campaigns for cutting taxes. That money is what buys both Democrat and Republican allegiance to no-tax pledges. I would bet that some of that foreign money is in Tom Carper’s, Chris Coons’, and John Carney’s campaign slush funds right now..
$2 trillion at 35% is $700 billion that should have already been in our treasury… That is money we borrowed unnecessarily to cover our expenses which if a proper administration had been in the executive branch would have already been there, from corporations… The balance, $1.3 trillion would have then been available here and could have been invested in our nation in the form of jobs…
There was some discussion, primarily from Michelle Bachmann, as to give a blanket amnesty on these taxes to get this money back, But that is like saying you won’t prosecute a bank robber if he comes back and spends his money in your home town… What bank will he rob next? And what about all those people who had their money stolen from them? Michelle and her Republican cohorts seem not to care.
So why are corporations really renouncing their “citizenship?” Simple answer, is they are doing this so they can pocket hoards of “deferred” offshore profits without ever paying the taxes they owe on these profits….
Dave Johnson explains. “Here is how the deferral scam works. An American company sets up a non-U.S. “subsidiary” in a tax haven. That non-U.S. company gets or produces goods, services, patents, whatever, at a low price. (This often involves shifting paper (and copyrights, patents) around to make it look like profits are not made in the U.S., but in too many cases this means the U.S. company actually moves U.S. jobs, factories, production, call centers and other assets out of the country.) The subsidiary sells to the U.S. company at a high price. Most or all of the profit is therefore made by the non-U.S. subsidiary, so the profits are considered to be non-U.S. and taxes on those profits are “deferred.” This still counts as profits for the U.S. owner of that subsidiary, but the U.S. company does not have to pay taxes (they are “deferred”) until they “bring the profit home.””
These corporations see that if they renounce their citizenship before the U.S. fixes this loophole, they can just keep the money….
But does this money REALLY stay offshore??? As you would certainly expect, of course not…. The non-U.S. subsidiary company “loans” money to the U.S. parent. So all of the non-U.S. cash actually is available to the U.S. parent. But wait, there’s more. The U.S. parent pays interest to the subsidiary, which is deducted from taxes and reduces the U.S. tax bill even more. ..
If complicated, it isn’t. I hire you as my buddy in crime. I give you all my money… I say, look, I’m broke, I can’t pay any taxes! You lend me my money back to me… I spend it tax free and the money I do make, I write off as interest I give back to you… So I keep everything I make here … No taxes…
Ways to fight this… very important on this Labor Day…
A. Hold Democrats accountable. Don’t let them (Tom Carper, Chris Coons, John Carney) get away with helping corporations rob the American workers, who do pay all their taxes and who are subsidizing these corporations money-making schemes.
B. Support proposals by President Obama to use executive action to stop “income stripping” and to keep “inverted” companies from getting government contracts
C. Support the Stop Corporate Inversions Act of 2014 in the Congress… Obviously obstructed by Republicans.
D. Support a proposal to tax companies based on their percentage of sales that occur in the U.S.,..
One must wonder, why is this even in the tax code? The reason is so U.S. companies can use “offshore” profits to invest in growth. This is a win-win because we want U.S. companies to do well, and because the U.S. is supposed to benefit when profits are brought home and taxes are paid….
A very simple way to fight abuse of deferral is to charge a fee of, say, 7 percent a year on all deferred profits. The full amount of taxes is to still be paid when profits are finally brought home, but we collect an additional 7 percent a year until they are….
So enjoy your Labor Day. We’ve got some real work to begin tomorrow…..
I guess there is a storm coming.
The predominant face of the poor is white.
Economic insecurity among whites is said to be more common than is shown in the government’s poverty data, engulfing over 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60..
Economic insecurity approaching 76%….. How does this end the middle class designation?
Let us review what is the middle class. It is the class in the middle… Start and stop points and change depending on who want to show what, but for the most part, the middle class would have a center point around the 50% margin… Hence: middle class….
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
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Sort of what you’d expect… the area above the poverty line and just below the rich……But based on current data now released from the Census Bureau, (and this is no secret to people in public schools) over 80% of America has been at or below poverty levels in its lifetime… It really doesn’t matter when. You could be financially stable through your whole life and then get termed at age 60. The effect is the same. You could face 50% age group unemployment right out of college and use odd jobs and part time jobs to stay alive. The effect is the same. The mark today is that 80% face economic insecurity. Can we just call that poor? Isn’t that the definition of poor? Someone who doesn’t have enough to be secure in today’s society?
Therefore if we take the middle of those from where the poor end at 80%, then we get a middle class graphic looking like this:
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% XXX
This is the official version of today’s America rendered by the US Census bureau…. Times have changed…
Compare that to where it was under Bill Clinton in 1999 before Republicans took over….
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
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No offense to my Republican friends but this (which sad to say is exactly what I predicted in 2000), is what you get when you don’t tax progressively. We now have only 2 classes; The 1% and the 99%.
The fix? Is to tax the top 1% who can well afford even a purely theoretical 100% taxation without hardship, and use that money for jobs…. Just jobs. More government contracts. This is America’s quick answer… and it must be decided in this election 2014 that we will take it. Against all odds, we need both chambers in Democrats’ hands., not for Democrats, but for America. It’s the only way is to defeat Republicanism… We are not talking individual candidates. We are talking about a philosophy that stresses the lazy poor 80% must continue to suffer even more to pay for the one percent’s excesses, and not as it should be, … the other way around…
Yet 60 votes were needed. Proving once more we need a filibuster proof Senate where the majority does not get undercut by a minority….. Deadlock continues in the worst Congress ever… as usual.
Hung up at 58-39 the final vote was cast by,,,, Harry Reid, in the negative… making it 58-40…
A procedural vote to end the filibuster was undertaken immediately thereafter.
1. Increase Taxes on Top Echelon at a 60/40 split. They keep 60; they pay 40.
2. Allow capital improvement inside the geographical USA to be written off the year it is expensed.
3. Return Federal Jobs to levels before 2008.
4. Return State jobs to levels before 2008.
5. Return Local jobs to levels before 2008.
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The arguments have been long expounded as to how, as to why, and as to the details of when. I’ll save time by not repeating them. …
Every county in America would get a jump on their own unemployment immediately.
kavips 