Citizens' Daily Lobby

I have said this before, but I think it’s worth repeating.  Compromise only works if both sides are doing it.

Making a one-sided compromise is like giving your lunch to the 5th grade bully.   He says, “Hey, let’s compromise.  You give me your lunch, and I’ll let you live another day. “  Compromise?  Maybe, but only if you assume he has the right to take your lunch in the first place, much less kill you.

Let’s review the proposed tax cut compromise. The government will bail workers out of a situation created by the greedy, and the richest 1-2%, the ones who have profited the most at the expense of American labor throughout the recession, will not assume any additional responsibility for the bill.   The GOP will make the deficit worse by almost a trillion dollars.    You can bet that in 2012, the Party of No will blame the entire increase on unemployment extension and will ignore their continued give-away of $700 billion to the wealthy.   This, in spite of good evidence that almost all the unemployment benefit money will go right back into the economy.  After all, the unemployed are not saving.

The common sense plan for the Bush-era tax cuts proposed by Democrats has, predictably, met its match in that most aristocratic of US governmental bodies, the Senate.   Corporatism may take a beating in the House from time to time, but the Senate is and will remain the fairy godmother for Corporate America.    The GOP is holding middle class Americans hostage to the richest 1-2% again.   Both middle class tax cut extension and emergency unemployment benefits are being used as leverage by the GOP to force Democrats to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.  Even a compromise plan to extend benefits to those making under $1 million and also for the first $250,000  of income for everyone, was not enough to appease the Party of No.

It turns out that Americans oppose the GOP tax plan.  A CBS News Poll revealed that a minority of even Republicans want to extend the Bush era tax cuts for everyone.  Overall, 26% of Americans want to keep tax cuts for everyone, while 53% want to let tax cuts expire for those households making $250k or more.  Even more astounding is the 14% of Americans who want the tax cuts to expire for everyone.

Even with bilateral public support for ending tax cuts for the wealthy, President Obama has not found the political courage to stand firm against GOP grandstanding.     It seems that the measure will ultimately end up back in the House.  Will Democrats there proudly stand up for the middle class and for the will of the American people, or will they cave to GOP strong-arm tactics yet again?  I wish I could say I am optimistic for the outcome.

Truemajority and TheOther98% are hosting a national call-in day tomorrow to urge Congress to roll-back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.  While I completely agree that the US can’t afford the $700 billion price tag to keep these cuts, I also strongly believe tax cuts for the middle class should remain.  The middle class has paid far more than its share, and it’s time those with most of the wealth (that would be the top 1% of the population, that now controls more than 1/3 of the total wealth of the country) stop hoarding and start helping.  You can join the Call-In here.

The next time someone tells you taxing the rich will stifle the economy, decrease jobs, and keep wages low, remind them that since 1979 after tax income for the top 1% has grown by 281% while income for the rest of us has grown only 16%.   The top 1% more than doubled the percent of total wealth they control over this same period.  Obviously, there’s a lot of wealth that is failing to trickle down.  And, because the Bush tax cuts  gave more money back to high-income households (in actual dollars and as a percent), the wealthy continue to widen the income gap.

Here is the real effect of the Bush tax cuts by income group:

Households in the bottom fifth of
the income spectrum received tax
cuts averaging $29, which raised
their after-tax incomes by an average
of 0.4 percent.

Those in the middle fifth received
tax cuts averaging $760, which
raised their after-tax incomes by an
average of 2.4 percent.

The top 1 percent of households
received tax cuts averaging $41,077,
which raised their after-tax incomes
by an average of 5.0 percent.

Data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

For a good discussion of the reasoning behind keeping middle class tax cuts and expiring cuts for the top 1-2%, check out this video from the Urban Institute.

Salary and tax disparity are graphically illustrated in this chart from MoveOn.  Critics tell me it isn’t exactly to scale… the doctor should be a lot taller, for instance, and we probably should only see the top of the hedge fund manager’s shoe.  Still, I think it makes the point.

You can help send light to Haiti and learn more about climate change by taking the new Clinton Foundation quiz.  For every completed quiz, the Foundation will give $2 towards the purchase of solar flashlights to be sent to those still living in camps in Haiti, following the devastating earthquake this January.

Learn surprising uses for trash; which city is retrofitting one of its most famous landmarks; and what small urban change can reduce energy costs by up to 90 percent.

Find out how much you know about one of our planet’s greatest challenges and the solutions that are making a real difference. Plus, you’ll feel great knowing that you’ve helped send solar flashlights to people living in Haiti’s camps.

Our goal is for 100,000 people to take the quiz, so we can send 20,000 flashlights to Haiti.
Will you join the fight against climate change — and help the people of Haiti?

With Earth Day fast approaching, there couldn’t be a better time to get involved in fighting climate change and improving the lives of others.

Sincerely,

Bruce R. Lindsey
Chief Executive Officer
William J. Clinton Foundation

A recent report on the distribution of US tax dollars by expenditure category reveals that Tea Bagger fears over “redistribution of wealth” are greatly exaggerated.   Nationalpriorities.org has examined the data and determined that the largest consumer of your tax dollar is, in fact, the US military (26% direct, 5% interest on military debt).    Some of your money did make it into the hands of those less fortunate in the form of health care, unemployment benefits, social security,  and food (that includes agricultural subsidies to farmers),  and a pitifully small portion of it (2.0 cents) went to education.   However, if you’re a Tea Bagger, odds are good that you get a Social Security check and Medicare benefits, so you’re getting back a good share of your total tax disbursement, anyway.

Tea Baggers are right about one thing:  private citizens shoulder the lion’s share of the tax burden.  Only 5 cents of each tax dollar come from corporate taxes.  34% comes from personal income taxes.

Check out this fantastic discussion about income inequality and how we got where we are today at alternet.

Why do truly Progressive income tax rates generally fail the test of time?  Because the wealthy hate them much more than the average citizen loves them.  The average guy on the street just doesn’t connect the police force, fire squads, highways, parks, and other benefits with high tax rates on the super-rich.  I would add that some people believe the “that could be me” syndrome affects the way the American citizen approaches taxes.  Let’s not tax the multibillionaires too much, because “that could be me one day.”  The rich have more resources to throw into the fight, obviously.

Even the tax hike to the rich proposed by President Obama would only raise the tax rate for the top bracket to 39.6%.  That’s equal to what it was before the Bush tax cuts, and less than half as much as the highest income tax rate under Eisenhower.

British Progressives are proposing what my spouse and I often discuss:  a salary cap.  Let’s all get together and decide what constitutes the highest dollar amount that any individual should be “worth,” monetarily speaking.   The key to this plan is to tie the salary cap to the salary of the lowest paid employee.    Under a plan like this, there would be an incentive for those at the top to make salaries at the bottom grow, too.   Britain’s High Pay Commission is proposing to tie government subsidy to the difference in pay rates.  Ecuador already has such a plan.  In contrast, the US and Britain currently have no such policy.  In fact,” the  CEO at Lockheed Martin, a company that feeds almost exclusively off government contracts, last year took home $26.5 million. That’s over 700 times the take-home of the average American worker.”

There’s a discussion about income disparity in general.

How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the story. In 1974, the most affluent 1% of Americans averaged, in today’s dollars, $380,000 in income.

Now let’s fast-forward. In 2007, the most recent year with stats, households in America’s top 1% averaged $1.4 million, well over triple what top 1% households averaged back in 1974—and, remember, this tripling came after adjusting for inflation.Americans in the bottom 90%, meanwhile, saw their average incomes increase a meager $47 a year between 1974 and 2007, not enough to foot the bill for a month’s worth of cable TV.

The bottom line: top-1% households made 12 times more income than bottom-90% households in 1974, 42 times more in 2007.

The numbers become even more striking when we go back a bit further in time and focus not on the top 1%, but on the richest of the rich, the top 400, the living symbol of wealth and power in the United States ever since America’s original Gilded Age in the late 19th century.  In 1955, our 400 highest incomes averaged $12.3 million, in today’s dollars. But the top 400 in 1955 didn’t get to enjoy all those millions. On average, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find, they actually paid over half their incomes, 51.2%, in federal income tax.

Today’s super rich are doing better, fantastically better, both before and after taxes. In 2006, the top 400 averaged an astounding $263 million each in income. These 400 financially fortunate paid, after loopholes, just 17.2% of their incomes in federal tax.  After taxes, as a group, the top 400 of 2006 had $84 billion more in their pockets than 1955’s top 400, $84 billion more they could put to work bankrolling politicians and right-wing think tanks and Swift Boat ad blitzes against progressive candidates and causes.

President Obama is backing away from a promise he made earlier this year to stick it to off-shore tax evaders.  The President is tabling his plan to recover $210 billion by cracking down on the use of tax havens by corporations in the face of strong pressure from business, according to the Wall Street Journal.    The administration says it remains committed to closing tax loopholes, but we’ll see.    Looks like another point for Corporate America and another loss for Americans.   According to a 2008 Senate report, the US loses over a billion dollars a year in tax revenue due to offshore tax abuses.  Reaganomics tells us that what’s good for the Big Dogs should be good for us little pups as well, but Reaganomics is nothing more than a Republican fairy tale.   (You will note that it was never the downstairs maid that lived “happily ever after.”  That state of being was reserved for the Prince and Princess Charming).   According to a 2008 Senate report, the US loses over a billion dollars a year in tax revenue due to offshore tax abuses.

Huffington Post has the full story.