It seems like every time I listen to a politician talk I always come away with more questions than answers. Take President Obama’s nationally televised speech this week on the debt ceiling crisis. The President spoke to the nation for about 15 minutes but I still don’t have a clue as to what he is proposing to do about our debt crisis. In fact, all I know is that he wants a “balanced” approach to meeting our fiscal woes. Clearly, his pollsters have indicated to him that independent voters crave “balanced” approaches to problems – but I digress. What follows are several questions I had after listening to the President.
First and foremost, Obama spent a good amount of time lamenting the deficiencies of the tax code. He talked about credits, subsidies, and loopholes that allow the very rich to avoid paying their “fair” share in taxes. Now, there is no doubt that the income tax code is in need of a total revamping, but the question is why did Obama wait for a crisis to take an inflexible stand on raising taxes? He has been president for two and one-half years and he was a senator for three years before that. Why didn’t he propose changes to the tax code in all that time that would have closed loopholes and eliminated special breaks for politically connected hot shots? Could it be this is all just political rhetoric to arouse his base going into an election year?
Speaking of the rich paying their “fair” share of taxes, naturally the President harped on this class warfare theme repeatedly. Fair is a very subjective word. Chances are good that what the President considers fair I don’t. By “fair” does Obama believe the rich should pay the same percent of income in taxes as everybody else? Or does he believe they should pay an amount equivalent to the amount of government services they use? In either case they don’t. I did a little research and found that the rich actually pay most of the federal income taxes in America. For instance, the richest 10 percent of taxpayers pay 70 percent of all taxes. Could it be I misunderstood the President? Perhaps he meant that the rich already pay more than their “fair” share of taxes and deserve a tax cut?
But I suppose the position of Obama’s that I can’t understand the most is his insistence that without raising the debt limit the U.S. Government would be in default. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center there would be enough revenue per month to pay the interest on the debt, social security, Medicare and Medicaid and unemployment benefits. If we ended the wars we could use the $31.7 billion earmarked for the military industrial complex (defense venders) for military pay, veteran’s benefits, IRS refunds, and welfare. Under this scenario, our debt obligations are met thus avoiding default, vital services are provided to the American people, and only the massive bureaucracy which has become Washington will shut down. I think this sounds like a great deal.
At the end of the day, politicians are puzzling and the current occupant of the White House is no exception. They talk and talk and talk and produce more questions than answers. It is amazing that with all the talk in Washington over the debt ceiling no one has mentioned how presidents and Congresses for decades have been ignoring what is already the law of the land. Section 7 of Public Law 95-435 passed by the 95th Congress and signed into law by President Carter requires a federal balanced budget. Perhaps if this question were asked of Washington a long time ago we wouldn’t be in the financial mess we find ourselves in today.
Kenn Jacobine teaches internationally and maintains a summer residence in North Carolina
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However, I find it more reprehensible that one half this country pays nearly ALL the federal income tax. Since, entitlements outlays alone now equal ALL collections by the federal government, one can easily deduce that one half of this country is providing significant support for the other half.
We are hauling around a lot of dead weight. I won't comment in which half the whiners exist who insist on retaining federal entitlement spending.
For a whole slew of OSers, the reaction is: Facts! -- We don't need to be hindered by no stinkin' facts.
As I said on RedPossums excellent blog post:
"but mr. apisa (you know what) keeps insisting that the liar-in chief is "doing the best he can with the cards he's been dealt."
There must be some cognitive dissonance here, "said the joker to the thief."
-R-
As I see it, Obama will be a one-term president...and the next president will be a Republican vetted and approved by the tea party...and by people who think like you.
So we should see how the country goes with that kind of thinking at the helm.
I also expect the legislature to go further right...toward people who think as you do.
We'll see how things go. Can't ask for more than that!
"Over that four decades, tax rates on the very rich have plummeted. Between the end of World War II and 1980, the top tax bracket remained over 70 percent — and even after deductions and credits was well over 50 percent. Now it’s 36 percent. As recently as the late 1980s, the capital gains rate was 35 percent. Now it’s 15 percent."
Not only are rates lower now, but loopholes are bigger. 18,000 households earning more than a half-million dollars last year paid no income taxes at all. In recent years, according to the IRS, the richest 400 Americans have paid only 18 percent of their total incomes in federal income taxes. Billionaire hedge-fund and private-equity managers are allowed to treat much of their incomes as capital gains (again, at 15 percent).
Meanwhile, more and more of the nation’s income and wealth have gone to the top. In the late 1970s, the top 1 percent took home 9 percent of total national income. Now the top 1 percent’s take is more than 20 percent. Over the same period, the top one-tenth of one percent has tripled its share.
Wealth is even more concentrated at the top — more concentrated than at any time since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century."
http://www.alternet.org/economy/150995/the_great_switch_by_the_super_rich%3A_how_wealthy_americans_started_paying_so_little_in_taxes/?page=entire
Maybe, frank would have his lord and master just eliminate ALL taxes on the rich and give away the store all at once. Well thought out comments, once again, by the OS class dunce.
The top 10% owns 71%.
Top 1% owns 51% of all stocks, bonds, mutual funds.
Top 10% owns 90%.
Top 1% receives 57% of all capital income.
Bottom 80% --13%
It's even uglier when you separate out the top .001%
Conclusion: As history and common sense would have it, this is the template for an extremely dysfunctional economic system. But that is the product of a encompassing, rational mind. The dysfunction is the result of the Conservative Revolution.
If you want the lower classes to pay more income tax, quit making them poorer. The salient point isn't the wealthy paying too much, it's that we've managed to impoverish the middle class. Complaining about income tax distribution as unfair to the wealthy is the product of a tiny mind and myopic analysis. Saying those who pay income taxes are carrying the rest is simply the product of a moron. We tax wealth, not people, and not taxing wealth enough and making sure it's distributed fairly is what led to this dysfunction.
We didn't have this problem under New Deal Liberalism. It worked better in every way.
If you're tired of hauling around a lot of dead weight, Chris, buy a neck brace.
No, Paul, collectivizing the economy and making sure it was distributed is what lead to the USSR. This was beautiful in the beginning, just like the New Deal. However, it only lasted seven decades before it imploded under a the weight it had to bear of unproductive society of citizens, almost all of whom believed the government owed them care from cradle to grave.
The world has been there, done that . . . time to cut our losses, reduce the "safety net", tax us less, reduce the size of our government, and let us all face the consequences of not taking care of ourselves and our families.
The reality of distributive considerations being essential to a workable economy AND country is well known, studied and has been applied by advanced countries since history has been written. Only a true chuckle-headed 2 IQ literalistic simp hears "distributive" and automatically reaches for the commie card. You have nothing intelligent to say, and do it frequently. Your fact-free musings are always followed by broad, vague suggestions that have nothing to do with history, fact or reality in general.
Kenn,
In a sense, I'm not talking about New Deal policies as much as New Deal results. The attempts at economic controls were unwise, but weren't stopping any business from expanding. The stimulus attempts were always inadequate, but people did get fed, which at the time was highly important.
As far as the ideological garbled garbage about it extending the Depression, that's long been the delightfully unprovable position of those who feel a need to defend an ideology that hasn't ever delivered a damn thing to America.
The New Deal America I'm talking about is what came out of that massive Keynesian stimulus -- WW2. A strong, well paid middle class, happy industrialists and a distributive template that ensured a certain high level of economic sustainability.
The 40-60s easily holds superiority over the 80-00s destruction of the middle class and economic and public infrastructure. Simply put -- your ideology and/or Chris' slogan-slinging attempts at argument -- support a provably failed unworkable concept over one that, even with its flaws, worked.
So I guess now you are saying that we need a war to stimulate the economy as if the 4 we have going now is not good enough.
I agree with you that the 50s and 60s were great economically, but reasons include the U.S. was in the best position to succeed after the war, government spending had been reduced starting in 1946, and we still had a relatively sound monetary system.
Then Johnson intensified Vietnam, introduced the 'Great Society' and that great conservative Nixon decided to fund it all. It resulted in his closing the gold window and ushering in an era of price inflation like the world has never seen. This is why we have an ever expanding gap between rich and poor. You see when new money is printed the rich always get it first before it has had a chance to circulate. By the time the poor get it (last) price inflation has already hit. Additionally, price inflation eats away at whatever savings they have. TARP and all those reserves the banks are holding came from your president courtesy of the Fed. The big boys got the money first, used it to either recover and/or make a fortune and now because of a massive increase in the money supply and therefore a devalued dollar we are on the verge of huge price inflation.
Other than Dennis Kucinich, I don't get why more liberals don't see this. Your are caught in a catch 22. You need the Fed to finance your crazy schemes and programs but the Fed contributes to destroying the people you are trying to help.