Advocate wrote:I find you funny.
That is because I am an idiot. At least I think so half the time.
You are good. You made me laugh.
Re: TAX TIME
Advocate wrote:Tax Day's Unfairness
Since President Bush entered office, he has made tax policy a focus of his domestic agenda. "These are the basic ideas that guide my tax policy: lower income taxes for all, with the greatest help going for those most in need," said Bush of his "bold and fair tax relief plan." But a majority of Americans will not feel Bush's alleged tax relief today, as his tax schemes have disproportionately aided the wealthy, often at the expense of the poor and middle class. For example, in 2005, Bush's tax changes allowed Vice President Dick Cheney to reap $1.1 million in tax savings, but households in the bottom fifth income bracket only received an average of $20 from the tax cuts in 2006. Dissatisfaction with the state of the economy was a major force driving Americans to the polls in the 2006 elections, but Bush has still failed to deliver a fairer tax plan for Americans. "Despite major increases in outlays for war and security, the President and Congress substantially expanded the already unaffordable tax cuts in subsequent years. The fiscal and moral consequences of these blunders are staggering," states Robert S. McIntyre of the nonpartisan Citizens for Tax Justice.
A MORE UNEQUAL AMERICA: In part due to Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, concentration of income in the United States is reaching record levels. "[T]ax rates faced by the wealthiest Americans have fallen, having also recently shown that the top 1% of American earners got a greater share of national income in 2005 than at any time since the 1920s." Americans earning over $1 million receive an average annual tax cut of [over] $100,000, whereas middle income families earning between $26,000 and $45,000 receive about $650. A study by the Congressional Budget Office explains that the "growing concentration of income at the top continues a long-term trend." "The share of after-tax income going to the top one percent rose from 12.2 percent in 2003 to 14.0 percent in 2004," making that the largest one-year increase in the share of income going to the top one percent in 15 years. The United States is fast approaching a "historic threshold: Should current trends continue -- from higher payroll taxes to the potential impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax on middle-class earners -- the U.S. system could tip from progressive to flat in a matter of years, at least for the top half of earners," according to a recent economic study. Now, the case for comprehensive tax reform is more pressing than ever.
--AmericanProgressAction
Whats really unfair is that all this personal income tax doesnt wind up getting spent on any services for the country.. it all gets spent so the govt can buy its own currency.. its a joke
^4/27/07: Gilded Once More
By PAUL KRUGMAN
One of the distinctive features of the modern American right has been
nostalgia for the late 19th century, with its minimal taxation, absence
of regulation and reliance on faith-based charity rather than government
social programs. Conservatives from Milton Friedman to Grover Norquist
have portrayed the Gilded Age as a golden age, dismissing talk of the
era's injustice and cruelty as a left-wing myth.
Well, in at least one respect, everything old is new again. Income
inequality -- which began rising at the same time that modern
conservatism began gaining political power -- is now fully back to Gilded
Age levels.
Consider a head-to-head comparison. We know what John D. Rockefeller,
the richest man in Gilded Age America, made in 1894, because in 1895 he
had to pay income taxes. (The next year, the Supreme Court declared the
income tax unconstitutional.) His return declared an income of $1.25
million, almost 7,000 times the average per capita income in the United
States at the time.
But that makes him a mere piker by modern standards. Last year,
according to Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine, James Simons, a
hedge fund manager, took home $1.7 billion, more than 38,000 times the
average income. Two other hedge fund managers also made more than $1
billion, and the top 25 combined made $14 billion.
How much is $14 billion? It's more than it would cost to provide health
care for a year to eight million children -- the number of children in
America who, unlike children in any other advanced country, don't have
health insurance.
The hedge fund billionaires are simply extreme examples of a much bigger
phenomenon: every available measure of income concentration shows that
we've gone back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s.
The New Gilded Age doesn't feel quite as harsh and unjust as the old
Gilded Age -- not yet, anyway. But that's because the effects of
inequality are still moderated by progressive income taxes, which fall
more heavily on the rich than on the middle class; by estate taxation,
which limits the inheritance of great wealth; and by social insurance
programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which provide a
safety net for the less fortunate.
You might have thought that in the face of growing inequality, there
would have been a move to reinforce these moderating institutions -- to
raise taxes on the rich and use the money to strengthen the safety net.
That's why comparing the incomes of hedge fund managers with the cost of
children's health care isn't an idle exercise: there's a real trade-off
involved. But for the past three decades, such trade-offs have been
consistently settled in favor of the haves and have-mores.
Taxation has become much less progressive: according to estimates by the
economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, average tax rates on the
richest 0.01 percent of Americans have been cut in half since 1970,
while taxes on the middle class have risen. In particular, the unearned
income of the wealthy -- dividends and capital gains -- is now taxed at a
lower rate than the earned income of most middle-class families.
Those hedge fund titans, by the way, have an especially sweet deal:
loopholes in the law let them use their own businesses as, in effect,
unlimited 401(k)s, sheltering their earnings and accumulating tax-free
capital gains.
Meanwhile, the tax-cut bill Congress passed in 2001 set in motion a
complete phaseout of the estate tax. If the Bush administration hadn't
been too clever by half, hiding the true cost of its tax cuts by making
the whole package expire at the end of 2010, we'd be well on our way
toward becoming a dynastic society.
And as for the social insurance programs? -- well, in 2005 the Bush
administration tried to privatize Social Security. If it had succeeded,
Medicare would have been next.
Of course, the administration's attempt to undo Social Security was a
notable failure. The public, it seems, isn't eager to return to the days
before the New Deal. And the G.O.P.'s defeat in the midterm election has
put on hold other plans to restore the good old days.
But it's much too soon to declare the march toward a New Gilded Age
over. If history is any guide, one of these days we'll see the emergence
of a New Progressive Era, maybe even a New New Deal. But it may be a
long wait.
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