Under Sanders’ legislation, a 5.4 percent tax on income of more than $1 million a year would yield up to $50 billion annually for the U.S. Treasury.
The same legislation would end tax breaks for big oil and gas companies. That provision would yield about $3.5 billion a year in new revenue.
Sanders voted yesterday against a House-passed spending bill that slashed Head Start, Pell grants, community health centers, LIHEAP, the Social Security Administration and many other programs that are vitally important to millions of middle-class families.
“The Republicans wanted to move toward a balanced budget solely on the backs of the middle class and some of the most vulnerable people in this country, but didn’t ask the wealthiest people, who are becoming much wealthier, to contribute one penny in shared sacrifice.”
I don’t think it’s out of line to ask the wealthy to start contributing their fair share.They’ve been raking it in at the expense of everyone else for over a decade.
Kevin Drum discusses the stupidity being thrown around by the Republican Party since the Supreme Court’s ruling on Affordable Care last week:
“Democrats have long insisted that Obamacare’s penalty for not buying health insurance isn’t a tax, but on Thursday the Supreme Court upheld it on the grounds that it was a tax. J’accuse! Or, as America’s Bard of the Frozen North tweeted,“Obama lies, freedom dies.”
“This is so stupid it hurts. But Josh Marshall says that what comes next is even more brain dead:
“Republicans are now saying it’s the ‘biggest tax increase in history’ — either of America or the universe of whatever. But this is demonstrably false. The Congressional Budget Office says the mandate penalty will raise $27 billion between 2012 and 2021. $27 billion over a decade. Anybody who cares to can do the math. But if you want to call it a ‘tax increase’ — which is debatable — it’s clearly one of tiniest ones in history.”
“Let’s be fair: When Republicans talk about ACA’s tax increases, most of them are talking about all the taxes in the bill, not just the penalty. But they’re still off base. There have been 15 tax increases of significant size since 1950, and Jerry Tempalski, a tax analyst in the Treasury Department, has estimated the size of all of them as a percentage of GDP. Tempalski hasn’t estimated the eventual size of ACA, but PolitiFact took a crack at it using the same methodology, and they figure that ACA amounts to a tax increase of 0.49% of GDP seven years from now. That places it tenth on the list.”
REAGAN’S TAX INCREASE IN 1982 WAS BIGGER! The GOP is fully aware that their base will never read these facts on Drudge or Breitbart or see them on Fox Entertainment — so the lies will continue as planned.
