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Income redistribution the GOP way: continue Bush tax cuts, abolish Medicare [S]imply letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule (or paying for any portions that policymakers decide to extend) would stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio for the next decade.   While we’d have to do much more to keep the debt stable over the longer run, that would be a huge accomplishment. [OffTheCharts] Jack Cluth — Lest any of us forget how we got to where we are: It’s become almost an article of faith among the cognoscenti on the Right that Barack Obama’s policies are largely responsible for the mess we’re in. I suppose this only goes to prove two things: Americans have a disturbingly short and selective memory, and Americans are a highly suggestible, malleable, and an easily propagandized collection of barely lucid sheeple. Follow the money: who’s benefited from Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy? Who’s benefited from the Afghanistan / Iraq wars? Certainly not working- and middle-class Americans. Isn’t it strange that the working- and middle-class GOP base continues to support those who rob from them to give to the rich? While we’re busy throwing more of our tax dollars at rich people, oil companies and corporate CEOs (instead of into our own treasury), the GOP is trying to convince us that ending Medicare is the only option available to patriotic Americans who want to manage our deficit. The truth of the matter is that in order to continue diverting trillions in potential federal revenue to America’s millionaires, we probably will need to abolish Medicare.
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Income redistribution the GOP way: continue Bush tax cuts, abolish Medicare

[S]imply letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule (or paying for any portions that policymakers decide to extend) would stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio for the next decade.   While we’d have to do much more to keep the debt stable over the longer run, that would be a huge accomplishment. [OffTheCharts]

Jack Cluth — Lest any of us forget how we got to where we are:

It’s become almost an article of faith among the cognoscenti on the Right that Barack Obama’s policies are largely responsible for the mess we’re in. I suppose this only goes to prove two things:

  1. Americans have a disturbingly short and selective memory, and
  2. Americans are a highly suggestible, malleable, and an easily propagandized collection of barely lucid sheeple.

Follow the money: who’s benefited from Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy? Who’s benefited from the Afghanistan / Iraq wars? Certainly not working- and middle-class Americans. Isn’t it strange that the working- and middle-class GOP base continues to support those who rob from them to give to the rich?

While we’re busy throwing more of our tax dollars at rich people, oil companies and corporate CEOs (instead of into our own treasury), the GOP is trying to convince us that ending Medicare is the only option available to patriotic Americans who want to manage our deficit.

The truth of the matter is that in order to continue diverting trillions in potential federal revenue to America’s millionaires, we probably will need to abolish Medicare.

WASHINGTON POST: "For years, statistics have depicted growing income disparity in the United States, and it has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent. ...Now a mounting body of economic research indicates that the rise in pay for company executives is a critical feature in the widening income gap."

Meanwhile in Minnesota: Government shutdown Minnesota’s DEMOCRATIC governor wanted to increase taxes on people earning $1 million or more (3% of Minnesota’s taxpayers). The Minnesota REPUBLICANS would rather see the entire government shutdown and 22,000 state employees furloughed than agree to a tax increase on the wealthy. Who needs more state revenue when you can cut most of your state government programs and lay off employees?  Another example of: you can’t negotiate with “no.” ST. PAUL, Minn., July 1 (UPI) — Minnesota’s government shut down Friday after Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative leaders failed to settle their budget differences. State parks closed and entrances to rest areas were blocked. Boaters using Department of Natural Resources public landings were informed the landings wouldn’t be monitored or maintained. First-time drivers will have to wait for their licenses, as will people facing a license renewal. Same with updating vehicle tabs. Employees were told to take home any plants that couldn’t survive without water for a time. Talks broke off abruptly Thursday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. Republican leaders rejected Dayton’s proposal that would have raised income taxes on people earning more than $1 million a year — an estimated 7,700 Minnesotans, or 0.3 percent of all taxpayers, state Revenue Department statistics indicate. “This is a night of deep sorrow for me,” Dayton said late Thursday in an address interrupted by hisses from some Republicans. Republican leaders said Dayton’s proposal for dealing with the projected $5 billion deficit would harm the state’s economy for generations. “We will not saddle our children and grandchildren with mounds of debts, with promises for funding levels that will not be there in the future,” said House Speaker Kurt Zellers. “This is debt that they can’t afford. It’s debt that we can’t afford right now.” (link to ABCNews video)
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Meanwhile in Minnesota: Government shutdown

Minnesota’s DEMOCRATIC governor wanted to increase taxes on people earning $1 million or more (3% of Minnesota’s taxpayers). The Minnesota REPUBLICANS would rather see the entire government shutdown and 22,000 state employees furloughed than agree to a tax increase on the wealthy. Who needs more state revenue when you can cut most of your state government programs and lay off employees? 

Another example of: you can’t negotiate with “no.”

ST. PAUL, Minn., July 1 (UPI) — Minnesota’s government shut down Friday after Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative leaders failed to settle their budget differences.

State parks closed and entrances to rest areas were blocked. Boaters using Department of Natural Resources public landings were informed the landings wouldn’t be monitored or maintained. First-time drivers will have to wait for their licenses, as will people facing a license renewal. Same with updating vehicle tabs.

Employees were told to take home any plants that couldn’t survive without water for a time.

Talks broke off abruptly Thursday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. Republican leaders rejected Dayton’s proposal that would have raised income taxes on people earning more than $1 million a year — an estimated 7,700 Minnesotans, or 0.3 percent of all taxpayers, state Revenue Department statistics indicate.

“This is a night of deep sorrow for me,” Dayton said late Thursday in an address interrupted by hisses from some Republicans.

Republican leaders said Dayton’s proposal for dealing with the projected $5 billion deficit would harm the state’s economy for generations.

“We will not saddle our children and grandchildren with mounds of debts, with promises for funding levels that will not be there in the future,” said House Speaker Kurt Zellers. “This is debt that they can’t afford. It’s debt that we can’t afford right now.”

(link to ABCNews video)

Who will pay for ExxonMobile’s oil spill in the Yellowstone? You and I — at the pump and with tax subsidies. Certainly NOT the GOP-protected oil company or its CEOs. The Center for American Progress’s Valeri Vasquez has put out a new report titled “Exxon Mobil Dodges the Tax Man,” which finds that the effective income tax rate for the average American is higher than the effective rate for the oil giant over the past few years. The effective tax rate for the average American in 2007, the last year for which data is available, was 20.4 percent. The annual Exxon federal effective rate between 2008 and 2010, meanwhile, was 17.6 percent (graph above). As ThinkProgress has previously documented, important services and public investments in Main Street America continue to be cut while the wealthiest among us are paying the lowest taxes in a generation. Meanwhile, a number of major corporations are going quarters and/or years without paying any federal corporate income taxes at all. God bless America corporations and the wealthy! Who will pay for the clean up of the Yellowstone River after ExxonMobile’s oil spill? You and I. See all oil spill posts »
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Who will pay for ExxonMobile’s oil spill in the Yellowstone? You and I — at the pump and with tax subsidies. Certainly NOT the GOP-protected oil company or its CEOs.

The Center for American Progress’s Valeri Vasquez has put out a new report titled “Exxon Mobil Dodges the Tax Man,” which finds that the effective income tax rate for the average American is higher than the effective rate for the oil giant over the past few years. The effective tax rate for the average American in 2007, the last year for which data is available, was 20.4 percent. The annual Exxon federal effective rate between 2008 and 2010, meanwhile, was 17.6 percent (graph above).

As ThinkProgress has previously documented, important services and public investments in Main Street America continue to be cut while the wealthiest among us are paying the lowest taxes in a generation. Meanwhile, a number of major corporations are going quarters and/or years without paying any federal corporate income taxes at all.

God bless America corporations and the wealthy!

Who will pay for the clean up of the Yellowstone River after ExxonMobile’s oil spill? You and I.

See all oil spill posts »

via Clinton to Obama on raising the debt ceiling by August 2: “Don’t blink.” Make the Republicans raise it like they did SEVEN TIMES during King George’s Administration: Aspen, Colorado (CNN): […] Regardless of the Republican field, however, Clinton believes Obama will be re-elected in 2012. Under Obama’s leadership, Wall Street has been salvaged, and the automotive industry has been saved, Clinton said. Also, manufacturing jobs have increased with the United States now building 20% of the solar batteries globally — up from 2%. That could go up as high as 40% by 2014, the former president added. Obama has also delivered on national security with the killing of Osama bin Laden and increased drone activity in terrorist countries, Clinton said. Domestically, he has offered laudable education and health care reforms, as well as student loan reforms that allow borrowers longer time to pay back their debts, Clinton said. Clinton also said Obama has been very good on gay rights — a serious sticking point for the Clinton presidency, which created the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. And, at a time when European multiculturalism is apparently failing, Obama’s been able to speak to the diverse sectors of the U.S. population, Clinton said. From CrooksandLiars: 10 Inconvenient Truths About the Debt Ceiling: 1. Republican Leaders Agree U.S. Default Would Be a “Financial Disaster”2. Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt3. George W. Bush Doubled the National Debt4. Republicans Voted Seven Times to Raise Debt Ceiling for President Bush5. Federal Taxes Are Now at a 60 Year Low6. Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Pay for Themselves or Spur “Job Creators”7. Ryan Budget Delivers Another Tax Cut Windfall for Wealthy8. Ryan Budget Will Require Raising Debt Ceiling – Repeatedly9. Tax Cuts Drive the Next Decade of Debt10. $3 Trillion Tab for Unfunded Wars Remains Unpaid Also? Let tax cuts for the rich expire. Our nation could really use the revenue (and a sense of fairness).
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Clinton to Obama on raising the debt ceiling by August 2: “Don’t blink.”

Make the Republicans raise it like they did SEVEN TIMES during King George’s Administration:

Aspen, Colorado (CNN): […] Regardless of the Republican field, however, Clinton believes Obama will be re-elected in 2012. Under Obama’s leadership, Wall Street has been salvaged, and the automotive industry has been saved, Clinton said. Also, manufacturing jobs have increased with the United States now building 20% of the solar batteries globally — up from 2%. That could go up as high as 40% by 2014, the former president added.

Obama has also delivered on national security with the killing of Osama bin Laden and increased drone activity in terrorist countries, Clinton said. Domestically, he has offered laudable education and health care reforms, as well as student loan reforms that allow borrowers longer time to pay back their debts, Clinton said.

Clinton also said Obama has been very good on gay rights — a serious sticking point for the Clinton presidency, which created the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

And, at a time when European multiculturalism is apparently failing, Obama’s been able to speak to the diverse sectors of the U.S. population, Clinton said.

From CrooksandLiars: 10 Inconvenient Truths About the Debt Ceiling:

1. Republican Leaders Agree U.S. Default Would Be a “Financial Disaster”
2. Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
3. George W. Bush Doubled the National Debt
4. Republicans Voted Seven Times to Raise Debt Ceiling for President Bush
5. Federal Taxes Are Now at a 60 Year Low
6. Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Pay for Themselves or Spur “Job Creators”
7. Ryan Budget Delivers Another Tax Cut Windfall for Wealthy
8. Ryan Budget Will Require Raising Debt Ceiling – Repeatedly
9. Tax Cuts Drive the Next Decade of Debt
10. $3 Trillion Tab for Unfunded Wars Remains Unpaid

Also? Let tax cuts for the rich expire. Our nation could really use the revenue (and a sense of fairness).

The Republican fallacy of America’s “out of control spending” Brian Beutler at TPM takes a look at what IS and IS NOT “the culprit of deficits and our supposedly out-of-control spending:” In the wake of the Bush tax cuts, and the Great Recession, tax revenue has fallen through the floor to near-historic lows. As a percentage of GDP, it’s fallen 24 percent since 2001, and if you correct for inflation, the government is collecting nearly 20 percent less per person than it was a decade ago. At the same time, the population-adjusted costs of mandatory spending programs — driven by Medicare, including its new prescription drug benefit, and Medicaid — have increased by over 30 percent. And, of course, defense spending has skyrocketed. But if you isolate domestic discretionary programs, a decade later we’re spending no more on a per-person basis than we were back then. The idea here is that since this money is largely devoted to education, health care, and other services that benefit broad swaths of the population, the amount of it should grow roughly with population size. This stands in contrast to defense spending, which is why the committee did not correct defense spending for population growth. We took the numbers and put them in a slightly different context, so you can see by what percentage spending and revenues have risen and fallen on a population adjusted basis over the last decade. Makes it pretty clear what is and is not the culprit of deficits and our supposedly out-of-control spending. Besides the obvious suggestion of cutting a little something from defense (maybe? for once?), the next obvious suggestion would be to let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. Our government needed revenue when it was created and it still needs revenue today. Besides, the rich have made out like bandits since 1980 with the bottom-to-top income redistribution and trickle up of Reaganomics and tax breaks and deregulation and shipping American jobs to China and India: “The top 1 percent now gets almost a quarter of the nation’s total income — a larger share than at any time since the 1920s. The top 1 percent have also received about 40 percent of the benefits of the Bush tax cuts.” — Robert Reich Bill Moyers explains how the average American has made out in the past 28 years this way: “…from 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to everyone but the rich increased from 64 percent to 65 percent. Because the nation’s economy was growing handsomely, the average income for 9 out of 10 Americans was growing, too – from $17,719 to $30,941. That’s a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars. But then it stopped. Since 1980 the economy has also continued to grow handsomely, but only a fraction at the top have benefited. The line flattens for the bottom 90% of Americans. Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years. That’s wage repression.” The Tea Party claims to be so worried about their children and grandchildren inheriting our debt. Where’s their fear of handing down a two-class system of the super-rich and the minimum-wage workers and unemployed to their grandchildren? And why doesn’t it bother these people that when Republicans say the country’s spending is “out of control,” they mean the spending on everything else but defense and funding more tax cuts for the wealthy?
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The Republican fallacy of America’s “out of control spending”

Brian Beutler at TPM takes a look at what IS and IS NOT “the culprit of deficits and our supposedly out-of-control spending:”

In the wake of the Bush tax cuts, and the Great Recession, tax revenue has fallen through the floor to near-historic lows. As a percentage of GDP, it’s fallen 24 percent since 2001, and if you correct for inflation, the government is collecting nearly 20 percent less per person than it was a decade ago. At the same time, the population-adjusted costs of mandatory spending programs — driven by Medicare, including its new prescription drug benefit, and Medicaid — have increased by over 30 percent. And, of course, defense spending has skyrocketed. But if you isolate domestic discretionary programs, a decade later we’re spending no more on a per-person basis than we were back then.

The idea here is that since this money is largely devoted to education, health care, and other services that benefit broad swaths of the population, the amount of it should grow roughly with population size. This stands in contrast to defense spending, which is why the committee did not correct defense spending for population growth. We took the numbers and put them in a slightly different context, so you can see by what percentage spending and revenues have risen and fallen on a population adjusted basis over the last decade. Makes it pretty clear what is and is not the culprit of deficits and our supposedly out-of-control spending.

Besides the obvious suggestion of cutting a little something from defense (maybe? for once?), the next obvious suggestion would be to let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. Our government needed revenue when it was created and it still needs revenue today.

Besides, the rich have made out like bandits since 1980 with the bottom-to-top income redistribution and trickle up of Reaganomics and tax breaks and deregulation and shipping American jobs to China and India:

“The top 1 percent now gets almost a quarter of the nation’s total income — a larger share than at any time since the 1920s. The top 1 percent have also received about 40 percent of the benefits of the Bush tax cuts.” — Robert Reich

Bill Moyers explains how the average American has made out in the past 28 years this way:

“…from 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to everyone but the rich increased from 64 percent to 65 percent. Because the nation’s economy was growing handsomely, the average income for 9 out of 10 Americans was growing, too – from $17,719 to $30,941. That’s a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.

But then it stopped. Since 1980 the economy has also continued to grow handsomely, but only a fraction at the top have benefited. The line flattens for the bottom 90% of Americans. Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years.

That’s wage repression.”

The Tea Party claims to be so worried about their children and grandchildren inheriting our debt. Where’s their fear of handing down a two-class system of the super-rich and the minimum-wage workers and unemployed to their grandchildren? And why doesn’t it bother these people that when Republicans say the country’s spending is “out of control,” they mean the spending on everything else but defense and funding more tax cuts for the wealthy?

. Another Republican ‘jobs’ plan: using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers ONE MORE GIFT TO WORKING- AND MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICA from Wisconsin’s own Scott Walker: While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state. As the Madison Capital Times reports, “Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a ‘union-only’ job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.” Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences. Maybe we can all get thrown in prison so everyone will have a job!
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Another Republican ‘jobs’ plan: using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers

ONE MORE GIFT TO WORKING- AND MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICA from Wisconsin’s own Scott Walker:

While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.

As the Madison Capital Times reports, “Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a ‘union-only’ job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.” Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.

Maybe we can all get thrown in prison so everyone will have a job!

Republicans don’t really want shared sacrifice if “shared” includes rich people Holy Fuck. This is Sparta. Wow. At best, Republicans say they’re willing to look at new Dem-proposed revenue sources…but only if they can give that money right back to stakeholders in the form of additional tax cuts. […] So rigid are Republicans on this score that Senate Democrats plan to force a symbolic vote Thursday, asking whether wealthier Americans should have to contribute to deficit reduction at all, in any way. […] “Millionaires can contribute to deficit reduction by spending part of their millions,” said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) […] “Create jobs, hire more people that pay more taxes, grow the economy, stay in America, don’t leave, hire people — that’s how millionaires can help, is create more workers, and if you raise taxes you’re gonna make it harder to keep the job you got,” explained Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Ha ha! McCain and Graham have adorable ideas and plans! Because millionaires have used their massive earnings and extra income from tax cuts since 1980 to do just that, haven’t they? SO MANY JOBS. And all these spending cuts the Republicans want will certainly create so many more jobs, won’t they? America will be drowning in jobs if Republicans get their way!  […] Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was unable to identify a single specific concession he’d ask of wealthy people. “Everybody’s going to have to contribute to it in one way or another,” he said. “We have a debt as big as our economy. We look a lot like Greece already. And it’s going to have to have broad impact on every aspect of our society in order to get this problem under control.” I hope those teabaggers who are riding around on their government-paid electric scooters are really listening to what their chosen leaders are saying and are aware of these facts: “The top 1 percent now gets almost a quarter of the nation’s total income — a larger share than at any time since the 1920s. The top 1 percent have also received about 40 percent of the benefits of the Bush tax cuts.” — Robert Reich “Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years. That’s wage repression.” — Bill Moyers Related: Ten years ago, Bush said “Tax relief will create new jobs, tax relief will generate new wealth…”  It didn’t. Where are the jobs? U.S. corporations are hoarding cash, giving themselves massive paychecks  They are not going to create jobs (here) with extra money. It’s not like they’re creating jobs… Middle America since 1979: doing more work for less money, even as corporate profits rise Spending CUTS do not create jobs Teaparty Republicans’ budget plan: income redistribution by austerity measures
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Republicans don’t really want shared sacrifice if “shared” includes rich people

Holy Fuck. This is Sparta. Wow.

At best, Republicans say they’re willing to look at new Dem-proposed revenue sources…but only if they can give that money right back to stakeholders in the form of additional tax cuts.

[…] So rigid are Republicans on this score that Senate Democrats plan to force a symbolic vote Thursday, asking whether wealthier Americans should have to contribute to deficit reduction at all, in any way.

[…] “Millionaires can contribute to deficit reduction by spending part of their millions,” said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

[…] “Create jobs, hire more people that pay more taxes, grow the economy, stay in America, don’t leave, hire people — that’s how millionaires can help, is create more workers, and if you raise taxes you’re gonna make it harder to keep the job you got,” explained Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Ha ha! McCain and Graham have adorable ideas and plans! Because millionaires have used their massive earnings and extra income from tax cuts since 1980 to do just that, haven’t they? SO MANY JOBS. And all these spending cuts the Republicans want will certainly create so many more jobs, won’t they? America will be drowning in jobs if Republicans get their way! 

[…] Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was unable to identify a single specific concession he’d ask of wealthy people. “Everybody’s going to have to contribute to it in one way or another,” he said. “We have a debt as big as our economy. We look a lot like Greece already. And it’s going to have to have broad impact on every aspect of our society in order to get this problem under control.”

I hope those teabaggers who are riding around on their government-paid electric scooters are really listening to what their chosen leaders are saying and are aware of these facts:

“The top 1 percent now gets almost a quarter of the nation’s total income — a larger share than at any time since the 1920s. The top 1 percent have also received about 40 percent of the benefits of the Bush tax cuts.” — Robert Reich

“Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years. That’s wage repression.” — Bill Moyers

Related:

image: socialistexan Growth of U.S. family incomes vs. the top 5% and why the wealthy deserve even more The wealthy have found a goldmine with Reagan and Bush’s ‘trickle up’ economics (and anti-union attitudes). And in the last decade, when they’ve paid the lowest tax rate EVER, they’ve created so many jobs here in the U.S. So. Many. Jobs. It only makes sense to redistribute more of our tax revenue into more tax cuts for the wealthy. They deserve to keep getting more. After all they’re smarter and work harder than the rest of us, according to Bill O’Reilly: “…you gotta look people in the eye and tell ‘em they’re irresponsible and lazy… Because that’s what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period. Period.”
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image: socialistexan

Growth of U.S. family incomes vs. the top 5% and why the wealthy deserve even more

The wealthy have found a goldmine with Reagan and Bush’s ‘trickle up’ economics (and anti-union attitudes). And in the last decade, when they’ve paid the lowest tax rate EVER, they’ve created so many jobs here in the U.S. So. Many. Jobs.

It only makes sense to redistribute more of our tax revenue into more tax cuts for the wealthy. They deserve to keep getting more. After all they’re smarter and work harder than the rest of us, according to Bill O’Reilly:

“…you gotta look people in the eye and tell ‘em they’re irresponsible and lazy… Because that’s what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period. Period.”

Bill Maher: “this is a country of the rich, by the rich, FOR the rich” (or how stupid are GOP voters?)

From 7/8/2011 Real Time — this is sure to be taken down from YouTube very soon.

Bill Maher: “If you can look at the deficit and not see that the problem is that the rich stopped paying taxes, you’re a Republican.”

“The moneyed elite in this country are dragging a bag filled with your future down the steps, and [the average Republican voter’s] reaction is, ‘Hold on there, that looks heavy. Let me give you a hand getting it into your trunk.’”

“Oh, I’m sorry — did I say rich? I meant “job creators”… when did the business community become so sensitive that we have to treat them like some kind of rare, exotic animal? Don’t startle them or they’ll fly away! We need to soothe them so they can nest here and lay their magic eggs full of jobs. WHICH NEVER HATCH, by the way.”

Deal, deal, budget deal

The budget deals of Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama, in one chart

I’d be happier if this proposed deal were more balanced — it’s way too heavy on cuts and far too light on taxes. Please note, too, that Boehner backed out on this ‘deal of the century’ because tax increases to the wealthy were included. The GOP wants no tax increases on the wealthy. If anything, they’d want even more tax cuts for upper incomes, because (they say!) the wealthy are the job creators. Sorry, but that’s just laughable.

Ezra Klein says,

“Republicans might be fools for passing on it, but if and when they finally say “yes,” a lot of Democrats are going to be wondering whether the Democrats were suckers for offering it.”

Via ThinkProgress:

Still no deal on debt ceiling: “Obama, at least, was willing to make that leap and had put significant reductions to entitlement programs on the table. But on Saturday, Boehner blinked: Republican aides said he could not, in the end, reach agreement with the White House on a strategy to permit the Bush-era tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest households to expire next year, as lawmakers undertook a thorough rewrite of the tax code.” [Washington Post]

Governors plead against Medicaid cuts: “With the president and congressional leaders poised for Sunday talks on a debt-ceiling deal, the nation’s governors sent them a letter anticipating their Medicaid funding was about to get hit as a means to cut federal spending.” [Modern Healthcare]

Obama has scheduled a news conference for this morning at 11:00 a.m. EST.

via: quickhits The Republican Party Endorses: SHARED SACRIFICE Teachers: lower salaries Seniors: lower benefits Millionaires: lower taxes Those are the kind of shared sacrifices that Republicans can believe in!
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via: quickhits

The Republican Party Endorses: SHARED SACRIFICE

Teachers: lower salaries
Seniors: lower benefits
Millionaires: lower taxes

Those are the kind of shared sacrifices that Republicans can believe in!

@liberalchik ~ “Oh, I’m sorry — did I say rich? I meant “job creators“… when did the business community become so sensitive that we have to treat them like some kind of rare, exotic animal? Don’t startle them or they’ll fly away! We need to soothe them so they can nest here and lay their magic eggs full of jobs, WHICH NEVER HATCH, by the way.” — Bill Maher We can all agree that they’ve banked enough tax cuts in the past decade to create many, many jobs. Hilarious how the GOP is trying to convince us that the wealthy are now ‘job creators’ and we shouldn’t raise taxes on the job creators. We shouldn’t have to bribe the rich with tax cuts to create jobs. If businesses and corporations had lots of customers (you know, people with good, steady jobs and a little extra cash), there would be plenty of jobs and a thriving economy. Isn’t it weird how things slow down when the wealthy bank all their extra cash, ship American jobs overseas, and either stagnate everyone wages or bust unions so they can pay minimum wage with no benefits?  You’d think there was some kind of cause and effect going on here. The GOP would like us all to believe the wealthy might create jobs. Maybe. Someday.
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@liberalchik

~

“Oh, I’m sorry — did I say rich? I meant “job creators“… when did the business community become so sensitive that we have to treat them like some kind of rare, exotic animal? Don’t startle them or they’ll fly away! We need to soothe them so they can nest here and lay their magic eggs full of jobs, WHICH NEVER HATCH, by the way.” — Bill Maher

We can all agree that they’ve banked enough tax cuts in the past decade to create many, many jobs. Hilarious how the GOP is trying to convince us that the wealthy are now ‘job creators’ and we shouldn’t raise taxes on the job creators.

We shouldn’t have to bribe the rich with tax cuts to create jobs. If businesses and corporations had lots of customers (you know, people with good, steady jobs and a little extra cash), there would be plenty of jobs and a thriving economy. Isn’t it weird how things slow down when the wealthy bank all their extra cash, ship American jobs overseas, and either stagnate everyone wages or bust unions so they can pay minimum wage with no benefits?  You’d think there was some kind of cause and effect going on here.

The GOP would like us all to believe the wealthy might create jobs. Maybe. Someday.

The growing income gap, stalled economic growth, and financial deregulation

“The idea that people make the same or less today than they made 40 years ago is a stunning historical fact.” — Author Jeff Madrick

NPR: As income gap balloons, is it holding back growth?

“This inequality is destabilizing and undermines the ability of the economy to grow sustainably and efficiently,” [Fed governor Sarah Bloom Raskin] said. Income inequality, she continued, is “anathema to the social progress that is part and parcel of such growth.”

The income gap in the United States has ballooned: It’s wider than any time since 1928, in the days before the stock market crash triggered the Great Depression.

[…] “In the 1970s, there was an assault on government oversight and regulation,” Madrick tells Raz. “And eventually, the financial community stopped playing by the rules. There was an economic theory that kept justifying what they were doing. And the American public was not fully aware of what was going on.”

The traditional argument for deregulation states that those policies make America richer, and that a rising tide lifts all boats.

But Madrick says that for the typical American worker, the wage tide has gone out since 1969.

“The typical male worker makes less today, discounted for inflation, than the typical median worker made in 1969,” says Madrick. “The idea that people make the same or less today than they made 40 years ago is a stunning historical fact.”

[…] “[Bank failures] peak up in crisis years. They peak in the 1920s,” [David Moss, a professor of economics at Harvard Business School] tells Raz. “But then most striking, after 1933, when we saw the introduction of federal banking and financial regulation, these banking crises disappear almost completely. And then it continues very, very low until the 1980s, then they pick back up again.”

Moss found it striking that banking failures go down after financial regulation and start rising after the introduction of deregulation.

Then, one of Moss’ colleagues showed him a chart of income inequality over the same period. Moss took that curve and plotted it on the same page as his bank failure curve.

“And lo and behold, it was a striking, striking connection,” Moss says.

As bank failures went up in the 1920s, so did income inequality. As inequality came down in the 1930s, bank failures stayed down. They stayed down together until the advent of deregulation in the 1980s.

For Moss, this coincidence raises more questions than it provides answers. He isn’t sure what exactly the correlation between income inequality and financial failure means.

Read the rest…

So there’s an historical correlation that financial regulation might be one of the best things that could happen for creating economic growth and closing the income gap? Maybe that’s because government regulation and oversight actually keeps financial institutions more honest and accountable than fictional concepts, such as some “invisible hand” guiding everything or Reagan’s “trickle down” fallacy. Maybe it also helps ensure that individuals in financial institutions won’t gamble away everyone else’s money on things like sub-prime mortgage loans while they walk away with their own fortunes intact.

And I’m not even bringing up the 10.5 years of tax breaks for the job creators wealthy here, or that the wealthy compounded their fortunes during a time of economic loss for everyone else. They work harder than us, right?

It’s almost TOO SIMPLE. That must be why the Tea Party base sides with millionaires like the Koch brothers to protest “big” government and regulation and expiring Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. Because they’re morans.

The gap in income between the wealthiest Americans and all others has grown strikingly in recent decades, the CBO data show. In 1979, when the data begin, the average after-tax incomes of the top 1 percent of households were 7.9 times higher than those of the middle fifth of households. By 2007, top incomes were 23.9 times higher than those of the middle fifth — a more than tripling of the income gap.
Government privatization and Minnesota’s government shutdown: this is Sparta! PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, The Real News Network MICHAEL HUDSON, RESEARCH PROF., University of Missouri-Kansas City JAY: So why should ordinary Americans or ordinary North Americans care about what’s going on in Greece? HUDSON: Because what’s happening in Greece is a dress rehearsal for what’s going on in the United States. Already, a few weeks ago in Athens, the protestors had signs up referring to Wisconsin and the problems here. What’s happening in Greece in the last week is exactly what’s happened in Minnesota with the close-down of government. And the demands of privatization–Greece sell off its roads, its land, its port authority, its water and sewer–is just what Illinois’s been doing, what Chicago’s been doing, what Minnesota’s been told to do, and what American cities are trying to do. So you have an identical strategy being used between Greece and the United States. Greece is the first domino since Iceland. And the financial interests that are looking at this post-2008 debt crisis as a grab bag think now is the chance for us to make our move. Now we can take all this debt that we’ve built up and we can get out of the financial system, we can turn it into direct ownership of property. We can own the Greek islands, we can own the Greek public domain, just like we can own what Minnesota, Chicago, Wisconsin, and California own. And all of a sudden you have a huge virtual foreclosure process.  Read more… [dailyrenegade] A coworker’s husband is a state employee in Minnesota. I forwarded this article to her: One by one, Minnesota bars run out of beer — and here’s part of her response: “We’ve got 22,000 state workers out of work, who are not paying MN tax, all road construction has stopped, so the state and all of those workers are losing wages and tax. all state parks are closed, no lottery sales, the horse race park has closed losing all of those workers’ pay and the revenues from this. We’re on day 13 of shutdown. The state workers can start claiming unemployment next week, costing the state more monies, but the workers will lose half of their normal pay, in additional to losing their contributions to retirement accounts. No back pay will be paid to them. Many feel the shutdown will last until the school year starts in September, because maybe that would make the Legislature wake up. (But maybe the beer shortage will have more impact.)” This Republican solution in Minnesota is clearly a winner for everyone! What else can this political party f*ck up, I wonder?
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Government privatization and Minnesota’s government shutdown: this is Sparta!

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, The Real News Network
MICHAEL HUDSON, RESEARCH PROF., University of Missouri-Kansas City

JAY: So why should ordinary Americans or ordinary North Americans care about what’s going on in Greece?

HUDSON: Because what’s happening in Greece is a dress rehearsal for what’s going on in the United States. Already, a few weeks ago in Athens, the protestors had signs up referring to Wisconsin and the problems here. What’s happening in Greece in the last week is exactly what’s happened in Minnesota with the close-down of government. And the demands of privatization–Greece sell off its roads, its land, its port authority, its water and sewer–is just what Illinois’s been doing, what Chicago’s been doing, what Minnesota’s been told to do, and what American cities are trying to do. So you have an identical strategy being used between Greece and the United States. Greece is the first domino since Iceland. And the financial interests that are looking at this post-2008 debt crisis as a grab bag think now is the chance for us to make our move. Now we can take all this debt that we’ve built up and we can get out of the financial system, we can turn it into direct ownership of property. We can own the Greek islands, we can own the Greek public domain, just like we can own what Minnesota, Chicago, Wisconsin, and California own. And all of a sudden you have a huge virtual foreclosure process.  Read more…

[dailyrenegade]

A coworker’s husband is a state employee in Minnesota. I forwarded this article to her: One by one, Minnesota bars run out of beer — and here’s part of her response:

“We’ve got 22,000 state workers out of work, who are not paying MN tax, all road construction has stopped, so the state and all of those workers are losing wages and tax. all state parks are closed, no lottery sales, the horse race park has closed losing all of those workers’ pay and the revenues from this. We’re on day 13 of shutdown. The state workers can start claiming unemployment next week, costing the state more monies, but the workers will lose half of their normal pay, in additional to losing their contributions to retirement accounts. No back pay will be paid to them. Many feel the shutdown will last until the school year starts in September, because maybe that would make the Legislature wake up. (But maybe the beer shortage will have more impact.)”

This Republican solution in Minnesota is clearly a winner for everyone! What else can this political party f*ck up, I wonder?

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