It is Time to Raise Taxes on the Wealthy and Save the American Dream

We are sinking, this is hard reality, the holes in the ship have to be plugged. For many the water is up to their necks. Are you going to wait until the water is over your mouth before you panic? Are we going to let everything collapse before we act? The pragmatic solution is the Willie Sutton line of reasoning(Why do you rob banks?....."Because that's where the money is.") The money has been floated up to the top and that is where the money is. Increasing axes on incomes over three million seems like an awful fair way to start.  Americans fear high taxation from a runaway government, what is the difference if it is high taxes or high prices from runaway monopolistic corporations? Your ass needs protecting and it is corporations coming after your ass, government is your only avenue of protection. Government does do some things well, corporations do one thing well, maximize profits. Corporate America has no interest in your rights and liberties though they will justify foreign wars with this meme.

In the end we rise or sink together, our choice. Will we sit on the couch in paralizing fear or organize and be a part of the push back?

It is Time to Raise Taxes on the Wealthy and Save the American Dream

By Mick Youther

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How did we get into such a predicament?

As the mainstream media fixates on the black gold washing up on the beaches of the Gulf Coast, the rest of the United States is quietly drowning in Red Ink.

Illinois is facing a $13 billion deficit for the upcoming fiscal year (roughly half of the state's operating budget), and it is just one of many states facing financial problems:

• "[Thirty-two] states have run out funds to make unemployment benefit payments and that the federal government has been supplying these states with funds so that they can make theirpayments to the unemployed. In some cases, states have borrowed billions."-- EconomicPolicyJournal.com, 5/21/10
  • "Over the last two years, at least 45 states have slashed health, education and low-income assistance programs; 30 raised regressive sales taxes and fees; and 42 cut their payrolls through layoffs, unpaid leaves (furloughs) and hiring freezes. Since August 2008, state and local governments eliminated 192,000 jobs."-- WSWS.org, 5/21/10

  Bob Herbert of the NY Times sums it up:

  "A story that is not getting nearly enough attention is the ruinous fiscal meltdown occurring in state after state, all across the country. Taxes are being raised. Draconian cuts in services are being made. Public employees are being fired. The tissue-thin national economic recovery is being undermined. And in many cases, the most vulnerable populations--the sick, the elderly, the young and the poor--are getting badly hurt."--3/20/10

No"it is not because the terrorists attacked us; or because Obama is a Kenya-born card-carrying communist bent on destroying America; or any of the other conspiracy theories that Glenn Beck scrawls across his blackboard daily. "but it is a conspiracy, and it has been going on for thirty years.

"Back in the 70s a Republican strategist [and Reagan advisor] named Jude Wanniski came up with what he called the two Santa Claus theory: when Republican are in power they should cut taxes, spend like drunken sailors and put it all on the national credit card--without ever mentioning a word about the deficit they were creating. This allows Republicans to be the tax cutting Santa Claus and the spending/stimulus Santa Claus."--Thom Hartmann, progressive radio host and author, 6/1/10

In 1980, the Republicans' first official Santa Claus, Ronald Reagan, cut income taxes on wealthy Americans from 70% down to 27%, and reduced Corporate taxes until they accounted for less than 9% of federal tax revenues, instead of the 33% they represented in 1951.

It was called supply-side economics (a.k.a Reaganomics, Voodoo economics, or the "trickle-down theory"), and it claimed that if we cut taxes on wealthy Americans, they would invest that money in such wonderful ways that it would stimulate the economy, and benefits would "trickle down" to all Americans.

Of course, like most Republican theories, it didn't work--unless its real purpose was to bankrupt the government and destroy the American middle-class. In that case, it is working pretty well.

In 1982, the first full year for Reagan's policies, the economy shrank by 2%, the worst performance since the Great Depression. -- Robert Freeman, CommonDreams.org, 5/14/06

• "Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!"-- Allen W. Smith, Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Eastern IllinoisUniversity, Dissident Voice, 4/14/10

After a brief period of fiscal sanity during the Clinton Administration, George W. Bush was appointed President and took up right where Reagan and Poppa Bush had left off--cutting taxes for the rich, raising "defense" spending and starting wars; and paying for it all on the taxpayer's credit card. Bush's final year budget showed a record deficit of $1.4 trillion, and he had increased the National Debt to $9.849 trillion--the largest increase by any President in U.S. history.

"Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!"-- Allen W. Smith, Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Eastern IllinoisUniversity, Dissident Voice, 4/14/10

America is now mired in the Great Recession, and we need to do the same thing that Roosevelt did to save us from the Great Depression--raise taxes on the wealthy. They can afford it:

• "In the last 30 years"the top five percent of American families saw their real incomes increase 81 percent while the lowest-income fifth saw their real incomes decline by one percent..".--Progress Illinois, 3/27/09

• All of the income gains in 2005 went to the top 10 percent of households, while the bottom 90 percent of households saw income declines. (Economic Policy Institute, 3/28/07)

"In the last 30 years"the top five percent of American families saw their real incomes increase 81 percent while the lowest-income fifth saw their real incomes decline by one percent..".--Progress Illinois, 3/27/09
All of the income gains in 2005 went to the top 10 percent of households, while the bottom 90 percent of households saw income declines. (Economic Policy Institute, 3/28/07)
In 2006, taxpayers in the bottom 20 percent received an average refund of $23 from the Bush tax cuts; the middle 20 percent received $448; the top 1 percent received $39,020; and taxpayers in the top 0.1 percent received $200,523. (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, 2/7/06)

To hear the Republicans tell it; raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans would have an effect similar to a direct strike on earth by a planet-killer asteroid.

"but history tells a much different story:

"After the Republican Great Depression, FDR put this nation back to work, in part by raising taxes on income above $3 to $4 million a year (in today's dollars) to 91 percent, and corporate taxes to over 50% of profits. The revenue from those income taxes built dams, roads, bridges, sewers, water systems, schools, hospitals, train stations, railways, an interstate highway system, and airports. It educated a generation returning from World War II. It acted as a cap on the rare but occasional obsessively greedy person taking so much out of the economy that it impoverished the rest of us."--Thom Hartmann, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/06/3003/

When the Clinton Administration reversed Reagonomics and raised taxes on the wealthy and lowered them on the middle class:

• "The economy produced the longest sustained expansion in U.S. history. It created more than 22 million new jobs, the highest level of job creation ever recorded. Unemployment fell to its lowest level in over 30 years. Inflation fell to 2.5% per year compared to the 4.7% average over the prior 12 years. And overall economic growth averaged 4.0% per year compared to 2.8% average growth over the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush administrations. "By the time Clinton left office, the government was running surpluses of almost $140 billion per year."--Robert Freeman, CommonDreams.org, 5/14/06

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Right now, Republicans in Congress are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits for 900 thousand Americans. They demand more and more cuts of services and programs to reduce the deficit (which they caused), but refuse to even consider raising taxes on wealthy Americans. This is wrong.

America is falling deeper and deeper in debt, and taxes must be raised--and will be raised (eventually). The only question is--will they be raised in time to save our schools and other government programs and services that so many people depend on.

Please call your state and federal representatives today, and let them know that it is time to raise taxes on wealthy Americans. Our tax system should promote the good of the many--not the greed of the few.

"The economy produced the longest sustained expansion in U.S. history. It created more than 22 million new jobs, the highest level of job creation ever recorded. Unemployment fell to its lowest level in over 30 years. Inflation fell to 2.5% per year compared to the 4.7% average over the prior 12 years. And overall economic growth averaged 4.0% per year compared to 2.8% average growth over the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush administrations. "By the time Clinton left office, the government was running surpluses of almost $140 billion per year."--Robert Freeman, CommonDreams.org, 5/14/06

http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/It-is-Time-to-Raise-Taxes-by-Mick-Youther-100619-547.html

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Antoine de Saint-Exupery: " I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never looked at a star and all day he says over and over, just like you: "I am too busy with matters of consequence!" And that makes him swell up with pride. But he is not a man, he is a mushroom. "

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Hang onto your ass for it may be all that is left you!

Good Luck

KAK

Comments

[askcherlock]

I am beginning to think, KAK, that people are just worn out and weary and at this point trust no one, especially incumbents. They will take that to the polls (those who still care enough to vote) and we will see our nation further divided.Two years ago people rallied with hope and then the bottom fell out of the economy.Now we have the Gulf oil spill. You can't bury your head in the sand if you live in the Gulf region, that's for sure. Obama's fault? No, he inherited most of this but we are a nation of short attention spans and instant gratification. "Hold on" is right. Our arses may be all we really have left,

[KAK]

I think you are right on Cher. The one thing we have to remember is that with electronic voting fraud, republican dirty tricks and media bias; it is more important than ever to have massive Democratic and Iindepent voter turnout. The January Supreme Court decision has to be over ridden with massive turn out.