Republican Senator Tom Coburn, Oklahoma, is crying that the costs for relief of the recent disastrous tornadoes must be offset by cutting back elsewhere.
I have the perfect answer…. Cut back on the subsidies the oil companies receive.
They are profiting more than ever. Plus they’re the ones, whether knowningly or unknowningly, that are a main component of our aggressive climate change. They can chip in. More…
Todd Akins conceding
This news was almost as good as Obama winning.
Todd Akins is the Missouri Republican congressman who informed a reporter that a woman’s body can prevent pregnancy after a “legitimate” rape. What’s even more sweet is that Akins was ousted by a woman. Senator Claire McCaskill (D) took his seat.
Richard Mourdock, the Indiana GOP U.S. Senate candidate, fell on his face for basically the same reason. Mourdock declared that he opposed aborting pregnancies conceived in rape because “it is something that God intended to happen.” Joe Donnelly (D) took his seat.
No, Ann isn’t talking to Mitt… In an interview with Radio Iowa, Ann Romney had this to say to Republicans who have been critical of the floundering Romney presidential campaign (emphasis added):
“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.”
Mitt Romney
Conservatives are easily angered these days. Can’t say that I don’t blame them. I mean, look at who ran in the primaries… Bachmann (hallucinates that god talks to her), Newt (come on… he’s named after a salamander), Cain (9-9-9), Santorum (frothy mixture from fecal matter), Rick Perry (aka Mr Evil), Jon Huntsman (I rather liked this guy – he put Newt in his place once), Ron Paul (grandpa with some die-hard groupies), of course Romney (flip-flop, etch-a-sketch) and a few other non-notables.
Now that many Republicans are coming to realize, and admitting, that Romney is not much more than a joke, Republicans are rather irritable. So why not have some fun with them!
You may have heard of Robert Reich, but I have not until just recently. A wonderful discovery, a mighty fine fellow to find (wooo… try saying THAT five time fast). If you are not familiar with him, Robert B. Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century.
Reich has also written thirteen books such as “Beyond Outrage – What has gone wrong with our economy and our democracy, and how to fix it.” Oh how I wish Romney and Ryan would read this, and actually pay attention with an open mind. I know… impossible.
Michael Savage (AP Photo/John Storey)
As many of you are aware, it was Judge Roberts whose vote was the deciding vote that Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act was constitution. Republicans, Tea Partiers, and right wingnuts alike were all very confident that SCOTUS would either declare “ObamaCare” as unconstitutional, or re-write portions of the act.
When neither happened, the right-wingers have all been scrambling to find – actually I’m not sure what – but find anything they can to appeal to everyone in the United States that this is an unconstitutional health care plan. Congress will vote, and I am sure it will pass the House, but Obama will veto it down.
These beautifully designed pieces or art posters are definitely not for the faint of heart, nor the passive person. They are designed to make a statement to the politicians who feel it is their right to violate a woman’s body with ignorant insane laws. So, just a word of warning, if you are easily offended by language, then these are not for you. Designed by Favianna Rodriguez.
Annabel Lee of Double Dip Politics has written a most phenomenal article where she loosely portrays herself as an attorney defending American woman. It is an honor to to feature this post as my guest post today – but please, do not stop reading her work here. Go check out Annabel’s site… her writing is impeccable in every area. The content, choice of words and grammar, as well as expressing her views fairly – which is often a very difficult task to accomplish. Personally, I know I go off the deep end from time to time, and I can just hear people’s eyeballs rolling in the heads after I hit “publish.”
This is a guest post feature by a Republican Party member, Ron Hill, from his site republicans4freedom. As Ron states, he is “For the rational wing of the Republican party,” and expresses his frustration with the hijacking occurring within his party. Here he expresses many of the same concerns as I do in addition to many other Democrats and Liberals alike for the lack of common sense shown by Santorum. If the GOP as a whole would come to their senses and have the same beliefs as Ron Hill expresses here, then our country would have no choice but to move forward and grow strong once again. I absolutely love his closing sentence and is very refreshing to hear this from a GOP’er. I just subscribed to his site because I already respect what he has to say and am anxious to read more.
Yesterday, a good friend of mine, “B”, basically “had it” after she read an article about the contraception debate, which featured a photo of the panel… all men, in which three are priests. So, “B” ranted on Facebook. I thought it was a great rant, so wanted to share it with everyone. Here we go!
The Affordable Care Act provides Americans economic and health security with protections against exorbitant premium hikes, better health benefits, and slower growth in health care costs. Conservatives in the Congress are intent on taking these benefits away
(1) While the United States of America spends on average nearly twice as much per capita on health care services as the next most costly nation, the United States ranks 32nd among all nations on life expectancy, and 41st on infant mortality.
(2) The number of uninsured Americans rose by more than 4,000,000 between 2008 and 2009 to a total of 51,000,000, or more than 1 of every 6 Americans.
(3) This rise in the number of uninsured Americans was the largest single-year increase since 1987 and was the result of a continued decline in private health coverage, primarily in employer-sponsored insurance.
(4) Small businesses around the country cannot afford to reinvest in their companies and create new jobs because their health care bills are going up 10 or 15 percent every year.
(5) American businesses are at an economic disadvantage, because their health care costs are so much higher than in other countries. Notably, auto- mobile manufacturers spend more on health care per automobile than on steel.
Though Republicans control the U.S. House and Democrats’ hold on the Senate took a hit in the 2010 election, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is trying once more to pass a Medicare-for-all single payer health care bill — something he tried to do in 2009 as an amendment to his party’s health care overhaul before Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) used a procedural move to force the progressive senator to withdraw his proposal.
The bill proposed by Sanders and McDermott is unlikely to pass; House Republicans have offered a spate of bills aimed at repealing parts of health reform that were viewed as mostly symbolic votes, since Democrats control the Senate and Oval Office.
Click here to view the full bill “American Health Security Act of 2011″
9 Things The Rich Don’t Want You To Know About Taxes
Edited version below. Click on title for full version.
April 13th, 2011 DAVID CAY JOHNSTON | Cover Story
As millions of Americans prepare to file their annual taxes, they do so in an environment of media-perpetuated tax myths. Here are a few points about taxes and the economy that you may not know, to consider as you prepare to file your taxes. (All figures are inflation-adjusted.)
1. Poor Americans do pay taxes.
Gretchen Carlson, the Fox News host, said last year “47 percent of Americans don’t pay any taxes.” John McCain and Sarah Palin both said similar things during the 2008 campaign about the bottom half of Americans.
When it comes to state and local taxes, the poor bear a heavier burden than the rich in every state except Vermont, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calculated from official data. In Alabama, for example, the burden on the poor is more than twice that of the top 1 percent. The one-fifth of Alabama families making less than $13,000 pay almost 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with less than 4 percent for those who make $229,000 or more.
2. The wealthiest Americans don’t carry the burden.
It’s true that the top 1 percent of wage earners paid 38 percent of the federal income taxes in 2008 (the most recent year for which data is available). But people forget that the income tax is less than half of federal taxes and only one-fifth of taxes at all levels of government.
Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance taxes (known as payroll taxes) are paid mostly by the bottom 90 percent of wage earners. That’s because, once you reach $106,800 of income, you pay no more for Social Security, though the much smaller Medicare tax applies to all wages. Warren Buffett pays the exact same amount of Social Security taxes as someone who earns $106,800.
3. In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.
Despite skyrocketing incomes, the federal tax burden on the richest 400 has been slashed, thanks to a variety of loopholes, allowable deductions and other tools. The actual share of their income paid in taxes, according to the IRS, is 16.6 percent. Adding payroll taxes barely nudges that number.
4. Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.
Lots of other people live tax-free, too. I have Donald Trump’s tax records for four years early in his career. He paid no taxes for two of those years. Big real-estate investors enjoy tax-free living under a 1993 law President Clinton signed. It lets “professional” real-estate investors use paper losses like depreciation on their buildings against any cash income, even if they end up with negative incomes like Trump.
In Wisconsin, Terrence Wall, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010, paid no income taxes on as much as $14 million of recent income, his disclosure forms showed. Asked about his living tax-free while working people pay taxes, he had a simple response: Everyone should pay less.
5. And (surprise!) since Reagan, only the wealthy have gained significant income.
Those at the top did better. The top 1 percent’s average income more than doubled to $1.1 million, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. The really rich, the top one-tenth of 1 percent, each enjoyed almost $4 in 2008 for each dollar in 1980.
The top 300,000 Americans now enjoy almost as much income as the bottom 150 million, the data show.
6. When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same—less taxes.
Corporate profits in 2008, the latest year for which data are available, were $1,830 billion, up almost 12 percent from $1,638.7 billion in 2000. Yet, even though corporate tax rates have not been cut, corporate income-tax revenues fell to $230 billion from $249 billion—an 8 percent decline, thanks to a number of loopholes. The official 2010 profit numbers are not added up and released by the government, but the amount paid in corporate taxes is: In 2010 they fell further, to $191 billion—a decline of more than 23 percent compared with 2000.
7. Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.
Despite all the noise that America has the world’s second-highest corporate tax rate, the actual taxes paid by corporations are falling because of the growing number of loopholes and companies shifting profits to tax havens like the Cayman Islands.
And right now America’s corporations are sitting on close to $2 trillion in cash that is not being used to build factories, create jobs or anything else, but acts as an insurance policy for managers unwilling to take the risk of actually building the businesses they are paid so well to run. That cash hoard, by the way, works out to nearly $13,000 per taxpaying household.
8. Republicans like taxes too.
President Reagan signed into law 11 tax increases, targeted at people down the income ladder. His administration and the Washington press corps called the increases “revenue enhancers.” Reagan raised Social Security taxes so high that by the end of 2008, the government had collected more than $2 trillion in surplus tax.
George W. Bush signed a tax increase, too, in 2006, despite his written ironclad pledge never to raise taxes on anyone. It raised taxes on teenagers by requiring kids up to age 17, who earned money, to pay taxes at their parents’ tax rate, which would almost always be higher than the rate they would otherwise pay. It was a story that ran buried inside The New York Times one Sunday, but nowhere else.
In fact, thanks to Republicans, one in three Americans will pay higher taxes this year than they did last year.
9. Other countries do it better.
Compare this to Germany, one of many countries with a smarter tax system and smarter spending policies.
Germans work less, make more per hour and get much better parental leave than Americans, many of whom get no fringe benefits such as health care, pensions or even a retirement savings plan. By many measures the vast majority live better in Germany than in America.
To achieve this, unmarried Germans on average pay 52 percent of their income in taxes. Americans average 30 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
*******
David Cay Johnston is a columnist for tax.com and teaches the tax, property and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and Whitman School of Management. He has also been called the “de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United States” because his reporting in The New York Times shut down many tax dodges and schemes, just two of them valued by Congress at $260 billion. Johnston received a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for exposing tax loopholes and inequities. He wrote two bestsellers on taxes, Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch. Later this year, Johnston will be out with a new book, The Fine Print, revealing how big business, with help from politicians, abuses plain English to rob you blind.
