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One thing republicans do well (and probably democrats as well, but when do they ever stick up for their own actual policies as opposed to follow a diminished republican script?) is hit you fast and furious with a variety of different, slightly related, but distinctly different topics: Taxes, Job Creation, Deficit, Taxes, Unions, Balanced Budget, Taxes, ad nauseum. This serves to keep you disoriented by shifting from position to position and prevents them from having to deal with substantive rebuttals.
I want to deal with one rebuttal to the no taxes debate.
First some facts:
1. The rich are being taxed at levels not seen since just before the great depression (see figure). So, the rich who apparently are required to make the economy grow are taxed at levels much lower than at levels when the economy grew inordinately.
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2. The tax rate is based on the level of income. So, if we say that the tax rate on people making $100,000 is 24% and the tax rate on people making $500,000 is 28%, then the tax rate on those making $500,000 is 24% for the first $100,000 and 28% for the remaining $400,000. I think most people in this country fail to grasp this point. WHAT!!! tax a $1,000,000 at 75%, that's unfair!!! Indeed, it is. But in the real world, not the one sold by pundits bought and paid for by the ultra-wealthy, the reality is different. here is the reality: If you made $1,000,000 last year and were single, the first $8,375 was taxed at 10%, then $8,376-34,000 at 15%, $34,001-82,400 25%, $82,401-171,850 28%, $171,851-373,650 at 33%, and $373,651-1,000,000 at 35%. But if you listen to the millionaire, it seems their entire income is taxed at 35% (which is about a historic low), but that's not true, actually its a lie. Only their income >$373,650 is taxed at that rate. (Of course any of their income resulting from stocks is only taxed at 15%, so if they make $500,000 from capital gains and $500,000 in income, which is $1,000,000 total; $500,000 is taxed at 15% and only (500,000-373,650 =) $126,350 is taxed at 35%.
Ok, so we need to make sure the rich keep more of their money (of which they have a tremendous amount, hence the nomenclature rich) in order to create jobs and balance the budget.
Create jobs: The idea is that if the rich have more money they will use it to start up companies and hire people. But that is not reality. The truly rich are conservative and hold on to their assets in bad economies. The poor/middle class spend their fucking money. If you give tax cuts to the poor/middle class, it goes immediately into the economy, not into gold investments. Poor/middle class people buy shit. Rich people do not (or do not need to, compare to the poor). Also, who the fuck thinks the rich are going to throw their money away on new businesses, when the poor/middle class are living paycheck to paycheck? Supply and demand anyone? If there is little demand, why is Jane Q. Moneybucks going to start a company selling widgets when everyone is struggling to pay their fucking cable bill? In a poor economy, the money going into the riches' pockets, stays there, but in the poor/middle class it doesn't even stay in a pocket long enough to accumulate lint.
Balance the budget: There are two ways to balance a budget. Increase revenue (like taxes) and decrease spending (like 2, or is it 3, wars?). All the bluster from republicans to decrease spending sounds good in soundbite. However, if you look at what republicans have to cut, it isn't about saving money but about long held ideological issues. Republicans are against the reproductive rights of women, so we must cull funding to Planned Parenthood, which will save as much as $360,000,000 in 2009. Of which 3% (not well over 90% dumbass) is used for abortions. That's a shit ton! Well, not really...Planned Parenthood's entire budget was 0.011% of the 2009 budget!!! Or roughly 3 days of cruise missile attacks in Libya.
Unfortunately, all the bluster about spending cuts is really serving to pay for more tax cuts for the ultra-rich. If you are in debt and you take a second job to help pay the minimum payment on the new credit card you just bought a flat screen TV with, well you aren't balancing the budget, just maintaining the cluster fuck of a life you call status quo. Actually, you aren't maintaining. While taking out the new credit card to buy your new TV, you have chosen to sit on a se7en-inspired anal probe you call "balancing the budget"
4 comments:
"Rich people do not (or do not need to, compare to the poor). Also, who the fuck thinks the rich are going to throw their money away on new businesses, when the poor/middle class are living paycheck to paycheck?"
Some rich folks even admit that they are going to just save their tax cut (Matt Damon, for example). The vast majority, of course, do not.
The real question is this: why do that vast majority of Americans continue to think that tax breaks for the rich are in their best interest? And why can't Democrats show us the light?
why can't Democrats show us the light?
I think one of the main reasons is that most democrats get there elections paid for by the rich. Also, democrats by-and-large are not representative of liberals, they are more representative of the not bat-shit insane social conservatives.
*The real question is this: why do that vast majority of Americans continue to think that tax breaks for the rich are in their best interest?*
Because we, each of us, believes that we will be rich ourselves someday. We don't want taxes on the rich because of the American Dream.
I am not being sarcastic, here. I have had many co-workers tell me this when I ask the same question.
You raise a good point Mike. The American Dream (because only Americans have aspirations of fortune and self-sufficiency) is one of those tenets ingrained in us early that probably does have far reaching consequences on our psyches.
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