Tag Archives: Taxes

January 15, 2013 · 8:56 PM

The Wall Street Journal Doesn’t Think Anyone Makes Under $100k a Year

The Contributor

“While the top 1 percent of taxpayers will bear the biggest burden, many other families, affluent and poor, will pay more as well,” wrote Wall Street Journalreporter Laura Saunders in a story about the effect the “fiscal cliff” agreement would have on taxpayers.

However, a graphic that accompanied the story might help explain the conservative mindset about cutting taxes for the rich. Despite writing about the effect tax inceases will have for the poor, apparently no one in their Wall Street Journal’s world makes under $100,000 a year.

I especially feel bad for the poor, single parent struggling to get by on the measly $260,000 she earns a year. After all, how’s she going to afford paying an extra $280 a month in taxes when she’s only bringing in $21,666 a month?

At least the retired couple that barely squeaks by with $180,000 a year of income in retirement won’t have to pay more taxes (although, wearing a sweater tied around your neck like Carlton Banks is a requirement).

I would remind the editors of the Wall Street Journal that the median income in the United States is right around $50,000 a year, and less than 5 percent of households in the country earn more than $166,000 a year.

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July 15, 2012 · 12:15 AM

Alabama’s GOP Governor Calls On Romney To Release More Tax Returns: ‘Release Everything To The American People’

Usually the GOP party stays in lockstep with the leadership of the party.  Will this one rogue GOP Governor start a domino affect?  We’ll see…

Think Progress

In a series of interviews yesterday, Mitt Romney maintained he would only release tax returns dating back two years. Romney told CNN, “that’s all that’s necessary for people to understand something about my finances.”

Robert Bently, the Republican Governor of Alabama, isn’t satisfied. The AP has the story:

Pressure was building on Romney from within his own party to be more forthcoming with his finances, a day after he declared he would not release past income tax returns beyond his 2010 tax records and, before the November election, his 2011 taxes.

On the sidelines of the National Governors Association meeting in Williamsburg, Alabama’s Republican governor, Robert Bentley, called on Romney to release all the documents requested of him.

“If you have things to hide, then maybe you’re doing things wrong,” Bentley said. “I think you ought to be willing to release everything to the American people.“

Ana Navarro, a prominent Republican strategist, has also called on Romney to release more tax returns, telling Politico “I wish he’d hurry up and release more tax returns so this distraction would go away.”

Romney’s father, George Romney, released 12 years of tax returns when he ran for President in the 1960s. Romney provided John McCain with 23 years of tax returns when he was being considered for the Vice Presidential nomination in 2008.

 

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February 15, 2012 · 7:59 AM

Why The GOP’s Payroll Tax Cut Cave Is An Even Bigger Deal Than You Think

TPMDC

The GOP’s accession to reality on the payroll tax cut is being cast as a key victory for Democrats and President Obama. Republicans caved, the payroll tax will almost certainly be renewed, and the economy won’t take a tough hit just as the recovery’s beginning to accelerate.

But it also reveals a flaw — a potentially huge flaw — in the conservative movement’s generational strategy to roll back the federal safety net.

These might sound like two wildly disparate issues, but they’re actually variations on a years-long theme. And the outcome of the payroll tax debacle bodes poorly for the GOP on the rest of their long-run goals.

Here’s why.

For years and years, conservative elites have rested their hopes of shrinking the federal government, including its most popular programs, on the theory that if they just “starve the beast” — keep taxes low until the budget comes under enough strain that those programs have to be slashed — then Democrats will ultimately fold, rather than touch off a fiscal crisis.

Republicans have scrimmaged with this strategy over the past year. The debt limit fight was premised on the Republicans’ threat that they’d put the country’s creditworthiness at risk to force Democrats to agree to spending cuts. And Democrats basically caved.

Fast forward to the end of 2011, Republicans used the looming expiration of the payroll tax cut to demand further cuts to government services.

“There’s no debate about whether these extensions ought to be paid for,” House Speaker John Boehner said in November.  But of course Republicans ruled out financing the payroll cut with a small tax on millionaires, and demanded they be paid for with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget.

When Democrats resisted, that strategy blew up in his face, the payroll tax cut nearly lapsed, and Republicans took a beating with the public.

So with the payroll tax cut set to lapse once again, the entire GOP leadership has backed off the demand that the policy be offset. Democrats weren’t going to let the GOP set the ground rules for that fight. And instead of entertaining the idea of even a small, temporary tax increase on wealthy people, Republican leaders have agreed to finance the payroll tax cut with yet more debt — over the strong objections of their own members.

Tax cuts, and benefit programs are different beasts, and that’s why Republicans have agreed to isolate the payroll holiday from other expiring provisions. But the key is that when Republicans recognized that the public was wise to them — that their tactics were putting a popular policy in jeopardy — they backed off.

The same dynamics govern the longer fight over programs like Medicare and Social Security. At some point in the months and years ahead, when policymakers are forced to weigh cuts and big reforms to those programs against higher taxes on the wealthy, Republicans will stand to own the consequences, if they push revenues off the table.

What Democrats have to do is remember how they won the fight over the payroll tax cut, and stick to the same playbook.

(Ed. Note: Emphasis are mine)

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December 4, 2011 · 12:05 AM

West Wing Week 12/2/11 or “Bo Meets Bo”

The White House

This week, as the President urged Republicans to join a Democratic effort to prevent a thousand dollar tax increase on the typical American family, the White House got spruced up for the holidays.

The President also hosted the EU Summit, the Dutch Prime Minister, and announced a new commitment to fighting AIDS in America and around the world. He also lit the National Christmas Tree. That’s November 25th to December 1st, or “Bo Meets Bo.”

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December 2, 2011 · 5:36 PM

After Signaling Support, John Boehner Calls Tax Break For Middle Class ‘Chicken-Shit’

Well, it appears John Boehner is projecting…big time!

Think Progress

Despite their stated opposition to tax increases, Republican lawmakers have been largely cool or even hostile to a proposed extension of the temporary payroll tax cut, pushed by President Obama  and Democrats. Finally, this week, Republicans seemed to relent  as GOP congressional leaders publicly urged their caucuses to vote for an extension of the plan. “The fact is that Republicans are doing everything we can  to allow American families and small businesses to keep more of what they earn,” Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said this morning of efforts to whip GOP lawmakers to support an extension.

But in private, Boehner seems to hold a different view. Politico reports that in a closed-door GOP meeting  this morning, Boehner referred to an extension of the payroll tax holiday as “chicken-shit,” saying he wanted to tack on unrelated legislation favored by Republicans to make it palatable:

GOP leadership told its membership at a closed-door meeting Friday morning it would couple with the expiring tax provisions an easing of environmental regulations on boilers, selling broadband spectrum and paving the way for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. [...]

Speaker John Boehner referred to the package he’s putting forward as turning “chicken-sh — into chicken salad,” according to people attending the meeting in the Capitol basement Friday morning.

Translated, he’s going to pass President Barack Obama’s preferred tax cut, but he wants some skin from Democrats for it.

So which is it? Does Boehner actually believe in extending the payroll tax holiday for the middle class, or is that “chicken-shit”? An extension of the payroll tax holiday would help 95 percent  of working families, but would disproportionately benefit working and middle-class people, as there’s a cap that prevents wealthy people from being taxed on anything they make over about $100,000.

Last night, Republicans in the Senate killed a Democratic bill that would have extended the middle-class tax holiday while raising taxes slightly on just the wealthiest 0.4 percent  of Americans.

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November 4, 2011 · 12:05 AM

Mitt Romney Explains His Inconsistency as Being ‘Human’

Addicting Info

Macy’s store mannequin and Republican frontrunner (just don’t tell Republicans that), Mitt Romney,  is notorious for taking a position, tergiversating on that position, and then choosing a new position on which to tergiversate to reflect the latest poll or Republican talking point de jour.

As Governor of a liberal blue-state, Mitt Romney was pro-choice (or multiple choice as Ted Kennedy once derided during a debate). He was also one of the lone moderate Republicans to actually heed the advice of celebrated climatologists (instead of the janitor at Exxon) regarding climate change, only to repudiate his belief in man-made activities contributing to climate change. And, most notorious, Romney has devoted most of his time on the stump –and debates– meticulously renouncing his mandate health plan he created in Massachusetts, which served as a template for Obama’sAffordable Care Act.

Regarding his abrupt change in philosophy, Romney said “‘What works in one state may not be the answer for another.”  It looks like the Gordon Gekko candidate is more like Gordon Chameleon, carefully changing and saying anything and everything that teabagger republicans want to hear in order to get elected. The Obama relection campaign has publicly cited plans to devote a portion of its campaign strategy on this very phenomenon.

Realizing his flip-flopping is an Achilles heel, Romney finally addressed this problem earlier today.

When pressed by a New Hampshire editorial board about his  famous vacillations on kep political issues over the last decade, Romney  this to say:

 ”I’ve been as consistent as human beings can be.”

Are you serious, Mittens? That’s the type of verbal gymnastics and philosophical expostulating one would expect from former president Bill Clinton when confronted with the meaning of blow jobs.

Romney has formally said that “corporations are people,” and since humans are prone to err, is he saying that he is about as consistent as a corporation. Or, is he making a commentary on human beings’ inability to be consistent.

I don’t think Lao Zsu himself could wax philosophical on the intrinsic meaning behind Romney’s justification for lying and changing his position on everything under the sun, including the sun. Then again, Romney can pretty  much say anything with the pizza perv receiving so much media scrutiny over his past sexual shenanigans.

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August 6, 2011 · 12:02 AM

S&P Downgrades U.S. AAA Bond Rating To AA+, Outlook Negative

I suppose we have the Tea Party Caucus in Congress to thank for this development.  Of course they’ll deny they did anything to cause this downgrade, but hell, they deny climate change, evolution, parts of The Constitution, slavery, etc. so we already know how they will spin this as all Obama’s fault…

TPMDC

As threatened, the ratings agency Standard & Poors has downgraded the country’s AAA bond rating, despite acknowledging, according to multiple reports, that their initial calculations included a $2 trillion error projecting U.S.’s debt-to-GDP ratio over time.

You can read the entire explanation below the fold. But the key is that the use of the debt limit as a legislative bargaining chip, combined with gridlock in Congress, led S&P to publicly conclude that the country will have a hard time restoring gravity to its debt trajectory.

However, while they parcel blame across Congress — implying Democrats are rigidly opposed to cutting entitlement spending — they hint that Republican intransigence to raising tax revenues is more troubling.

From the agency’s press release:

“We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process,” reads a statement from S&P. “We also believe that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the general government debt burden by the middle of the decade.”

Continue here… 

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June 24, 2011 · 12:05 AM

Republicans pushing the Ryan tax cuts for billionaires are pushing for the destruction of the USA

“…pushing for the destruction of USA.” 

No surprise there.  I wrote a post on June 12th regarding an article that appeared in Winning Progressive about ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council which literally writes bills for state legislators on behalf of ALEC’s clients which are big corporations. 

These corporations do not want a democracy.  They want an oligarchy or better yet a plutocracy.  The fact of the matter is that based on very similar legislation that is popping up around the country, thanks to ALEC writing state  legislation on behalf of their corporate clients, democracy as we know it appears to be fading fast, mainly because of the money and power that big corporations wield.  All in the name of free market principles, less government, less regulations, individual liberties and federalism.

The Conservative Lie

The Congressional Budget Office reported Wednesday that the nation probably will owe outside creditors more than the size of the entire economy in 10 years.

The forecast — a public debt equal to 101% of the economy in 2021, and rising to 187% by 2035 unless dramatic changes are made — should be a warning to President Obama, Congress and Vice President Biden’s band of bipartisan negotiators meeting daily to devise just a short-term fix.

By comparison, last year’s long-term budget outlook from CBO forecast a public debt equal to 87% of the economy by 2020. The difference — 14% — would be about $2 trillion based on today’s economy, even more as it grows.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/20…

Republicans spurred on by their anti American wing, the Tea Party Terrorists want to raise taxes on those on lower income brackets, wipe out benefits and services and effectively scrap social security all to cut taxes for the very richest 0.1% to 25%. This would be one of the lowest top rate taxes in the World.

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May 1, 2011 · 6:02 AM

West Wing Week: “Final Adjustments”

West Wing Week

Welcome to the West Wing Week, your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This week, while the White House celebrated Easter, holding the traditional egg roll on the South Lawn, President Obama kept his focus on the nation’s finances, working on short term and long term ways to get away from high gas prices.  He also pledged support for Alabama and other states in the South hit by devastating storms and announced new key members of his National Security team.

Find out more about the topics covered in this West Wing Week:

Monday, April 25, 2011

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Arun Chaudhary is the official White House Videographer.

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November 15, 2010 · 1:29 AM

10 Political ‘Nonstarters’ From Federal Debt Panel

Now that the 111th Congress is back in session (starting today) in what is traditionally called a lame duck session, it will be interesting to see what gets done, if anything. 

I’m certain Representatives and Senators from both sides of the aisle will address the Debt Commission’s draft and the proposed cuts that the chairman and co-chair of the Debt panel  recommended. 

Listed below are some of the programs that chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson suggested be cut to save money and or reduce the deficit:

AOL News

The draft report from the chairmen of the bipartisan presidential debt commission to reduce the national deficit through deep spending cuts and tax increases took months to piece together. It took mere minutes for partisans on the left and right to pull it apart.

Amid the many proposals in the 50-page draft proposal, these stand out for their potential as political poison: 

1. Cut Social Security. Younger workers, current retirees and wealthier seniors would, respectively, have to work longer, go without annual cost-of-living increases and see their benefits means-tested. Liberals pounced on this idea, along with …

2. Increasing cost-sharing for Medicare. If seniors were mad about health care reform, wait till they hear about this.

AARP was quickly out of the box with a statement saying that “the last thing we should be considering is targeting the guaranteed, inflation-protected Social Security benefits that millions of Americans count on every day,” adding that it was “deeply concerned” about “shifting health care costs onto seniors.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called the proposed changes “simply unacceptable.” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was more colorful. He said the chairmen “just told working Americans to ‘drop dead.’ “

3. Pentagon cuts. Defense Secretary Robert Gates launched his offensive to cut spending last May, but his plan calls for reinvesting the savings for new ships, fighter jets and other weapons systems. The commission’s goal to slash $100 billion would mean fewer new toys for the military. Tea party Republicans appear on board with across-the-board cuts that would include defense, but that might mean breaking the GOP’s Pledge to America, which calls for “a robust defense” that includes full funding for missile defense.

4. Three-year military pay freeze. Happy Veterans Day. If cutting weapons systems is tough, freezing military pay in wartime is a political minefield few politicians are likely to traverse. As Army Times put it, this one is “the most eye-opening military-related recommendation in the report.”

5. Limit or eliminate mortgage interest tax deduction. The hugely popular perk is tied to what some consider the American dream of homeownership. Even though it would be coupled with dropping the top tax rate from 35 percent to 23 percent, the housing and construction industry and groups like the Mortgage Bankers Association are unlikely to give this one up without a fight.

6. Eliminate the child tax credit. Both Republicans and Democrats like these credits. After all, what’s more family-friendly than giving a tax break for every kid you have? It’s not exactly like attacking Mom and apple pie, but this one could come close.

7. Hike federal gasoline taxes by 15 percent. Republicans don’t like taxes, so expect them to slam the brakes on this one. The conservative Americans for Tax Reform helpfully estimated the average weekly fill-up for a 15-gallon tank would go up $117 more per year. This one may stay in neutral.

8. Limit charitable deductions. Nonprofit and philanthropic groups worry that reducing the tax benefits of giving will persuade many givers to begin — and end — their charity at home.

9. Cut farm subsidies by $3 billion per year. Barack Obama, an urban guy from Chicago, floated a similar idea soon after taking office. Not surprisingly, it has laid as fallow as a cornfield in winter, thanks to bipartisan pressure from farm state lawmakers and the powerful agribusiness lobby.

10. Eliminate earmarks. A great campaign talking point that perennially collides with political reality. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whose ability to filibuster legislation has grown with his caucus, opposes ending pork barrel spending. He says it doesn’t add up to even a slice of bacon in the whole hog that’s the federal deficit.

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