Millionaires to Congress: ‘Tax Me More!’
As the congressional Super Committee struggles to meet next week’s deadline for a plan to find $1.2 trillion in budget savings over the course of the next decade, some millionaires are targeting Capitol Hill with an unlikely message: Tax us more.
Earlier this week, we reported that Republican members of the committee proposed permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, a move that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka dubbed “Robin Hood in reverse.”
At an ad hoc hearing on job creation, sponsored by the Congressional Progressive Caucus today, members of the group Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength testified to advocate for a more progressive tax structure that would ultimately tax them more. The alternative to continuing to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will likely mean cuts in programs vital to the well-being of working people, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Republican Reverse Robin Hood Stalks Super Committee
A proposal by Republicans on the so-called “Super Committee” to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy while cutting hundreds of billions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare benefit is “Robin Hood in reverse: class warfare against the American middle class on behalf of the top 1 percent,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Click here for his full statement.
Warren Buffett Is Right
Republicans in Congress are fighting to give more tax breaks to the extremely wealthy, rather than create jobs. Here at a glance is ample reason why the rich don’t need any more breaks—they already pay a lower percentage of their income than do the rest of us. Warren Buffett is right.
Experts: Let Deficit Grow to Stimulate Economy
The road to economic growth and a full recovery lies in allowing the deficit to grow temporarily and investing in programs that put money in the hands of consumers, two nonpartisan experts said.
Testifying before the congressional supercommittee yesterday, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf warned that to avoid slowing the economy even further, the deficit must get worse before it gets better:
There is no inherent contradiction between using fiscal policy to support the economy today and imposing fiscal restraint several years from now. If policymakers wanted to achieve both a short-term economic boost and longer-term fiscal sustainability, a combination of policies would be required: changes in taxes and spending that would widen the deficit now but reduce it later in the decade.
Corporations Get Tax Refunds, the Wealthy Get Tax Breaks
Two quick hits here on how the rich aren’t like you and me.
From 2008 to 2010, a sample of major corporations showed they earned $173 billion in combined profits—yet not only did they not pay taxes, but they actually got money back from the federal government in the form of tax benefits. In the study, Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) looked at a dozen major corporations and analyzed their profits and their effective federal corporate income tax rates between 2008 and 2010.
Next, 10 years after Bush tax cuts kicked in, the top 1 percent of earners (making more than $620,442) received 38 percent of the tax cuts, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The lowest 60 percent of filers (making less than $67,715) received less than 20 percent of the total benefit of Bush’s tax policies.
Meanwhile, really rich lawmakers are trying to cut the federal budget on the backs of working people, so they and their rich coporate cronies can keep raking in the tax benefits at the expense of the rest of us.
Republican ‘Path to Prosperity’ Just Another Dead End
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The Republican budget plan unveiled yesterday privatizes Medicare, cuts corporate taxes and taxes for the wealthy, cuts Medicaid funding and repeals health care reform. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
Just as Republican governors and state legislators are assaulting the rights of working Americans under the guise of budget crises…Republican leaders in Congress are using the federal budget to further their own political agendas. Their credo is that tax giveaways to the super rich and Wall Street should be paid for on the backs of working people.
The budget plan offered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and dubbed The Path to Prosperity, is nothing but “a standard wish-list of right-wing policies,” says Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Research and Policy Director John Irons.
This budget is not a serious attempt to govern, but a warming over of long-dead economic proposals.
Republican-Hood: Steal from the Workers; Pander to the Rich
Robin Hood, the guy who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, wore a short frock and tights. From the get-go, the guy serving the disadvantaged while sporting gay attire would fail the entrance exam required to become a card-carrying Republican.
The GOP is, after all, the anti-gay marriage, anti-repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell crew. More than that, Republicans are anti-working class. Their recent policies and activities show them clobbering the middle class while kissing the wealthy’s, well, you know.
Consider health insurance reform and tax cuts for the rich.
The GOP spent the entire fall election cycle yammering about the federal deficit. The world as we know it was coming to an end because of the deficit, they contended loudly and repeatedly.
Improving Health in a Sinking Economy
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This is a cross-post from Labor Management Partnership by John August, executive director of Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.
It was one of those weeks. Many people could not ignore the economic news, despite the abstract way we talk about it that makes so many people feel powerless and intimidated.
The administration announced its “compromise.” Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the richest people in the country, would remain in effect for another two years. The president’s own party was in revolt. Why, many Democrats asked, is it necessary to allow hundreds of billions of dollars of additional debt to provide tax cuts to the people at the very top of the income scale?
Billions for Millionaires, Zilch for Neediest Families
Not only did Congress give zillionaires billions of dollars in tax breaks, they also told the people at the bottom of the economic ladder, “tough luck.” With unemployment at nearly 10 percent and 19 million Americans currently living in “deep poverty” (below half the poverty line), federal funds for the Temporary Assistance For Needy Families (TANF) program, the federal program that replaced welfare, have entirely dried up for the first time since 1996.
That leaves states, whose budgets are already overburdened, with an average of 15 percent less federal funding for the coming year to help an ever-increasing number of needy families.
Writing in Huffington Post, Laura Bassett. says TANF provides a lifeline for families and workers who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits. According to a new report by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, (CBPP) the lack of funds means more homeless families will go without shelter, fewer low-wage workers will receive help with child care expenses, and fewer families involved with the child welfare system will receive preventive services. Read the rest of this entry »
Ohio Workers Rally to Help the Jobless, Slam Tax Cuts for the Rich
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Ohio AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer Andrew Richards sends us this report.
Braving near single-digit temperatures, dozens of jobless Portsmouth workers rallied outside the office of Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) yesterday to demand she and other congressional Republicans stop using an extension of unemployment insurance (UI) as political leverage to continue tax cuts for the wealthy.
Workers chanted “pass unemployment now” and held signs saying, “We need good jobs now” and “Unemployed held hostage by GOP tax cuts for rich,” as passing cars honked in support.
Republican leaders have blocked action on maintaining the unemployment insurance benefits for long-term jobless that expired Nov. 30. They are holding it and other legislation hostage until they get a vote on extending Bush-era tax cuts. The White House and Republicans have agreed to a deal that includes the tax cuts and a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance. But the deal’s fate is uncertain.
“No one here wants to be unemployed,” said Mitch Lewis, a member of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 575 and currently unemployed. Read the rest of this entry »
