RJ Eskow: Today’s new corporate-sponsored cost-cutting craze is merely the latest policy designed to enrich a powerful few at the expense of the many, and today’s anti-tax agenda is being used to make sure it succeeds.
Taxes
Who should bear the tax burden? Is there an argument to be made for a regressive tax structure? Is the progressive tax structure the only way to address issues of income inequality? These and other questions are discussed in the articles on this page.
Bungee-Jumping Over the Fiscal Cliff
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Robert Reich: Excuse me for sounding impertinent, but isn’t this fear-mongering likely to buttress Republican arguments that the Bush tax cuts should be extended for everyone — including the rich?
Romney Tax Return Provides a Window to His Soul
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Walter Brasch: What does matter is that by stonewalling, obfuscating, and refusing to give full disclosure, he appears to have something to hide.
Top 10 Reasons We See Romney’s Tax Returns Anytime Soon
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Dotty LeMieux: It’s got to be juicy, or Romney’d join with most the other Presidential candidates of the last forty years and let the public see the numbers.
Mitt’s 13% Tax
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Robert Reich: omney admits to an income of over $20 million a year for the last several decades. Which makes his 13 percent — or even 20 percent — violate the principle of equal sacrifice that lies at the core of our notion of tax fairness.
The Millionaires Tax and Jerry Brown’s Terrorizing Tactic
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Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: Jerry Brown to resort to his terror tactic, intended to strike fear in the hearts of the public. He has told the people of California that if they do not support this new compromise tax proposal, then automatic trigger cuts will go into effect that will brutally slash the budget of public education on all levels.
Big Tobacco and the Lessons of California’s No on Prop 29
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Randy Shaw: In a tribute to the success of the generic No campaign, a Public Policy Institute poll released May 23 found support for Proposition 29 dropping 14 points among likely voters since March.
Greece Economy 2012: Why U.S. Politicians Are Quiet About Europe’s Meltdown
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Shamus Cooke: Working people in the U.S. need to learn to speak Greek, and adopt an increasingly popular slogan that rejects austerity measures: Tax the Rich!
Turning America Into a Giant Casino
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Robert Reich: In the most recent Mega Millions game – whose winning tickets were drawn last week and whose jackpot rose to $640 million – lottery ticket buyers shelled out some $1.5 billion, most of which went to state governments.
California Tax Measure Compromise a Victory for Progressives
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Paul Hogarth: When it comes to crafting state budget policy, Sacramento’s leadership never bothers to consult the grass-roots – cutting deals with big business and a small handful of unions, and then expecting the rest of us to take our marching orders.
State Convention Snubs Osborn; Avoids Fight on Millionaire’s Tax
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Paul Hogarth: The California Democratic Convention this weekend was not a good one for Party insurgents hoping to push for progressive change and hold its leaders accountable.
Grover Norquist: Portrait of a One Percenter
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Steve Mikulan: Norquist is not really a conservative genuinely interested in smaller government or tax reform, but the hired arsonist of big business.
GOP Payroll Tax Disaster
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Brent Budowsky: As President Obama and Democrats battle during this holiday season to enact a tax cut for the 99 percent of Americans who constitute the heart of the nation, House Republicans are making a seismic political blunder reminiscent of the self-destructive overreaching of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) that rejuvenated the Clinton presidency during the 1990s.
An Offer to the President
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Robert Reich: So here’s the deal: We’ll reelect you. We’ll stand behind you. We’ll give you a mandate to do all this – and more – in your second term. As long as you stand behind us.
Newt’s Tax Plan, and Why His Polls Rise the More Outrageous He Becomes
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Robert Reich: The more irresponsible his bomb-throwing, the more attractive Gringrich becomes to a sizable portion of Americans so fed up they feel like throwing bombs.
What If Obama Taxed the Rich but Never Told Anyone?
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Paul Loeb: Did you know Obama’s health care bill contained a $20 billion a year tax on the richest Americans? I didn’t until I stumbled onto a mention of this the other day.
EU ‘Shocked and Awed’ by GOP Primary Reality TV Show
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Denis Campbell: Yet the entire GOP is deluded into thinking they will regain all three branches of government with a policy of tax cuts for the rich and ignoring the 99%?
REVISED: How to Avoid Being a Principled Republican on Taxes
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Robert Reich: Republican leaders are trying to get rank-and-file Republicans to go along with an extended payroll tax holiday — but by paying for it without raising taxes on the very rich.
Another Republican Hoax: Corporate Tax Cuts Stimulate Employment
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Sy Slavin: This Canadian study shows that as far as creating new jobs and generally decreasing unemployment, the way to go is increasing governmental infrastructure expenditures.
The Norquist Factor
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Brent Budowsky: Pledges such as the Norquist pledge should be flat-out discarded, as a matter of policy and principle, by all legislators, to achieve a bipartisan agreement at a time of economic crisis.
Flat Tax a Flat-Out Fraud
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Robert Reich: All flat-tax proposals benefit the rich more than the poor for one simple reason: Today’s tax code is still at least moderately progressive. The rich usually pay a higher percent of their incomes in income taxes than do the poor. A flat tax would eliminate that slight progressivity.
The Flat-Tax Fraud, and the Necessity of a Truly Progressive Tax
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Robert Reich: Simple fairness requires three things: More tax brackets at the top, higher rates in each bracket, and the treatment of all sources of income (capital gains included) exactly the same.
Occupy Repatriation
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Brent Budowsky: Democrats should oppose, Congress should defeat and the American people will reject any windfall repatriation tax bonus to American companies that have exported American jobs.
Tax the Poor
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Tom Degan: According to the fellow from the Heritage Foundation, many poor people in this country are in the possession of “luxury items” that poor people just shouldn’t posses: refrigerators and ari-conditioners.
Latinos Support Raising Taxes on Wealthy
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Pilar Marrero: According to our poll, Latino voters are also almost completely opposed to balancing the budget following the formula of the GOP and the Tea Party: only budget cuts.
Own It, Barack!
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Lucia Brawley: The more hard-hitting and direct you are the better. The more you own your critics’ ammunition against you and turn it on them, the more effective you’ll be.
Well-To-Do Americans Getting More Benefits than the Poor
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Sherwood Ross: All the Federal welfare checks, food stamps, and unemployment benefits don’t begin to add up to the more than $1 trillion in indirect tax breaks awarded annually to America’s middle- and upper-classes.
Say It Ain’t So, O!
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Stanley Kutler: Our problems with governance lie far beyond the character of Obama, or with the Lilliputians who run Congress. Our “leaders” will not lead; worse yet, they refuse to honestly confront the nation’s interest or needs.
The Costs of War
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Vijay Prashad: The drain of wealth to the war economy is a massive regressive taxation on the population: the rich who pay a much smaller proportion of their taxes and the corporations are insulated from the costs of war, and indeed some of them benefit from the windfalls of war.
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Friday Feedback: “What Occupy Wall Street Can Learn from the Tea Party”
This week, Ray Bishop comments on John Peeler’s article, “What Occupy Wall Street Can Learn from the Tea Party.” Ray says, “If the power structure attempts to. . .