Biden is now promoting a tax on the top 0.01% and billionaires are already fuming. It’s a start to what’ll be necessary to bring back a functioning democracy & middle class
Taking the cap off Social Security contributions is another item that needs a high priority. Otherwise this excellent program is headed right towards insolvency. Asking for a reasonable contribution from those making over $147,000, which is the current limit (or perhaps $250,000 to give a little wiggle room) is not exactly cruel. Congress, of course, keeps kicking this can down the road, but it can't forever.
And I agree it's a heavy lift. Sure no one wants to pay more taxes, but because frankly those with the money have the means to lie. For example, estates with less than $12 million are exempt from federal income taxes, but a few years ago there was an advertising push to pressure Congress not to have any significant inheritance tax at all. The implication given to the public was that when they died everybody would lose a lot to "the government" is it was better not to "tax the dead." You can expect the same sort of sleights of hand with Biden's proposal, and I'm sure he realizes this will cut down on the final numbers. And then too we have the credulous who believe the rich are somehow worth respecting and listening to simply because they have more stuff (see Trump, Donald J. and the Kardashians). Such folks can be whipped up to help their "betters."
We must do more to close tax loopholes, stop hedge funds, regulate venture capital and prefer earned income over unearned income. We can do a lot with the IRS.
It's always amazing how excited the filthy-stinking-rich get about freebies. They have not even had to fight for the low tax rates and loopholes; they just show-up with their checkbooks and let the lobby industry do the dirty work.
I know it pisses me off that the obscenely wealthy don't pay their fair share, because I paid my share right up till the day I quit working. I have paid some state tax after retiring. They took income tax directly out of my paltry military pay as well.
Time to move some money from the top to take care of the infrastructure they use and the resources they extract. No one benefits more from our freedoms than they do. The rich should never have been given a big swag-bag of tax dodges, loopholes, and ridiculously low rates.
Wow. Was Brandeis percipient, or what? Was Thurgood M. the last Supreme Ct. J. who knew anything about anything? Bunch now seem to hate the very idea of America. Like, they huddle in the Court basement and hold a ceremony where they spit on the words: "We the People." Sorry, don't mean to start nothin'.......
President Biden's proposal to pass a 20% minimum tax on all our billionaires is a remarkable solution to create long-term funding for many foundational needs of America Anno 2022. And historically it would be a very reasonable level of contribution for the post Reagan wealthiest people who, for many, have completely abandoned the community they live in.
However, for very pragmatic voter reasons, it may not have a chance to pass:
1. The two Republican-Democratic senators will not support it.
2. Biden divided his 2022 budget support unnecessarily by alienating almost 100 million voters who do not support Senator Durbin's long-time push to regulate vitamins and supplements just like pharmaceutical drugs.
3. Biden's 2022 budget increased the already bloated Pentagon budget
4. Biden's 2022 budget also proposed increased funding for FDA, CDC and WHO to further cement the strangle hold of the pharmaceutical industry.
Mr. Hartman citation:
"Congress no longer passes legislation the majority of Americans want: the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that corporate “persons” and the new billionaires created after Reagan’s tax cuts can own their very own politicians, and those wholly owned politicians, in gratitude, block anything of consequence that might require new taxes.
The middle class has fallen from about two-thirds of us to fewer than half of us, and even at that it takes two incomes to maintain a lifestyle a single income could support before Reagan."
Perhaps we need to recognize that enough US voters are determined to keep their lives free of the tyranny of the majority. This does not make these voters ignorant or selfish; we simply need to re-learn that America, with the greatest cultural and ethnic diversity on the planet, really works well when Texans can do what Texans feel they need to do, and residents of all the urban centers just pass laws that they need. We are a nation of many states, with some common needs and goals, and it's okay, really, to let people, and states, be different.
President Biden and the Democratic Party are still failing to look for consensus (https://en.wikipedia dot org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_is_consensus%3F) to have enough votes to survive the 2022 Mid-term election, and the 2024 presidential election. Some of us pray they will do better at listening to all of us.
I know this is complicated, but to have our government meet its purpose (as Thom has noted more than a few times) “…will require overturning Citizens United…” i.e., we have to stop corporate personhood before it’s too late, or we will continue our devolution to autocracy.
In addition, as far as Texans doing “…what Texans feel they need to do…” is a bit disingenuous in that, although the majority of Texans choose not to be conned, a critical mass of poorly educated Texans have been flimflammed into doing things that the morbidly rich tell them to do. I believe they do it so they can feel part of their special tribe of suckers who are being manipulated with all the classic wedgies (abortion, guns, and assorted bigotries) that cause them to make stupid (and often criminally stupid) decisions that only benefit the morbidly rich. They are the kind of Texans that give Texas a bad name.
Taking the cap off Social Security contributions is another item that needs a high priority. Otherwise this excellent program is headed right towards insolvency. Asking for a reasonable contribution from those making over $147,000, which is the current limit (or perhaps $250,000 to give a little wiggle room) is not exactly cruel. Congress, of course, keeps kicking this can down the road, but it can't forever.
And I agree it's a heavy lift. Sure no one wants to pay more taxes, but because frankly those with the money have the means to lie. For example, estates with less than $12 million are exempt from federal income taxes, but a few years ago there was an advertising push to pressure Congress not to have any significant inheritance tax at all. The implication given to the public was that when they died everybody would lose a lot to "the government" is it was better not to "tax the dead." You can expect the same sort of sleights of hand with Biden's proposal, and I'm sure he realizes this will cut down on the final numbers. And then too we have the credulous who believe the rich are somehow worth respecting and listening to simply because they have more stuff (see Trump, Donald J. and the Kardashians). Such folks can be whipped up to help their "betters."
We must do more to close tax loopholes, stop hedge funds, regulate venture capital and prefer earned income over unearned income. We can do a lot with the IRS.
It's always amazing how excited the filthy-stinking-rich get about freebies. They have not even had to fight for the low tax rates and loopholes; they just show-up with their checkbooks and let the lobby industry do the dirty work.
I know it pisses me off that the obscenely wealthy don't pay their fair share, because I paid my share right up till the day I quit working. I have paid some state tax after retiring. They took income tax directly out of my paltry military pay as well.
Time to move some money from the top to take care of the infrastructure they use and the resources they extract. No one benefits more from our freedoms than they do. The rich should never have been given a big swag-bag of tax dodges, loopholes, and ridiculously low rates.
Wow. Was Brandeis percipient, or what? Was Thurgood M. the last Supreme Ct. J. who knew anything about anything? Bunch now seem to hate the very idea of America. Like, they huddle in the Court basement and hold a ceremony where they spit on the words: "We the People." Sorry, don't mean to start nothin'.......
President Biden's proposal to pass a 20% minimum tax on all our billionaires is a remarkable solution to create long-term funding for many foundational needs of America Anno 2022. And historically it would be a very reasonable level of contribution for the post Reagan wealthiest people who, for many, have completely abandoned the community they live in.
However, for very pragmatic voter reasons, it may not have a chance to pass:
1. The two Republican-Democratic senators will not support it.
2. Biden divided his 2022 budget support unnecessarily by alienating almost 100 million voters who do not support Senator Durbin's long-time push to regulate vitamins and supplements just like pharmaceutical drugs.
3. Biden's 2022 budget increased the already bloated Pentagon budget
4. Biden's 2022 budget also proposed increased funding for FDA, CDC and WHO to further cement the strangle hold of the pharmaceutical industry.
Mr. Hartman citation:
"Congress no longer passes legislation the majority of Americans want: the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that corporate “persons” and the new billionaires created after Reagan’s tax cuts can own their very own politicians, and those wholly owned politicians, in gratitude, block anything of consequence that might require new taxes.
The middle class has fallen from about two-thirds of us to fewer than half of us, and even at that it takes two incomes to maintain a lifestyle a single income could support before Reagan."
Perhaps we need to recognize that enough US voters are determined to keep their lives free of the tyranny of the majority. This does not make these voters ignorant or selfish; we simply need to re-learn that America, with the greatest cultural and ethnic diversity on the planet, really works well when Texans can do what Texans feel they need to do, and residents of all the urban centers just pass laws that they need. We are a nation of many states, with some common needs and goals, and it's okay, really, to let people, and states, be different.
President Biden and the Democratic Party are still failing to look for consensus (https://en.wikipedia dot org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_is_consensus%3F) to have enough votes to survive the 2022 Mid-term election, and the 2024 presidential election. Some of us pray they will do better at listening to all of us.
I know this is complicated, but to have our government meet its purpose (as Thom has noted more than a few times) “…will require overturning Citizens United…” i.e., we have to stop corporate personhood before it’s too late, or we will continue our devolution to autocracy.
In addition, as far as Texans doing “…what Texans feel they need to do…” is a bit disingenuous in that, although the majority of Texans choose not to be conned, a critical mass of poorly educated Texans have been flimflammed into doing things that the morbidly rich tell them to do. I believe they do it so they can feel part of their special tribe of suckers who are being manipulated with all the classic wedgies (abortion, guns, and assorted bigotries) that cause them to make stupid (and often criminally stupid) decisions that only benefit the morbidly rich. They are the kind of Texans that give Texas a bad name.