The Invisible Hand Wants More Hand Outs

The New York Times published an article on December 1 titled As Companies Seek Tax Deals, Governments Pay High Price.

It ought to disturb everyone who isn't in the 1%. To begin with, it should have been "Citizens" instead of "Government" as we're the ones who pay the price.

We should all be disturbed by the amount of public money being extorted by companies from all levels of government. They can do this, in my opinion, because we let them.

How do we let them? I think it begins with the fact that too many of our fellow citizens are quaffing copious amounts the Randian Kool-Aid-turned-Tea-Party-tea that's being served up so generously by the high priests and priestesses who worship The Invisible Hand from inside the GOP, from within their broadcasting company, Fox, their newspaper publisher, The Wall Street Journal, and from all the their faithful followers.

It seems clear to me that big money, politics, and business have combined into a force the likes of which none of us has seen in our lifetimes. The level of concentrated wealth and power is all but incomprehensible (who among us really understands what a trillion dollars is?), and we and our progeny will be the ones who pay the tab when The Invisible Hand brings it to our table for all the blind, willful, and excessive drinking we're doing now.

I do believe there's something we can do about it.

I think it starts by voting for progressive people who will truly represent ordinary citizens and then demanding real representation and leadership from those elected officials; from city councils on up through the president.

I also think we citizens need to present calm, rational, and most of all, vocal objection about the imbalance, inequity, and unfairness to each other and to our elected officials. They do, after all, work for us. It's incumbent on us as citizens to hold them accountable. They need to know that we're not going to tolerate - or vote for them - if they continue to offer sweetheart deals to so-called "job creators" who don't create jobs and who, in the end, only bankrupt us and our governments.

Could it be that part of the reason governments at all levels can't balance budgets includes expenditures like the $80 billion (yes, billion with a 'b', as in bull****) a year that's being given away in incentives? If these incentives are so effective, shouldn't we be asking corporations (and mostly the big ones) where are the jobs?

(Let me hasten to say at this point that I have nothing against corporations, profits, or wealth. I don't begrudge anyone their hard-earned and honestly-achieved wealth. I'm not a socialist (ok, maybe I am just a little), and I'm certainly not a fascist or a communist. I'm registered non-partisan, have never held elected office, and have never been in a union. As of today, I'm an unemployed sales and marketing executive who wants to work and who cares enough about how this impacts his family, his neighbors, our society to take time from job searching to post this.)

Make no mistake. Politicians are just as culpable as corporations in this mess.

As this NYT article points out, politicians tend to be weak negotiators who have the unenviable task of having to convince us in the simplest terms and most expeditious way possible every few years to reelect them back into their jobs. Some (and for the more jaded among us, maybe most) politicians seem to behave in such a way most of the time as to convince us that they'll say and do just about anything to win their jobs back.

Is it any wonder that they will do a deal - even bad deals - with a corporation just to stake the claim to have brought jobs to their constituents? It is worth wondering about only if we don't pay attention to the deals they're cutting and then don't hold them accountable to what we value in addition to a job.

And therein rest their defense for their actions. We don't pay attention, we stay silent, and we seem willing to accept any condition so long as there's the promise of employment.

Politicians know that we seem, on the whole, to not pay very much attention. They know lots of us can be pretty easily duped into believing almost anything. What other explanation is there for the viewership of Fox News and movements like the Tea Party, birtherism, and climate science deniers?

Politicians can remain confident that we'll be too distracted by The Walking Dead, Dancing With The Stars, and the latest South Korean music video on YouTube to pay attention to what they're doing. They know most of us will keep getting our information from the talking heads screeching the loudest at us from inside our self-imposed information bubbles. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Fox News viewers.)

Most of us can be counted on to look at the so-called collaboration between government and corporations through a short-term lens, and to then heap praise (and votes) upon our elected officials for ostensibly working in partnership with the private sector to create new jobs.

The irony is this.

The Invisible Hand of the free market isn't concerned with real partnership. It's about winners and losers. That cannot be what's best in these "partnerships" between private companies and the public sector. Just consider these factors:
1. There are no contractual and legally binding obligations on the part of the corporation, and there's no recourse to recover our "investments" should the venture fail
2. There's no assurance as to if and when those jobs will actually materialize
3. There are no promises that any job will actually pay a living wage or how long it will last
4. There appears to be little scrutiny of the corporation's past behaviors or results in these matters
5. No one seems to be examining or considering if the facts and evidence show whether or not those jobs would have been created without the incentive

And, since when did The Invisible Hand need incentives from government?

To compound the challenges and as the New York Times article points out, elected officials are ill-equipped to negotiate. They are basically held hostage by corporations. We go on about our lives oblivious to the tabs our politicians are running up for us and what could have been done with those corporate welfare funds.

               "The practical consequences can be easily seen. The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative group, found that the amount New York spends on film credits every year equals the cost of hiring 5,000 public-school teachers."


I understand and, yes, even appreciate and applaud the basic tenants of capitalism. I understand that corporations have an obligation to shareholders first and foremost. I don't deny nor argue that they ought not to consider and pursue the deals that are best for them and their shareholders. The problem I have is when those decisions about how best to maximize profit are made without concern for the moral, ethical, and economic consequences to us as citizens and to society at large. Profit cannot and should not be the only consideration by people who run companies. We're all in this together.

Again, it's not only corporations at fault. They have a duplicitous partner in this dance.

Ill-equipped and out-matched government officials not only are manipulated by corporations they are actually competing with one another to see who can give away the most money to attract the corporations.

Think about that. Our elected officials are negotiating against each other to see who can "win the business" with corporations by giving away the most money - our money - while they get nothing that's legally binding in return.

               A group of taxpayers in Michigan and Ohio went as far as suing DaimlerChrysler after Ohio and the City of Toledo awarded the automaker $280 million in the late 1990s. The suit argued that it was unfair for one taxpayer to be given a break at the expense of all others.


              The suit made its way to the Supreme Court, and G.M. and Ford signed on to briefs supporting Daimler, as did local governments. The National Governors Association warned the court that prohibiting incentives could lead to jobs moving overseas. “This is the economic reality,” the association said in a brief.

              The governors offered no hard evidence of the effectiveness of tax credits, but the Supreme Court did not consider whether they worked anyway. In 2006, the court concluded that the taxpayers did not have the legal standing to challenge Ohio’s tax actions in federal court.


         
There's only one way this can go under current circumstances. Unchecked and unchanged, the bidding will be won by whatever community is willing to give away the most with almost nothing assured in return. And, whose money is it? Yours and mine.

I don't claim to understand every detail and all the nuance. What I clearly don't understand is all the anger and rancor coming from anyone outside the 1% in America about the role of government. They seem intent on allowing themselves to be guided by what they perceive to be the benefits of The Invisible Hand and all that will trickle down to them. Is there another explanation for why some of us appear to have elevated corporations to some pretty lofty status while simultaneously vilifying government at all levels?

It makes wonder how it is that so many people who claim to want smaller government and cuts to social programs seem to be the very same people who....

...Rail against today's tax rates - which are at historic lows - but don't complain about their tax dollars subsidizing corporations

...Complain about their tax dollars being spent on social programs that benefit the so-called "takers" at a time when unemployment is still too high, the wealth gap is at levels not seen since the Gilded Age of the robber barons, corporations are enjoying record profits while they get more and more government handouts, and yet those magnanimous "job creators" don't seem to be creating many jobs

...Despite corporate welfare, believe that government interferes too much with business despite the fact that regulatory bogeymen like the SEC and EPA have been progressively stripped of their oversight authority


Why isn't there more outrage about corporate welfare from the people who so strongly believe in free market forces and less government?

And, why aren't all citizens demanding that our elected officials work on and pass legislation to simplify THOSE tax codes first so that corporations pay their fair share like the rest of us?

After all, aren't corporations and the people who work for them part of the society in which we all live?

Don't employees, managers, stakeholders, customers, and suppliers all benefit from a government that educates our children, is responsible for public safety, infrastructure, and the like?

(And by the way, no, you corporations did NOT build public education, infrastructure, police forces, fire stations, etc. Good thing, too.)

So, the over-arching question I'm asking is this. What's with all this requirement (extortion, really) for tax breaks and incentives to be given to corporations in order for them to compete?

Isn't The Invisible Hand enough.....or can't they make it without hand outs?

What is Romney Hiding?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/18/opinion/kleinbard-canellos-romney-tax/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

I don't understand why he's refusing to release more tax returns unless what they reveal is worse than the price he's paying and will keep paying for his reluctance to do what every other candidate has done starting with his own father.

Reagan--No Loopholes For Millionaires

So if the holy man of the GOP said it, and the holy man of the Democrats (who ain't so much what was hoped for after all) is saying it, how come the resistance is almost exclusively from just one side?




Hint: It has nothing to do with facts.

59 seconds of undeniable reality at http://youtu.be/cgbJ-Fs1ikA

Senator Sanders asks, "Tax Time? Not for Giant Corporations"

From Senator Bernie Sanders

Release: Tax Time? Not for Giant Corporations


March 27, 2011
Sanders Calls for Shared Sacrifice

BURLINGTON, Vt., March 27 - While hard working Americans fill out their income tax returns this tax season, General Electric and other giant profitable corporations are avoiding U.S. taxes altogether.

With Congress returning to Capitol Hill on Monday to debate steep spending cuts, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations must do their share to help bring down our record-breaking deficit.

Sanders renewed his call for shared sacrifice after it was reported that General Electric and other major corporations paid no U.S. taxes after posting huge profits. Sanders said it is grossly unfair for congressional Republicans to propose major cuts to Head Start, Pell Grants, the Social Security Administration, nutrition grants for pregnant low-income women and the Environmental Protection Agency while ignoring the reality that some of the most profitable corporations pay nothing or almost nothing in federal income taxes.

Sanders compiled a list of some of some of the 10 worst corporate income tax avoiders.
1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. (Source: Exxon Mobil's 2009 shareholder report filed with the SEC here.)

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion. (Source: Forbes.com here, ProPublica here and Treasury here.)

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS. (Source: Citizens for Tax Justice here and The New York Times here. Note: despite rumors to the contrary, the Times has stood by its story.)

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009. (Source: See 2009 Chevron annual report here. Note 15 on page FS-46 of this report shows a U.S. federal income tax liability of $128 million, but that it was able to defer $147 million for a U.S. federal income tax liability of $-19 million)

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year. . (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here and Citizens for Tax Justice here.)

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction. (Source: the company's 2009 annual report, pg. 112, here.)

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department. (Source: Bloomberg News here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2006 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction. (Sources: Profits can be found here. The deduction can be found on the company's 2010 SEC 10-K report to shareholders on 2009 finances, pg. 127, here)

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent. (Source: The New York Times here)

Sanders has called for closing corporate tax loopholes and eliminating tax breaks for oil and gas companies. He also introduced legislation to impose a 5.4 percent surtax on millionaires that would yield up to $50 billion a year. The senator has said that spending cuts must be paired with new revenue so the federal budget is not balanced solely on the backs of working families.

"We have a deficit problem. It has to be addressed," Sanders said, "but it cannot be addressed on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the poor, young people, the most vulnerable in this country. The wealthiest people and the largest corporations in this country have got to contribute. We've got to talk about shared sacrifice."

Charley Reese's 545 People

I have no argument with the general sentiments of the email copied in below. It is, however, the victim of present-day and all too typical sets of changes without citations which then appear to belong to the original article.

I admit that I haven't spent a ton of time researching this, but this is what I was able to discover.

The original article was written by Charley, not Charlie, Reese in 1985. You'd think people would at least get the guy's name right.

Ronny-boy was resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in 85. He was, with the same level of intellect and with the same kind of help a kindergartner gets when finger painting, the one proposing federal budgets in 85.

In 85, Dems controlled the House. (The GOP held the Senate.) Dems were clearly responsible for having the balls to tell President Chimp to go f*** himself budgetary-wise. (Any-reason-wise would have been good with me.) True to form, the spineless cowards didn't.

Notwithstanding all the editorial changes and additions too numerous to mention here, the original Reese article ends with the phrase "...have the gumption to manage their own employees." It's our fault for whom we vote into office. Granted, the pickings have never been very good. IMHO, they have degenerated into something almost completely unrecognizable and bordering on inhuman in the GOP. I submit Sharron Angle as Exhibit A.

Reese's article has reportedly been updated by the author from time to time. A 1995 revision, when the GOP controlled both houses of Congress and Slick Willy was proposing budgets, includes the following passage:

"Everything on the Republican contract is a problem created by Congress. Too much bureaucracy? Blame Congress. Too many rules? Blame Congress. Unjust tax laws? Congress wrote them. Out-of-control bureaucracy? Congress authorizes everything bureaucracies do. Americans dying in Third World rat holes on stupid U.N. missions? Congress allows it. The annual deficits? Congress votes for them. The $4 trillion plus debt? Congress created it."

GOP-controlled Congresses, as the article points out, are as guilty as Dems for not acting with fiduciary responsibility.

I found the end of the email to be downright comical. Times were better 100 years ago? Really?

I'd love to see proof that "...our nation was the most prosperous in the world" in 1910. Someone must have forgotten or ignored their history. Everything I've ever read or learned in school attributes our role in WWII as the factor most responsible for our rise to global prominence. Before that, we were wannabes.

"We had absolutely no national debt"
There was national debt in 1910, too. The fact is that there has never - NEVER - been a time when the federal government didn't carry some debt, including during the budget surplus years of Clinton.

"...had the largest middle class in the world"
Really? Someone please provide proof that there was anything even remotely resembling what we would call a middle class in America in 1910 even if it wasn't the largest in the world.

I only wish that my grandparents were still alive to ask. If you have any friends or relatives left who lived through even the Depression and WWII, ask them if they considered themselves to be "middle class" back then. Then ask them to compare it to their standard of living today.

My father (1915 - 1989) and mother (1925 - 2010) grew up in the warm embrace of unregulated, capitalist-driven, middle class status.

They really had it all, those lucky children of immigrants-turned-middle-class-Americans. After all, what's not to like? They enjoyed the comforts and security that could have come only from being serfs to...I mean, the lucky employees of..... kind, benevolent, unregulated, and non-unionized coal companies.

Their lives were replete with all the middle class luxuries we would recognize, and maybe even envy, today.

Middle class luxuries such as....
....outdoor plumbing
....endless, discount-priced shopping opportunities at the company store
....threats, beatings, and sometimes even killings....wait, I mean safe and secure working and living conditions.... courtesy of company-paid private security
....and the one thing that seems to completely resemble today's middle class American - totally oppressive debt, but in their case to the company store instead of big banks and credit card companies.


Sources:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/reese.asp
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1995-03-07/news/9503060362_1_blame-congress-passed-by-congress-bureaucracy/2
http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq/markets/national-debt.shtml
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/117xx/doc11766/2010_08_05_FederalDebt.pdf
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm

----
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little"
FDR inaugural address, 1/20/37. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5105/





The article below is completely neutral, ...not anti Republican or Democrat.

Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day.

545 vs. 300,000,000

EVERY CITIZEN NEEDS TO READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS JOURNALIST HAS SCRIPTED IN THIS MESSAGE. READ IT AND THEN REALLY THINK ABOUT OUR CURRENT POLITICAL DEBACLE.


Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.


545 PEOPLE--By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them..

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits..... The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red ..

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power..

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it......... Is up to you.
This might be funny if it weren't so darned true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he's fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.
Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts
Anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his butt.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.
Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid...

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
Taxes drove me
to my doom...'

When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax..
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Sales Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What in the heck happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'

What and With Whom is the Tea Party So Upset?

The marginal tax rate for median income earners has been unchanged at 15% since 1987. See http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=226

So what exactly is everyone - especially those in the Tea Party - so upset about, why, and with whom?

Could it be they actually don't know the facts, or is it that they simply choose to "refudiate" and ignore those facts?

Now, if you're among the RWMFs the story is admittedly a little different.

As I'm sure all you RWMFs know, the marginal tax rates for the Twice-Median Income Earners climbed from 22% in 1967 to a peak of 43% in 1980. The Dems controlled Congress during this period. The White House was occupied by the LBJ, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. The GOP took back the Senate and White House in 1980 and tax rates start declining but primarily for the rich. Hooray.

As any good Randian knows, that means boon times ahead for all of us! Too bad that didn't work out as planned. The net worth and financial wealth of the top 20% of Americans went from 83.6% and 93.4%, respectively, in 1989 to 85.1% and 93.0% in 2007. (See http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html)

So much for trickle down.

Median Income Earners, BTW, saw a much smaller increase in their marginal income tax rates from '67 to '80 and very little to no decline after 1980 until...............................wait for it...............................the Dems took back the Senate. (See the attached graph of the Tax Policy Center's data on top of which I've laid the parties in power.)

Tax rates declined even more vigorously when the Dems took back the Senate in '87 and once again controlled both Houses. Let me say that again.

TAX RATES DECLINED EVEN MORE VIGOROUSLY WHEN THE DEMS CONTROLLED CONGRESS.

All you have to do is look at the chart above and the Tax Policy Center's data and do the math yourself if you don't trust me.

And what else was happening during the 80's and 90's while tax rates were being reduced? Oh, yeah. The federal debt as a percentage of GDP was climbing. (See http://didyoucheckfirst.blogspot.com/2010/02/one-persons-perspective-on-federal-debt.html for a chart of that, again overlaid with political parties in power.)

And why was our debt rising? Could it have been because of increases in defense spending (here and here) while at the same time the taxes being paid into the Treasury were being cut perhaps? No. Couldn't be. Could it? Really. What do I know, and what do the facts prove? Nothing, right? They are easily "refudiated".

And who was it who increased taxes on the wealthy Twice-Median Income earners? Was it those evil Dems? No. It was a GOP-controlled Congress who increased those taxes in 1998 from 28% to 33%. Look at the chart and the data. The facts don't lie. Yes, the Democratically controlled Congress increased them in 2008 - an act for which they win my admiration - but they also reduced them in 2009.

Now remember, while all of this is going on the marginal income tax rates on the middle class remain the same. Let me repeat that.

MARGINAL INCOME TAX RATES ON THE MIDDLE CLASS HAVE BEEN UNCHANGED AT 15% SINCE 1987!!!!

Curiously enough marginal rates on low income earners have bounced around. They are now just a little higher than middle income earners. Evidence, IMHO, that the less money you have the less power you have in this country. You do get to be a political football, though, if you're poor.

Again, all the data is there if anyone wants to avoid an afternoon of yard work like I have. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=226

Unfunded tax cuts mean simply this: you can't reduce taxes without appreciating that those reductions mean less income to the government. Unless you replace it with some other source of funding, the deficit gets bigger. If you cut that income source by cutting taxes but still care about trying to balance the budget, then those cuts must be balanced - funded, if you will - by some combination of increases in income (taxes) elsewhere and/or cuts in expenditures.

For more on this idea, I refer you to the following:
Invincible Ignorance; Paul Krugman

Middle Class Taxes at Historic Lows; Mike Lillis, The Washington Independent


It's Unanimous! GOP Says No To Unemployment Benefits, Yes To Tax Cuts For The Rich; Brian Beutler, TPMDC (Talking Points Memo)


Bush's Unfunded Tax Cuts Did Not Increase the Deficit; Kathy Kattenburg, The Moderate Voice


Considering what I think is plenty of proof about our slide into mediocrity and mendacity manifest in so many ways by the Tea Party movement, I guess I'm not all that surprised that so many people are so upset without even understanding why.

Here's the reality. The GOP is lying, plain and simple, and Tea Partiers seem completely uninformed about the facts.

When the GOP says that Bush's tax cuts didn't increase the deficit and were good for the economy and so should be extended and don't need to be "funded" they are lying. Either that, or they believe there really are free lunches in this world.

The GOP is lying when they accuse Democrats of being the only ones who raise taxes and spend money. When Democrats have controlled Congress, at least since 1987, they clearly have not raised taxes on the middle class. In fact, if anyone bothers to look at the data they will see that it was a Democratically controlled Congress who lowered the marginal income tax rate for high-income earners in 2009 thanks in part, according to the Tax Policy Center, to the Making Work Pay Credit enacted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

And the GOP and tea partiers have the balls to whine and cry and stomp their feet about extending unemployment benefits??? Their demand that extending unemployment must be paid for while it's ok to extend tax breaks to the wealthy without funding is both asinine and heartless.

What I'm saying - again - is that we can't have it both ways.

If you want to debate facts, let's do that. If you want to present real data, then I implore you to please do so. If any tea partiers out there can explain and defend their anger with this administration with anything even resembling data and facts, I might actually pay money for that.

Otherwise, I remain steadfast in my conclusions that unless one counts themselves among the wealthiest 5% - maybe 10% - in this country it remains simply and utterly inexplicable to me as to how or why the GOP or Tea Party holds any attraction to anyone but the wealthiest among us.....................unless, of course, you choose to ignore the facts.