Tax cuts: One 'Yes' vote, and one 'No'

And here is the reasoning from the horse’s mouths - pretty much what you would expect:

From Mark Udall, Democrat, from Colorado:

Dear cynthia,

Yesterday, I cast my vote against extending tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, and called for a reworked package that focuses on tax cuts for the middle-class Americans that drive our economy forward.

Among all the challenges our nation faces today, one of the most ominous threats to our long-term national security is our ballooning national debt — funded by China and other creditors around the world. As I said on the floor of the Senate yesterday, our skyrocketing national deficit is a ticking time bomb that needs to be defused.

The tax package currently being considered by the Senate turns a blind eye to this threat, and instead adds $700 billion to the deficit over the next decade to fund the same tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires that have failed to create jobs and spur the economy since 2001.

I have already voted twice to pass the middle-class tax cuts and extend unemployment insurance for Americans searching for work, which will spur our economy forward. I am proud of those votes, and I will continue to work to offer responsible tax relief to middle-class Americans without the unnecessary tax cuts for the rich that will only grow our national debt. I stand ready to work through the holidays if that’s what it takes to get middle-class Coloradans the tax relief that they deserve.

Thanks so much for your support.

Sincerely,

Mark Udall
U.S. Senator

And from Progressive Minnesotan, Al Franken:

Dear Cynthia,

A lot of people are unhappy that the President punted on first down, and I’m one of them. Extending the Bush tax breaks for the super-wealthy will explode our deficit over the next two years without doing anything to help our economy. It’s bad policy.

But for Minnesota’s middle class, struggling to get by in a tough economy, there’s a lot in this bill that will really help: tax cuts for working families, a payroll tax holiday, energy tax credits, and the extension of Recovery Act initiatives that are already making a difference.

And for the Minnesotans truly suffering right now—men, women, and children on the edge of economic disaster—the alternative is simply unacceptable. If we let Republicans block unemployment benefits, even temporarily, there will be a lot more pain for working families, a lot more homeless kids spending Christmas in a shelter or a car.

If this is the prelude of a permanent extension of the Bush tax breaks for the super-wealthy, we’re in big trouble. We’ll lose our ability to make the investments we need to grow our way out of long-term budget deficits: education, infrastructure, and research and development. And I am taking the President at his word that he will fight harder to put an end to these wasteful tax breaks in 2012 than he did in 2010.

This isn’t a great deal by any stretch of the imagination. But I got into this line of work because I wanted to stand up for Minnesota families trying to put food on the table and build a better life for their kids. And, for them, the only thing worse than a bad deal would be no deal at all. That’s why I voted yes yesterday—and why I will continue my fight for economic policies that create jobs, address our deficit problem, and build new opportunities for Minnesota.

All the best,

Al

Monday Musings: November 8, 2010

Wow! We watched ‘AstroTurf Wars’ last night. I’d ordered the DVD from their website and it was far more than I thought it would be - climate change, healthcare reform, tea parties, guerilla social media, and the influence of billionaires on our cherished electoral process.

After this horrendous mid-term election cycle and the barrage of AstroTurf/Front Group money that flooded into Nevada on the back of TeaNut Senator wannabe, Sharron Angle, this documentary was a perfect ‘after action review’ on just how insidious this stuff is. We really do need to put a stop to it. Now. Or we will lose our democracy.

That’s not an exaggeration. So, please watch it. On the low price end, it’s only gonna cost you $1.99 to watch it online - if that’s still available. Is it, Taki? If you can’t afford the DVD, then ask me. If I’m flush, I’ll call it an early holiday gift.

It’s that important.

Yesterday, I knew that I needed to get some exercise - and I needed a few items from the grocery store. So I walked the two miles from house to store, armed with warm clothing and gloves, and a messenger bag. I can carry only about half as much as I can with my bike panniers … in the rain …and wind. I can tell you that it’s a darn good workout. The legs and butt were getting a bit fatigued, carrying about 10 pounds of groceries. You also get a different view of the world on foot, plus you’re much less inclined to ‘impulse’ buy. I took time out enroute to stop and talk to the little goats on Foothill Road.

Oh, and I spotted a Mountain Jay. Whoa! Beautiful. I’ve been having a hoot, as usual, with my backyard birdfeeders and the camera.

Is this what your Monday stacked up to be like? Hectic and crowded?

Or was it calm and serene?

Anybody out there know which sub-family of leafhopper this is? This fella was out in the backyard too, just going about his business. Didn’t the macro lens do a great job?

Who else around here has AT&T Uverse and is pissed off besides me? I don’t watch much tee-vee - I’m blogging instead. But when I do watch, I want to watch what I thought I bought in the package: FoodTV, Cooking and HGTV. But noooooo. Evidently, Uverse is now in a pissing contest over the price of the shows with the supplier, Scripps, and therefore no shows. Blank. So many channels and so very little to watch.  I’ve made about three calls to AT&T, to no avail.

 

 But on the good side of the cable battles, MSNBC put Keith Olberman back on the air. He was suspended after the mothership found out he’d donated - against stated network policy - to three Democrats. He’d sent them about $2,400 each - which was a paltry sum when compared to the millions MSNBC, NBC and GE executives had funneled into their own efforts to screw the best efforts of the American voters.

Don’t you wish Olbermann would tell Phil Griffin of MSNBC to stick it, and then move to NPR/PBS?

How cool would that be?

Here’s another thing about tee-vee. The current second place team on the CBS show The Amazing Race includes one of my neighbors. Yup, right up the street. I don’t know her, they bought the house a couple years ago from some friends and we’ve never really met them. Her name is Claire Champlin. I haven’t seen matching Porsche’s being delivered, or a moving van at the door, so maybe she didn’t win. I haven’t been watching ‘The Amazing Race’ this season- although I was a big-time early fan of the show. In recent iterations, however, it’s seemed to get snarkier, bitey and ‘pretty’. More like the show I don’t like - ‘Survivor’. I probably will tune in to see what happens in this case.

Finally, on my way out of tee-vee land, we watched Mitch McConnell - is he actually alive? He tends to have that Orrin Hatch wax look these days. - on the Sunday ‘Face the Nation’ with Bob Schieffer. If you’re still not sure what to expect from the GOP, then watch this. It’s all you’ll need to know.

It’s going to be more not answering the questions. These people have taken lame talking points that have zero basis in factual reality to a new level. McConnell operates on a now familiar - Sharron Angle and TeaNut - strategy wherein you just keep ignoring the questions and nuances in favor of saying the same false stuff over and over and over again. This is called the “Say it enough times and that will make it true” strategy. The GOP is the party of ‘No’ and master of well-trod formal and informal logical fallacies.

“Raise taxes on small businesses”? Still hanging in there with that old chestnut, too. Gotta love the good lies, right?

Here are some actual ‘facts’:

Only about 6 percent of American tax filers actually have some part of their income from actually owning a small business. That means at least half your income is from that small business. Furthermore, most of these are in excess of $250,000 in AGI (adjusted gross income). Feeling really sorry for them yet?

If you really want to get down and dirty on this ‘small business’ tax thingee then go to the Tax Policy Center and take a look for yourself, and quit just accepting that the GOP Zombies tell you.

It’s very, very difficult to determine from the tax code and filings just who and how many filers are actually small business owners. Just getting a few hundred dollars from public speaking engagements or consulting do not a small business owner make. I know. I’ve been there. And, money drawn from a trust fund can apparently show up in such filings.

Small businesses generally are regarded as companies that have fewer than 500 employees, but there’s no widely accepted data that define America’s small businesses, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and The Brookings Institution, two center-left Washington research centers.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/10/100404/if-taxes-on-rich-go-up-would-small.html#ixzz14kACmdCb

So, the next time you hear the GOP use that ‘small business’ chestnut to hang their objections to ending the UNFUNDED Bush Tax Cuts, know that you are being bullshitted. And, if unfunded giveaways are such anathema to the GOP, why didn’t they get into an uproar over this in the first place? Hmmmm.

Finally, I happened across an interesting article about the distribution of healthy eating habits across the country - the percentage of adults who eat at least two servings of fruits and veg daily. I was pretty astounded by what I saw.

Click on the map to go to a more in depth look at the crazy distributions, but as you can see, some of the very most compliant folk are up there in New England. Really. Vermont and Maine! What’s that about? To balance all that healthiness, are Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina. Less than ten percent eat anywhere near the recommended number of daily servings to stay healthy. Hmmmm, down there in the Bible thumping belt, amongs the GOP true believers. You have to start thinking about some interesting cause and effect possibilities here.

There, it’s done. Another Monday Musings for your edification and entertainment. Aren’t you glad you waited?

Have a dandy week ahead.

-maven

The small business case for ending tax cuts for the wealthy

It’s time to put the lie to arguments by nitwits like Sharron Angle and the GOP/TeaParty machine about the future of the Bush tax cuts for the uber-wealthy. They constantly dredge up small business being made to suffer as a reason to keep the tax cuts.

A lot of small business councils and small business owners don’t agree.

-maven

October 15, 2010 · By Chuck Collins

If Congress wants to help small bsinesses, they shouldn’t spend $700 billion over the next decade in poorly targeted tax cuts.

This post was initially published in Yes Magazine online

“Expecting high-end tax cuts to trickle down as job creation is about as reasonable as pouring gasoline on your hood and expecting it to fuel your car.”  
  — Lew Prince, owner, Vintage Vinyl, an independent music store.

Congress left town in early October without addressing the future of the Bush-era tax cuts that are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010.  This sets up a “lame duck” session debate over their future in November and December.

After the mid-term election, anti-tax legislators will press to extend tax cuts for households with incomes over $250,000. Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist argues that allowing these tax cuts for higher incomes to expire would be a “body blow to the small business community.”

This isn’t the first time small businesses have been used as a prop by anti-tax lobbyists.  The impact on small business is routinely used in arguments against policy that would require wealthy individuals to pay higher taxes.

Enter several refreshing new voices in this debate – the American Sustainable Business Council and Business for Shared Prosperity –networks of enterprises rooted in their localities.  In their recent report, “Restoring Top Tax Rates Makes Sense for Small Business,” they make a business case for allowing the top tax rates to expire.

These business organizations point out that very few small businesses are effected. Less than 3 percent of tax filers with any business income earn over $200,000 as individuals or $250,000 as couples in a year – and many of these are Wall Street investment partners, big business CEOs paid to sit on boards of other big companies, and wealthy folks renting out investment properties and vacation homes.

If Congress wants to help small business, they argue, Congress shouldn’t spend $700 billion over the next decade in poorly targeted tax cuts.  

“Letting high end tax cuts expire is a good business decision,” said Frank Knapp, CEO and President of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce. “Boosting our local economy by helping real small businesses create jobs should be our goal. We can either cut taxes for CEOs or Wall Street traders, or we can invest the money to generate more customers for small business by keeping teachers, police officers and other Americans on the job rebuilding the crumbling transportation, water, and energy infrastructure small business depends on.”

This longer view is echoed by other small business leaders who lament the decline in public infrastructure and investment that strengthens local economies. They challenge the tired orthodoxy that cutting taxes for high-income households always has a positive impact on economic growth and job creation. 

Hiring decisions for small business are driven by consumer demand, not tax cuts.  “As a fellow businessman once told me,” said Rick Poore, owner of Design Wear, an apparel manufacturer based in Lincoln, Nebraska, “Give me more customers and I’ll be forced to buy equipment and hire people to meet demand. Give me a tax break without more customers and I’ll just go to Aruba.”

Under President Obama’s plan to extend the 2001 income tax cuts for families with incomes under $250,000, all taxpayers will get a share of tax cuts.  Higher-income taxpayers would get thousands of dollars more in tax cuts than middle-income households. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that extending just the middle class tax cut would provide more than $6,300 in permanent tax relief for families earning more than $200,000, on average, compared to just $916 in tax relief for families earning between $40,000 and $50,000.

Restoring tax rates for high-income households won’t fix our economy.  But it is a step in the right direction to fiscal sanity and being able to make investments that move us toward a sustainable economy.  That’s good for businesses that are committed to their communities

Monday Musings: September 13, 2010

Who says that Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation doesn’t have a backbone? What I can say with certainty is that Rep. John Boehner, R-OH, will not willingly ever -  EVER - appear on the show again. Ha! That that!

Schieffer was doing his regular stuff - or so it seemed - softballing power, when suddenly he took the riff right off the tracks talking about his own battle with lung cancer due to smoking, and asked Boehner if he still smoked. He does. I was holding my breath. (09:20 into the show) Where was this going?

“You’ve taken $340,000 from the tobacco industry” … and asked how Boehner ‘squares’ that with the fact that cigarette smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

Sic ‘em, Bob! As Schieffer says, “how do you justify that in your own mind?”

Make note of the look on Boehner’s face. He was all ready to give more canned answers to canned questions on taxes, and here comes tobacco out of left field! WTF? Mr. Maven and I are sitting there punching each other in the arm.

Boehner’s answer: Tobacco is a legal product. Folks can choose to smoke or not. That’s all. That’s supposed to cover all his sins, whore-ing for the tobacco industry.

“The American people ought to have the right to make those decisions on their own.” says Boehner. Uh, not the point, John. Why are you taking money from the tobacco industry?

Ha! If this isn’t a huge object lesson on why we need robust campaign finance reform in this country, nothing is. We need politicians that are working for us, not private industry. If they want to work for private industry as a pond scum PR hack or lobbyist - more power to them. Just not on our dime.

Why isn’t the Tea Party outraged at this abuse of power?

Assembly Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka must have been wearing the same tin foil space helmet as the Tea Nuts and Sharron Angle when he received a suggestion from the Mother Ship that putting a 2% tax on food would be a great way to help the state out of it’s $3 billion ‘slump’.

I couldn’t believe that the RGJ wasted the paper and ink to Fact Check Goicoehea’s ‘argument’. Yup, it’s not within the state constitution to do that. You might think the Assembly Minority Leader should know that. That’s your first clue that Eureka elected an idiot. But here’s the second question: didn’t Goicoechea take a second to reflect on the fact that a food tax would be highly regressive - hurting those citizen’s least able to take the hit?

This points again to the chasm-like disconnect that the GOP/Tea Party has with its base here in Nevada and elsewhere. They repeatedly score in the 99th percentile  on the ‘WTF?’ meter. Goicoechea must be coaching Sharron Angle in speaking before understanding the facts - which is why the Reid campaign has a treasure trove of actual recorded comments to use against her.

Also in PRINT ONLY - you’re screwed if you missed buying the analog version of the Sunday Reno Gazette-Journal - was Region’s ‘American Nightmare’ recounts tales of woe by nitwits who leveraged themselves into a financial hole based on the real estate bubble.

I wish I could feel sorry for them, but Mr. Maven and I stayed put - we bought our house to live in, enjoy and pay off as soon as possible - not to use as an ill-considered bank overdraft protection system for living beyond our means. Here’s an excerpt:

‘Rich Gray and his wife bought a home in Reno 15 years ago. They planned to raise a family here, then retire and move to Texas for their golden years.

Now, the kids have grown up and Gray is retired. but he won’t be moving to Texas any time soon.

“We owe more than the house is worth,” said Gray, who - like many others - took out a second mortgage during the housing boom. “There was a time when getting your hands on property was income.”

That time has passed for many homeowners in Nevada, where home values have declined by more than 50 percent since the housing peak, and others across the country.

For Gray, home ownership was an elemental part of the “American Dream.” … The American dream is dead,” the 63-year-old Gray said. “The American dream is now the American nightmare.”’

Well, actually not for the people who saw home ownership for just what it was, and not a cash cow. Economists were warning people that this was folly - a type of over-consumption based on a kind of casual market-driven pyramid scheme known to economists as ‘The Greater Fool’ theory.

You know how it works - you foolishly buy a house that is sorta kinda maybe beyond your means, but with the confidence that there will be a next Greater Fool to come take it off your hands, and a next one, and a next one. It’s also known as ‘survivor investing’. It may occasionally work in the stock market, when practiced by those with brass balls, lots of experience and loads of money to burn. But using the Greater Fool theory  to finance the American Dream is a new spin - and one that failed big time for millions of small time investors with brass balls, little experience and now without loads of money to burn. Uh, kinda like the small time investors that got so horribly burned buying stocks on margin in 1929.

It pays to be a diligent student of history and economics.

Oh, talking about idiots … I saw a bumper sticker yesterday on a fancy Detroit POS that read:

Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing an IDIOT.

The ‘O’, is of course the Obama logo.

On just what planet, politics aside, could Obama be considered an idiot? The man’s resume seems to, uh, belie that.

Compare, if you will, to the resume of George W. Bush. Or this one. Or even this sorta real one.

It also definitely pays to comparison shop.

Talking about comparison shopping on credible information about taxation here in Nevada, there was a nice pro/con on the OpEd page by former Nevada Congresswoman Barbara Vucanovic, (R) and PLAN Director Bob Fulkerson.

Bob, of course, making a solid case about the need to raise taxes on that infamous upper 2%. Vucanovich, of course, gives the canned GOP/TeaNut stump speech talking points that go like this:

“One does not need to be an economist to understand that a tax increase during this period of economic uncertainty would have drastic effects.”

Perhaps you don’t need to be an economist, but rather a Republican to keep flogging this dead horse. In fact, most credible economists say that a targeted tax increase now is exactly what the economy needs. Here’s what Noble Prize winning economist  Paul Krugman (I’m currently reading his economics text) says about extending the tax cuts. Here’s what Robert Reich (former Labor Secretary and currently teaching at UC Berkeley) says about extending the tax cuts to the wealthy in his “Guide to the Perplexed”. If those two economists don’t work for you, then try former International Monetary Fund economist Simon Johnson of the Baseline Scenario.

Take your pick. It’s not a cabal. They’re all independent thinkers and …. uh, economists that think it’s a patently bad idea to extend the Bush tax cuts to those earning above $250,000.

Barbara should get out more or learn how to Google information, but I shouldn’t pick on her. She’s, unfortunately, not at all unique in this.

Sheesh.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got to get to sleep so I can get up and meet a friend in Washoe Valley at Bower’s Mansion where we’ll do about 24 miles or so on the bikes. Yikes, I could have spaghetti for dinner. Hmmmm.

Hey, I’ll be adding some good stuff to the Food page, and more other Lifestyle and Health items throughout the week, so check in regularly.

Talk to me about what you would like to see here besides my political rants. I love to hear from you.

Cheers.

-maven

Update on Monday, September 13, 2010 at 16:16 by mavenandmeddler

I did it…. all 27.4 miles of it and my bike odometer turned over a solid 3,000 miles.

Yippee.

and here is friend ‘R. G.’ - who has put about 2,500 on his Trek just this year alone ( that includes 10 … count ‘em 10 circuits of Lake Tahoe this season so far) who will turn 80 this year. I had to hustle to keep up and not look too bad.

Bigger income gaps: Toxic legacy of Reagan Revolution and Bush Tax cuts

It’s becoming more clear every day that any supposed income growth the likes of you and I have seen over the last 30 years has been largely due to an increasingly steady two-income family model, fanned by real estate and equally illusory stock market bubbles. In other words: smoke and mirrors.

This growing chasm between the after tax income of the wealthiest one percent and well, all the rest of us, is threatening to sink any kind of real economic recovery.

Thank the GOP (mostly) for this, and some of those fine DINO’s (uh, Clinton).

Read this from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: (see originating site for graphs)

The gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between 1979 and 2007 (the period for which these data are available), according to data the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued last week. Taken together with prior research, the new data suggest greater income concentration at the top of the income scale than at any time since 1928.

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