Do we all realize just how morbidly sick a society would be to extend tax cuts for the uber-wealthy

[indepat]

and paid for by gutting social security, thereby sending countless millions of additional low-income recipients into abject poverty? Perhaps depraved, but depravity does not capture the treachery and betrayal such action would be by those supposedly charged with promoting the general welfare in behalf of we the people? :P

[Skittles]

1. as sick as it is now

[gtar100]

73. As sick as it was during the Roman Empire.

When no laws bound wealth except those which served its purpose and government was all about selfish expansion and taking by "divine right".

Things can get *A LOT* worse. Just ask History.

[babylonsister]

2. Why do the rethugs get away with this messaging, and OT, but

you do realize you have this at the end of everything you type?


:P


I know there are times when you don't mean it, or do you? :D

[indepat]

4. And I thought it was just practically every time. In any event, point right on

target and message loud and clear. Thanks, I needed that. :)

[babylonsister]

6. Haha! Uh oh,

now you discovered the smilies. :spray: I'm glad you 'got it'. :thumbsup: And it was every time for a long time. :P

[mix]

3. The oligarchs are winning: the White House, the Congress, the public sphere.

They've got us in a stranglehold.

[The Magistrate]

5. Refusal Of the Rich To Be Taxed, Sir, And Failure Of The Government To Punish That Refusal

Was considered in old China a sure sign a dynasty was about to fall....

[Fumesucker]

7. That's interesting, do you have a specific link?

I know very little of Chinese history but that statement has the ring of truth.

[The Magistrate]

11. No Link, Sir, Just Years Of Reading

Allow me to recommend two works as introduction.

First, an exquisite miniature, 'The Death of Woman Wang' by Mr. Jonathan Spence; it focuses on several court cases in the middle Ch'ing Dynasty, the last of them.

Second, '1587, a Year of No Significance' by Mr. Ray Huang; it focuses on routines of governance in the middle Ming Dynasty, through close focus on several influential figures.

[Fumesucker]

12. You really should post that as an OP..

It certainly speaks volumes about our current situation.

[indepat]

43. Thanks for the enlightenment

:)

[femrap]

38. I hope it is correct. nt

[kentuck]

53. Years ago, I remember reading about the Roman aqueducts...

...and how they slipped into disrepair because the upper class did not wish to pay any more taxes for the upkeep. They were the technological wonders of their day, but like American today, the money mostly accumulated at the top and they simply refused to pay taxes. Thus began their decline.

[The Magistrate]

60. Rome, Sir, Has Aptness As An Instructive Example

Rome rose mostly through the exertions of a prosperous peasantry of small-holders, who provided the committed back-bone of its armies. As these citizen soldiers extended Rome's sway and wealth, the nobility turned slave labor, made available by conquest, to agriculture, destroying small-scale farming and the yeoman class who had thrived by it.

The principal engine of the Roman economy, once Rome had pressed out to the practical limits of further expansion, was luxury spending on ostentatious display of status by the richest Romans. Not only was this inadequate to the task of keeping free citizens generally employed and prosperous, it necessitated the export of a goodly proportion of Rome's supply of specie, reducing the supply of money and triggering serious inflation.

The breaking strain on the Roman economy was military spending, to which the greatest proportion of what taxes could be collected was devoted, making it impossible to devote sufficient resources to any other task. Rome did labor under real threat of invasion, of course, and this concentration on military spending was grounded in necessity....

[awoke_in_2003]

63. The last paragraph in your post, sir...

about sums it up. We never learn from history.

[rhett o rick]

75. Thank you. I always appreciate your posts. nm

[Seedersandleechers]

64. aqueducts were also made of lead

I believe another reason for the fall.



http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html

[dkf]

8. How's about a society that raises taxes on the 5% who do 37% of consumer spending

Leading them to drastically reduce spending and causing a collapse in employment?

Sometimes there are unfair realities and bad consequences behind things.

[The Magistrate]

13. The Money Raised In Taxes Is Spent, Ma'am

The real problem is if one twentieth of the populace spends two-fifths of the money. Such a thing can only be kept going by a fully authoritarian order ,without even a pretense of democracy.

[dkf]

16. It is happening now. The middle and lower class are saving what they can.

Tax increases to this population won't be spent as easily as in the days of free credit when you thought you could get access to cash should the need arise.

The problem is that a final announcement of an increase in taxes will affect sentiment as soon as the word spreads while any government action to counteract the decrease in spending will take months. This could very well stifle any economic recovery we were seeing.

And sometimes these things feed on each other.

So the question is will increasing taxes just to get the top earners be worth it if it causes us to double dip?

[The Magistrate]

20. It Is Because People Are Saving,Ma'am, That Government Must Spend

The present economic bind owes mostly to the glaring dis-equity marking the distribution of income and wealth. Luxury trade cannot drive an economy to prosperity, or even keep it at subsistence level for the mass of working people. Taxation can go a long way towards easing the iniquities of distribution; tax policy certainly fostered their creation. Taxation also has salutory effects on the bond markets; it is the one thing taken seriously there as indicating a government's resolve to make good on its debts. No one ever believes spending will be decreased, or that 'waste' will be cut from budgets, and this as a result of long experience. Increasing taxes on those with most of the money insures the prices of Treasury paper better than any other conceivable measure.

[dkf]

42. Yes people are saving and while that is a good thing overall it is bad news in a recession.

And you are right that the root of the problem is the disparity in income. But that also poses the current dilemma that we are DEPENDANT on their spending for now. Decisions cannot be made in a vacuum. There must be provisions on who will take up the extra spending to mitigate possible harm to the economy.

The longer term solution must be in reducing the gap between the high and low income earners. I propose this be done through labor policy, first by phasing in strict enforcement of labor laws, which will at least make the minimum wage the true lowest cost. Wages can only be brought up from the bottom. The unions understand this.

But first things first...we cannot let our economy double dip.

[JDPriestly]

46. I'm on Social Security. Right now, my husband and I spend

extremely little. You would not believe how we have cut back. It has been a long, long time since I so much as walked into a store that sells clothing -- a long, long time. So, if you increased Social Security payments just a little, you would have lots more people buying things and maybe even traveling. That is one place where a slight increase in money could set off a lot of economic activity.

When rich people get tax cuts, they save the money or invest it -- OVERSEAS. That is our problem now. The rich are saving and investing OVERSEAS. That does not help our economy.

It helps our economy when someone with school-aged children can afford to buy an extra new pair of jeans (rather than do without or buy something used) for each of their children -- especially if you encourage making the jeans in the U.S. through an aggressive tax policy aimed to foster local industry.

It helps our economy when a family of four can afford to take a one week vacation to the lake or a state park each year or even just go visit grandma. Families used to be able to afford those things. Now in too many families, Dad is not working, and the family is losing its home.

So, if the tax cuts to the rich are ended, and Obama puts the money into, lets say, building fast rail between San Diego and San Francisco, more people would have jobs and be able to take care of their families. That's better than tax cuts for the rich.

And, in case you are wondering. Yes. We do need a fast rail connection between San Diego and San Francisco. Yes. Yes. Yes.

At this time, I can go by rail from Los Angeles to Sacramento, but not directly from San Diego or Los Angeles to San Francisco. I have to go by bus part of the way if I want to use public transportation other than air to go from L.A. to San Francisco. A fast rail system would spur our economy in more ways than one.

So, there are lots of better ways to get money into the economy than to continue these tax cuts -- which ended in the closure of investment firms like Lehman Brothers and a depressed economy.

[LibDemAlways]

50. The rail system in this country, and particularly here in Calif., is a

joke. Years ago I took the train from LA to Las Vegas. It was slow and constantly pulled off onto side tracks to let freight trains go by, but it existed. It's now gone. The only way to get between the cities is by car, bus, or plane. The rails are there, but they aren't being utilized.

Ever watch the show "The Amazing Race"? The contestants zip around the world visiting countries the average American would consider "third world." However, those countries almost always have fast, efficient public transportation that puts us to shame.

We desperately need rapid rail in this state. It would alleviate some of the overcrowding on the roads while putting people to work. It's long overdue, but so far has been paid only lip service. I'm 57. I don't expect to see it my lifetime.

[JDPriestly]

65. This is especially important because we have an aging population.

Driving is not going to be an alternative for an increasing percentage of Americans in the next 10-25 years.

We have built our cities around the car with huge parking lots surrounding malls in which all the shopping opportunities are located.

That's the local effect. The regional effect is that older people will be forced to choose between not visiting their grandchildren or getting on a freeway. It is simply a biological fact that our vision dims and our reflexes slow as we age. Why can't anyone think ahead? As our population ages, we are going to need good trains.

[LibDemAlways]

69. My mom is 87. She depends on me and my brother to get her around. There

is no public transportation locally.

I visited New York City recently. The subway system works, but it must be extremely difficult for the elderly or anyone with a mobility issue to use because of all the stairs.Many stations are not accessible to those who cannot climb them. Any public transit being designed or built today must take into account the aging population otherwise we are going to be forced to spend our old age cooped up in our houses and apartments. Getting around will be too much trouble, as I suspect it already is for many elderly people.

[The Magistrate]

56. We Are Not Dependent On Their Spending, Ma'am

We should, and can, tax their spending money away from them and spend it publicly, thus both producing demand that will stimulate hiring, and at least starting to address the faulty distribution that cripples our society. Further measures would be steps to raise wages,such as fostering unions, by enforcing criminal laws against tampering with employee drives to organize by management, direct taxation of business who pay wages below a living level, to pay for the various social subsidies they cost the tax-payers, and wage equalization tariffs charged against imports from places where the wage rate is pitched below that of our domestic labor market.

[Jim Sagle]

81. Your patience is admirable.

I'd like to contribute in my own trademarked fashion, but I've been told I can't do that any more. ;)

[Chan790]

25. Yes, because...

not doing it will explicitly and knowingly cause a double-dip. Our economy is clusterfucked to be sure but 3 things have to happen before it will roar back to life.

1.) Tax rates on the wealthiest 2% must increase until total taxation weight exceeds 60%. This does not merely increase the government coffers (and it doesn't increase the government coffers as much as you would think it does), it also discourages hoarding by making it cheaper to spend rather than hoard, save and invest. They're sitting on the money and it is not circulating. Money needs to circulate to stimulate economic growth. I'd personally roll them back to Eisenhower-era (91%, by comparison total tax weight on the middle class was under 30%) levels, but that's possibly unrealistic. It's time we really pushed balance-book tax-equivalency if we want to reduce the deficit...if someone's taxes are going down, someone else's need to be increasing in order to balance revenue streams because base-line expenditures just don't decrease. Across-the-board tax-cuts don't work and we cannot afford them.

2.) The US needs to fix its' trade policies in order to balance the trade gap and penalize offshoring of jobs.

3.) Further direct stimulus and stimulative expense-reduction (fixing healthcare and subsidizing other initiatives that lower daily expenses such as transit would be a good start.) for the middle class and small businesses with total revenues under ~$5M/year in order to stimulate spending, hiring and material investments. It's not merely enough to push the money downhill, we've got to kick-start the economy once the tank is full.

[JDPriestly]

47. Chan790, you are so right.

[WinkyDink]

28. How's about we give it the old college try, HMMMM?

[WinkyDink]

31. The "lower class" cannot save; they must, contrary to myth, eat and try to be domiciled.

Read "Nickel and Dimed" and get back to us.

[The Magistrate]

58. And The Aim Of The Boss, Ma'am, Is To Pay Wages That Provide For Subsistence Only

Early writers on the subject not only describe this as an inevitable tendency, but often present it as a positive good. Any wage paid above subsistence, above what is just necessary to keep the worker and family alive, is a reduction on the rate of return on the owner's capital, and tends to make the worker unruly by inculcating habits of leisure and conceptions of independence, and makes it more difficult to reduce the number of laborers when owners think there is an over-supply. The classical writers did not flinch from the role of starvation in adjusting the labor markets....

[Quantess]

71. Most of us don't have anything to save.

Month-to-month, it all gets spent.

[kentuck]

54. Amen!

How could anyone overlook that when giving such a statistic??

[Hannah Bell]

15. oooh, the poor dears. one can always find you sticking up for the powerful.

i'm sure they appreciate your work.

[dkf]

17. Oh they won't suffer, but we may if they close their pocketbooks.

We are at their mercy.

Frankly if anybody decides to tighten more, it will not be good for us. We are a consumer driven economy after all.

It's similar to the notions of cutting off your nose to spite your face, or shooting yourself in the foot.

[Hannah Bell]

18. don't make them mad! they might hurt us by closing their pocketbooks!

lick their boots, lick them!

[Chan790]

26. Do you want to point out that they already closed the pocketbook or should I?

It's so so rare that as a Keynesian I get to be on the same side of any fiscal debate with the socialists and communists.

In any case, we shouldn't be begging for the crumbs of the robber-barons, we should be proactively adopting policies to balance the income-disparity and pull money down into the middle class, the engine of our economy.

[Raster]

36. lick their boots, lick them!

:rofl:

[WinkyDink]

29. The rich will always spend. Who are you trying to kid/scare? There are too many yachts for the

world's yacht basins, e.g.

[dkf]

39. The rich had pulled back spending and only started to ramp up earlier this year.

They were actually at a negative savings rate early on while the middle and lower incomes started to save. The savings rate has been increasing in general.

[JDPriestly]

51. dkf, they closed their pocketbooks long ago.

And they are not going to close them further. This is not the Gilded Age. The rich are not investing in railroads. They are no longer dreaming big dreams. Somewhere, some poor boy or some son of a middle class father is dreaming dreams. But the children of the top 2% of the wealthy are not dreaming the dreams that we need for our future development as a country. When the top 2% pay no inheritance taxes to speak of and a low marginal rate, they are taking money out of our economy that should be going into the pocket of some kid somewhere with a dream for the future and some real ambition. That is what capitalism is supposed to be about. It is supposed to be a system that enables that rare person who is both capable of achieving things and gifted with dreams to obtain the means to realize his or her dreams.

Our capitalism is not working because the super-rich don't dream the dreams that build a good future.

I could mention some names of some children of the very, very wealthy who are nice kids, but they are not original thinkers. It is highly unlikely that the next Bill Gates is among them.

[Enthusiast]

84. Nother nice post, JDPriestly.

Good explanation.

[metapunditedgy]

61. If the rich have that much control over 95% of Americans, then it's time to change that.

It's not like those people are elected, nor do the vast majority deserve their riches based on any merits.

[Enthusiast]

83. Funny how the wealthy spent

plenty during the 1990s at the old tax rate. But during the 1990s we also had middle income spending. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me.

[BzaDem]

19. While the 5% might do 37% of consumer spending, what makes you think a 4.6% hike in taxes will

curtail that spending in a non-negligible way?

And keep in mind we are only talking about a 4.6% hike in taxes for the INCOME above 250k/year. So for someone who makes (say) 500k/year, we are really only talking about a 2.3% tax increase overall.

The more money you make, the less the amount you make factors into what you buy. Many people who make millions do not even look at their bank account balance before they go to the store.

This is less true for big-ticket items (like a house). But for such a big-ticket item, do you really think a few percent tax increase is going to make the difference between buying and not buying?

It is true that the tax cuts do negligibly stimulate the economy (something like 25-30 cents on the dollar, as opposed to things like food stamps which are at 1.7 on the dollar).

But why can't we substitute the 700 billion to the wealthy with more stimulus with much greater bang for the buck? Well, of course we can't, because it is currently politically impossible. But what about something like a payroll tax holiday (funded by general revenues) directed entirely towards small businesses? That would have a higher multiplier.

[WinkyDink]

30. Nice that you ignore the other 63%....WHO WOULD SPEND IF THEY HAD MORE MONEY.

[Enthusiast]

86. Exactly....nt

[TBF]

33. Well, gee, if anyone else had any money to spend maybe the

top 1% wouldn't account for 37% of the spending. It will be 100% soon if this continues ...

[Enthusiast]

85. Great point! nt

[liberation]

45. Isn't if funny how "new" Dems...

... almost always use "old" republican talking points?

LOL

"Will someone think of the poor super wealthy?" right, of course... the really wealthy are exactly the first people we should concern ourselves with in the middle of a really bad economic crisis.

[lumberjack_jeff]

72. Hogwash

The taxes collected from them will, unlike the money they keep, undoubtedly be spent.

[sendero]

9. At this point..

..... with this sorry excuse for a MAN as president, I give it a 50-50 chance.

[RagAss]

10. We've already shit the bed....it doesn't matter anymore.

[Kablooie]

14. Welcome to the real world. America's 'ideals' may have just been a mirage.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

21. Not any sicker than a society that would give George W. Bush two terms in office

That's pretty much the litmus test.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

37. Or one term, for that matter.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

40. I hear ya. When we are "thanking" President Bush, as we've been encouraged to do lately...

...we need to "thank" Jebby, Katherine Harris, Diebold, and Ken Blackwell for that.

[indepat]

49. And why not Rummy, Condi, Colon, Wolfie, Ashcroft and Feith for good measure, just to

add a few. :)

[indepat]

48. And to think that even one of junior's harmful/wrong-headed policies or actions were ratified/

continued would be baffling: the fact that a large number have is incomprehensible if not utterly mind-boggling. :cry:

[russspeakeasy]

55. CORRECT.....WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS,,,,,,,

[gophates]

22. *we* do. Unfortunately, the morons don't see it this way.

Idiots. Cut your own throats just because Rush says so.

[DailyGrind51]

23. "There is no god, but Dolla'!"

[Chan790]

27. I always liked "You cannot serve God and Mammon" better.

The message is the same. You cannot love money above all else and still be a good person.

[era veteran]

24. I thought it would trickle down

Did they bullshit me? Sunshine, lollipops, rainbows and everything coming my way. How long since we left Goshen?

[Chan790]

32. The last time money trickled down...

was in 1790s Paris. I believe there was a smattering of partisan street violence and few guillotines involved though.

[era veteran]

34. I love saying this

To the barricades !

[femrap]

41. Those were the good ol' days.

Pitchforks, anyone?

[spanone]

35. same society that has 'regular' people whining about taxing big oil

it's a phony society......

[pansypoo53219]

44. let them eat tax cuts.

reagan democrats got screwed by their tasty yummy tax cuts.

[bvar22]

52. No more depraved than requiring people to BUY Health Insurance...

...that they won't be able to use due to High Deductibles and Co-Pays.
The REASON why 40 Million People don't HAVE insurance if because they can't AFFORD it.
Partial subsumes to help with the Premiums won't solve the problem.

[Jim Sagle]

57. Yes, it's depraved. It's almost literally cannibalistic.

[irislake]

59. I doubt it!

After all it is the American dream to get rich beyond your wildest dreams, ain`t it. And taxes are evil, sorta like socialism. So carry on screwing yourselves. It`s every man for himself.

[awoke_in_2003]

62. The politicians do not care...

poverty never makes the news, there is always something out there to distract us with. The wealthy who run this country are not worried, either- they can always bring Blackwater (or who ever they are now) home to protect them from the masses.

[Urban Prairie]

68. "they can always bring Blackwater (or who ever they are now)"

Blackwater is now named Xe, or short for Xecute.

[freedom fighter jh]

66. Especially considering that soc sec is funded by a regressive tax.

The more you earn, the smaller the percentage of your income you pay.

The excuse was that the people who paid the most benefited the most after retirement. But if all those IOUs are not subject to repayment, then it's just that the war has to be funded by the working and middle classes.

[truedelphi]

80. Another factor making Social Security so regressive is that

The lower a person is on the totem pole of job hardship, and low wages, the more likely that person is to die long before they get to collect anything.

Like Chris Rock has pointed out, the average black man living in the ghetto ought to be given his Social Security check around the time he turns 29.

[Hatchling]

67. Low income recipients are already in abject poverty.

Gutting Social Security would send us into the streets or into tent cities. A lot of us would die because our health is already precarious and we already balance meds vs food. Some would kill themselves out of despair. Others would turn to crime.

Gutting Social Security would destroy society as we now know it.

[Enthusiast]

87. It would chop the head

off the goose that lays the golden eggs.

[mod mom]

70. Glad to be # 100 in recommendations.

[rhett o rick]

76. Hey mod, I am glad to be 120. nm

[democrank]

74. K & R

[hay rick]

77. K&R

[muntrv]

78. That's because we are a morbidly ignorant society.

[truedelphi]

79. It is not the American "society" extending the cuts to the

Uber wealthy.

It is our bought and paid for Congress critters and Executive Branch, with the bought and paid for SCOTUS allowing it to be that way.

If left up to most members of our society, the Uber Wealthy would be Uber Tar and Uber Feathered.

And then run out of McMansion ville on a rail.

[Enthusiast]

82. If they do extend the tax cuts

I believe I will just give up.