How the Super-Rich are Bleeding the Treasury: Understanding the Federal 'Debt Crisis'

[Octafish]

Left to Right: Speaker John Boehner, President Barack Obama, Gov. John Kasich, Vice President Joe Biden.



Something for Democrats in leadership positions to think about:

How the Super-Rich are Bleeding the Treasury

Understanding the Federal "Debt Crisis"

By SAM PIZZIGATI
CounterPunch
July 20, 2011

Once upon a time in America, back a century ago, our nation's rich paid virtually nothing in taxes to the federal government. And that same federal government did virtually nothing to better the lives of average Americans.

SNIP...

This "debt crisis" in no way had to happen. No natural disaster, no tsunami, has suddenly pounded the United States out of fiscal balance. We have simply suffered a colossal political failure. Our powers that be, by feeding the rich and their corporations one massive tax break after another, have thrown a monkey wrench into our national finances.

SNIP...

If corporations and households amassing $1 million or more in income each year were now paying taxes at the same annual rates as they did in 1961, the IPS researchers found, the federal treasury would be collecting an additional $716 billion a year.

SNIP...

In 2007, Diamond and Saez point out, taxpayers in the nation's top 1 percent actually paid, on average, 22.4 percent of their incomes in federal taxes. If that actual tax burden were to about double to 43.5 percent, the top 1 percenter share of our national after-tax income would still be twice as high as the top 1 percent's after-tax income share in 1970.

CONTINUED...

http://counterpunch.org/pizzigati07202011.html

A hope of mine: Instead of chumming around on the links and so on, it really would be nice for Democrats to stand up to Republicans, for a change.

[woo me with science]

1. K&R nt

[Octafish]

2. Inequality.org

“Nature still obstinately refuses to co-operate by making the rich people innately superior to the poor people.” – Sidney and Beatrice Webb, English social critics (1923)

http://www.inequality.org/

When I mention the superiority thing, I turn Republican friends into non-friends:

Thanks, woo me with science, for getting what we're up against.

[woo me with science]

7. Thank you for the link

and the OP.

[sabrina 1]

3. I guess it's government of, by and for the WEALTHY people.

We the people have no lobbyists!

Thanks Octafish. I wondered a while ago if the people should maybe incorporate? Everyone else is a Corporation, and only Corps are listened to in DC. So, maybe if we were a huge Corp., a 'too big to fail' Corp, with our own lobbyists, with all the privileges of a Corp, because the people have none right now, maybe they would pay more attention to us.

I called the Corp 'American People Inc' but I'm sure there' a better name for it. They don't seem to like the The American People very much and that might tip them off that it is 'we, the people' trying to get their attention.

[Octafish]

9. Whenever I hear Grover Norquist quoted about the bathtub, I think of the American People.

"We the People" are the "government" he wishes to drown in a bathtub.

For whom does Grover work? For starters, some of the very wealthiest people on the planet. They are THE prime beneficiaries of the last 30 years of trickle-down fiscal policy.

These also are the bedwetters Justice Stevens warned We the People about in his dissent to the Citizen's United decision.

Thank you, sabrina 1, for caring -- about this, and all that.

[sabrina 1]

12. Excellent point, Octafish.

I haven't read Stevens' dissent, but will definitely do so now.

I often wondered why it was that people like Norquist, who is not imo anyhow, the brightest individual in the world, manage to have so much power in DC. Unelected, yet invited to important events to share his 'wisdom' on, eg, budgetary matters, such as at the Deficit Commission.

Thank you for the link. More and more we are getting answers to these puzzling questions.

Keep up the good work Octafish, we learn so much from your excellent research :-)

[HughBeaumont]

4. K & R.

This golf date thing was just bad form. Talk about a PR shoot that exemplifies to the American people how out of touch/removed you are from their problems. Kat$hit campaigned on getting Ohioans back to work (PFFFFFFFFFFFT . . . like a Republican gives a shit about such crap) and all I've seen under this guy's watch is public sector layoffs and department closings. The wave of fascist Gov layoffs is what's killing the 2011 jobs numbers.

This country's voters really need to SHAPE up, SMARTEN up and GROW up.

[WinkyDink]

5. I could barely converse with Boehner, let alone chuckle, golf, and lunch.

[Octafish]

10. The numbers of unemployed and underemployed are staggering. So, let's do nothing.

Really. we can't afford a jobs program, green jobs, an Apollo program for clean, renewable energy or a New Deal for the 21st century -- or Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security, for that matter. Besides, in the long run (economicalist technical term), they'll all eventually be dead or, in the short term, on the streets. So, be patient. Otherwise, the Reich will do to them what they did to the Untermenschen back in "der Tag." And we don't want to be included in the Untermenschen, jawohl!

While it's only a message on a message board, we tried warning Obama...

Heads up, Obama!



Most undemocratic mind-set, theirs -- including the lowly Kasich (for whom I'd be willing to trade "our" Snyder).

[ej510]

6. K&R!

:kick:

[bobthedrummer]

8. "Cash Cab" Accident Investigated (fatality) K&R

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_10414.shtml

[Hotler]

11. kicking. n/t

[G_j]

13. K&R

http://www.rootsaction.org/index.php