The US states’ budget crisis: Where should the money come from?

[Hannah Bell]

The total deficit of all 50 states this year is projected at $130 billion.

***

•The extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, enacted by a Democratic-controlled Congress in December with the approval of the Obama administration, pumps $700 billion over the next ten years into the pockets of the rich. Reclaiming two years of that tax windfall would eliminate all the state budget deficits combined.

•Total compensation at Wall Street banks and securities firms last year hit a record $135 billion, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, on all-time-high revenue of $417 billion. The recipients of the Wall Street bailout could bail out the states out of their own pockets.

•The 400 richest individuals in the United States dispose of a staggering $1.37 trillion in assets, an average of nearly $350 million apiece. A levy of 10 percent on the resources of these billionaires would also erase the deficits of all 50 states.

•Combined profits for all American corporations rocketed upwards in 2010, hitting an annual rate of $1.66 trillion in the third quarter. A tax of eight percent on those profits—the same percentage as the cut Walker seeks to impose on schoolteachers and park rangers—would eliminate all state deficits....


More at the link:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/pers-m07.shtml

[chill_wind]

1. Reclaiming two years of that tax windfall would eliminate all the state budget deficits combined.

Too bad that can't be fitted onto a few million bumper stickers. Maybe a few million mile-high billboards around the country, though, would kick things up a notch.

K & R

[Scuba]

2. Here ya go Hanna....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x575214

[Hannah Bell]

5. saw that, good one.

[leftstreet]

3. K&R

[The Magistrate]

4. And Each Proposal, Ma'am, Would Greatly Benefit the Country If Enacted....

[snot]

6. K&R'd.