The Solution to Our Budget Problems Is So Obvious: We Need to Raise Taxes on the Rich, ASAP

[Octafish]

Robert Parry expresses a truth that goes pretty much unmentioned by Corporate McPravda:

The Solution to Our Budget Problems Is So Obvious: We Need to Raise Taxes on the Rich, ASAP

The answer to many of our country’s domestic problems is obvious -- the rich need to pay their fair share.

Robert Parry
ConsortiumNews / Alternet
February 25, 2011

A great tragedy of the United States is that the answer to many of the country’s domestic problems is obvious, even simple, but can’t be done because of a dominating political/media dynamic that rules that solution out.

The solution to these many problems – from the budget deficit to crumbling infrastructure, from mass joblessness to income inequality, from environmental degradation to educational shortfalls -- is to raise taxes on the rich and to use that money to get the United States back on track and advancing toward the future.

And there are clear justifications for doing so, from practicality to fairness. Though many multi-millionaires fancy themselves self-made men (and women), the truth is that they all have profited from investments that American taxpayers have made over the decades, and even centuries.

For instance, President Dwight Eisenhower’s inter-state highway system enabled companies to move their goods more cheaply; President John Kennedy’s space program spurred the growth in computer sciences; the Pentagon created the Internet (yes, with critical support from Al Gore when in Congress), which revolutionized commerce and spread information.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/economy/150055/the_solution_to_our_budget_problems_is_so_obvious%3A_we_need_to_raise_taxes_on_the_rich%2C_asap/

A question NEVER asked by Corporate McPravda: "Who runs Barter Town, D.C.?"

[opihimoimoi]

1. KnR....tax the rich and fix the world for the kids...

[Octafish]

2. Floating Cities

That's what we need. I know the people to do it, too -- they are my brothers and sisters.

[opihimoimoi]

9. That pic is not what I had in mind....too small... :o)

[mod mom]

3. As usual, you nailed it Octafish....

As my sign says in this photo:

PROBLEM: Greed & Outsourcing at the Top, Not working class families. Save Collective Bargaining"


http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150110518805116&set=pu.37897905115&theater

:hi:

[Octafish]

5. The 'Deficit Problem' Isn’t Financial. It’s Political.

Love your friends, too, mod mom! Wow!

Here's a bit more on the, eh, situation:

The “Deficit Problem” Isn’t Financial. It’s Political.

Published on Sunday, February 27, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
by Robert Freeman

The federal budget deficit and its cumulative cousin, the national debt, are much more political and media phenomena than they are financial. Which isn’t to say that they don’t exist. Obviously, they do. But they have been invested with apocalyptic significance mainly for political purposes: to scare people and to coerce them into reducing the size and the scope of government.

The truth is that massive deficits are almost exclusively a Republican creation. But Republicans were conspicuously silent in the decades of their big run-up, when the deficits were providing the hollow illusion of easy prosperity. The other truth is that it is only deficits that can get the economy out of the ditch that Republicans left it in when Bush slunk out of office.

But as Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has said, “Our first priority is to make sure Obama is a one-term president.” That is the real reason Republicans are born-again fiscal fundamentalists: deficits are the only thing that might actually turn the economy around and that is exactly what the Republicans are so intent on avoiding.

The first tip-off about the fake hysteria surrounding the deficits is that all the Chicken Littles crying the end of the world were silent when the real run-up was being conducted. Look at the history.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/27-3

Thank you for all you do, mod mom! It is an honor to be your friend.

[boston bean]

4. .

[Octafish]

13. Great photo! Even old-line pukes like David Stockman agree...

Video (with a nice commercial): Deficits: Taxing The Rich

David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director who once preached tax cuts, is now in favor of putting a one-time surtax on the rich. Lesley Stahl reports and finds just such a proposal on the ballot in the state of Washington.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009217n#ixzz1FHP2FISr

[The Magistrate]

6. Hear Hear, Sir

This course actually would be popular with the great majority of the public, as well.

[Octafish]

14. It may be the only ones who don't like the idea aren't into sharing, Sir.

Here's an old idea that hasn't gotten any traction on ABCNNBCBSFakeNoiseNutworks: A Wall Street Transaction Tax.

$150 Billion--That's Real Money

by Jonathan Tasini
Monday 24 of January, 2011
Posted to Front Page Posts

In the lore of political budgetary rhetoric, Sen Everett Dirksen's observation is often useful: "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money" he is rumored to have said--rumored because there is some debate about whether he actually used that whole phrase. But, whatever--it's useful to our current discussion. Where do we get some money to fund our national needs? Of course, let's go where the money is: Wall Street.

To set the record straight, I contend that there is no deficit or debt "crisis"--and I think too many Democrats/liberals/progressives are falling into that trap, and helping frame a phony debate (for a more lengthy discussion about the scam, you can read my e-book, "It's Not Raining, We're Getting Peed On: the Scam of the Deficit Crisis").

But, even if we accepted the phoniness of the debate, there is still a very good reason to enact a Financial Transactions Tax, something I've supported for a long time. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research has been one of the most vocal economists pushing the FTT. You can see one of Baker's arguments here. But, CEPR is out with a new argument today.

The potential revenue: $150 billion a year. As Dirksen might say, that's real money.

CONTINUED w/links:

http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=15086

If the same people who've most benefited from the all the tax breaks, government purchases, disaster capitalism, endless wars and all the other benefits of cronie conservative fiscal policy had to actually pay their share, things would change PDQ.

Since my first day on DU as "Oblomov," I have very much appreciated much that you've been on the case, Sir.

[Cleita]

7. Stop making so much sense all the time. n/t

[closeupready]

8. Yes, because the media celebrities that run Sunday morning talk shows are overpaid/rich, and

any tax increase aimed at the rich is going to hit them for $100G's each, sometimes millions.

Also, the Senate is known as the Millionaire's Club - do you REALLY think they are going to pass laws which will have a similar economic impact on their own financial affairs?

Not. Going. To. Happen.

But K&R

[ladjf]

10. ++++++. Make those greedy, sick, criminal bastards pay their

fair share.

[kestrel91316]

11. Our fawning adoration as a nation of our wealthiest, most "successful" citizens

will never allow us to do that.

That would be mean. They deserve to be freed from all tax burdens because they are so special. :sarcasm:

[texshelters]

12. But you would hurt the Koch brothers feelings along

with Morgan Stanley, Monsanto, B of A, Wells Fargo, AIG, Citigroup, JPMorgan and other heroes of the recovery if you made them pay for the largess they get from the American people.

Peace,
Tex Shelters
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/michelle-rhee-wisonsin-and-the-attack-on-teachers/

[leftstreet]

15. K&R