2012 Republican economic plan - more tax cuts for the rich
Posted on Friday, October 28, 2011 at 09:31 AM
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It's simple really, easy to get your head around.
Never mind that America's rich haven't created any worthwhile jobs or industries in a decade, just accept that the rich should be getting richer at an even faster pace.
That's where you come in. By voting for the GOP 2012 candidate you will help to insure that no millionaire is left behind.
Consider this: in the last 30 years the average after-tax income for the top 1% of U.S. households almost quadrupled, up 275%, from 1979 to 2007 according to a report released this week by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
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Two hundred and seventy five percent! It's Robin Hood in reverse!
The top 1% also reaped a 17% share of all American income, and that's up from just 8% in 1979 - but clearly there's still more work to do, with help from their friends in the GOP.
In the last decade almost all of Americas economic gains were concentrated in the households of the top 1%, but by voting GOP next year you can finally ensure they get it all!
I know, if you actually believed in economic opportunity for all you wouldn't vote GOP would you? Instead you believe in helping the rich to help themselves. And with your vote they're doing just that.
If Americas billionaires aren't investing in national industries, well I'm sure they have their reasons. Maybe they don't feel appreciated? Maybe all this Occupy Wall Street stuff has hurt their feelings? Maybe that's why they're hoarding their cash in gold and offshore investments year after year after year?
Far be it for me to criticize them. I'm sure they all have our nations interests at heart.
I mean if you have to choose between Obama's American Jobs Act (which would raise economic demand and boost employment) or the Republicans' Jobs Through Growth Act (which would exclusively protect corporate profits from taxation) it's obvious which one you should choose. Look how well the Bush era tax cuts have worked out already.
Senate Republicans last week killed a provision that would have provided $35 billion to hire or retain schoolteachers, police officers and firefighters. It's a luxury we can't afford!The Republicans killed it when they noticed t required a half-percent tax increase on incomes over $1 million a year. Half a percent is daylight robbery!
So you lowly peons just need learn some patience. It took thirty years for this level of inequality to explode across the United States. Just give the GOP another 30 years, for goodness sake.
I'm confident the droppings from the tables of the rich will be even greater if we let them get even more absurdly rich. The symbol of the GOP is an elephant, they know all about it.
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Ratslayer | Oct 29, 2011, 11:32 AM EDT
The lizard-brains of the GOP have NO vision for the future. NOTHING! These socio-economic terrorists want to double-down on the CRAZY -- the same failed right-wing policies that helped turn the US from the world's biggest creditor in to world's biggest debtor. More tax cuts, less regulation and less government spending are not going to revive our economy. Thank God, a majority of Americas aren't buying this GOP fetish-crap and are waking up to the cold reality that free trade is for suckers and the Wall Street Corptocracy must be restrained before it destroys the global economy. It's that simple.
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seanomelbourne | Oct 28, 2011, 05:17 PM EDT
The middle class who support the GOP are voting themselves into a poverty trap and taking the rest of the country down with you.
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eiriamach | Oct 28, 2011, 05:02 PM EDT
FastEddy, cite your sources! From the Washington Post, May 11: For 2010, according to Exxon Mobil, it reported $7.7 billion U.S. Income before tax, $340 million in state income taxes, $1.3 billion net federal income taxes-- an 18 percent tax rate Exxon claims, but just 17.2 percent, “lower than the average American’s,” according to Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress. And this from Think Progress, online: "Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year [2009] reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS: Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas."
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eiriamach | Oct 28, 2011, 04:33 PM EDT
Congratulating the EU for not plunging itself into a financial abyss in Brussels yesterday, Paul Krugman writes about the doctrine that has taken hold in both Europe and the US. He calls it "expansionary austerity," a lovely phrase that I've added to my list of favorite oxymorons. In today's NY Times, Krugman writes, "The doctrine in question amounts to the assertion that, in the aftermath of a financial crisis, banks must be bailed out but the general public must pay the price. So a crisis brought on by deregulation becomes a reason to move even further to the right; a time of mass unemployment, instead of spurring public efforts to create jobs, becomes an era of austerity, in which government spending and social programs are slashed." He calls the GOP doctrine that cutbacks can expand an economy "belief in the 'confidence fairy.'” Iceland alone, he notes, rejected the delusion that austerity would spur growth. Iceland let banks fail and extended help to its struggling citizens. The results? Unemployment held steady and anger did not drive people into the streets to protest government cutbacks. Conclusion? "The suffering that so many of our citizens are facing is unnecessary. If this is a time of incredible pain and a much harsher society, that was a choice. It didn’t and doesn’t have to be this way." Same message here, but not enough people willing to hear it.
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McNamara31 | Oct 28, 2011, 04:00 PM EDT
Upon his death Steve Job’s Apple Corporation had $76 billion in cash reserves; more that the US treasury had in cash. This created by a man, who lived the American dream and built a company from his garage to be worldwide label of excellence. In the time prior to his death, Jobs gave FOX News Rupert Murdoch some advice, he advised: "You're blowing it with Fox News," Jobs told him over dinner. "The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you've cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you're not careful.” The reason so many people are so blind to the plight of the middle class is because they have bought the outright smear and deflection that FOX provides for those who Jobs was speaking of. Wall St has spent 5 billion dollars to buy politicians and to make changes (deregulation) that have greatly destroyed our middle class. Ask yourself, where in past history has a TV network been allowed to manipulate the facts, create and promote candidates and fake candidates who’s only mission is to further confuse and deflect, all the while promoting their pro Wall St, pro Corporation, fictitious GOP “job creator stance” while the middle class is further decimated.
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kevinhayes | Oct 28, 2011, 03:36 PM EDT
Keep it up, Cahir, in spite of the ahistorical and ignorant contributions from some of the GOP supporting know-nothing posters that you invariably flush out. The stimulus was a success, the economy and unemployment would have been much worse without it. The GOP posters offer up the same old canards - lower taxes and less regulation - that demonstrably failed when you compare the Clinton era, 1993 to 2001, to the GW Bush era, 2001 to 2009, but these dudes (@colkelley is a prime example) stick to their Limbaugh/Hannity talking points. The deficit debacle of the past summer is where all of that leads to. Thank god the OWS movement has changed the debate back to the real world.
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FastEddy | Oct 28, 2011, 03:33 PM EDT
FYI: In 2008 Exxon/Mobile paid more in taxes to the US feds than ALL income tax payers combined. Fact.
So, I understand why you might want to increase the taxes on the "rich" = it makes for good magazine articles. It does not, however, create more jobs, but less jobs.
Or is it just your own greed?
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eiriamach | Oct 28, 2011, 02:30 PM EDT
I also admire your stick-to-it-iveness in trying to educate the masses, Cahir, but as you know, reality is a hard sell. Mayoman points out that Exxon/Mobil doesn't care to pay its fair share of taxes to help decrease the debt. Just the oil companies' executive-bonus share of that profit could dent the debt. But they feel "entitled" not only to bonuses but to oil depletion allowances too (corporate "welfare" payments) at our expense, along with any other tax loopholes they can pay their lobbyists to bribe Congressional Republicans to toss their way. I hope you keep trying to teach the basic principles of Econ. 101. But even with your effort, the economic realities struggle to compete with the security-blanket, thumb-sucking solace of a simplistic ideology: identify with wealth-- vote GOP! Half a percent on million-dollar-plus incomes is not the only reason Senate Republicans killed a provision to re-employ teachers, police officers, and fire fighters. Those who would benefit from the provision include economics teachers and union members. These are dangerous personnel, useful only to those of us who are willing to support a democratic government that would, in turn, provide us with some measure of security and progress.
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jdi2269 | Oct 28, 2011, 01:53 PM EDT
YES CAHIR, JUST KEEP SPENDING!
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newnation | Oct 28, 2011, 01:37 PM EDT
anyone who doesn't agree with this is just wrong and most likely is an over paid idiot, frankly i couldn't care less what the rich circumstances are and why they don't "choose" to invest in things at this time. the simple fact is they have to much and EVERYone else has to little, can we start the revolution now please?
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mayoman | Oct 28, 2011, 01:21 PM EDT
Exxon/Mobil posted earnings of $10.68 billion in the second quarter of this year. How much of that will go to Federal taxes?
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Padraig8 | Oct 28, 2011, 12:20 PM EDT
ALSO CAHIR You write what you like dont let anyone on here tell you any thing about how to express yourself
TELL IT LIKE IT IS, YOU GO.
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Padraig8 | Oct 28, 2011, 12:11 PM EDT
hollabackgurl has the right slant on this
target the msngr not the msg, as one who has voted in every election in the US since
the 1940S i know what the Republican goal is (Keep the money starve the poor)
Never has the GOP helped the worker or
the unfortunate it took FDR to bring us UP and the GOP to take us back DOWN
i lived it so i know and for your info i
never was on the DOLE i worked all my Life and raised 5 children (by myself)
no wifey so tell me about the Good Republicans and then tell me about Jack
in the beanstalk or any other Fairy Tale
it wont wash, No Republican President ever cared about the lower Class Citizen
why think that will change/?
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hollabackgurl | Oct 28, 2011, 11:38 AM EDT
I'm certain you guys are on the defensive because you're targeting the messenger not the message. If tax cuts for the rich actually worked then Bush's presidency would have been an economic golden age, instead of what it actually was - the harbinger of the Great Recession.
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