If You Love The USA You Should Demand Millionaires Pay Their Fair Share

If You Love The USA You Should Demand Millionaires Pay Their Fair Share

President Barack Obama’s new budget proposal, released Wednesday, would raise $16 billion in revenue over 10 years by getting rid of one of the ways millionaires and billionaires pay lower taxes than their secretaries. It's called the carried interest tax break, and it allows the wealthy to pay a lower rate on some of their income. But ending the carried interest exception will be tough, and not just because a budget compromise with Republicans is unlikely: Previous proposed legislation to kill the tax break was riddled with loopholes.

The carried interest tax break works by letting private equity and hedge fund managers treat some of the income they earn from managing clients' portfolios as if they had invested it themselves. That allows folks like Mitt Romney to pay a 20 percent investment income tax rate on their money management fees, instead of the normal 39.6 percent tax rate on earned income. This special rich person perk costs the government some $1.3 billion a year. That's one reason why Obama and many Democrats slam the tax break as unfair and have targeted it for repeal.

"There continues to be no rationale whatsoever for people to pay at a vastly lower tax rate when they are managing other people’s money," Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), who has introduced all of the carried interest legislation in past years, said in an email. "This is an issue of fairness that we should address as we seek a balanced approach to deficit reduction that involves both additional revenues and spending cuts."

But getting rid of the tax break may not be such an easy task, given the tortuous history of the movement to deep-six it. The fight against carried interest is Levin's baby. He first introduced a bill to ax the loophole in 2007, and has introduced two more versions since then, all of which have stalled.

"It's rather unusual that this legislation hung out there for so many years," says Steve Rosenthal, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center. That's due to the "pretty effective job" that the trillion-dollar private equity industry has done in "confusing and delaying legislation," he says.

Rosenthal says that so much damage has been done to the legislation over the years that he has no faith in the effectiveness of whatever nominal repeal legislation eventually does get into a compromise budget bill—if there ever is one.

First of all, he notes, it's unclear whether the entirety of an executive's carried interest income would be subject to the higher tax rate. Rosenthal says some versions of the bill have only called for raising taxes on 75 percent of it.

Rosenthal says the most recent legislation also includes a loophole that would allow private equity firms, which are usually organized as limited partnerships, to convert themselves into a special kind of small business entity, which would allow them to avoid the carried interest tax hike.

And if Levin's most recent legislation passes, private equity managers would also be exempt in certain cases from a higher carried interest rate on the profit from selling part of their own interest in the firm.

"The carried interest lobbying effort has been a scandal," Rosenthal says.

This insanity where the American people reward wealth and punish work could end in a week. All it would take, and it is asking a lot apparently, is for a few million patriotic Americans to send a postcard to their Senator and representative. They can't ignore the overwhelming wished of working class Americans who want the filthy rich to start paying back society for providing them with roads, firefighters, the world's best military and other infrastructure - that makes their wealth even possible.

Why Does Conservative Fox News Hate America and Progress

Why Does Conservative Fox News Hate America and Progress

A Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released Tuesday finds that green jobs grew four times faster in 2011* than jobs in other sectors, continuing a trend of rapid growth in the U.S. But Fox News is still pushing the narrative that investing in clean energy is a "boondoggle."

The U.S. added more than 150,000 green jobs in 2011, including more than 100,000 construction jobs and 14,000 manufacturing jobs. In total, the green sector now employs more than 3.4 million workers in the U.S. The following chart shows that green jobs in the private sector increased in nearly every category in 2011:

This is not a new trend: the Brookings Institution previously found that the clean economy added half a million jobs between 2003 and 2010, and that clean tech jobs grew "more than twice as fast as the rest of the economy" during that period.

As the Los Angeles Times noted, the recent growth in green jobs "parallels a surge in public and private money" invested in clean energy in 2011.

Nevertheless, Fox News continues to distort the facts in an effort to portray government investments in clean energy as a waste of money. Fox News' Brit Hume claimed in 2011 that the Obama administration's green investments have "utterly failed to produce meaningful jobs." Last month, the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes claimed on Fox News that "we haven't seen many gains" from these investments. Just this week, Neil Cavuto said on his Fox Business show that Obama's green initiatives have "not had the big tangible jobs bang for the buck that you would think."

Faced with clear evidence that clean energy investments are paying off, will Fox change its tune?

Most of the talking heads at the conservative slanted Fox News make salaries in the 7 figure range ( serial liar and rabid America hater Bill O'Reilly is said to make around 3 million a year - scientists are said to be studying what he does that is worth more than  2 cents an hour). Raking in all this cash one would think Fox News would love America, not hate America, American workers, women, rape victims, the working poor or anyone that stands up for real American values.

Can Massachusetts Voters Guess How Many Faces Scott Brown(R-MA) Has?

Can Massachusetts Voters Guess How Many Faces Scott Brown(R-MA) Has?

Question: What happens when a politician wants to look tough on Wall Street, without actually doing anything to rein in the big banks' excesses?

Answer: Scott Brown's recent letter to JPMorgan Chase.

Scott Brown wrote to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, supposedly "to express [his] concern with the surprising $2 billion trading loss" by the bank -- a total that has since climbed to $3 billion. But anyone who reads the letter carefully can see it for the transparent and disingenuous attempt by Brown that it is to look concerned about the havoc in the financial markets.

In that letter, Brown calls for only one thing: a clawback on the compensation of "the responsible parties in your company." The problem is that Dimon already said that was likely to happen.

How tough and independent -- telling a bank to do what it already said it would do!

What's more, the Dodd-Frank Act makes clawbacks mandatory in some cases. So what does Brown do? He tells Dimon that clawbacks are mandatory in some cases. What a maverick. Perhaps the bank should compensate Brown for the helpful legal advice (beyond the $50,000 that JPMorgan officials have already donated to Brown's campaign).

Lest his pointless letter seem too threatening to his scores of friends on Wall Street, Brown slips in some language that they would understand: "While regulations are necessary, it is also very important that when unprecedented mistakes do occur, banks will use the internal policies that they have set up to promote employee accountability."

Translation: When Wall Street screws up on an unprecedented scale and engages in risky behavior that undermines confidence in the market, they should treat it as an internal matter. No need for the government to get involved -- just move along, folks.

This, incidentally, is the same message as the one being spread by extreme conservatives like Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Of course, it was the lack of government involvement that allowed the financial crisis to happen in the first place.

Contrast the Scott Brown / Lamar Alexander approach with that of the Obama Administration, which has argued that the country still needs better regulations in the financial markets. Obama has pointed out that "JPMorgan is one of the best managed banks there is" and that Dimon "is one of the smartest bankers we've got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting...." In other words, even when a bank is well-run, there is the potential for catastrophe without proper regulation. There are few stronger pieces of evidence for this than JPMorgan's ability to quickly lose billions of dollars with some ill-advised keystrokes.

Brown tries to distinguish himself from Alexander and his ilk by pointing out that he voted for Dodd-Frank. What he neglects to mention, though, is that before he voted for it, he worked to weaken it by undermining the Volcker Rule.

All this, just days after he refuses to disclose who from JPMorgan might be serving on his finance committee, and after the Boston Globe revealed he has been raising more money from New York City than Boston and has set up a slush fund with the National Republican Senatorial Committee to help his campaign that is now flush with Wall Street cash.

This, by the way, is just the latest in Scott Brown's chameleon act.

When he stumps in Massachusetts, he tries to look like a moderate. But when he communicates with supporters outside the state, he morphs into a Republican in the mold of George W. Bush, recklessly calling for slashing government.

When he's on Main Street, he breaks out his pick-up truck and barn jacket. But when he's on Wall Street, he's right at home, pocketing millions of dollars from bankers who need him in the Senate.

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren talks about reports that Scott Brown is using the Affordable Care Act for his own daughter while trying to repeal it for everyone else. Brown is like a spoiled brat. he believes in big government by and for special interests - one of which is himself. Time to clean the useless trash out of Washington and get rid of two-faced liars like Scott Brown.

Today in Race Baiting Smears: Proto-fascist Conservative Lou Dobbs Suggests New Black Panthers Party Is Obama's "Base"

Today in Race Baiting Smears: Proto-fascist Conservative Lou Dobbs Suggests New Black Panthers Party Is Obama's "Base"

On his Fox Business show, Lou Dobbs suggested that the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group, constitutes Obama's base. Dobbs quoted criticisms of Obama by the NBPP and then said: "I mean, what is going on here? This president is starting to get, at the very least, friction, if not outright attacks coming from his base."

Fox News political analyst Juan Williams responded by noting that the NBPP is a "fringe-group."

During the segment, Dobbs also falsely claimed that "Holder says [the NBPP] can't be prosecuted for intimidating white voters," a reference to a phony scandal relentlessly hyped by Fox News.

In fact, it was the Bush administration, not the Obama administration, that decided not to prosecute the NBPP criminally for an incident in which an NBPP member carried a nightstick outside a Philadelphia polling place. The Bush administration chose to file a civil case in the matter instead.

The Obama Justice Department pursued the civil case against the defendant who carried the nighstick and obtained an injunction against him. Obama later decided to drop the civil case against the other defendants.

Furthermore, conservatives including to the Republican vice chair of the Civil Rights Commission investigating the case have agreed that the attacks against the Justice Department are meritless.

Moreover, the DOJ's ethics office found that senior career lawyers at the DOJ "did not commit professional misconduct or exercise poor judgment, but rather acted appropriately" in their handling of the NBPP case.

But such facts would get in the way of Dobbs' race baiting.

Conservatives generally hate the Southern Poverty Law Center because they have designated some conservative organizations as hate groups, yet they ignore the fact that the SPLC has designated the "new Black Panthers" as a hate group as well. What is wrong with Mr. Dobbs? he typifies the hateful radical ideology of conservatism. he wraps his wacky ideology in the flag and calls is patriotism. Dobbs is no way represents the freedom and egalitarian ideals spelled out in the liberal tenets of the Constitution.

Spending By Obama Administration At Slowest Pace in Decades

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.

Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4% annualized pace — slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.

Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.

• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.
The big surge in federal spending happened in fiscal 2009, before Obama took office. Since then, spending growth has been relatively flat.

Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

Facts seem to have a bias. A bias against the constant lies and distortions of the anti-American conservative Republican movement.

Repealing Health Care Reform (ACA) Would Increase Government Debt

Repealing Health Care Reform (ACA) Would Increase Government Debt

A new report by an independent government auditor concludes that implementing President Obama’s health care law as intended will make a significant dent in the long-term debt forecast.

The report comes as Supreme Court justices weigh striking some of “Obamacare’s” central provisions — and perhaps the law in its entirety — and as the Republican Party remains committed to repealing the law if it seizes control of government in November.

“[I]f the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is implemented as intended it would have a major effect on the [fiscal] gap but would not eliminate it,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in a Monday report — a conclusion in line with its own past research and similar research conducted by other government and non-government analysts.

GAO doesn’t isolate PPACA’s stand-alone contribution to long-term budget consolidation. But it does conclude that if key cost-control measures in the law, and other automatic cuts to Medicare spending baked into current law, are ignored, or overridden by Congress, the implications for the national debt are vast.

If “Obamacare” is implemented as intended, and other measures, such as automatic payment cuts to Medicare physicians, take effect, “spending on Medicare and Medicaid grows from 5 percent of GDP in 2010 to over 7 percent by 2030.”

By contrast, if Congress overrides those provisions, “[s]pending on health care grows much more rapidly under this more pessimistic set of assumptions,” according to the report.

 It is not as though conservatives really care about the deficit. It exploded partly because of the Bush tax cuts and failure to rise revenue for two wars. The first time in modern US history a president and his party did not attempt to pay for its foreign policy decisions. 

Conservative Trashes Middle-Class and Blue Collar Workers - Paul Ryan (R-WI) Dreams of Making America Into 17th Century France

Conservative Trashes Middle-Class and Blue Collar Workers - Paul Ryan (R-WI) Dreams of Making America Into 17th Century France

Even as House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget would impose trillions of dollars in spending cuts, 62 percent of which would come from low-income programs,[1] it would enact new tax cuts that would provide huge windfalls to households at the top of the income scale.  New analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC) finds that people earning more than $1 million a year would receive $265,000 apiece in new tax cuts, on average, on top of the $129,000 they would receive from the Ryan budget’s extension of President Bush’s tax cuts.[2] 

The new tax cuts at the top would dwarf those for middle-and lower-income families.  After-tax incomes would rise by 12.5 percent among millionaires, but just 1.9 percent for middle-income households (see Figure 1 and footnote 6).

Chairman Ryan claims that his budget would fully offset the cost of his proposed tax cuts by closing tax expenditures (tax credits, deductions, and other preferences) for high-income households.  But his budget contains no specific proposals to do so, and meeting this goal would be all but impossible, given that the Ryan budget rules out reducing the tax expenditure most heavily tilted to high-income households:  the preferential rates for capital gains and dividends.[3]

By combining large budget cuts that disproportionately harm lower-income Americans with large tax cuts that disproportionately help those at the top of the income scale, the Ryan budget would significantly worsen inequality and increase poverty and hardship (and reduce opportunity as well, through deep cuts in programs such as Pell Grants to help low-income students afford college).
Plan Would Cut Top Rate to Lowest Level Since Hoover Administration

The Ryan budget includes a number of specific tax cuts, on top of making the Bush tax cuts permanent.  All of its new tax cuts are both expensive and tilted toward high-income households.  It would cut the top individual tax rate to 25 percent, the lowest level since the Hoover Administration more than 80 years ago.  It would cut the corporate rate to 25 percent and eliminate both the Alternative Minimum Tax and the Affordable Care Act’s increase in the Medicare tax for high-income people.

A new TPC analysis finds that people with incomes above $1 million would receive a $265,000 average annual tax cut just from the new Ryan proposals (i.e., not counting what they would also receive from extension of the Bush tax cuts).  Middle-income taxpayers — those with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 — would receive $1,045, on average.[4]

How did Paul Ryan get elected to Congress? How did someone who hates Americans that work for a living - teachers, carpenters, nurses, store clerks, waitresses, tire changers, taxi drivers, road maintenance crews etc. - get so much power and influence over the lives of people who do actual work. Unlike Ryan's millionaire friends whose wealth comes from the work of others. Ryan, like the rest of the conservative movement is out to protect the unearned wealth of society's leeches at the expense of working Americans.

How Unfortunate That Paul Ryan(R-WI) is an Anti-American Serial Liar and Conman

How Unfortunate That Paul Ryan(R-WI) is an Anti-American Serial Liar and Conman

“Promoting the natural rights and the inherent dignity of the individual must be the central focus of all government.”

That’s what Congressman Paul Ryan wrote earlier this month in an exclusive commentary for Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. This week, he revealed exactly where his laser-like focus on dignity would lead this nation. He released his budget proposal, as clear a statement of one’s principles and priorities as there is in politics.

Here are the results, and they’re not pretty. Nation readers with young children should probably ask them to leave the room before reading onward.

Mr. Ryan’s focus on dignity… means a cut in food stamps of $133 billion over ten years, even though 76 percent of participating households include a child, senior or disabled person, nearly half of all recipients are children and 40 percent of single mothers use food stamps to help feed their families.  A $13.4 billion cut in one year translates to as many as 8.2 billion meals lost for low-income people, more kids at risk of being underweight or developmentally delayed, worse educational outcomes and more stressed-out parents.

The congressman would also block-grant the program so it would no longer be able to respond to rising need during times like these—in 2010 alone food stamps kept 3.9 million people out of poverty. If you liked the cash assistance for poor families (TANF) block grant—which resulted in a free-fall from 68 of every 100 poor families receiving help to 27 of every 100—then you will absolutely love the Don’t Worry Ryan Will Feed You block grant.

All told, Ryan hands out about $4.4 trillion in tax cuts that primarily benefit the very best off, and pays for it with $4.15 trillion in spending cuts to programs that primarily benefit the poor and middle class.

Mr. Ryan’s focus on dignity… means the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and attacking Medicaid with his block-granting light saber. The repeal results in at least 33 million people losing their healthcare, and the Don’t Worry Ryan Will Heal You block grant shifts costs of covering poor people to the states (because their budgets are in such great shape)—cutting federal funding by approximately 20 percent over the next decade and adding “tens of millions of Americans to the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured,” according the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). Worth noting too is that two out of every three Medicaid dollars currently goes to care for people in nursing homes, victims of catastrophic accidents and disabled children, according to the Center for American Progress.

“The inherent dignity of all people is the foundational principle of Catholic social teaching because we’re all created in the image of God,” Father Thomas Kelly, a constituent of Representative Ryan’s, told me after a conference call with Half in Ten. “A budget that cuts nutrition programs for poor children and tells working families they must sacrifice even more so the wealthy can have bigger tax cuts offends bedrock Catholic values. It’s hard to square Representative Ryan’s moral rhetoric with the cruel reality of this budget.”

“A budget that diminishes what we provide for the one in six Americans who are struggling with hunger is not a budget befitting a moral country,” said Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. “A plan reflective of our national priorities should seek to lift up our neighbors in a time of high unemployment and poverty; instead, this demands the most from those with the least, and flies in the face of the common dignity of all Americans.”

Mr. Ryan’s focus on dignity… means that the man is in desperate need of LASIK surgery. Better hurry, before he’s forced to rely on his proposed Don’t Worry Ryan Will Give You A Voucher healthcare system for seniors.

Ryan is like most modern conservatives. If given their way, for all their dire warnings about America becoming socialist, Ryan's conservative America will look a lot like the poverty ridden, food deprived Soviet Union of the 1960s. We'll have mothers, children and the disabled looking through trash cans for food. All this while corporate America is already making per-recession level profits - if they are being taxed or regulated too much you sure cannot tell by the bottom line. If Ryan and his immoral elite conservative pals want to punish work and reward wealth there is a way for them to do that, they can move somewhere and start their own 16th century monarchy.