Trickle down

 

Tax the rich. The really really rich.

 

It's pearl clutching time

 

Do you make 400k a year?

 From Reddit:

level 1

Eyes_and_teeth

3.7k points·10 hours ago

26

And also, people should remember that income is taxes in a bracketed fashion in the United States. This means that only your income above $400k will be subject to any higher taxation:

Example: this is oversimplification for purposes of illustration, but say all income you make up to $400,000 is taxed at a flat 20% rate. Additionally, let's say the new Biden tax plan assesses any income above that at a 30% rate.

Say Bill makes right up to the limit of $400,000/year, and his neighbor, Julie makes $500,000/year.

Bill's taxes, without any deductions, would be $80,000 leaving him $320,000 net income.

Julie's taxes would also be $80,000 for the first $400,000 she earned, and an additional $30,000 for the additional $100,000 she earned above that. Julie's taxes would be $110,000, before any deductions, leaving her with $390,000 net income.

What doesn't happen is that when a person makes a single dollar more then the limit, their entire income gets taxed at the higher rate. That would be ridiculously unfair. If Julie had to pay 30% on all $500,000 she would be taxed $150,000, leaving her with a net income of only $350,000 which is only $30,000 more than Bill despite earning a gross salary of $100,000 more than he does. No one is suggesting we switch to such a punitive tax rate.

It isn't hiding if the president does it

The only ones entitled here are the Republican a*holes in office

Because of course the Republicans went for the 'entitlements' (which is their term and NOT TRUE). We knew this was coming from the start of Trump's presidency. 

McConnell Blames Entitlements, Not GOP, for Rising Deficits

THIS time she'll let you kick the ball, Charlie Brown!

BPA to bullying

BPA free doesn't mean it's safe.  In fact it might even be worse.  (Here's a list of products that have BPA in them.)

The awful truth about for-profit universities.

The tax debate is over and the progressives won.  But will anyone listen?

An apple for the teacher... to teach kids about bullying.

FDR's speech:

Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "Taxes are the price we pay for civilized society." One sure way to determine the social conscience of a Government is to examine the way taxes are collected and how they are spent. And one sure way to determine the social conscience of an individual is to get his tax-reaction. Taxes, after all, are the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society. As society becomes more civilized, Government—national, State and local government—is called on to assume more obligations to its citizens. The privileges of membership in a civilized society have vastly increased in modern times. But I am afraid we have many who still do not recognize their advantages and want to avoid paying their dues. It is only in the past two generations that most local communities have paved and lighted their streets, put in town sewers, provided town water supplies, organized fire departments, established high schools and public libraries, created parks and playgrounds—undertaken, in short, all kinds of necessary new activities which, perforce, had to be paid for out of local taxes.

Around the world

How astonishing and unexpected!! Pipeline spill sends 22,000 barrels of oil mix into Alberta muskeg

Whether she will see any of this money is another thing... Woman Who Couldn’t Be Intimidated By Citigroup Wins $31 Million

Oklahoma Rape Victim Denied Emergency Contraceptives. Doctor Cites Religious Objection As Reason. I think suing the doctor (and the nurse who also refused to help) for 18 years of child support might get her attention.

Building tiny houses.. or should I say minimalist housing.

Big corporate fat cat thinks big corporations shouldn't pay taxes like real people.

A WWII Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk is found preserved in the Sahara.

Know your rights if you photograph police.

Because the poor women need to be told what they think? In media reports on women’s issues—abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood—men are quoted around five times more than women, a new study shows.

Oh NOES!! We're gonna crash! NASA's Hubble Shows Milky Way is Destined for Head-on Collision with Andromeda Galaxy

Compare and contrast: Republican spokesman: ‘Let’s hurl some acid’ at female Democratic senators to these articles about real acid attacks.  Really?  You want to carefully think about what you said, sir?  Are you aware of what you have actually suggested?

What getting rid of Obamacare would really mean to the Republicans:

All of which exposes how problematic the GOP’s two-year-long posture of total repeal always was. As a short-term political posture, it has served them well. But now that the Supreme Court might give them what they want, they’re forced to deal with the reality of what it would mean. And that’s a huge wake-up call for the party, especially one without a clear leader to herd the cats as they figure out their next move. As one Republican health care aide put it to TPM, “I do think some Republicans are finally starting to realize they could be the dog that caught the car.”

Be careful what you wish for... you may get it.

Just desserts

Kicking asshole off plane.

The taxman payeth.

Routers are everywhere.

China rates the US on human rights.

Versailles, creating the next war at the end of the first World War:

The harm ALEC has done

May not be undone, but at least the rock has been moved a bit and we can see the slime underneath....

As ALEC whines and twirls in a strange dance of damage control, remember that the Stand Your Ground law that triggered the corporate exodus from them is only the tip of the iceberg. They have done grave harm to many states and most people. Whether it's education, Voter ID, health care, guns, or taxes, ALEC is the author of far too much turnkey legislation with deep and barbarous cuts to those institutions we hold dear in this country, like schools, and hospitals, and public streets. They deserve no sympathy, nor quarter. They should be accountable for each and every evil they have wrought on states and people who live in them, and those who sponsor their efforts should be equally accountable, even those who claim to have noble motives, like the Gates Foundation.

I wish I was an Oscar Mayer weiner....

Thank you, sir.

Paul Krugman on weaponized Keynesianism

Appeals to confidence have always been a key debating point for opponents of taxes and regulation; Wall Street’s whining about President Obama is part of a long tradition in which wealthy businessmen and their flacks argue that any hint of populism on the part of politicians will upset people like them, and that this is bad for the economy. Once you concede that the government can act directly to create jobs, however, that whining loses much of its persuasive power — so Keynesian economics must be rejected, except in those cases where it’s being used to defend lucrative contracts.

So I welcome the sudden upsurge in weaponized Keynesianism, which is revealing the reality behind our political debates. At a fundamental level, the opponents of any serious job-creation program know perfectly well that such a program would probably work, for the same reason that defense cuts would raise unemployment. But they don’t want voters to know what they know, because that would hurt their larger agenda — keeping regulation and taxes on the wealthy at bay.

Reagan actually “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years

(Post title comes from this article.)

From MoveOn.org

Best Republican Town Hall Takedown We've Seen Today

Congressman Chris Gibson (R-NY) claims to represent all of his constituents, even though he keeps voting with the extreme right. Watch a few brave people from his district call him out, big time:

Tom the Dancing Bug

Goes all Harry Potter on us.

Sometimes taxes are necessary

Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times discusses California's Governor Brown's tax proposal:

We're not talking about peanuts. The average hit for those taxes is $260 per person each year, or $1,040 for a family of four. But what's the cost of not extending them?

It would be huge, and it's not just liberals who are saying so. After looking at what the effect would be on education, healthcare and public safety, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the extension as long as the deal includes future spending caps and pension reform.

California is, in fact, a relatively high-tax state, though not the highest. In 2009, the combined state and local tax burden was 10.6% of personal income, as opposed to the 9.8% national average. As my colleague George Skelton pointed out earlier this month, state general fund spending has dropped by billions in recent years, with next year's spending per $100 of personal income projected to be the lowest since Ronald Reagan was governor.

Not paying their fair share of the tax burden

WASHINGTON---With federal income taxes due in a few weeks, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent allied with Democrats, on Sunday released a list of ten big profitable U.S. companies paying little or no taxes. Sanders wants to close the loopholes that make this tax avoidance legal. Some people call the income tax system with generous loopholes for big companies corporate welfare or corporate entitlements. As Congress returns to work this week--after yet another break--to negotiate over big budget cuts--with social safety net programs facing reductions--Sanders is pushing for corporations to pay more of a fair "share."

The Bernie Sanders Ten, per release....

1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

Republicans have no right to whine

About the deficit after they insisted upon giving billions in tax cuts to the rich. It's like shooting your parents and then asking for mercy from the court because you are an orphan.