Ed Schultz: Republican War on Poor

Much has been made recently of the Republican's "war on women". But there is another "war" being waged by conservatives according to Ed Schultz: a war on the poor.

Normally, I feel Schultz is over-the-top on his MSNBC program, but he really captures a great spirit in this piece, especially in highlighting the ignorance, or maybe it's selective reasoning, on the GOPs part of saying how the poor pay nothing in taxes, deciding only to point to federal taxes instead of looking at the entire tax burden (payroll, Medicare, state and sales taxes) shackled on the poor and middle classes. And, as Shultz points out, this is not unprecedented in the modern GOP party.

"This war is not new. It has been going on for years. But it really stands out this week. In a span of a few days, Republicans chose to protect the rich by voting down the Buffett Rule in the Senate. Now, they are attacking the most vulnerable. ... [Mitt] Romney tried to say he misspoke when he made that ["I'm not concerned about the very poor"] comment in February. But his policies prove, well, he was telling the truth. His economic plans puts money in the back pockets of the wealthiest Americans while raising taxes on people making less than $30,000 a year."

Obama's Debt Problem? He's Served Leftovers

We’re going to see a lot over the next few months prior to the 2012 Election (as maybe some of you have seen already these past few months) charts and graphs excoriating President Obama’s lavish “spending” and how he will have increased the debt by nearly $5 trillion dollars over his first term, equal to Pres. George W. Bush’s full two terms in office. In truth, that’s a hell of a lot of money. And since Congress is steadfast in their opposition to any revenue raising legislation, our debt “crisis” will only get worse if conservatives win this election. But how is this even possible? How could Obama gorge himself so substantially in just a few years to the same tune as Pres. Bush did in eight? Well, turns out these figures only explain half the problem. It wasn’t that Obama waltzed up to the “per-pound” buffet and just started piling food on the plate. Sure, he went and picked a few of the things he liked, but when GWB got up from the table, he slid a mass of half-eaten food right onto President Obama’s plate before cutting out on the bill.

Last year, during the debt-ceiling debacle, Republicans were quick to judge Obama’s policies over his first two full years in office as “out of control spending”. The debt had already risen substantially during Obama’s first term in office, and someone had to put their foot down and say, “No more.” Republicans, led by a hungry scad of new Tea Party legislators, were just the team for the job. But while conservatives were quick to chastise the President, and liberals in general, for their lavish spending, most notably the $1 trillion stimulus package, they failed to recognize that much of the fast-increasing debt was from policies that they enacted during a Bush II presidency.

The previous winter, Republicans held lower- and middle-class tax cuts hostage unless tax cuts for the very rich, those making over $250,000 per year, were extended also, i.e. the Bush Tax Cuts. The Bush Tax Cuts contributed to over $1.8 trillion worth of Bush’s total debt by time he left office, and they continue to do so today. It should be noted as well, that this figure alone disproves the mantra that tax cuts for the wealthy pay for themselves by spurring new hiring and hence increasing tax revenue from the working class. If that were true, the Bush Tax Cuts would have reduced the deficit.

And then there’re the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These mired military engagements have cost a staggering sum, not only in dollars, but in American morale and American lives. And really, what have we gained? That’s a discussion for another time. But these are Bush-era holdovers, Republican policies gone awry, and Obama is left to clean it up. Indeed, he has done an exceptional, responsible job in this regard, ending military operations in Iraq and continuing to wind down our involvement in Afghanistan.

What we have is a large bevy of Bush-era policies, continued by Republicans through the Obama administration, that are the sole reason for our national debt issues. But don’t take my word for it. This chart was released amidst the debt-ceiling debate last year highlighting new policies enacted under George W. Bush and new policies enacted during Obama’s first term in office.

The contextual view is that Obama’s policies have increased the debt, but his new policy measures were only temporary expenditures meant to stabilize a depressing economy. If he had not been shackled with so many poor policy decisions of the previous administration, the country would be in a considerably better position now than we are. If the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest had not been extended, that would be $1 trillion off Obama’s “tag” right there. If Bush hadn’t let the housing bubble inflate and burst so disastrously, Obama wouldn’t have needed his own stimulus package (it does one well to remember that Bush bailed out the banks and enacted his own stimulus package in the wake of the financial crash of 2008), and been left with high unemployment leading to decreased tax revenues, both of which are impacting the debt substantially.

I mean, these are pretty clear numbers here. Based on the policies Obama has enacted, he will only raise the deficit less than $1.5 trillion over an 8 year period. That’s 1/3 of Bush’s total over that same time period. The massive increase in debt over the past few years has been partly due to the stimulus and the effects of the Great Recession, but the rest has been the leftovers from what will be considered one of the worst presidencies in American history. Yes, there is some validity in the argument that Obama should have been stronger and Democrats should have done more to end Bush’s ridiculous policies. I agree with that. But when it comes to the deficit hawks’ fanatical insistence showing “Obama’s out of control spending,” it’s all just politics to get a Republican back into office to continue the same policies Bush used to bloat our national debt in the first place.

Timothy Noah: Taxed Enough Already?

Timothy Noah's piece in The New Republic from last Friday highlights some interesting points about taxation in America. Many certainly complain taxes are too high, and most Americans want taxes on the wealthy to increase to help pay off our national debt, and to fund the much-needed government programs many in the poor and middle classes depend on (not too mention nearly every gain in wealth in the country over the last 30 years has gone to the top 1% of the population). But I think Noah's piece is important for a couple of reasons:

1) He rightly points to the fact that as a whole, Americans do not pay that much in taxes, and haven't since the mid-1950's. Thus it should not be argued that decreasing taxes will somehow spur economic growth and investment. If the rich were going to invest with the trillions of dollars they have, they'd've done it by now.

2) He makes the obvious correlation that ever since Reagan was in office, the percentage of taxes paid per family has dropped, and we have pretty much run deficits ever since that time.

Read the entire article here.

Romney's Swiss Bank Account

On Monday, President Barack Obama's campaign held a conference call discussing their push for higher taxes on millionaires, and the discussion quickly turned to Obama's presumptive opponent in the general election, Mitt Romney, and his Swiss Bank account.

The conference call held between Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina, Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Ill), and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), revolved around discussion of the 'Buffett Rule,' a law the Senate plans to bring up for a vote on April 15th, tax day. The 'Buffett Rule' seeks to raise revenue in order to reduce the deficit by closing tax loopholes that unproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans and help to ensure every American is paying their fair share. Income inequality in America is at an all-time high, where the richest 1% of Americans own over 40% of the total wealth of the nation (a figure unseen since right before The Great Depression), continue to slowly siphon wealth from the middle- and lower-classes, while the lower classes are increasingly squeezed by rising food and gas prices as well as budget cuts at the state and federal level.

And Mitt Romney seems to be the ideal poster-child for this widening income gap in America. Besides a majority of Americans supporting increased taxes on the rich, Romney has embraced Paul Ryan's "marvelous" budget presented by the House last week. Romney paid less than 15% in federal taxes over the last two years, despite making millions of dollars. He worked for Bain Capital, a venture capital firm notorious for buying struggling companies, laying off workers and selling the company for enormous profits while leaving them shackled in debt. Now, the Obama campaign wants to focus their attacks on Romney's overseas accounts, asking 'Why do you have a Swiss Bank account?'

I think Warren Buffett's response best captures the essence of the inquiry. Durbin asked the billionaire investor if he had a Swiss Bank account. Buffett simply responded, "No, there are plenty of good banks in the United States."