GOP 2012 = Grand Oil Party & Tax Breaks For Super Rich!!

Continuing To Give Gigantic Unnecessary Tax Breaks To Big Oil Companies Is Why The GOP Wants Pres. Obama Out Of Office!

That & To Keep Receiving Their BIG Checks From Oil Company Lobbyists.

Can You Say Gas Price Gouging??

VOTE OBAMA IN 2012!!




Big Oil's $4 billion tax break in doubt

President Obama repeated his call Tuesday for an end to $4 billion in oil industry tax breaks as gas prices approach $4 a gallon and after a top lawmaker indicated a possible shift in Republican policy.

In a letter to congressional leaders, the president said the oil industry is profitable enough without the tax incentives and that the money should be spent on alternative energy sources and conservation.

"CEOs of the major oil companies have made it clear that high oil prices provide more than enough profit motive to invest in domestic production without special tax breaks," said Obama. "As we work together to reduce our deficits, we simply can't afford these wasteful subsidies."

This week those profits are going to be front and center. BP (BP) is expected to report earnings on Wednesday. Exxon (XOM, Fortune 500) is slated to announce its results on Thursday. Some analysts expect the company's profits to jump 50% from last year. Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500) is scheduled to make its earnings announcement on Friday.

The oil industry and many of its supporters in Congress have long argued that the tax breaks encourage domestic oil production and provide jobs for millions of Americans. Republicans in particular have resisted efforts to eliminate these tax breaks, something many Democrats have been trying to do since at least 2008.

But on Monday night, Speaker of the House John Boehner indicated he might be open to taking some of those breaks off the table.

Drill baby drill won't lower gas prices
"I don't think the big oil companies need to have the oil depletion allowances, but for small, independent oil and gas producers, if they didn't have this, there'd be even less exploration in America than there is today," Boehner said on ABC's World News Tonight. "It's certainly something we need to be looking at."

Depletion allowances let oil companies treat the oil in the ground as capital equipment, and they can write off a certain percentage for each barrel that comes out.

On Tuesday the speaker appeared to backtrack from those comments, with an aid telling CNN that "what the President has suggested so far would simply raise taxes and increase the price at the pump."

Nonetheless, Obama took the chance to pounce, saying in his letter that he was "heartened that Speaker Boehner yesterday expressed openness to eliminating these tax subsidies."

This all comes as the price of gasoline surges above $4 a gallon in many states, making it increasingly difficult politically to defend Big Oil.

As gas prices approach their record highs set in 2008 they are threatening to derail the nation's nascent economic recovery.

The tax breaks in question
The Obama administration is targeting nine tax breaks, according to a paper from the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Four account for the lion's share of the money:

Domestic manufacturing tax deduction: This is the largest single tax break, and would save over $1.7 billion a year if eliminated.

The tax deduction, passed in 2004, is designed to keep factories in the United States. Companies that manufacture here can deduct 9% of their income from operations that are attributed to domestic production.

But some question if that incentive is really appropriate for oil companies. "What are they going to do, move the oil field to the North Sea," said one staffer at the Center for American Progress said in an interview earlier this year.

No, but higher costs in the United States may make them move the drill rigs to the North Sea or some other place.

Eliminating the tax breaks "would actually discourage new energy projects and new hiring in one of the nation's most dependable job-creating industries," the American Petroleum Institute said in a statement at the time, noting the industry currently supports over 9 million jobs.

The percentage depletion allowance: This lets oil companies deduct about 15% of the money generated from a well from its taxes. Eliminating it would save about $1 billion a year.

The deduction essentially lets oil companies treat oil in the ground as capital equipment. For any industry, the value of that equipment can be written down each year.

But critics say oil in the ground is not capital equipment, but a national resource that the oil companies are simply using for their own profit.

The foreign tax credit: This provision gives companies a credit for any taxes they pay to other countries. Altering this tax credit would save about $850 million a year.

Foreign governments can collect money from oil companies through royalties -- fees for depleting their national resources -- and income taxes.

A royalty would be deducted as a cost of doing business, and would likely shave about 30% off a company's tax bill. Categorized as income tax, it is 100% deductible.

Foreign governments long ago grew wise to the U.S. tax code. To reduce costs for everyone involved and attract business, they agreed to call some royalties income taxes, allowing oil companies to take the 100% deduction on a bigger slice of their bill.

Intangible drilling costs: This lets the industry write off about $780 million a year for things like wages, fuel, repairs and hauling costs.

All industries get to write off the costs of doing business, but they must take it over the life of an investment. The oil industry gets to take the drilling credit in the first year.


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps

GOP Is Screwed In 2012! Eleven Important Questions!!

Here Are 11 Extremely Important Questions For GOP Lawmakers As It Relates To The 2012 Elections:

1) Where Are ALL Those Jobs Your Party Promised To Bring Back To America From Overseas After Winning Last November's Elections??

2) Why Do You Want To Kill Medicare, Thus Killing Off Elderly Americans & Hurting Many Senior Citizens?

3) Why Are You Opposed To Raising Taxes On Millionaires & Billionaires When Those SAME Millionaires & Billionaires Are Sending American Jobs Overseas While Benefiting From Huge Tax Breaks??

4) Why Do You STILL Want To Give Huge Tax Subsidies To Oil Companies?

5) Why Are You Engaging In Gas Price Gouging For Political Gain??

6) Why Are You Engaging In Such Ugly Racist, Divisive Behavior Prior To The 2012 Elections?

7) Why Do You Want To Kill Pell Grants Thus Hindering The Education Of Millions Of Black & Hispanic College Students??

8) Who Is The GOP's 2012 Presidential Race Frontrunner??

9) Did You Fire Michael Steele Because He Was Black? Why Does The GOP Appear To Hate Black People & Other People Of Color?? What Have We Done Wrong To Your Party??

10) Why Is Your Party Intentionally Choosing NOT To Raise The Debt Ceiling When You Did It So Nicely (Without Drama) When Pres. George W. Bush Was Still In Office??

11) Why Does The GOP Hate Labor Unions & Workers' Rights?? Is It Because The GOP Is For Paying American Workers Lower Wages And Providing Them With Little To No Benefits??

Inquiring Minds Would Like To Know.

As President Obama Said Today "We've Got Better Stuff To Do."

You're Screwed Dudes!!

VOTE OBAMA IN 2012!!!!!!

Sources: CNN

Obama's 2012 Budget Evenly Distributes America's Wealth (Videos)

"If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples, so that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay."

"But “The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, as least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted."

"One of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement, was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that."

Barack Obama












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Sources: CNN, Fox News, Youtube, Google Maps

No Tax Liability For The Rich! No American Jobs Either!

I Have Just One Question To Ask America's Wealthiest Citizens & The CEOs Of Major U.S. Corporations:

Since You Guys (& Ladies) Are Obviously Receiving The Absolutely BEST Tax Breaks That Anyone Could Ever Desire, Why In The Heck Are You Continuing To Send American Jobs Overseas To Places Like India, Thailand, China, Japan, Indonesia, South America, etc., For Cheap Labor??

Inquiring Minds Demand An Answer!

NOW!!!

Decision 2012!





Super-Rich have seen their Tax Liability tumble


As millions of procrastinators scramble to meet Monday's tax filing deadline, ponder this: The super rich pay a lot less taxes than they did a couple of decades ago, and nearly half of U.S. households pay no income taxes at all.

The Internal Revenue Service tracks the tax returns with the 400 highest adjusted gross incomes each year. The average income on those returns in 2007, the latest year for IRS data, was nearly $345 million. Their average federal income tax rate was 17 percent, down from 26 percent in 1992.

Over the same period, the average federal income tax rate for all taxpayers declined to 9.3 percent from 9.9 percent.

The top income tax rate is 35 percent, so how can people who make so much pay so little in taxes? The nation's tax laws are packed with breaks for people at every income level. There are breaks for having children, paying a mortgage, going to college, and even for paying other taxes. Plus, the top rate on capital gains is 15 percent.

There are so many breaks that 45 percent of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax for 2010, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

"It's the fact that we are using the tax code both to collect revenue, which is its primary purpose, and to deliver these spending benefits that we run into the situation where so many people are paying no taxes," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the center, which generated the estimate of people who pay no income taxes.

The sheer volume of credits, deductions and exemptions has both Democrats and Republicans calling for tax laws to be overhauled. House Republicans want to eliminate breaks to pay for lower overall rates, reducing the top tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Republicans oppose raising taxes, but they argue that a more efficient tax code would increase economic activity, generating additional tax revenue.

President Barack Obama said last week he wants to do away with tax breaks to lower the rates and to reduce government borrowing. Obama's proposal would result in $1 trillion in tax increases over the next 12 years. Neither proposal included many details, putting off hard choices about which tax breaks to eliminate.

In all, the tax code is filled with a total of $1.1 trillion in credits, deductions and exemptions, an average of about $8,000 per taxpayer, according to an analysis by the National Taxpayer Advocate, an independent watchdog within the IRS.

More than half of the nation's tax revenue came from the top 10 percent of earners in 2007. More than 44 percent came from the top 5 percent. Still, the wealthy have access to much more lucrative tax breaks than people with lower incomes.

More than half of the nation's tax revenue came from the top 10 percent of earners in 2007. More than 44 percent came from the top 5 percent. Still, the wealthy have access to much more lucrative tax breaks than people with lower incomes.

Obama wants the wealthy to pay so "the amount of taxes you pay isn't determined by what kind of accountant you can afford."

Eric Schoenberg says to sign him up for paying higher taxes. Schoenberg, who inherited money and has a healthy portfolio from his days as an investment banker, has joined a group of other wealthy Americans called United for a Fair Economy. Their goal: Raise taxes on rich people like themselves.

Shoenberg, who now teaches a business class at Columbia University, said his income is usually "north of half a million a year." But 2009 was a bad year for investments, so his income dropped to a little over $200,000. His federal income tax bill was a little more than $2,000.

"I simply point out to people, 'Do you think this is reasonable, that somebody in my circumstances should only be paying 1 percent of their income in tax?'" Schoenberg said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said he has a solution for rich people who want to pay more in taxes: Write a check to the IRS. There's nothing stopping you.

"There's still time before the filing deadline for them to give Uncle Sam some more money," Hatch said.

Schoenberg said Hatch's suggestion misses the point.

"This voluntary idea clearly represents a mindset that basically pretends there's no such things as collective goods that we produce," Schoenberg said. "Are you going to let people volunteer to build the road system? Are you going to let them volunteer to pay for education?"

The law is packed with tax breaks that help narrow special interests. But many of the biggest tax breaks benefit millions of American families at just about every income level, making them difficult for politicians to touch.

The vast majority of those who escape federal income taxes have low and medium incomes, and most of them pay other taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes, property taxes and retail sales taxes.

The share of people paying no federal income tax has dropped slightly the past two years. It was 47 percent for 2009. The main difference for 2010 was the expiration of a tax break that exempted the first $2,400 of unemployment benefits from taxation, Williams said.

In 2009, nearly 35 million taxpayers got a tax break for paying interest on their home mortgages, and nearly 36 million taxpayers took the $1,000-per-child tax credit. About 41 million households reduced their federal income taxes by deducting state and local income and sales taxes from their taxable income.

About 36 million families cut their taxes by nearly $35 billion by deducting charitable donations, and 28 million taxpayers saved a total of $24 billion because their income from Social Security and railroad pensions was untaxed.

"As a matter of policy, there would be a lot of ways to save money and actually make these things work better," said Leonard Burman, a public affairs professor at Syracuse University. "As a matter of politics, it's really, really difficult."


Sources: MSNBC, Young Turks, Youtube

D.C.'s Voting Rights vs Obama: Decision 2012

"No Taxation Without Representation".
Patrick Henry

D.C. voting rights proponents’ faith in Obama sinks


President Obama’s arrival in the White House two years ago inspired unabashed optimism among civic leaders in the District, who had long yearned for an ally to trumpet their quest for statehood and voting rights in Congress.

As the country’s first black president, Obama’s words and biography suggested an innate appreciation for political disenfranchisement. If anyone could understand the plight of a second-class citizenry, it had to be a former community organizer on Chicago’s South Side.

That Obama has not met those expectations is disappointing enough for those who view the District’s status as nothing less than the deprivation of a basic civil right. But their frustration is magnified by who Obama is and what they wanted from an African American president residing in the nation’s most prominent and predominant black city.

“The expectations were very high that, since he had made human rights an important part of his platform, he would speak out for D.C.,” said Philip Pannell, a former member of the D.C. Democratic State Committee and longtime advocate for statehood. “It seems that President Obama’s heart and his conscience are missing in action.”

Obama is no different than his predecessors. No president has rushed to invest political capital in a city that Republicans have mocked as a symbol of urban dysfunction. What benefit could there be in championing the rights of 600,000 residents of a city with a sordid history of crime and political corruption?



Yet what distinguished Obama from his predecessors was the anticipation his arrival generated. In the past week, the same people who saw hope in Obama’s jaunts across the city just before his inauguration — remember that half-smoke he ate at Ben’s Chili Bowl? — have excoriated him for relegating the District to the status of bargaining chip in a broader budget game with House leaders.

“John, I’ll give you D.C. abortion,” Obama reportedly told House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) before reaching a deal, effectively trading away the city’s right to fund abortions for low­income women.

The District’s political leadership was infuriated.

In a city in which Obama won 93 percent of the vote, a D.C. Council member threatened to withhold her support in the next presidential election. The city’s congressional delegate shouted an invective on television. The mayor and six council members were handcuffed in a protest on Constitution Avenue.

After his release, Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) called Obama’s stance on the abortion issue disheartening. “The District should not be a bargaining chip in budget negotiations at the national level,” he said.

A once iron-clad bond was now frayed.

“This is personal,” said Donna Brazile, a Democratic political strategist. “I believe the president is sincere when he says that he believes in D.C. voting rights and home rule. But, as you know, D.C. residents like proof.”

Mark Plotkin, a WTOP political commentator who has made District statehood something of an obsession, said he sees little to distinguish Obama from his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush. Bush angered voting rights advocates by refusing to place the D.C. “Taxation Without Representation” license plate on the presidential limousine. Obama also has not added the plate to his limousine.

“The greatest assault is indifference, and he has the hubris to take us for granted,” Plotkin said of Obama. “He went to Cairo to talk about democracy. He won’t go to Brentwood or Deanwood. He has not made one utterance about D.C. to D.C. in D.C.”

Asked about Obama’s relationship with the District, Hannah August, a White House spokeswoman, said: “Given the severe impact of a government shutdown on the Washington, D.C., economy, the president is confident that the budget agreement that he reached with congressional Republicans is not just in the best interests of the American people, but also the best interests of District residents.”

In North Michigan Park, among the city’s most politically active neighborhoods, the feeling is the budget compromise left the District in a “bad position,” said Ernest Harris, a retired federal employee.

“I didn’t expect him to just be able to do everything that we might want him to do. I understood that he wasn’t just the black president,” said Harris, 74. “But in terms of D.C., he’s throwing us under the bus. He caved too easily. He should have stood up. I know statehood and full representation is a long way off, but he’s taking us for granted. And he can’t do that anymore. . . . I’m not sure if I’m going to vote for him again over this.”

Shaky relationship

Presidents have long had a tenuous relationship with their host city. Richard M. Nixon ventured into the District in the early days of his first term, when he went to inspect the remnants of the 1968 riots along Seventh Street NW. Bill Clinton, as president-elect, went for a stroll along Georgia Avenue and then spent most of his next eight years here inside the White House. For a rare night on the town, George W. Bush preferred a Mexican restaurant in Virginia.

Beyond the marbled monuments, the District has not always provided an illustrious backdrop, whether it was when Marion Barry was caught smoking crack on videotape or when the city’s homicide rate earned it the title “Murder Capital,” or when the government fell into bankruptcy and Congress ordered its spending monitored by a financial control board.

Even as memories linger, the District is not the same city it was a generation ago. Since moving to the White House, Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have gone about town, whether to their daughter’s soccer games or to eat in restaurants or visit public schools.

The president has expressed support for the District’s cause, his strongest statement uttered as a Democratic candidate when he said, “Residents of Washington, D.C., shouldn’t be treated as tenants, fortunate enough to share the same space as our government.”

Obama was more cautious after his victory, describing himself as a “strong proponent” of voting rights even as he added that “this takes on a partisan flavor, and, you know, right now I think our legislative agenda is chock- full.”

A year ago, while commemorating D.C. Emancipation Day, Obama issued a statement that said in part: “I urge Congress to finally pass legislation that provides D.C. residents with voting representation and to take steps to improve the Home Rule Charter.”

That’s not enough for Robert Jenifer, 76, a Brookland resident who said he thinks that the District’s overwhelming support of Obama has not paid any dividends.

“He probably looks at the District and sees us as automatically supporting him because he’s our first black president,” Jenifer said. “But if you look, on many things, he doesn’t seem like he’s for us. So you have to look at it like your wife says to you: ‘What have you done for me lately?’ ”

A high demand

If D.C. civic leaders want more from Obama, they might be setting a demand that’s impossible to meet in this highly partisan town and for a president managing a full slate of national and international affairs, including two wars.

Even when Democrats held the White House and majorities in the House and Senate, advocates for the District were unable to advance their voting rights agenda.

“Nothing runs more deeply in American ideals than the promise of self-government and voting rights,” said American University law professor Jamie B. Raskin, a Maryland state senator from Montgomery County. “But nothing runs more deeply in American politics than the idea of keeping some people from voting and participating.”

What might be required to enact change, Raskin said, is a “mass movement of protest to test the conscience of the nation. It’s clear that President Obama does not intend to be the personal leader of a liberation struggle. He’s dealing with multiple crises. . . . This is not a crisis until the people of Washington make it one.”

Yet, Raskin added, the city’s traditional role and demographics “make it tricky.” While longtime residents make up a sizable portion of the population, many are transients, as has been the case since the District was established as the nation’s capital.

That complicated reality hasn’t stopped the District’s quest for autonomy, which reached a historic milestone in the early 1970s with Congress’s enactment of home rule. D.C. voters could choose their mayor and council, but the District could not enact a budget or other significant legislation without congressional review.

The quest for self-determination endures. A voting rights proposal died in Congress two years ago when Republicans made its passage contingent on repealing the city’s gun-control laws.

“Historically, it’s not an easy road, regardless of who’s in the White House,” said Douglas Patton, a former D.C. deputy mayor. “It’s just the history of presidents. Not second-class citizens.”




Eleanor Holmes Norton says budget deal shows D.C. must fight to stay self-governing

Last week was a tough one for the District of Columbia. Had the federal government shut down, city services such as trash collection would have been disrupted. But even with the short-term budget agreement reached late Friday, the city’s self-governing authority remains at risk. Imbedded in last week’s spending bill were riders specifically aimed at curtailing the District government.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s non-voting representative in Congress, spoke Sunday about the developments.

Q: You’ve said you heard from media reports about the riders. What was your first reaction?

A: Each of the [previous] short-term continuing resolutions had no riders and we were relieved. The last Republican continuing resolution has two riders, both are apparently in this final bill, although no one has seen the bill. One kept the District from spending its own local funds on abortions for low-income women. The only other rider [allowing funding for controversial school vouchers] offended us by seeming to pair us with a prohibition against bringing Guantanamo prisoners to the United States. We could not help but resent the pairing. No elected official in the District of Columbia was consulted about the D.C. vouchers. There were some rumors about the needle-exchange program. I have specifically inquired and gotten no clarification.

What did you do next?

I had been in touch with the administration and the Senate leadership all along because of two fears, the fear of the riders and the fear that shutting down the federal government would shut down the D.C. government.

Is there any chance that this can be reversed?

I am going to try my level best to reverse or mitigate any of this as much as possible. Without seeing the language in the bill it is impossible to know. Converting something into language really tells you what the deal is.

Is this fight over the fiscal 2011 budget just the warm-up?

The Republicans extracted considerably more in cuts than either the administration or the Senate indicated was acceptable. That is one reason why they should have been able to hold the line on riders affecting the District, if our own Democrats gave us any priorities in these negotiations.

Having given the Republicans more than I am sure any Democrat in the House ever envisioned, it was surely unnecessary to pile on the District of Columbia and give them some frosting on what was already a very big cake. All along they said it is about “spending, spending, spending.” How does the District of Columbia get into that equation?

What affect does this have on hopes for statehood, which were so high after the 2008 elections?

No one with any sense of what is happening would focus on our ultimate goals of voting rights or statehood because of the danger since the Republicans took power in January and their actions, which have been directed like a sword against the District’s home-rule authority. We are in a fight. The fight now that needs to engage every elected officials and resident is to keep our city from suffering the insult of a rollback of the self-governing of the city itself.


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Sources: Colbert Nation, Comedy Central, Fox News, Washington Post, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama's 2012 Campaign Slogan: "Bring It!" (Open Mic Speech)

Pres. Obama To GOP April 2011: "If You Think You Can Overturn My Veto, Try It!"

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Obama on GOP: 'You want to repeal health care? Go at it'



President Barack Obama gave blunt details of private budget talks with Republicans last week that averted a government shutdown, saying he challenged them to try to repeal his signature healthcare policy.

Obama spoke at length about the private conversations in one of three political fundraisers for his re-election campaign on Thursday night.

His candid remarks came after the White House press pool had been escorted from the room. The comments were accidentally piped back to the White House and recorded by CBS News and ABC News.

Obama said he firmly rejected Republican attempts to repeal parts of his health care overhaul in the budget bill that was eventually approved after anguished negotiations last week.


'You think we're stupid?'

The president said a staffer for the top Republican, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, said Republicans had made concessions and wanted a concession from Democrats.

"And I said to them, let me tell you something: 'I spent a year and a half getting health care passed. I had to take that issue across the country and I paid significant political costs to get it done," he said.

"The notion that I'm going to let you guys undo that in a six-month spending bill?' I said, 'You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?'"

Obama predicted the same strategy from Republicans would reappear in negotiations over raising the U.S. debt limit.

"This is going to be the strategy going forward — trying to do things they can do legislatively under the guise of cutting spending," he said.

'If you think you can overturn my veto, try it'

Obama, who had publicly praised Republicans once a budget deal was reached last Friday to avoid a shutdown, also spoke harshly of Republican efforts to use the budget legislation to defund the family planning organization Planned Parenthood because it also provides abortions.

Obama said he told Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell that they should not try to "sneak this through."

"'You guys want to have this debate? We're happy to have that debate. We will have the debate on the floor of the Senate or the floor of the House. Put it in a separate bill. We'll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it,'" he said.

Asked for reaction, Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said: "The speaker believes his private conversations with the president should remain private. Obviously, if the president chooses to share a self-serving version with campaign donors, that is his prerogative."








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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Taxation For America's Wealthiest Citizens? YES! (Fix Tax Code)

Yes! Its High Time That America's Wealthiest Citizens Finally Be Required To Pay Their FAIR SHARE Of Taxes And For The Obama Administration To Stop Promising To Fix Our Corrupt, Unfair Tax Code System & Just DO IT!!



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Raise America’s Taxes


President Obama in his speech on Wednesday confronted a topic that is harder to address seriously in public than sex or flatulence: America needs higher taxes.

That ugly truth looms over today’s budget battles, but politicians have mostly preferred to run from reality. Mr. Obama’s speech was excellent not only for its content but also because he didn’t insult our intelligence.

There is no single reason for today’s budget mess, but it’s worth remembering that the last time our budget was in the black was in the Clinton administration. That’s a broad hint that one sensible way to overcome our difficulties would be to revert to tax rates more or less as they were under President Clinton. That single step would solve three-quarters of the deficit for the next five years or so.

Paradoxically, nothing makes the need for a tax increase more clear than the Republican budget proposal crafted by Representative Paul Ryan. The Republicans propose slashing spending far more than the public would probably accept — even dismantling Medicare — and rely on economic assumptions that are not merely rosy, but preposterous.

Yet even so, the Republican plan shows continuing budget deficits until the 2030s. In short, we can’t plausibly slash our way back to solid fiscal ground. We need more revenue.

Kudos to Mr. Obama for boldly stating that truth in his speech — even if he did focus only on taxes for the very wealthiest. I also thought he was right to say that we need spending cuts — including in our defense budget. Mr. Obama didn’t say so, but the United States accounts for almost as much military spending as the entire rest of the world put together.

As I see it, there are three fallacies common in today’s budget discussions:

• Republicans are the party of responsible financial stewardship, struggling to put America on a sound footing.

In truth, both parties have been wildly irresponsible, but in cycles. Democrats were more irresponsible in the 1960s, the two parties both seemed care-free in the ’70s and ’80s, and since then the Republicans have been staggeringly reckless.

After the Clinton administration began paying down America’s debt, Republicans passed the Bush tax cuts, waded into a trillion-dollar war in Iraq, and approved an unfunded prescription medicine benefit — all by borrowing from China. Then-Vice President Dick Cheney scoffed that “deficits don’t matter.”

This borrow-and-spend Republican history makes it galling when Republicans now assert that deficits are the only thing that matter — and call for drastic spending cuts, two-thirds of which would harm low-income and moderate-income Americans, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. To pay for tax cuts heaped largely on the wealthiest Americans, Republicans in effect would gut Medicare and slash jobs programs, family planning and college scholarships. Instead of spreading opportunity, federal policy would cap it.

• Low tax rates are essential to create incentives for economic growth: a tax increase would stifle the economy.

It’s true that, in general, higher taxes tend to reduce incentives. But this seems a weak effect, often overwhelmed by other factors.

Were Americans really lazier in the 1950s, when marginal tax rates peaked at more than 90 percent? Are people in high-tax states like Massachusetts more lackadaisical than folks in a state like Florida that has no personal income tax at all?

Tax increases can also send a message of prudence that stimulates economic growth. The Clinton tax increase of 1993 was followed by a golden period of high growth, while the Bush tax cuts were followed by an anemic economy.

• We can’t afford Medicare.

It’s true that America faces a basic problem with rapidly rising health care costs. But the Republican plan does nothing serious to address health care spending, other than stop paying bills. Indeed, Medicare is cheaper to administer than private health insurance (2 percent to 6 percent administrative costs, depending on who does the math, compared with about 12 percent for private plans). So the Republican plan might add to health care spending rather than curb it.

The real challenge is to control health care inflation. Nobody is certain how to do that, but the Obama health care law is testing some plausible ideas. These include rigorous research on which procedures work and which don’t. Why pay for surgery on enlarged prostates if certain kinds of patients turn out to be better with no treatment at all?

Ever since Walter Mondale publicly committed hara-kiri in 1984 by telling voters that he would raise their taxes, politicians have run from fiscal reality. As baby boomers age and require Social Security and Medicare, escapism will no longer suffice. We need to have a frank national discussion of painful steps ahead, and since I’m not a politician, let me be perfectly clear: raise my taxes! 


Sources: NY Times, Wikipdedia, Youtube

Obama Mirrors Bill Clinton's Budget Plan To Reduce Deficit (Tax Super Rich!)

Since They're Obviously NOT Creating American Jobs Anyway(Just Sending Them Overseas For Cheap Labor), To Require Our Nation's Wealthiest Citizens To Pay Taxes Or Higher Taxes Is A 2012 Campaign Move Pres. Obama Has Borrowed Straight Out Of Bill Clinton's 1990s Political Playbook.

Now Its Time For The Obama Administration To Revise The United States' Current, Extremely Corrupt Tax Code.

Checkmate!!

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Deficit/debt dilemma is way uglier than in the 90s


We've seen this storyline before: In a nation drowning in red ink, a political movement is born that the powerful cannot ignore. There are tough choices, tougher actions and, finally, a happy ending. It's happened before ... but can it happen again?

In 1992, Ross Perot — a maverick candidate who’d never held public office — soared to fame by sounding the alarm over federal deficits and the national debt.

“We have so mismanaged our country over the years, and it is now time to pay the fiddler,” he said in his first presidential debate with Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

“Nobody steps up to the plate and accepts responsibility for anything — including the $4 trillion debt,” he griped in one of his 1992 TV infomercials.

Seemingly overnight, a new political party was born. Perot won nearly one-fifth of the popular vote, the best showing by a third party presidential candidate since Theodore Roosevelt ran in 1912. By making the deficit and debt defining campaign issues, Perot helped feed the public appetite for a deficit reduction plan, which Congress enacted in 1993.

As he took office, Clinton faced a forecast from the Congressional Budget Office that the deficit in 1998 would be 4.5 percent of gross domestic product.

But in the end, it was just 0.3 percent of GDP, and on the day Clinton left the White House, the government was running a surplus.

So, how did that deficit reduction happen? And why does today’s deficit dilemma seem so much tougher to solve?

The elements of this 90s success story included:

Increased productivity
Bipartisan tax increases
Soaring revenues
Relatively inexpensive military operations
No bailouts

Consider productivity first because many analysts see that as the primary factor in the boom.

Economists Ellen McGrattan and Edward Prescott, explaining what they call the “puzzling” boom of the 90s, cite “abnormally high” levels of “intangible investment” (investment not measured in the GDP data), such as investments in research and development and advertising.

Some of this investment was “sweat-equity financed by worker-owners” who put their time and effort into their firms, forgoing higher pay, but reaping profits when they sold their businesses.

Looking back on the 90s from the vantage point of 2003, Robert Rubin, who’d served as Clinton’s economic advisor and then as Treasury secretary, saw productivity growth as the elixir. “Productivity increases work wonders on an economy, allowing faster growth without inflation,” he said.

Between 1990 and 2000, investment in business equipment and software increased at an average rate of more than 10 percent a year in real terms.

This helped labor productivity increase in the late 90s at a pace nearly twice as fast as productivity had grown between 1975 and 1995, according to economists Douglas Elmendorf (now CBO director), Jeffrey Liebman and David Wilcox, all of whom served in the Clinton administration.

“In my view, a critical factor in the return of productivity growth was the restoration of sound fiscal policy,” Rubin said in his memoirs.

Bipartisan tax increases

Bush lost the 1992 presidential election partly because he angered Republican voters by breaking his 1988 “read my lips” pledge and signing the 1990 tax increase into law.

Bush did Clinton a favor by signing that bill: it cut the deficit by nearly $500 billion over five years, helping put budgets on a trajectory toward smaller deficits.

According to Elmendorf, Liebman and Wilcox, “This accomplishment had an important effect on the fiscal outcomes of the 1990s and on the fiscal situation faced by the incoming Clinton administration several years later.”

Clinton then signed the 1993 tax increase, which according to Rubin, helped convince financial markets that the government was getting its finances in order.

The 1993 tax bill raised the top income tax rate from 31 percent to 39.6 percent, raised the gasoline tax by 4.3 cents per gallon, and imposed other tax increases.

“In important ways the deficit had become a symbol of the government’s inability to manage its own affairs,” he said. In 1992, purchasers of Treasury bonds, Rubin said, were demanding a higher return based on the risk that “our political system would attempt to shrink the real value of the debt through inflation.”

After 1993, he said, “the view that fiscal discipline was being restored contributed to lower interest rates and increased confidence and that led to more spending and investment, which in turn led to job creation, lower unemployment rates, and increased productivity.”

But Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who served as the chairman of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, disputes Rubin’s view. Deficit reduction didn’t cause the recovery of the 1990s, Stiglitz said in 2003.

Interest rates “were falling even before Clinton became president,” he said, adding that technological innovations and globalization “were proceeding before Clinton took office.” He said, “it was these real changes in the economy, combined with restrained wage growth” that led to the boom of the 90s, not restored investor confidence from deficit cutting.

Increasing tax revenue — even with no tax increases
Elmendorf, Liebman and Wilcox note that individual income tax revenue rose from 8.1 percent of GDP in 1995 to 10.2 percent in 2000, even though no significant tax increases were enacted between those years.

In fact, taxes were cut by $95 billion as part of the 1997 budget accord between Clinton and House Republicans.

From 1995 to 2000, federal revenues grew at an average rate of 9 percent a year — far faster the economy itself was growing. The CBO said in 2000 this was partly due to an increase in the share of income received by people in the highest tax brackets and a surge in capital gains income from the exuberant stock market of the late 1990's.

Meanwhile, Republican majorities in Congress were able to hold partly in check Democrats’ desire for more spending.

The peace dividend

Freed from the pressures of the Cold War, Clinton’s presidency featured what were, by today’s standards, relatively inexpensive military operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti.

Military spending dropped from 24 percent of total federal spending in 1990 to 16 percent in 2000; in dollar terms, military outlays were nearly $5 billion lower in 2000 than they had been ten years earlier.

And a final factor: no bailouts.

George H. W. Bush’s budgets were burdened with the $124 billion cost of the bailout of the savings and loan industry. That helped drive up deficits in his presidency, but the bailout was mostly done by the time Clinton succeeded Bush.

Why does today’s deficit dilemma seem so much worse than what the elder Bush and Clinton had to face?

Partly because it really is so much worse: the deficit in fiscal year 2010 was nearly 10 percent of GDP, way bigger than any president since Harry Truman has faced. Likewise the federal debt has hit levels not seen since right after World War II.

A different kind of crisis today

What makes today's debt problem different from the 90s is the aftermath of the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. It has slammed the budget in two ways: First, high unemployment and loss of wealth caused a staggering collapse in tax revenues. According to CBO, revenues in fiscal year 2010 were “16 percent below the peak amount reached in fiscal year 2007” and revenues in both 2009 and 2010 were 14.9 percent of GDP, the lowest level since Truman was president.

And the recession led Congress to spend vast amounts on aid to banks, home buyers, the unemployed, and those without health insurance. Spending soared to 25 percent of GDP in 2009, the highest level since 1946.

Although some of the costs of the Troubled Asset Relief Program were recouped, the debt incurred to pay for TARP still had to be serviced.

And as both CBO analysts and economists at Wall Street firm J.P. Morgan have warned, the cost of servicing the debt is relatively low right now due to abnormally low interest rates. But Morgan said in its analysis, “government borrowing rates will most likely be moving higher in coming years, reversing a 15-year downtrend.”

This will “add further pressure for greater fiscal consolidation” — that is, tax increases and curbs on growth in spending — “to control the rise in debt stemming from higher interest costs.”

The cost of war: about $1.2 trillion

And unlike the Clinton era, war since Sept. 11, 2001 has been extremely expensive. CBO estimated the combined cost of Afghanistan and Iraq operations at about $1.2 trillion from 2001 to 2011.

And the pressure on budgets comes not just from hundreds of billions of dollars for F-22 fighters and Predator drones, but from the increased cost of soldiers and other military personnel.

Due to pay increases and higher housing allowances, the cost of an active-duty military service member increased by 45 percent, in inflation-adjusted terms between 1998 and 2009, Congressional Research Service analyst Stephen Daggett told Congress in 2009.

This doesn’t include the increases in TRICARE, the military’s health care plan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that military health care costs are "eating us alive."

Military spending jumped from 16 of total outlays in 2000 to 20 percent of total outlays in 2010; if you add spending on homeland security, it adds up to 24 percent of total outlays.

Tax cuts and demographics

At the same time, the lower tax rates of 2001 and 2003 reduced revenues. Syracuse University economist Len Burman estimated that if the 2001/2003 George W. Bush-era tax cuts hadn’t been enacted, federal debt by the end of 2009 would have been reduced by almost a third.

But above all, what makes 2011 fiscally uglier than 1993 are demographics.

The large cohorts born in the late 1940s and 1950s are reaching the age when they’re eligible for the benefit of younger taxpayers paying many of their bills, especially for medical care.

The giant income transfer systems known as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are taking money from relatively fewer workers to pay for more and more retirees. The ratio of workers to beneficiaries was 3.3 workers for every beneficiary during the Clinton era. It’s sinking to 2-to-1 by 2030.

The deficit/debt debate of 2011 is focused on the next several decades, not on achieving one brief shining moment of a balanced budget.

As the CBO said last year, “Looking beyond the next decade, the fiscal outlook worsens further ...” To pay for benefits promised to Baby Boomers, “federal revenues would increase to significantly higher levels under current law than have ever been seen in the United States, but they would still fall short of spending ...”


Sources: MSNBC, TIME, Youtube

Obama Vs. Paul Ryan & Taxation On Billionaires (Its About Time!)

I Was Extremely Pleased With President Obama's Speech Last Night On Improving Our Nation's Fiscal Situation, As Were Many Of His Base Constituents. Especially The Part About Making Super Wealthy Citizens Pay Their Fair Share Of Taxation Versus Paying NOTHING Such As Most Of Them Are Paying Now. Thank You President Obama!

Its About Time Pres. Obama Finally Stood Up To His GOP Counterparts In Congress. For Too Long After His Election He Has Bowed Down To White, Republican Leaders As If He Were A Butler Or Servant. Telling Congressman Paul Ryan To His Face That He Does In Fact Plan To Raise Taxes On The Super Rich, Was A Bold Political Move That Won My Approval.

VOTE OBAMA IN 2012!!






What Paul Ryan Didn't Tell You Is That His Plan Is A Growth Killer

Republican Paul Ryan's plan to cut the deficit, which debuted last week, claimed it would cut government spending and drive U.S. growth. In fact, he described his plan as, "Each and every reform in this budget is advanced with a clear focus on economic growth and job creation." More specifically, Ryan said his plan "Spurs economic growth, increasing real GDP by $1.5 trillion over the decade."

But the result of the plan's implementation couldn't be more anti-growth, according to research from Societe Generale analyst Rudy Narvas.

If we use the Debt Commission proposal as the template for the Obama plan and assume the budget is balanced through general spending from 2011 to 2020, the average annual hit to GDP could range between 0.9pp to 3.0pp.

The Republican plan which looks for steeper spending cuts would have an impact of somewhere between 1pp to 3.6pp. The analysis does not take into account the potential hit to GDP from the revenue side of the Fiscal Commission report which would likely result in a further drag to GDP. In our forecasts for the US economy, we did not take into account any austerity measures by the US federal government. If any plan is passed that has a similar deficit reduction trajectory of the two plans, we may have to adjust our GDP forecast down for 2012 and beyond.

Similarly, the deficit commission's proposal would also have a negative impact on GDP growth, at about the same rate as the Republican proposal, according to Narvas.

This visualization certainly backs up Larry Summers comments on the UK's austerity plans, that a cuts for growth strategy was "oxymoronic."

More worrying even is that a decline in GDP growth is likely to lead to a decline in tax revenue, which would add to the deficit.


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Sources: Business Insider, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Tax Cuts For The Rich Needs To End In 2012! Tax Reform

For Decades Both Federal & State Lawmakers (Democrats & Republicans) Have Been Spinning This Same LIE That Tax Cuts Allows America's Wealthiest Citizens To Create Jobs In This Country. LIARS!! More Than 50% Of Jobs Created By Most Big Companies Are Sent Overseas For Cheap Labor.

So The Super Rich Are Receiving HUGE Legal Tax Breaks & Investing Their Money Into Cheap Labor In Foreign Countries.

But If We Don't Pay Our Taxes We Go To JAIL!!

Aren't You Tired Of Paying The IRS Taxes That The Super Wealthy Should be Paying??

Can You Say "TAX REFORM"!!








The Tax-Cut Racket


“Nice middle class you got here,” said Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader. “It would be a shame if something happened to it.”


O.K., he didn’t actually say that. But he might as well have, because that’s what the current confrontation over taxes amounts to. Mr. McConnell, who was self-righteously denouncing the budget deficit just the other day, now wants to blow that deficit up with big tax cuts for the rich. But he doesn’t have the votes. So he’s trying to get what he wants by pointing a gun at the heads of middle-class families, threatening to force a jump in their taxes unless he gets paid off with hugely expensive tax breaks for the wealthy.

Most discussion of the tax fight focuses either on the economics or on the politics — both of which suggest that Democrats should hang tough, for their own sakes as well as that of the country. But there’s an even bigger issue here — namely, the question of what constitutes acceptable behavior in American political life. Politics ain’t beanbag, but there’s a difference between playing hardball and engaging in outright extortion, which is what Mr. McConnell is now doing. And if he succeeds, it will set a disastrous precedent.

How did we get to this point? The proximate answer lies in the tactics the Bush administration used to push through tax cuts. The deeper answer lies in the radicalization of the Republican Party, its transformation into a movement willing to put the economy and the nation at risk for the sake of partisan victory.

So, about those tax cuts: back in 2001, the Bush administration bundled huge tax cuts for wealthy Americans with much smaller tax cuts for the middle class, then pretended that it was mainly offering tax breaks to ordinary families. Meanwhile, it circumvented Senate rules intended to prevent irresponsible fiscal actions — rules that would have forced it to find spending cuts to offset its $1.3 trillion tax cut — by putting an expiration date of Dec. 31, 2010, on the whole bill. And the witching hour is now upon us. If Congress doesn’t act, the Bush tax cuts will turn into a pumpkin at the end of this year, with tax rates reverting to Clinton-era levels.

In response, President Obama is proposing legislation that would keep tax rates essentially unchanged for 98 percent of Americans but allow rates on the richest 2 percent to rise. But Republicans are threatening to block that legislation, effectively raising taxes on the middle class, unless they get tax breaks for their wealthy friends.

That’s an extraordinary step. Almost everyone agrees that raising taxes on the middle class in the middle of an economic slump is a bad idea, unless the effects are offset by other job-creation programs — and Republicans are blocking those, too. So the G.O.P. is, in effect, threatening to plunge the U.S. economy back into recession unless Democrats pay up.

What kind of political party would engage in that kind of brinksmanship? The answer is the same kind of party that shut down the federal government in 1995 in an attempt to force President Bill Clinton to accept steep cuts in Medicare, and is actively discussing doing the same to Mr. Obama. So, as I said, the deeper explanation of the tax-cut fight is that it’s ultimately about a radicalized Republican Party, which accepts no limits on partisanship.

So should Democrats give in?

On the economics, the answer is a clear no. Right now, fears about budget deficits are overblown — but that doesn’t mean that we should completely ignore deficit concerns. And the G.O.P. plan would add hugely to the deficit — about $700 billion over the next decade — while doing little to help the economy. On any kind of cost-benefit analysis, this is an idea not worth considering.

And, by the way, a compromise solution — temporary tax breaks for the rich — is no better; it would cost less, but it would also do even less for the economy.

On the politics, the answer is also a clear no. Polls show that a majority of Americans are opposed to maintaining tax breaks for the rich. Beyond that, this is no time for Democrats to play it safe: if the midterm election were held today, they would lose badly. They need to highlight their differences with the G.O.P. — and it’s hard to think of a better place for them to take a stand than on the issue of big giveaways to Wall Street and corporate C.E.O.’s.

But what’s even more important is the principle of the thing. Threats to punish innocent bystanders unless your political rivals give you what you want have no legitimate place in democratic politics. Giving in to such threats would be an economic and political mistake, but more important, it would be morally wrong — and it would encourage more such threats in the future.

It’s time for Democrats to take a stand, and say no to G.O.P. blackmail.


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, MSNBC, NY Times, PBS, Young Turks, Youtube, Google Maps

America's Wealthiest Pay ZERO Taxes & Send Jobs Overseas (G.E. & Others)

If You Want To Blame Someone For One Of The Worst Recessions Recently Experienced In This Country, Look No Further Than Our Nation's Most Wealthiest Citizens.

Most Of Whom Pay ZERO Taxes, That's Right ZERO Taxes And.....

Have Sent More Than 50% Of America's Jobs Overseas For Cheap Labor.

Please Understand That I'm NOT Opposed To Anyone Being Extremely Wealthy.

I Just Want The Super Rich To Pay Their FAIR SHARE Of Taxation Versus Allowing Middle Class & Low Income Citizens Pay It For Them!!

I Say Its High Time For Tax Reform In This Nation.

What About You??







While Super-Rich Get Tax-Cut Extension, Middle Class Get Rude Surprise: A Tax Increase


When President Obama signed into law the highly controversial extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, it was thought that a massive across-the-board tax increase had been averted.

For weeks after Republicans took control of the House and increased their numbers in the Senate in the November midterm elections, Obama and congressional Democrats insisted that the Bush tax-cut extension be applied only for low and middle-income taxpayers. But Republicans insisted that the extension be applied to all taxpayers, including the nation's millionaires and billionaires.

Senate Republicans all but shut down the upper chamber, refusing to allow votes on any bills unless and until the Bush tax cuts were extended across the board.

Confronted with the GOP's intransigence -- and facing a massive tax increase at the start of the new year -- the president and congressional Democrats agreed to the Bush tax-cut extension, despite fierce opposition by liberals, including an old-fashioned, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"-style filibuster by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), that lasted for nine hours.

But if you thought that a massive tax increase had been averted, think again. Since the beginning of the new year, millions of middle-class Americans received a rude surprise when they opened their pay envelopes: Their taxes went up anyway.


REPUBLICANS KILL OBAMA TAX CREDIT FOR MIDDLE CLASS

And for that, you can thank a combination of Republican intransigence in Congress, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats' lack of backbone and the mainstream media's dereliction of duty to inform the public.

A little-publicized provision in President Obama's much-publicized American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 -- better known as the federal stimulus package -- provided a two-year, $116 billion "Making Work Pay" payroll tax credit for middle-class taxpayers.

Single taxpayers earning $75,000 a year or less received a $400 tax credit. Couples earning a combined $150,000 a year or less received an $800 tax credit.

While Senate Republicans used their filibuster power to hold all legislation hostage until Obama and the Democrats agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, they adamantly refused to allow any extension of the Obama payroll tax credit for the middle class.

Neither the White House nor congressional Democrats -- having been effectively whipsawed by the Republicans into extending the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich -- were willing to put up a fight to retain the Obama middle-class tax credit.

As a result, the credit expired at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve and the payroll (federal withholding) taxes of millions of middle-class Americans went back up to their 2008 levels, reducing their take-home pay. In many cases, take-home pay went down despite a reduction in middle-class Americans' Social Security (FICA) taxes.

The death of the Obama middle-class tax credit is the latest in a decade-long series of moves made by Republicans that have resulted in a shifting of the federal tax burden away from the wealthy and toward the middle class, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office compiled in 2004, when the Republicans controlled Congress -- and the CBO was headed by a former Bush administration senior economist.

FEW MIDDLE-CLASS TAXPAYERS KNEW OBAMA TAX CREDIT EVEN EXISTED

In truth, there was no real effort by congressional Democrats to extended the "Making Work Pay" tax credit for middle-class Americans since last summer, when Obama proposed extending it.

Part of the problem was that the credit received very little publicity in the run-up to the passage of the stimulus package in February 2009 and the credit didn't go into effect until after the tax-filing deadline the following April. Because of the lack of publicity, few taxpayers were aware that the credit even existed, in spite of the fact that it covered 75 percent of all taxpayers.

The lack of awareness of the "Making Work Pay" tax credit was made even more evident during the battle over extending the Bush tax cuts. Much was said and written in the mainstream media about the fight over extending the Bush tax cuts to the nation's millionaires and billionaires. But there was almost nothing said or written in the mainstream media about extending the Obama tax credit to the middle class.

TAX INCREASE WILL DRIVE DOWN MIDDLE-CLASS CONSUMER SPENDING

"The most curious aspect of the tax debate is the obsession with taxes at the high end," said Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in an interview last July with CNN. "But when almost every middle- and lower-class American is going to face higher taxes, nobody's talking about it.

"Most people may have no idea they received it [the Obama tax credit] and no idea that it's going away," said Marr. "But what you can be certain of is that they'll have less money [in 2011] and they'll spend less -- and this is a terrible time for the economy to lose $60 billion of [consumer] spending."

Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the U.S. economy. But if 75 percent of American consumers are middle class -- and they get hit with higher taxes -- they're going to be forced to cut back on spending, exacerbating a sharp decline in spending by middle-class consumers already squeezed by high unemployment, which has remained stuck at over nine percent for more than a year and a half.

And that doesn't include the estimated 2.6 million long-term jobless Americans who, out of frustration, have given up looking for work and are no longer counted in the jobless figures, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. When you factor in those "discouraged workers," the jobless rate actually exceeds 11 percent, the worst since the record 25 percent jobless rate during the Great Depression.

CONSUMER SPENDING DID RISE LAST YEAR -- BUT ONLY AMONG THE RICH

Indeed, according to Bloomberg News, an increase in consumer spending in the latter half of 2010 has been almost entirely driven by the rich, with middle-class consumers continuing to hold back.

Sales at such luxury retailers as Tiffany's and Coach Inc. rose as wealthy consumers -- reaping a windfall from rising stock-market prices -- snapped up expensive items such as $6,000 diamond pendants and $1,200 leather handbags, the financial-news service reported.

On the flip side, more middle-class consumers are flocking to discount retailers such as Walmart, Big Lots and Dollar General -- and even to nonprofit thrift stores such as Goodwill, long a magnet for low-income shoppers -- as more and more "everyday Americans" are forced to live from paycheck to paycheck, a Walmart spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the Census Bureau estimates the poverty threshold for 2010 was $22,314 for a family of four, up from $21,954 in 2009.

"It’s striking," Dean Baker, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, told Bloomberg News. "Most of the rest of the country is still suffering while the wealthy seem to be largely insulated. You would think they wouldn’t have all that much to complain about. Instead they’ve had unending criticism for the Obama administration."


GOP MUTATES FROM 'PARTY OF BIG BUSINESS' TO 'REVERSE ROBIN HOOD'

Incredible as it may seem, it was just a decade ago, as George W. Bush was sworn in as the nation's 43rd president after a hotly contested election (that some still dispute to this day), when the federal government's coffers were brimming with a record $236 billion surplus left by Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton -- despite conservatives' stubborn, revisionist attempts to deny its existence -- whose presidency was marked by the greatest economic expansion in the nation's history.

The Republican Party has had a reputation as the party of big business since the 1880s; under the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, the GOP became known for its strong advocacy of commerce, industry, and veterans' rights.

That reputation solidified in the 1920s, as the GOP, running on a platform of non-involvement in foreign affairs and non-interference in private enterprise, kept control of the White House throughout the decade -- until the Great Depression cost Herbert Hoover the presidency with the landslide election of Franklin D. Roosevelt that ushered in 20 years of Democratic control.

But under Bush, the Republicans mutated from being the party of big business into being a Robin Hood in reverse -- the party of the rich, by the rich and for the rich, with its naked determination to preserve the wealth of the nation's millionaires and billionaires -- who make up only two percent of the nation's population -- at the expense of the middle class.

REAGAN CUT TAXES BY $275 BILLION -- BUT LATER RAISED THEM BY $133 BILLION

In the process, the Republicans ran up staggering budget deficits under Bush that dwarfed the previous then-record red ink under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. But when it comes to dealing with the federal deficit, there is a huge difference between Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

As Reagan himself said, in an attempt to quote John Adams in 1988, "Facts are stubborn things." And there are several stubborn facts about Reagan and federal deficits that today's Republicans have chosen to ignore, but, in Adams' words, "they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Reagan's $275 billion in tax cuts of 1981-82 were made when the economy was mired then, as now, in a severe recession, which saw unemployment peak at 10.4 percent. But when the economy recovered in 1983-84, Reagan took back nearly $133 billion of those cuts by raising taxes in order to reduce the deficit -- and he did it with the solid approval of his fellow Republicans who controlled both houses of Congress. That is a fact that today's Republicans cannot sweep under the rug.

Not only did Reagan raise taxes to cut the deficit after the economy recovered from the early 1980s recession, he also vetoed scores of GOP-passed spending bills for the rest of his presidency, whereas Bush didn't wield his veto stamp at all -- until the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006. That, too, is a fact that today's Republicans can deny all they want, but cannot erase.

GOP SEIZED BY WALL STREET 'GREEDHEADS' IN THE '90S

So what happened to the Republican Party in the 20 years between Ronald Reagan's election and George W. Bush's? Simply put, it was taken over by a generation of unabashed "greedheads" -- people who made their fortunes in the Wall Street boom of the '90s and were likely influenced by the "Greed is Good" mantra of the fictional Wall Street trader Gordon Gekko (played by actor Michael Douglas) in the blockbuster motion picture "Wall Street."

As Bruce Bartlett -- a former domestic policy adviser in the Reagan administration and a Treasury Department official under Bush -- recently wrote on his blog, "It may come as a surprise to some people that once upon a time in the not-too-distant past Republicans actually cared enough about budget deficits that they thought raising taxes was necessary to bring them down. Today, Republicans believe that deficits are nothing more than something to ignore when they are in power and to bludgeon Democrats with when they are out of power."

GOP 'GREEDHEADS' SET STAGE FOR '08 FINANCIAL COLLAPSE

The greedheads in charge of the GOP made their mark in 1999 when they pushed through the repeal of a key provision of the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that that prohibited a bank holding company from owning other financial companies.

Glass-Steagall put up a wall of separation between the highly speculative Wall Street investment banks and the more conservative Main Street consumer banks. Its repeal by the Republican-sponsored Gramm-Leach–Bliley Act -- which former President Clinton now admits he should have vetoed instead of having signed it into law -- set the stage for the creation and later collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market that led to the financial meltdown of 2008.

IT'S OBAMA VS. THE GREEDHEADS FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS

So, as President Obama prepares to deliver his State of the Union address tonight (Tuesday night) before a now-divided Congress -- with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats with a weakened majority in the Senate -- get ready for Phase II of a titanic struggle between Obama and the greedhead-dominated GOP.

And as conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in a July op-ed column in The Washington Post, Republicans would be making a mistake by underestimating the president.

Aside from repealing the health-care reform law that House Republicans passed last week -- despite knowing full well that the repeal measure will die in the Senate -- the financial reform law passed last summer strikes at the heart of the greedheads' world.

"It will give the government unprecedented power in the financial marketplace," Krauthammer writes. "Its 2,300 pages will create at least 243 new regulations that will affect not only, as many assume, the big banks but just about everyone, including, as noted in one summary [The Wall Street Journal], "storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers, home buyers and credit bureaus."

Frankly, after the sub-prime disaster, the financial marketplace is long overdue for regulation. So, too, is an end to the fiscally irresponsible Bush tax cuts for the super-rich.


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Sources: Daily Kos, Fox News, Wikipedia, Young Turks, Youtube, Google Maps