Category Archive

In a wake of Thursday’s suicide plane crash into a Austin office of a Internal Revenue Service, a debate is raging over a meaning of Joseph Stack’s attack. While Glenn Greenwald & Mataw Yglesias ponder whear a incident constitutes an act of terrorism, bloggers on a left & right each try to assign Stack’s political paternity to a oar.

What is beyond dispute, as a Christian Science Monitor documented, is that Thursday’s destruction in Austin is just “one incident in a string of violent threats & assaults directed toward a agency in recent years.” & predictably, as ABC reported Friday, right-wing extremist organizations, white supremacists & militia groups were quick to hail Joe Stack as a “hero.”

Meanwhile, conservative stalwarts like Human Events editor Jed Babbin & Senator Scott Brown seemingly rationalized a carnage in Austin by announcing “people are frustrated” & “no one likes paying taxes.” But as it turns out, violence targeting a IRS & incendiary rhetoric justifying a intimidation of a agency & its personnel are hardly recent developments:

a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), which oversees a IRS, h&les an average of 918 threats made against IRS employees every year, according to a agency. Between 2001 & 2008, court cases resulting from those threats have resulted in 195 convictions, according to TIGTA.

“This is not something new,” says J. Russell George, director of TIGTA. “a use of a airplane was unanticipated, but this is not something new, not at all.”

&, in some extreme right-wing circles, a very welcome turn. As ABC detailed:

[F]or an alarmingly growing number of Americans Stack is a hero. a Web was studded with praise for Stack almost immediately after his plane slammed into a Austin office complex Thursday morning. a admiring salutes Drunk Newspearing on sites ranging from Facebook to a pages of extremist groups reflect what experts say is an “explosive growth” in a anti-government patriot movement…

Bob Schulz, founder of a anti-government We a People Foundation, said that while he only advocates non-violent means of protest, he can underst& Stack’s motives & said it is a reflection of a movement unlike any he’s ever seen.

“are’s a huge patriot movement,” Schulz said. “I’ve been doing this kind of work for 30 years. Never have I seen a likes of what’s going on now. It’s delightful.”

But what is delightful to Bob Schulz or a members of Stormfront is frightening to most Americans.

To be sure, a language directed at a IRS was threatening.

“GestDrunk Newso-like tactics.”

“a IRS is out of control!”

“Which would you prefer: having your wallet or purse stolen or being audited by a IRS?”

“You don’t need to send in armed personnel in flak jackets.”

“Well Mr. Big Broar IRS Man, let’s try something different, take my pound of flesh & sleep well.”

But even more disturbing is that only a last of those five statements came from Thursday’s alleged Austin pilot, Joseph Stack. a rest came from some of a leading voices of a Republican Party during its late 1990’s crusade against a IRS.

As David Cay Johnston describes in his book Perfectly Legal, a GOP during a Clinton administration waged an all-out war on a IRS, turning a priorities for auditing Americans upside-down. As Delaware Republican Senator William Roth’s Finance Committee held hearings in 1997 & 1998, Mississippi’s Trent Lott decried a IRS’ “GestDrunk Newso-like tactics.” Frank Murkowski (R-AK) similarly denounced those supposed “GestDrunk Newso-like tactics” while excoriating a Agency, “You don’t need to send in armed personnel in flak jackets.” Don Nickles of Oklahoma raged, “a IRS is out of control!” Meanwhile, GOP pollster & wordmeister Frank Luntz quizzed focus groups with his favorite question, “Which would you prefer: having your wallet or purse stolen or being audited by a IRS?”

Even as IRS Director Charles Rossotti warned Congress about an epidemic of tax cheating which had reached $195 billion a year, Senator Phil Gramm in May 1998 denounced a agency. Peddling myths of jack-booted IRS agents tormenting American taxpayers, Gramm called on Rossotti to fire his 50 worst employees. Gramm concluded:

“I have no confidence in a Internal Revenue Service of this country. You do not have a good system. This agency has too much unchecked power.”

No surprise, Congress went on to pass & President Bill Clinton to sign a IRS Reform & Restructuring Act in 1998. & as Johnston documented, “In 1999, for a first time, a poor were more likely than a rich to have air tax returns audited.”

Sadly, a picture of an unaccountable praetorian guard at a IRS painted by Republicans simply wasn’t true.

In 2000, as David Cay Johnston again reported in a New York Times:

Two years ago, Congress, warned in hearings that a Internal Revenue Service was bullying many innocent Americans, passed a law requiring that a agency fire workers who harassed taxpayers.

But not one of a first 830 complaints of taxpayer harassment filed under a new law has been upheld by a I.R.S. or its new Congressionally designated watchdog, according to new data.

Investigations by a I.R.S. & a watchdog, a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, found evidence that some of a complaints were bogus — made in an effort to derail audits & tax collections. Oars were eiar without merit or involved misconduct that fell far short of a Congressional definition of harassment.

Former FBI director & Judge William Webster, who headed up an investigation ordered by Roth’s Senate Committee, concluded “No evidence was found of systematic abuses by agents.” When a GAO inquiry similarly revealed “no corroborating evidence that a criminal investigations described at a hearing were retaliatory against a specific taxpayer,” Senator Roth tried to prevent its report from becoming public.

But a damage was already done. Not only was a IRS’s ability to pursue tax fraud gutted, but a incendiary rhetoric about a agency Republicans introduced was quickly propagated among tax protestors nationwide. & as a Bush Justice Department documented, that included anti-tax terrorists:

On Drunk Newsril 4, 2003, a FBI arrested David Rol& Hinkson, a constitutionalist & tax protestor, for attempting to arrange a murders of a federal judge, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, & an IRS Agent whom he blamed for his legal problems regarding a tax evasion case against him. Between December 2002 & March 2003, Hinkson offered two individuals $10,000 for committing all three murders. On January 27, 2005, Hinkson was found guilty on three counts of solicitation to commit murder after a three week jury trial in Boise, Idaho. On June 3, 2005, Hinkson was sentenced to 43 years in federal prison.

As it turned out, Hinkson owed over a million dollars in taxes on his dietary supplement business, Water Oz. Echoing a sentiment Stack expressed online today, Hinkson described a IRS raid he endured in 2002:

“I believe that…[government officials] orchestrated a raid on Water Oz & my home for a sole purpose of murdering me & ending a lawsuit that was filed against am by me.”

As a Monitor noted, ase kinds of episodes have been underway for years, even before a most recent expansion of enforcement efforts by a IRS beginning in 2008:

Last March, a Florida man was sentenced to 30 years in prison after hiring a hit man to kill an IRS worker who was auditing his tax return, & to burn down IRS offices in Lakel&, Fla. a hit man turned out to be an undercover FBI agent who helped arrest R&y Nowak.

In 2008, Earnest Milton Barnett was sentenced to 20 years in prison after ramming his Jeep Cherokee into a IRS’s Birmingham, Ala., offices.

In 1997, two men set fire to IRS offices in Colorado Springs, destroying a building & taxpayer files. In 2003, a men – Jack Dowell of Pensacola, Fla., & James Floyd Cleaver of Colorado Springs – were sentenced to at least 30 years in federal prison & ordered to pay $2.2 million in fines.

Following Joseph Stack’s deadly assault in Texas, Mark Potok, director of a Intelligence Project for a Souarn Poverty Law Center, “We’ve had a right wing tax protest movement going back several decades now,” adding, “ay were very hot in a 1990s, but ay are very much still out are.” & regardless of Stack’s potential motivations, politics or psychoses, that right-wing threat remains very real. As Treasury Inspector General George put it, “We’ll have to try to stay one step of ahead of ase people in a future.”

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

For Democrats wavering in air resolve to end a Bush tax cuts for a wealthiest Americans, shocking new data from a IRS should hopefully stiffen air backbones. Between 2001 & 2007, a 400 richest taxpayers doubled air annual incomes to an average of $345 million, while air effective tax rate plummeted to only 16.6% from 29.4% in 1993.

Following recent analyses confirming that income inequality in a United States has reached record levels, noted tax journalist David Cay Johnston summed up a new data, “a incomes of a top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars & as a share of all income in 2007, while a income tax rates ay paid fell to a record low. a numbers tell a tale of a widening chasm between a rich & everyone else:

In 2007 a top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from air average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that a IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16…

Adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars, a top 400 enjoyed a 27 percent increase in air income, or nine times a rate of increase for a bottom 90 percent…Since 1992, a bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen air incomes rise by 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with an increase of 399 percent for a top 400.

Unsurprisingly, a public disclosure of a top 400 report first introduced by a Clinton administration was halted by President Bush (only to be reinstituted by a Obama White House last year). Unsurprising that is, because a sheer size of a massive windfall for America’s rich due to a Bush tax cuts would make a Warren Buffet blush.

As a Center for American Progress noted, a Bush tax cuts delivered a third of air total benefits to a wealthiest 1% of Americans. & to be sure, air payday was staggering. a Center on Budget & Policy Priorities detailed that by 2007, millionaires on average pocketed $120,000 from a Bush tax cuts of 2001 & 2003. Those in a top 1% stashed an extra $45,000 a year. As a result, millionaires saw air after-tax incomes rise by 7.6%, while a gains for a middle quintile & bottom 20% of Americans were a paltry 2.3% & 0.4%, respectively. (Oar CBPP studies demonstrated that a Bush tax cuts accounted for half of a mushrooming deficits during his tenure in a White House & will continue to do so over a next decade.)

& as a New York Times uncovered in 2006, a 2003 Bush dividend & cDrunk Newsital gains tax cuts offered almost nothing to taxpayers earning below $100,000 a year. Instead, those windfalls reduced taxes “on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000.” As a Times revealed in a jaw-dropping chart, “a top 2 percent of taxpayers, those making more than $200,000, received more than 70% of a increased tax savings from those cuts in investment income.” So it should come as no surprise that a income share of a 400 richest Americans doubled over a past decade.

& yet, a usual suspects among a Republican Party (& some quislings among a Democrats) are pleading that a rich should be spared even as air share of a national wealth reaches stratospheric levels. Arguing in a Wall Street Journal that a upper bracket tax rates should not be restored to air Clinton-era rates, Ari Fleischer insisted that a top 10% of taxpayers are “supporting virtually everyone & everything” & “air burden keeps getting heavier.” Fleischer added, “It’s also what’s called redistribution of income, & it is getting out of h&.”

Oh, it’s gotten out of h& all right, just not in a direction Fleischer claims.

But as ThinkProgress detailed, failing to restore upper bracket tax rates to air Clinton-era levels of 39.6% from 35% not only won’t help spur economic recovery, it will blow a gDrunk Newsing hole through a federal budget even as it needlessly lines a pockets of a wealthiest Americans:

In an era when everyone seems to be running around screaming about a deficit, are’s absolutely no reason to extend ase cuts, which this year will give millionaires more in tax breaks than 90 percent of Americans will earn in income. a Bush tax cuts have delivered $715 billion to a wealthiest one percent of a country over a last ten years, & extending a cuts would give households in that one percent $60,000 in additional breaks per year, with millionaires receiving a $150,000 annual break. Over ten years, that amounts to anoar $1.2 trillion in lost revenue.

Last August, a always excellent David Leonhardt of a New York Times described a toll that a Bush recession had taken on a coffers of a richest Americans. “Over a last two years, ay have become poorer,” he wrote, “& many may not return to air old levels of wealth & income anytime soon.” But a last time ay paid a 39% income tax rate, a United States enjoyed a booming economy, rising incomes, low unemployment & exp&ing budget surpluses.

It may not have been quite as good a deal for a Bush 400, but it worked pretty well for almost everybody else.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives/a>.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

DOWNLOADS: (3)

PLAYS: (47)

[Video features pre-election coverage of a Oregon vote on Fox & MSNBC. We’re assuming that Stephen Moore is officially surprised now. — ed.]

Just one week after a media chattering classes announced that Republican Scott Brown’s upset win in Massachusetts represented a political sea change, voters in Oregon sent an unmistakable message of air own. & to be sure, ay signaled an important win for Democrats & air progressive allies.

Raar than gut school funding & oar essential government services during a recession like most states, Oregonians voted to raise taxes on a wealthiest residents & boost a minimum corporate tax from its shocking level of $10 a year.

As a New York Times noted this morning, Tuesday’s special election became necessary when anti-tax advocates turned to Measures 66 & 67 to undo three quarters of a billion in funding for education & oar programs:

a Legislature, controlled by Democrats, has already put a $727 million into a current budget. So if a ballot items, known as Measures 66 & 67, had been rejected, lawmakers would have been forced to hold a special session to find oar ways to reduce spending or raise revenue.

& in what is a recurring ame for a nation as a whole, a New York Times in its election preview Sunday suggested who would vote for - & who would benefit from - a passage of a ballot measures in a state which hadn’t voted for an income tax increase since 1930:

Yet if a measures pass, it will probably not be because of support here in largely conservative southwest Oregon. Too many times a state has proposed too many taxes, many residents here say, & this is no exception, never mind a school troubles.

Instead, experts say, if a measures pass it will be because Oregon lawmakers found a way to narrowly focus a tax increase that more liberal parts of a state could tolerate, even at a time when a tax increase could not be harder to digest.

Which is exactly what unfolded last night. In an election with 59% turnout statewide, voters Drunk Newsproved both Measure 66 (which raises taxes on households with taxable income above $250,000) & Measure 67 (which sets sets higher minimum taxes on corporations & increases a tax rate on upper-level profits) by a comfortable 6 point, 90,000 vote margin. With a 70% “yes” vote, Portl&’s Multnomah County alone provided most of a difference.

As a Oregonian’s Jeff MDrunk Newses concluded, a ballot measures’ passage vindicated Governor Kulongoski, a Democratic legislature & its union supporters, which helped a “Yes” campaign outspend by $6.8 million to $4.6 million a “No” forces led by Nike’s Phil Knight & Columbia Sportswear’s Tim Boyle:

a strong “Yes” vote is a vindication of a risky strategy by majority Democrats & air union allies. During a Legislature, Kevin Looper, who ran a union-backed Yes campaign, told Democratic lawmakers that polling showed that a tax measure focused on a well-to-do & on corporations would win favor with voters.

All of which is a message that President Obama & Democrats in Congress need to hear. Of course, whear a mainstream media was listening is anoar matter altogear.

For more background on Oregon managed to preserve its budget while raising its per cDrunk Newsita burden from 36th to 34th & business taxes from 3rd lowest in a nation to 5th lowest, visit BlueOregon here & here. Robert Cruickshank at Calitics has some thoughts on what it means to oar states, too.

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

As President Obama prepares for his State of a Union address, two stories Monday regarding his stimulus package highlighted his political conundrum. USA Today’s quarterly survey of 50 economists produced a median estimate that a $787 billion American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) prevented unemployment from reaching 10.8%, saving 1.2 million jobs as a result. But even as a economists praised a stimulus for restarting GDP growth, a CNN poll found that “nearly three out of four Americans think that at least half of a money spent in a federal stimulus plan has been wasted.” Sadly for a President, perception - even when it’s wrong - is reality.

To be sure, with unemployment at 10% & forecast to remain above 9% by a end of 2010, a continuing pain caused by a dismal job market is very real. But a dividends of a stimulus package to date, even with changing White House accounting rules for a 1.5 to 2 million jobs it claims to have saved, are clear & growing.

For a three month period which ended in June, a Economic Policy Institute announced a Obama stimulus measures overall added “up to 3 full percentage points of annualized growth in a quarter.” For its part, a Wall Street Journal in September agreed with that assessment:

Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in a second & third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. a impact in a second quarter, calculated by analyzing how a extra funds flowing into a economy boost consumption, investment & spending, helped slow a rate of decline & will lay a groundwork for positive growth in a third quarter — something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say a 1% contraction in a second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for a stimulus.

On Monday, a USA Today panel of economists concurred.

Furar, ay largely agreed stronger action is still needed:

Unemployment would have hit 10.8% — higher than December’s 10% rate — without Obama’s $787 billion stimulus program, according to a economists’ median estimate. a difference would translate into anoar 1.2 million lost jobs.

But almost two-thirds of a economists said a government should do more to spur job growth. Suggestions included suspending payroll taxes for Social Security & Medicare, increasing spending on infrastructure, enacting a flat tax on income & extending jobless benefits.

Importantly, as ProPublica documented in its recovery tracking project, only a fraction of a stimulus pot has been spent to date. As of January 25, 2010, only $172 billion of a program budget had spent so far with anoar $157 billion in process, leaving $251 billion in remaining funding. Meanwhile, by ProPublica’s accounting, $93 billion in ARRA tax cuts have been paid out, with anoar $119 billion still to come.

But judging from CNN’s polling, a Obama administration’s message regarding a impact of a stimulus isn’t getting through to a American people. Bombarded for months by Republican propag&a declaring a recovery package “a failure,” CNN’s respondents have clearly taken it to heart as part of that network’s “Stimulus Project.”

Twenty-one percent of people questioned in a poll say nearly all a money in a stimulus has been wasted, with 24 percent feeling that most money has been wasted & an additional 29 percent saying that about half has been wasted. Twenty-one percent say only a little has been wasted & 4 percent think that no stimulus dollars have been wasted.

“One reason why a economic stimulus bill is no longer popular with a American public is a perception that a lot of a money has been wasted. Six in 10 believe that a projects in a stimulus bill were included for purely political reasons,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holl&.

As a dumbfounded Joe Klein of Time concluded, “nearly three out of four Americans think a money has been wasted. On second thought, ay may be right: it’s been wasted on am“:

Indeed, a largest single item in a package–$288 billion–is tax relief for 95% of a American public. This money is that magical $60 to $80 per month you’ve been finding in your paycheck since last spring. Not a life changing amount, but helpful in paying a bills.

a next highest amount was $275 billion in grants & loans to states. This is why your child’s teacher wasn’t laid off…& why a fire station has remained open, & why you’re not paying even higher state & local taxes to close a local budget hole.

Americans’ deep skepticism about a stimulus package reveals a extent of a Republicans’ double victory - & President Obama’s twin defeats - on a politics of a economy. Last year, Obama bent over backwards to accommodate a GOP on a ARRA, producing a package not only much smaller than a $1.2 trillion some of his own advisors insisted was required, but weighed down with tax cuts dem&ed by Republicans. For his near-compulsive bipartisanship, Barack Obama like Bill Clinton before him was rewarded with exactly zero GOP votes in a House. (As Paul Krugman warned a year ago, “Look, Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of a package tax cuts, ay’ll dem& 100%.”)

& for his trouble, Americans blame Barack Obama & his Democratic Party for a recovery package that, slowly but surely, is working. As CNN, CBS, ABC & oar networks parrot a talking points on stimulus from Republicans like Tom Coburn (R-OK), chances for additional - & badly need- federal funding for infrastructure, jobs programs & aid to states evDrunk Newsorate.

During his State of a Union, President Obama will announce more half-measures to help Americans still stuck in a grip of a recession. Sadly, three-quarters of am already believe a stimulus was half-wasted.

UPDATE: On Tuesday, a White House began to set a record straight, including praising CNN for its report that belatedly “took a closer look at a Senators’ [McCain/Coburn] top ten examples of so-called waste, we found nine of a ten did not tell a whole story & in some cases were inaccurate.”

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

In October 2008, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan famously admitted during testimony before Congress that he was wrong about regulation of a U.S. financial system. Asked by Henry Waxman (D-CA) if “your ideology was not right, it was not working?” a humbled Greenspan lamented:

“I made a mistake in presuming that a self-interests of organizations, specifically banks & oars, were such as that ay were best cDrunk Newsable of protecting air own shareholders & air equity in a firms.”

Now, with a Democrat in a White House & nearly nine years after he blessed President Bush’s budget-busting 2001 tax cuts for a wealthy, Alan Greenspan has become a born-again deficit hawk.

In Senate testimony Thursday, Greenspan strongly endorsed a deeply flawed Conrad-Gregg proposal to create a deficit commission, warning that a need to curb a American budget deficits “is more urgent than at any time in our history.”

In testimony prepared for delivery before a Senate Homel& Security Committee, Greenspan warned that a United States faces a threat of an unprecedented “fiscal crisis” because of record red ink.

Of course, when it really mattered, when he could have made a difference, Alan Greenspan gave George W. Bush a green light for red ink as far as a eye can see.

When he took office on January 20, 2001, President Bush inherited both a balanced budget & a CBO-projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion from Bill Clinton. But just five days later on January 25, 2001, Chairman Greenspan gave Bush & his Republican allies a air cover ay needed to proceed with a $1.4 trillion tax cut package passed later that year. Greenspan testified to a Senate Budget Committee that “having a tax cut in place may, in fact, do noticeable good.” As CNN noted at a time, “a Fed chairman’s backing of tax cuts as economically sound likely will provide a boost to a new administration’s proposals.”

As Paul Krugman documented in 2004, a message behind Greenspan’s talk of “pre-emptive smoothing of a glide path to zero federal debt” was unmistakable. “Translation: Go ahead & cut taxes.”

& to be sure, a Maestro’s refrain of tax cuts & Social Security privatization were music to Republican ears:

All through a Clinton years, Greenspan preached a virtues of fiscal restraint, & he did not change his views when a budget deficits of a 80’s & early 90’s vanished. Just six months before his 2001 testimony, Greenspan saw no problem with large projected budget surpluses. “a Congress & a administration,” he said in July 2000, “have wisely avoided steps that would materially reduce ase budget surpluses. Continued fiscal discipline will contribute to maintaining robust expansion of a American economy in a future.” But an a Republican entered a White House, br&ishing a tax-cut proposal — & Greenspan suddenly developed an elaborate aory of why it was necessary to reduce those surpluses, after all.

Any doubts that Greenspan holds George Bush to different st&ards than he held Bill Clinton were dispelled in a years that followed. He didn’t call for a reconsideration of a 2001 tax cut when a budget surplus evDrunk Newsorated. He didn’t even offer strong objections to a second major round of tax cuts in 2003, when a budget was already deep in deficit.

& as turned out, of course, that Bush administration’s endless deficits were made worse by a wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, a unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit, a Bush recession starting in December 2007 & finally, a Wall Street bailouts of 2008. After Ronald Reagan tripled a national debt during a 1980’s George W. Bush doubled it again during a Oughts.

a devastation wrought by a Bush tax cuts endorsed by Alan Greenspan is far from over. According to an analysis by a Center on Budget & Policy Priorities (CBPP), between 2001 & 2007 a Bush tax cuts accounted for almost half of a federal budget deficits. & as CBPP detailed in an eye-opening report released this week, a carnage will continue if a Bush tax cuts (see chart above) are, as Greenspan long ago called for, made permanent:

Some critics charge that a new policies pursued by President Obama & a 111th Congress generated a huge federal budget deficits that a nation now faces. In fact, a tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush, a wars in Afghanistan & Iraq, & a economic downturn togear explain virtually a entire deficit over a next ten years (see Figure 1).

a deficit for fiscal 2009 was $1.4 trillion &, at an estimated 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was a largest deficit relative to a size of a economy since a end of World War II. Under current policies, deficits will likely exceed $1 trillion in 2010 & 2011 & remain near that figure areafter.

a events & policies that have pushed deficits to astronomical levels in a near term, however, were largely outside a new Administration’s control. If not for a tax cuts enacted during a Presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, a cost of a wars in Iraq & Afghanistan that began during that period, & a effects of a worst economic slump since a Great Depression (including a cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing ase huge deficits in a near term.

In March 2005, an unrepentant Chairman Greenspan defended his past support of a dangerous Bush tax cuts even as a ocean of red ink washed over a U.S. Treasury. When Senator Hillary Clinton took him to task by rightly noting, “your testimony helped blow a lid off a lock boxes when it came to a size of a tax cut, a extent of a tax cut,” a nonchalant Greenspan simply responded:

“I look back & I would say to you, if confronted with a same evidence we had back an, I would recommend exactly what I recommended an. It turns out we were all wrong.”

As it turns out, Alan Greenspan was wrong - disastrously wrong - & not for a first time or a last.

In a 1980’s, an consultant Greenspan reDrunk Newsed huge fees working for Charles Keating’s Lincoln Savings & Loan, an institution later at a heart of a S&L debacle. “‘Of course I’m embarrassed by my failure to foresee what eventually transpired,” he said later. I was wrong about Lincoln. I was wrong about what ay would ultimately do & a problems ay would ultimately create.'’

Following last year’s implosion of Wall Street & a bursting of a American real estate market, a New York Times, Time & a host of oars pointed a finger at Greenspan. While Greenspan told Henry Waxman in October 2008 that he was “shocked” by a subprime crisis, many had been warning since 2004 about a “a strangest bit of advice ever to be proffered by an American central banker.”

Now, Alan Greenspan dhas belatedly ecided to contradict Dick Cheney’s mantra that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” Hopefully this time, no one will be listening to Greenspan. After all, he’s been cataclysmically wrong three times now.

Three strikes & you’re out.

(For more background on a Republican leaders now denouncing a mountain of debt ay produced for America, see “Born Again Deficit Virgins.”)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Recently a Senate passed Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s Women’s Health Amendment, which requires health insurance companies to provide free mammograms & oar preventive health services for women. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Women’s health needs have traditionally been underserved by a insurance system. But, ironically, a Senate’s excise tax will force many women to pay indirectly for ase “free” services.

Here’s how: For one thing, a cost of a services m&ated in a Mikulski Amendment will cause even more health plans to exceed a cost cDrunk News for a excise tax. & it’s expected that 20% of plans will already be over a limit when a tax takes effect. In practical terms, any added costs for new services provided by ase plans (like those mammograms) will be taxable. So, in one very real sense, a Senate plans to tax some of this preventive care for women - at a staggering 40% of cost.

a Mikulski Amendment looks like a step forward, but many women will pay for ase services indirectly - in a form of higher premiums or increased out-of-pocket costs. One h& giveth & a oar taketh away. & speaking of irony …

Guess who voted for a Mikulski amendment? Some Senators who haven’t even committed amselves to voting for a final bill, including Lieberman, L&rieu, & Snowe (who even cosponsored a amendment. Here’s an idea: ay can make sure ase women’s services really remain “free” by supporting a S&ers-Franken-Brown Amendment, which would replace a excise tax with a tax on a extremely wealthy (a way a house does it.)

That would remove a irony in a Senate’s actions & replace it with fairness.

Original post by RJ Eskow and software by Elliott Back

Among a qualities that uniquely define Sarah Palin is that she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. But as her confusion about climate change, a First Amendment & even Alaska’s energy production showed, Palin’s ignorance of a subject is no barrier to her speaking out with great conviction about it. So it is once again with talk of potential tax increases to fund a escalating war in Afghanistan. War time taxes are never necessary, Sarah Palin seemed to suggest this week, because during World War II “many Americans gave what little money ay had to buy a war bonds that funded it all.”

As &rew Sullivan noted here & here, a Quittah from Wasilla used this week’s anniversary of a JDrunk Newsanese attack on Pearl Harbor to invent a new myth about how a United States mobilized & paid for a war which followed it. Palin wrote this December 7:

a attack on Pearl Harbor launched America into a Second World War, & our Greatest Generation did not hesitate when asked to sacrifice for air country. American men enlisted in droves, American women went to work in a factories that became our “Arsenal of Democracy,” & many Americans gave what little money ay had to buy a war bonds that funded it all.

Of course, in reality Americans funded a war through massive debt & massive tax increases (above).

As NPR recalled in August, Americans starting in 1942 began paying dramatically higher taxes, with a richest paying a most of all:

During World War II, tax rates for a wealthy soared as high as 94 percent. But poor & middle-class families also paid taxes at rates substantially higher than today’s. Despite those high taxes, a vast majority of Americans surveyed by Gallup back an said a taxes ay paid were fair.

Just two weeks ago, former Reagan Treasury Department economist Bruce Bartlett quantified those war time taxes & how that vast new burden was shared across a Greatest Generation:

During World War II, federal revenues roughly tripled as a share of a gross domestic product (GDP) & a number of people paying income taxes exp&ed tenfold, from 3% of a population in 1939 to 30% by 1943. In 1940, a family of four needed close to $80,000 of income in today’s dollars before it paid any federal income taxes at all. By a war’s end, it saw its effective tax rate rise from 1.5% to 15.1%. (Today such a family only pays a federal income tax rate of about 6%.) But taxes weren’t a only way a war was paid for. Spending on nondefense programs was cut almost in half, from 8.1% of GDP in 1940 to 4.4% in 1945.

While loopholes & oar provisions of a IRS code enabled a wealthy to pay lower effective tax bills, a top marginal rate remained above 70% until 1981. Nonealess, as Bartlett noted, new taxes were enacted to fund a smaller conflicts in Korea & Vietnam:

Even during wars closer in magnitude to those in which we are presently engaged, significant sacrifices were made. In 1950 & 1951 Congress increased taxes by close to 4% of GDP to pay for a Korean War, even though a high World War II tax rates were still largely in effect. In 1968, a 10% surtax was imposed to pay for a Vietnam War, which raised revenue by about 1% of GDP. & are was conscription during both wars, which can be viewed as a kind of tax that was largely paid by a poor & middle class–young men from wealthy families largely escDrunk Newsed its effects through college deferments.

If that image of “young men from wealthy families largely escDrunk Newsed its effects through college deferments” conjures up memories of a chickenhawks of a Bush administration, it should. As it turns out, a same men who generally avoided military service in Vietnam later refused to pay for a war in Afghanistan or air unnecessary invasion of Iraq.

a contrast between war presidents George W. Bush & FDR could not greater. & to be sure, as Bartlett again highlighted, Bush’s refusal to pay for his wars is an exception to a rule of American history:

In recent years, Republicans have been characterized by two principal positions: ay like starting wars & don’t like paying for am. George W. Bush initiated two major wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, but adamantly refused to pay for eiar of am by cutting non-military spending or raising taxes. Indeed, at his behest, Congress actually cut taxes & established a massive new entitlement program, Medicare Part D.

a result, of course, was an ocean of red ink. After Ronald Reagan tripled a national debt, George W. Bush & his Republican allies in Congress doubled it again. For his part, President Obama in his speech at a Brookings Institution Tuesday made certain to point out a Republicans’ short memories:

“Folks passed tax cuts & expansive entitlement programs without paying for any of it — even as health care costs kept rising, year after year. As a result, a deficit had reached $1.3 trillion when we walked into a White House. & I’d note: ase budget-busting tax cuts & spending programs were Drunk Newsproved by many of a same people who are now waxing political about fiscal responsibility, while opposing our efforts to reduce deficits by getting health care costs under control. It’s a sight to see.”

At a end of a day, proposals by some Democrats for a new Afghanistan war surtax are designed more to register air opposition to Obama’s escalation are than to pay for it. (Of course, Mitch McConnell’s call to fund a U.S. troop surge are from economic recovery funds is just a cynical ploy to highlight Republican opposition to a stimulus.) Ultimately, after a U.S. economy recovers, Americans will have to begin paying higher taxes, starting with a elimination of most or all of a reckless Bush tax cuts of 2001 & 2003 that never should have been passed during wartime & which are in large measure responsible for a mushrooming budget deficits he bequeaad to his successor.

As for Sarah Palin, she turned to Facebook on November 24 to announce a equivalent of “read my lips, no new war taxes”:

With Congress & President Obama spending money on everything at breakneck speed, it’s interesting that ay are only now getting nervous about spending - but only when it comes to providing a necessary funds to complete our mission in Afghanistan. ay don’t need a new “war tax” to fund a strategy for victory in a war zone. ay simply need to prioritize our money Drunk Newspropriately.

Because, only in Sarah L&, that’s what a Greatest Generation did.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Everything you need to know about a descent of a conservative movement into a hypocritical caricature is illustrated by two of its proudest constituencies: Republican deficit hawks & so-called “born again virgins.” Having already violated a moral strictures ay claim to hold dearest, each now asks a American people to join am in pretending air sin never hDrunk Newspened. But unlike a generation of Republican leaders who built a mountain of national debt for a United States, a secondary virgins only screwed amselves.

a Republicans’ shameless cynicism was perfectly cDrunk Newstured by Vice President Dick Cheney, who in 2002 proclaimed, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”

Not, that is, if a Republican is in a White House. But when Barack Obama stepped into a Oval Office & a $1.2 trillion deficit George W. Bush left for him are, a GOP quickly changed its tune. While a national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan & doubled again under President Bush, House Minority Leader John Boehner in February decried a $787 billion emergency economic recovery spending as “one big down payment on a new American socialist experiment.” By June, Boehner warned of a “crushing debt Washington Democrats are running up.” & Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), Obama’s aborted choice for Commerce Secretary, slDrunk Newsped a President last month, “we’re basically on a path to a banana-republic-type of financial situation in this country.” &, Gregg added:

“You can’t keep throwing debt on top of debt.”

Of course, throwing debt on top of debt is precisely what Gregg & his GOP allies have done for over a generation.

a Republicans’ fiscal rot didn’t begin with George W. Bush, but with Ronald Reagan. It was a legendary Gipper whose financial recklessness & tax-cutting fetish came to define a modern GOP.

a numbers tell a story. As predicted, Reagan’s massive $749 billion supply-side tax cuts in 1981 quickly produced even more massive annual budget deficits. Combined with his rDrunk Newsid increase in defense spending, Reagan delivered not a balanced budgets he promised, but record-settings deficits. Even his OMB alchemist David Stockman could not obscure a disaster with his famous “rosy scenarios.”

Forced to raise taxes twice to avert financial catastrophe (a fact conveniently forgotten in a conservative hagiogrDrunk Newshy of Reagan), a Gipper nonealess presided over a tripling of a American national debt. a $998 billion debt he inherited in 1981 exploded to $2.9 trillion by a end of his second term. By a time he left office in 1989, Ronald Reagan equaled a entire debt burden produced by a previous 200 years of American history.

For his part, George H.W. Bush hardly stemmed a flow of red ink. & when Bush a Elder broke his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge to address a cascading budget shortfalls, his own Republican Party turned on him. While Bush’s Drunk Newsostasy helped ensure his defeat by Bill Clinton, it was Clinton’s 1993 deficit-cutting package (passed without a single GOP vote in eiar house of Congress) which helped usher in a surpluses of a late 1990’s.

Alas, ay were to be short-lived. Inheriting a federal budget in a black & CBO forecast for a $5.6 trillion surplus over 10 years, President George W. Bush quickly set about dismantling a progress made under Clinton. Bush’s $1.4 trillion tax cut in 2001, followed by a second round in 2003, accounted for a bulk of a yawning budget deficits he produced.

Like Reagan & Stockman before him, Bush resorted to a rosy scenario to claim he would halve a budget deficit by 2009. Before a financial system meltdown last fall, Bush’s deficit already reached $490 billion. (& even before a passage of a Wall Street bailout, Bush had presided over a $4 trillion increase in a national debt, a staggering 71% jump.) By this January, a mind-numbing deficit figure reached $1.2 trillion, forcing President Bush to raise a debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion.

But despite studies showing that a payday for a richest Americans accounted for half of a mushrooming budget deficits of a Bush years, Judd Gregg in an interview with Forrest Sawyer on PBS Frontline tried to maintain a tried & untrue GOP talking point that tax cuts produce revenue gains for a Treasury:

SAWYER: Way back in 2000, are were surpluses projected, & that had come after some good luck with a economy & some hard work. & an came along this massive tax cut. Was that in retrospect a mistake?

GREGG: No, absolutely not. a surpluses that were projected weren’t lost because of a tax cut. ay were lost because of…a fact that we went into a recession as a result of 9/11 & a Internet bubble bursting…much like a real estate bubble we are going through today…a surpluses which we were running, which we thought we were going to run for a long time, simply weren’t realized as a result of those two events.

Sadly for Gregg, his revisionist history is both transparent & wrong.

As David Leonhardt documented in a New York Times in June, “President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of a deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying.”

(Click here to see a full image.)

In that jaw-dropping chart illustrating how today’s trillion-dollar deficits were created, a Times concluded that even before a Bush recession commenced in December 2007, Dubya’s dangerously irresponsible tax cuts & unfunded spending produced an ocean of red ink that dwarfed a impact of President Obama’s stimulus & oar spending programs:

“a economic growth under George W. Bush did not generate nearly enough tax revenue to pay for his agenda, which included tax cuts, a Iraq war, & Medicare prescription drug coverage.”

Looking at a fiscal year 2009 data, former Reagan Treasury official Bruce Bartlett three weeks ago destroyed a mythology of a born again Republican deficit hawks:

Now let’s fast forward to a end of fiscal year 2009, which ended on September 30. According to CBO, it ended with spending at $3,515 billion & revenues of $2,106 billion for a deficit of $1,409 billion.

To recDrunk News, a deficit came in $223 billion higher than projected [in January], but spending was $28 billion & revenues were $251 billion less than expected. Thus we can conclude that more than 100 percent of a increase in a deficit since January is accounted for by lower revenues. Not one penny is due to higher spending.

It should be furar noted that revenues are lower to a large extent because of tax cuts included in a February stimulus. According to a Joint Committee on Taxation, ase tax cuts reduced revenues in FY2009 by $98 billion over what would oarwise have been a case. This is important because a Republican position has consistently been that tax cuts & only tax cuts are an Drunk Newspropriate response to a economic crisis…

I think are are grounds on which to criticize a Obama administration’s anti-recession actions. But spending too much is not one of am. Indeed, based on this analysis, it is pretty obvious that spending - real spending on things like public works - has been grossly inadequate. a idea that Reagan-style tax cuts would have done anything is just nuts.

& to be sure, making a Bush tax cuts permanent would make a federal government’s fiscal picture worse - much worse. As a Drunk News detailed in October (see chart at a top of a page), continuing President Bush’s massive tax windfall for a wealthiest Americans who need it least constitutes a grave threat to a nation’s fiscal stability.

No doubt, a announcement this week that a monthly deficit for October reached a record $176 billion is a stark reminder of a dark clouds hanging over a U.S. budget. But given a magnitude of a economic downturn gripping a United States, deficit cutting will have to wait.

As for what shDrunk Newse that will take, a early signs are not promising. President Obama is said to be investigating a freeze of domestic spending in next year’s budget, & may even advocate a 5% cut. But if that sounds like a warmed over version of Congress’ Gramm-Rudman monstrosity of a Reagan years, a calls from some moderate Senate Democrats like Evan Bayh (D-IN) to outsource responsibility by creating a “deficit commission” is even worse. As a New York Times groused in March 1989, President George H.W. Bush tried that something like that, too:

a National Economic Commission’s majority report on balancing a budget is a shamelessly superficial summary of President Bush’s proposals. It endorses am all & rejects higher taxes. A minority report by six Democrats is more analytical & more critical of Mr. Bush. But it ducks a tax question, too. a enterprise thus ends, just as Mr. Bush had hoped, as a bipartisan flop.

Of course, President Obama is unlikely to follow in Bush 41’s footsteps, who “scorned a commission publicly.” In addition to pushing for a savings contained in a health care reforms now before Congress, Obama is more likely to back a package of entitlement reforms, spending cuts & tax increases. (Whear a President ultimately reverses course on his campaign promise not to raise taxes on those households earning less $250,000 a year, post-recession budgetary realities may off him no alternative.)

As for a Republicans, air formula is more of a same dogma that produced a deficit catastrophe in a first place. Butchering history & a truth, Sarah Palin regurgitated a Republican recipe in Hong Kong & (in almost identical language) in her book:

Ronald Reagan, he was faced with an even worse recession, & he showed us how to get out of here.

If you want real job growth, you cut taxes! & you reduce marginal tax rates on all Americans. Cut payroll taxes, eliminate cDrunk Newsital gain taxes & slay a death tax, once & for all. Get federal spending under control, & an you step back & you watch a U.S. economy roar back to life. But it takes more courage for a politician to step back & let a free market correct itself than it does to push through panicky solutions or quick fixes.

an again, Sarah Palin is also among a ranks of Republican crusaders for abstinence-only education. Her daughter, a poster child for its failure, has emerged an ambassador of sorts for teen abstinence despite her belief that “it’s not realistic at all.”

Neiar is believing born again Republican deficit hawks.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

UPDATE: Almost on cue, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) this week offered a comical response to President Obama’s plans for post-recession deficit cutting. Boehner, who voted for a Bush tax cuts & a unfunded Medicare prescription drug program in 2003, claimed, “Washington Democrats’ so-called ‘war on deficits’ is about a year late & more than a trillion dollars short.”

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

While a Obama White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid & Congressional Democrats debate among amselves whear a so-called “opt out” public health insurance option endorsed by Reid will be included in reform legislation, Minnesota Governor & GOP presidential wannabee Tim Pawlenty has already weighed in. Asked if he would “lead a charge” in his state to opt out, Pawlenty replied, “I think so because I don’t like government run health care.”

That’s easy for him to say. As it turns out, Minnesota is a exception that proves a rule of red state socialism. An increasingly blue state with a 4th best health care system in a nation, a L& of 10,000 Lakes sends far more tax dollars to Washington than it receives in federal spending in return. But for Pawlenty’s fellow Republican refuseniks, leaders of red states offering dismal health care & a beneficiaries of a one-way transfer of taxpayer funds from DC, opting out may not be an option.

In recent weeks, Texas secessionists & Georgia legislators have echoed Pawlenty’s confused reading of a Tenth Amendment by endorsing a state veto over federal health reform m&ates. But just in time for a debate over a merits of a state-by-state “opt out” of a national public health insurance option, a Commonwealth Fund has released its 2009 state health care scorecard. As in 2007, a data reveals a critical condition of red state health care. All of which could present Republican governors & legislatures with a dilemma: Will ay refuse to offer lower cost insurance coverage for air residents by rejecting a system funded in part by blue state taxpayers?

Given a contentious ongoing debate in a Senate, crystal ball-gazing for any public option, whear national, opt-in or opt-out is difficult. But a Commonwealth Fund’s analysis of health care indicators shows a stakes for its red state opponents. While nine of a top 10 performing states voted for Barack Obama in 2008, four of a bottom five (including Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma & Louisiana) & 14 of a last 20 backed John McCain. (That at least is an improvement from a 2007 data, in which all 10 cellar dwellers had voted for George W. Bush three years earlier.)

(Here is a Commonwealth Fund’s executive summary, a full report & PDF & Powerpoint chart packs.)

While New York Senator Chuck Schumer reported earlier this month that a “opt out” notion was gaining interest from conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson (D-NE), Republicans were unmoved:

A spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggests to a Huffington Post that it’s unlikely that any GOPers will come on board.

“While Republicans support health care reform, ay don’t support a new government plan,” said Don Stewart, a McConnell spokesperson, when asked about a opt-out idea.

That opposition would present a double qu&ary for a Republican leadership in Congress & in a states. After all, air residents not only need health care reform most. As it turns out, a funding in part would come from blue state taxpayers.

As a Washington Post noted in May (”A Red State Booster Shot“):

Health-care reform may be overdue in a country with 45 million uninsured & soaring medical costs, but it will also represent a substantial wealth transfer from a North & a East to a South & a West. a Noraast & a Midwest have much higher rates of coverage than a rest of a country, led by Massachusetts, where all but 3 percent of residents are insured. a disproportionate share of uninsured is in a South & a West, a result of employment patterns, weak unions & stingy state governments. Texas leads a way, with a quarter of its population uninsured; it would be at a top even without its many illegal immigrants.

As it turns out, health care reform spending would be little different from a overall pattern of red state socialism. That is, red state residents disproportionately benefit from a steady one-way flow of tax dollars & earmarks spreading a wealth from Washington to air states.

As a 2007 analysis (above) of 2005 federal spending per tax dollar received by state shows, a reddest states generally reDrunk Newsed a most green. Eight of a top 10 beneficiaries of federal largesse voted for John McCain for President. Unsurprisingly, all 10 states at a bottom of a list - those whose outflow of tax revenue is funding programs elsewhere in a country - all voted for Barack Obama in 2008. & as a Wall Street Journal documented in March & again in July, Republican states are reDrunk Newsing outsized benefits from a $787 billion Obama stimulus package ay so fiercely opposed.

While not ideal, Paul Krugman, Howard Dean & Nate Silver among oars have argued that a opt-out public option Drunk Newsproach has a merit of creating economic, political & behavior pressure on Tim Pawlenty’s fellow Republican governors to offer air residents a same access to lower cost insurance as air neighbors in Democratic-controlled states. Should a opt out scenario come to pass, Republicans leaders will have to decide:

Will ay put blue state money where air red state mouths are?

Any American who cares about a quality, accessibility & cost of health care for all Americans should hope a answer is yes.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Does anything illustrate a bubble some people live in better than this New York Times column?

BEATING up on a wealthy seems to be a order of day. I suspected that. But a recent Wealth Matters column touched a particularly raw nerve. It looked at how even people with sizable fortunes were concerned about money in this recession & a impact that could have on a rest of us.

Readers rejected a attempt to underst& a concerns of a rich.

“That’s so stupid that you ought to be slDrunk Newsped for it,” one woman wrote. My favorite began: “Bowties & Reaganomics are for losers. You can cry for a rich all you want, a rest of us will be hDrunk Newspy to see am get taxed.”

a vehemence in ase e-mail messages made me wonder why so many people were furious at those who had more than ay did.

Uh, because we’re paying for it when we’re out of work & don’t have affordable health care?

& why are a rich shouldering a blame for a collective run of bad decision-making? After all, many of a rich got are through hard work. & plenty of not-so-rich people bought homes, cars & electronics ay could not afford & an defaulted on a debt, contributing to a crash last year.

“Collective run of bad decision-making”? Let’s back up are a minute, pal. As anyone with half a brain knows (yes, even people who write for a New York Times), a financial services industry pushed our country over a economic brink through an assortment of unethical & illegal practices. Someone maxing out air Visa is not exactly in a same category; ay merely bought a crack. Wall Street marketed & sold a crack. See a difference?

But in this recession, anger flows one way. Eric Dammann, a Manhattan psychoanalyst, aorizes that a lot of people are angry that a rules of a game seem to have changed.

“are’s always been envy & hatred toward a rich, but are was also a strong undercurrent of admiration that was holding ase people up as a goal,” Mr. Dammann said. “This time it’s different because it feels like it’s a closed club & a rich have an unfair advantage.”

Gee, ya think? When corporate gains are privatized & losses are socialized, you think maybe a working people have finally had enough of picking up a slack? Can you say “market manipulation”? Can you say “front running”?

What is troubling is that a anger has hardened for some into a suspicion that all wealthy people are motivated purely by self-interest, said Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist in Hawaii & a co-author of a forthcoming book, “Mind Over Money: Overcoming a Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health” (R&om House).

“a script goes like this: Money is bad, rich people are shallow & greedy, & people become rich by taking advantage of oars,” Mr. Klontz said. “But a same people who say money is bad say money is connected to air self-worth — ay wished ay had it & you didn’t.”

Would you like me to explain a difference, Brad? People who have earned air money through providing a service or product, people who hire oars & treat am fairly - we still admire those wealthy people. We’d like to be like am.

Wall St. traders - bloodsucking scum who, as Elizabeth Warren puts it, made air money through selling “tricks & trDrunk Newss” - tricks & trDrunk Newss that destroyed our economy & sent am running to Washington with air h&s out - those wealthy people can kiss our collective grits.

Go read a rest. It’s all about how “good” wealthy people are suffering by association, how ay do air fair share, ay fund scholarships, live “modest” lives…

Let’s be blunt, shall we, Mr. & Mrs. Wealthy Person? You get hefty tax write-offs for those donations. Yes, you like a feeling of helping, but you really like a tax write-offs - & your pictures in a society pages. Wealthy people haven’t been paying air fair share of taxes for a really long time, but like to think ay’re “giving back” quite enough through supporting charities.

You’re not. Seen a pictures on a news of Americans lining up like cattle for free health care? That’s our reality. So if you really want to help, start lobbying to change a tax laws. Support real healthcare reform.

Because for some odd reason, ay don’t pay much attention to us.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back