Where 30 Years of Real Class Warfare Has Left America

[Flaylo]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/30-years-of-real-class-warfare_b_932279.html?ir=Politics

There's a novel idea being championed by Republicans this month. Everyone, from Mitt Romney to Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, seems to believe that the problem with the tax system is not that the very rich get off too easy, but that the very poor do. In fact, Republicans in Congress sound pretty eager to see payroll taxes on working Americans rise again in January.

This should strike most people as odd, since the super rich in this country are taxed just 17 percent of their earnings while the rest of us fork over around 36 percent. But the argument, Dallas Tea Party founder Phillip Dennis explained to Hardball viewers last month, is that, "The top one percent pays fifty percent of the taxes in this country."

"What," he asked, "about the bottom forty-eight percent who doesn't pay anything?" Yes, really: Americans are being asked to believe that if the top 1 percent managed to match the bottom 99 percent (which pays a rate more than twice as high,) that this would be evidence not of a truly breathtaking national wealth gap, but of a downtrodden upper class.

No one in America can leave their home, eat a meal, make a phone call or even turn on the lights without paying some sort of a regressive tax that disproportionately affects the poor and working class, so the premise of Dennis' argument is just factually untrue. What is true is that many Americans pay no federal income tax, because it has a progressive structure to counter that effect. It even manages to shake out surprisingly equitably among the poor and middle class, with those earning anything between $20,000 and $500,000 per year handing over a whopping 40 percent of their income to the government one way or another. Only the super rich seem to get off relatively easily, contributing just 17 percent.

 

[skookerasbil]

 

[JoeB131]

I think a national sales tax would be a horrible idea for a lot of reasons. But the reality is that the rich can spend the money to shelter their wealth and the rest of us can't.

The wealthy do pay a higher marginal rate, but the rest of the taxes hit the working class- propety, income, Social Security, Medicare, sales taxes, cigarettes, liquor, gasoline, etc.

But you know why you liberals never have any credibility on this issue. Because usually you never say, "Okay, let's cut taxes on gasoline!" Nope. That might kill the polar bears or something. "Let's cut the tax on cigarettes". Nope. Not giving up that cash cow. Big Government makes more off Dad's Cancer Sticks than the people who make them.

 

[editec]

We have the economy our masters invented.

It does not take an economics degree to understand that if you keep giving advantages to the CAPITAL CLASS the WORKING CLASSES will lose ground by comparison.

 

[naturegirl]

But you know why you liberals never have any credibility on this issue. Because usually you never say, "Okay, let's cut taxes on gasoline!" Nope. That might kill the polar bears or something. "Let's cut the tax on cigarettes". Nope. Not giving up that cash cow. Big Government makes more off Dad's Cancer Sticks than the people who make them.

Those consumption taxes hit the working poor much harder than the evil rich, but hey, it somehow gets overlooked by our current elected officials.

 

[midcan5]

Sometimes it seems big money is fighting little people. After WWII corporations worked to support their workers and provide sufficient funds for the good life. My generation may be the last one that experienced a world in which a HS grad could do alright. Not that having a college degree today is magic either. The love of more money seems to have created a class of people who care more for it than for the nation and its people. The statistic below is telling.

"Inequality in a society also leads to the problems noted below, if morality were truly a consideration of a society and its wealth, this would be less a issue. "Great inequality is the scourge of modern societies. We provide the evidence on each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage births, and child well-being. For all eleven of these health and social problems, outcomes are very substantially worse in more unequal societies." Richard Wilkinson/Kate Pickett The Evidence in Detail | The Equality Trust

 

[skookerasbil]

Sometimes it seems big money is fighting little people. After WWII corporations worked to support their workers and provide sufficient funds for the good life. My generation may be the last one that experienced a world in which a HS grad could do alright. Not that having a college degree today is magic either. The love of more money seems to have created a class of people who care more for it than for the nation and its people. The statistic below is telling.

"Inequality in a society also leads to the problems noted below, if morality were truly a consideration of a society and its wealth, this would be less a issue. "Great inequality is the scourge of modern societies. We provide the evidence on each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage births, and child well-being. For all eleven of these health and social problems, outcomes are very substantially worse in more unequal societies." Richard Wilkinson/Kate Pickett The Evidence in Detail | The Equality Trust

Some people will never get it................

Thankfully, the class warfare approach with public policy is losing big..........

Once every generation, the voting public takes a shot with the "SUCKIER" choice between "SUCK" and "SUCKIER"......and always get kicked squarely in the balls. ( see Jimmy Carter 1977-1980). Always end up back with the choice of "SUCK"........because on balance, more people benefit with "SUCK". With "SUCKIER" less people benefit more...............which is the way of the far left.

SUCKIER will be back in vogue in 2013..........big money will always be around, even if the k00ks spend the next 500 years trying to eradicate it with populist class warfare BS. Bet me house on it............

 

[JoeB131]

Sometimes it seems big money is fighting little people. After WWII corporations worked to support their workers and provide sufficient funds for the good life. My generation may be the last one that experienced a world in which a HS grad could do alright. Not that having a college degree today is magic either. The love of more money seems to have created a class of people who care more for it than for the nation and its people. The statistic below is telling.

]

The difference was, after World War II, a HS diploma was actually worth something. Now there's a 20% chance that the person who holds it can't read it. We can thank unionized government schools for that.

Corporations are more international entities now than national ones. So, really, countries have to compete for their business.

But as long as we take our butts to Wal-Mart to buy cheap Chinese made shit, we are really screwing ourselves, aren't we?

 

[rdean]

Funny, Republicans are always supporting the worst possible outcome. Foreign policy, economics, doesn't matter. They are like Bizzaro. "Bad am good!".

 

[naturegirl]

So are we to believe there are no liberal business owners?? Or are we to believe there are liberal business owners that provide a good life for their employees?

Does anyone ever wonder why the left always seems to equate business ownership with conservatives?? Is there a reason those super duper educated progressives always work for someone else or the government??

 

[JoeB131]

Funny, Republicans are always supporting the worst possible outcome. Foreign policy, economics, doesn't matter. They are like Bizzaro. "Bad am good!".

Funny, RDean, I thought you were a Bizarro World native...

 

[eflatminor]

The Great Society is dead. Bury it and be done with it. Time to once again embrace individual freedom, personal responsibility, sound money, limited government and property rights.

That, or just print more money. Yea, fuck the next generation!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Larry Womack: Where 30 Years of Real Class Warfare Has Left America

There's a novel idea being championed by Republicans this month. Everyone, from Mitt Romney to Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, seems to believe that the problem with the tax system is not that the very rich get off too easy, but that the very poor do. In fact, Republicans in Congress sound pretty eager to see payroll taxes on working Americans rise again in January.

This should strike most people as odd, since the super rich in this country are taxed just 17 percent of their earnings while the rest of us fork over around 36 percent. But the argument, Dallas Tea Party founder Phillip Dennis explained to Hardball viewers last month, is that, "The top one percent pays fifty percent of the taxes in this country."

"What," he asked, "about the bottom forty-eight percent who doesn't pay anything?" Yes, really: Americans are being asked to believe that if the top 1 percent managed to match the bottom 99 percent (which pays a rate more than twice as high,) that this would be evidence not of a truly breathtaking national wealth gap, but of a downtrodden upper class.

No one in America can leave their home, eat a meal, make a phone call or even turn on the lights without paying some sort of a regressive tax that disproportionately affects the poor and working class, so the premise of Dennis' argument is just factually untrue. What is true is that many Americans pay no federal income tax, because it has a progressive structure to counter that effect. It even manages to shake out surprisingly equitably among the poor and middle class, with those earning anything between $20,000 and $500,000 per year handing over a whopping 40 percent of their income to the government one way or another. Only the super rich seem to get off relatively easily, contributing just 17 percent.

You spend so much time posting here

 

[hellofromwarsaw]

Reaganism and Fox/Rush- a total disaster...the world is aghast.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Funny, Republicans are always supporting the worst possible outcome. Foreign policy, economics, doesn't matter. They are like Bizzaro. "Bad am good!".

Funny, RDean, I thought you were a Bizarro World native...

I thought him to be the King of Bizarro World.

 

[shintao]

Interesting you would drag that welfare whore up here as the righty poster girl.

 

[TheSharpCulture]

Sometimes it seems big money is fighting little people. After WWII corporations worked to support their workers and provide sufficient funds for the good life. My generation may be the last one that experienced a world in which a HS grad could do alright. Not that having a college degree today is magic either. The love of more money seems to have created a class of people who care more for it than for the nation and its people. The statistic below is telling.


"Inequality in a society also leads to the problems noted below, if morality were truly a consideration of a society and its wealth, this would be less a issue. "Great inequality is the scourge of modern societies. We provide the evidence on each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage births, and child well-being. For all eleven of these health and social problems, outcomes are very substantially worse in more unequal societies." Richard Wilkinson/Kate Pickett

So take it from those who are successful and give it to those who are not? What exactly is your point?