This weekend, one thousand people got together in San Francisco to create a human banner, and it was exactly awesome:
From Human Banner SF:
“I work hard every day,” said event organizer and Bay Area cab driver, Brad Newsham. “It isn’t right that I pay higher taxes than billionaires like Warren Buffet. And actually, Mr. Buffet agrees with me on this.” Recently the “Buffet Rule” has become a touchstone of Obama’s proposal to tax millionaires to fund his job program. Republicans in Congress have blocked both initiatives, but recent polls show that 73% of Americans (including 66% of Republicans, and 52% of Tea Partiers) support the Buffet Rule and want to raise taxes on millionaires. [1]
The “TAX THE 1%” human banner was scheduled almost exactly a year before Election Day 2012. This is no coincidence. “We’re putting Obama and all the Presidential candidates on notice,” said event co-organizer and Other 98% founder, Andrew Boyd. “The 99% of us have been hammered by this ecnonomy. It’s time for the 1% to pay their fair share.” Over the last 30 years incomes of the 99% of Americans have stagnated, while the 1% has seen their share of the national income more than double over the same period. [2]
“Everyone knows the game is rigged,” said Newsham. “One simple thing we can do right now to make things more fair is to tax the 1%. And we came down here to spell it out.”
“They say we’re not supposed to tax the rich because they’re the ‘job creators.’” said Boyd. “Well, where are the jobs? Instead of creating jobs, they took the money they got from the Bush tax cuts and put it into risky financial speculation that destroyed the economy.” Even with historically low tax rates for the 1%, job growth has declined. A recent CBS News poll showed that only 18% of Americans believe that cutting taxes on millionaires will spur job creation. [3]
The percentage of taxes paid by millionaires has steadily declined over the last 50 years. In 1961, Americans earning over $1 million (adjusted for 2011 dollars) paid 43.1% of their incomes in taxes. Last year, millionaires paid 23.1% of their income in taxes. [4]
Newsham hired a helicopter and photographer to fly overhead and take pictures.
The event was a collaboration between Mr. Newsham and The Other 98%, a net-roots powerhouse with over 120,000 facebook followers. For more information, please visit other98.com
The crowd was estimated at over 1000, including two San Francisco City Supervisors.
(click to read the rest, including internal links and footnotes, and more photos)
I love it.
Do you think the Republicans can keep up this “The Riches™ are Job Creators” charade for twelve more months? That’s twelve more months of polls showing that Americans want the wealthy to pay their fair share. Constituents are going to start asking their representatives “Why?” and after a while, Grover Norquist will be a household name. (Hopefully.) Parents will regale their children with tales of Grover the Puppetmaster and his Tax Pledge of Doom. (Hopefully.)
In fact, we, the political junkies, should make a concerted effort to make sure that Grover Norquist becomes a household name. Every American who favors tax increases on the wealthy should know that the sole reason Republicans oppose taxing the rich is because they made a silly pledge to some dude whom nobody elected. If the media isn’t going to do its damn job and call this man out, then we have to do it ourselves.
It’s absolutely outrageous.
At a certain point, America is going to slap the GOP in the face, Moonstruck-style, and demand that the GOP “SNAP OUT OF IT.”
Let’s hope it happens sooner rather than later.
[via Human Banner SF]
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
Bullsmith
These hippies have no discernible message. I saw it on tv.
R-Jud
I’m so confused. Somebody tell a joke.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
I want to believe this, ABL. I seriously want to. But the more I see things, even with the grunt-level successes of the Occupy movement, I just don’t see that happening, at least in an appreciable way that’ll change actual policy before the water reaches eye-level. That’s my base terror this Halloween: the idea that it’s TOO LATE, because the people we have in power NOW will ensure everyone else gets fucked over permanently.
Chris
I always liked San Francisco. Now I’ve got another reason.
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Unfortunately, I’ve got more than a little of the same apprehension.
Reality Check
The top 1% already pay more in taxes than the bottom 95%
http://tinyurl.com/nnn6rf
Also, the top 10% paid 71% of all income taxes:
http://tinyurl.com/yyqq5xk
gbear
@R-Jud:
Take my wife…
Please.
Jewish Steel
For being made of people, they are nicely kerned.
jl
And the longshoreman are supporting the general strike in Oakland called for Wednesday.
The Occupy Oakland crowd there says they will be occupying businesses that do not shut down, with a special eye on bank branches. That will be fun.
Longshoreman used to be commies, so they say.
Look forward to a DFH and commie union thug festival from corporate newsrooms soon.
Seriously, though, not sure the occupation of business for one day strike is good idea. A little too soon for that kind of direct action. Though I have no problem with a general strike.
But it is Oakland, so waddya gonna do? A lot of people radicalized there because of very dubious police shootings over past couple of years.
Edit: read West Coast longshoreman in some kind of dispute with shippers, so are trying to start a nationwide port shutdown.
ABL
@Reality Check: you should change your name.
Elroy Dipthshod
AKA General Stuck
Unfortunately, in the red state America, they won’t be, because the economic ethos there, has always revolved around a one percent rule, aristocracy like world view. Even for most poor whites, and blacks who know their places. Where it has always been, basically peasant class with the white male patricians to look after their needs, as needed. As needed meaning, whenever they feel like it.
The lines of the social and econ caste like system there, is not as clearly marked and maintained as it once were, but the outlines of it can be seen in regressive state tax codes and the like. And I saw it first hand living in southern Mississippi during the 90’s.
Obama is likely going to have to win again, the more purple states with a lot of socially conservative labor types, such as Ohio and maybe Florida, and most all the upper midwest states he won last time. Luckily, the winger state governors from the 2010 election in several of these states are doing their part, alienating union members and their families, not to mention the same with odious laws and proposals for nationalizing the female uterus for the sake of baby jeevus.
The start of the election campaign after labor day, gives Obama the green light to hammer these points home on a daily basis, without regard of getting slammed for not being presidential when it wasn’t campaign season.
kMc
Percentages, how do they work?
Reality check, you kill me.
jl
@Reality Check:
Thanks, nice informative links. What is your point, DougJ?
People who have no, or very little, income will pay no income taxes. I would think that the inequality lovers would cheer those developments, since it gives more reason for the lesser people to be ignored on the devout and holy Money Talks and BS Walks, and Them that has the Gold Makes the Rules principles.
Short Bus Bully
Why the FUCK doesn’t The Mustache ever get cab drivers like this mofo?
/le sigh
Thoughtcrime
@ABL:
“Reality Challenged”
Reality Check
I’ll break it down for you–
Slowly. It goes like this. ONLY, THE, RICH, ARE, PAYING, TAXES. 47% of the country pays no federal taxes AT ALL.
David in NY
@Reality Check: Yeah, but it’s what you’ve got left after the taxes that counts.
Just another idiot who doesn’t understand the justice of progressive taxation — them that gets the most out of society owes the most back.
scav
@Thoughtcrime: Challenged?! Down for the count and EMTs gave up and went home.
Roy G.
@Realy Checked, nice use of tinyurl to hide your ‘evidence’ – of course the Heritage Institute is behind one of them, and in the Times blog post linked to, the comments tear the misleading post and graph to shreds.
So, do you work for the CoorsMellonDeVosKochs or are you just a useful idiot for them? My money is on the latter.
cathyx
A longshoremen strike at Christmas time up and down the west coast. That’ll make dent. Love it.
Elroy Dipthshod
@Reality Check:
aka General STuck
You knuckleheads never tell the truth about taxes. From the shameless loopholes for the rich to wiggle through, to the fact you didn’t qualify your comment from the reality of the article you linked saying.
Lots more taxes that are levied that federal income tax. From gas to groceries, and about everything else under the sun needed for daily living by everyone. Hurting more the ones that will be a little poorer after paying them, with the rich still being rich paying the same rate of those other taxes.
Reality Check
@Roy G.:
IT’S
SATAN AND HIS FALLEN ANGELSTHE KOCHTOPUS!!!!111!1111 THEY R BEHIND IT AAAALLLLLSock Puppet of the Great Satan
“Slowly. It goes like this. ONLY, THE, RICH, ARE, PAYING, TAXES. 47% of the country pays no federal taxes AT ALL.”
I’ll break it down slow for you:
Federal income taxes is a subset of all Federal Taxes (e.g. Social Security & Medicare Taxes)
Which is a subset of all taxes.
General Stuck
test – clipboard funk
David in NY
@Reality Check: You try living on an income for which you owe no taxes. You just fucking try it for a year. Then come back and tell us how good you felt, how getting away without paying taxes made you feel rich.
And by the way, you’re still an idiot. 47% pays no federal income taxes. Many of them pay social security and medicare taxes, which are federal, and they are high and regressive. And I’m leaving out all the state taxes. And that’s why they get a break, so they don’t fucking stave to death.
Ignorant idiot.
Reality Check
@Elroy Dipthshod:
Then work to abolish sales taxes at the state level, I’d be for that (With appropriate cuts in wasteful spending) but we’re debating *FEDERAL* taxation here.
Reality Check
@David in NY:
“Social Security and Medicare TAXES“, you say? But for decades liberals have been telling us they’re just “contributions” we get back later!
singfoom
@Reality Check: You mean federal income taxes, troll. Hmm, why do 47% of the people in the country not pay FEDERAL INCOME TAXES?
Oh I know, because they are POOOR. They pay SS tax, and sales tax and plenty of other taxes.
Can you make it on $16,000 a year for a family of four?
Chyron HR
@Reality Check:
Remember what I said about begging you to run on “Kill Social Security”? That goes double for your brilliant “We hate 47% of the country” campaign.
Reality Check
How about we cut spending, starting with wasteful programs like this:
http://tinyurl.com/6dtg7us
Linda Featheringill
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
This fear that those now in power will hurt us all forever is a factor in the protests.
Historically, when too many people started to think that those in power could not be reformed, they started looking at other ways to run things.
And this brings us to the R word [revolution].
If the Biggies and their Republican pets would jump in and actually tax the rich, it would probably defuse the whole situation. But I don’t think they’re that smart.
Besides, what do I know? I’m just a DFH and will soon be recommending that they distribute their hoarded wheat among the peasants or something equally as stupid.
General Stuck
Besides, brainwashed noobs and their plutocrat masters, like reality check, cannot get their pea branes around the fact that the more progressive taxes are, the better it is for bidness, also too.
Chyron HR
@Reality Check:
I didn’t know Tea Party founder Michele Bachmann read this blog.
Gin & Tonic
@Reality Check: Right, because making sure that foreclosed houses stay empty is a good way of improving the neighborhood.
Reality Check
@Chyron HR:
You’re just as religious as Bachmann when it comes to
SatanThe Kochtopus.Reality Check
@Gin & Tonic:
So we should hand out taxpayer money to unemployed single moms that breed like rabbits so they can live in four bedroom McMansions for doing absolutely nothing with their lives? Good luck running on that.
Reality Check
Progressive Mantra: Steal from the productive, give to the parasites.
Zifnab
@Reality Check: So you are claiming that people with the most income paid the most in income taxes? That’s outrageous.
What’s more, did you hear that only dead people are paying the death (estate) tax? I don’t see why we can’t spread that burden around.
singfoom
@Reality Check: Yes, because pointing out the money trail leading from the right wing “think tanks”/lobby groups to two right wing conservative billionaries who will do anything to keep as many of their billions as possible is totally the same as a belief in a higher power.
Seriously, how do you make it through the day? You don’t collapse in shame every 5 minutes for the bullshit you spew?
W
Chyron HR
@Reality Check:
Clearly we don’t sound like Christians, beacuse you’re not obeying our every word like a good little Republican.
Zifnab
@General Stuck: I’m sure RC is one of those Glibertarians that are totally sold on the idea that we can grow the GDP by spending less money, too.
Hill Dweller
Come on, Reality Check, spit it out. I know ‘welfare queen’ is on the tip of your tongue(fingers in this case).
Reality Check
@singfoom:
And Alex Jones traces “the money trail” to Jewish bankers in Geneva or whatever in his fevered, conspiratorial dreams. Maddow, who popularized the whole Kochtopus Konspiracy (cribbing it from the Paultards of all people!) becomes nothing more than an Upper East Side Alex Jones.
singfoom
Troll check in aisle every thread now, can we please ban this non-amusing troll? If people really miss him, I’ll write a RC talking points generator so people can get their chuckle that way.
John Weiss
@Reality Check: Mebbe so. But most poor pay sales tax and gasoline tax; if they’re lucky enough to have a job, they pay withholding taxes. They pay property taxes (indirectly if they rent) and so on. They pay taxes alright perhaps not Federal income tax.
Hoodie
The only problem with the “tax the 1%” approach is that it can be vulnerable to tangents like our friend “Reality Check” (BTW, have you noticed that wingnut trolls tend to have pompous handles like “americanpatriot” and “reality check”?) attempts to launch us on. The biggest problem with the 1% is their disproportionate political pull, which enables them to erect economic and political structures (e.g., treating carried interest as a long-term capital gain, favorable treatment of big banks by the fed) that further concentrate their power and which have distorted our economy to, for example, favor finance over manufacturing. Tax-based redistribution is one way to address it (e.g., by clawing back ill-gotten gains from abusive, bailed-out financial behavior), but the 99% is about more than taxation, it’s about democracy, economic and otherwise (breaking up TBTF, for example). The wingnuts want to reduce this to simply an argument about taxes, which enables them to veer off into sideshows like who pays what.
General Stuck
@Reality Check:
I would be all for that. The problem is that states need revenue to operate, just like the fed government. So that revenue stream drying up would have to be made up elsewhere.
Higher state income taxes for the wealthy would be the least painful way to make taxes more progressive at the state level. Rich people will still be rich, and leave more money in the pockets of the consumer class to buy more shit and balance out our severely imbalanced demand side of the equation. And the rich actually do better in the long run.
Amir Khalid
@Reality Check:
The program described in that story sounds like it did that beneficiary a world of good. Most people would consider that public money well spent. So what’s your point?
Reality Check
@General Stuck:
Or you could just cut wasteful state spending and replace the abolished taxes with NOTHING. Gold-plated Public Employee pensions would be a good place to start. Abolish them and switch ’em to a 401(k) plan like everyone else has these days.
Chris
@Elroy Dipthshod:
The funny thing is that even in the red states, bona fide economic populism used to have an audience. Huey Long was wildly popular back in the day, but that never seemed to translate into a sustained movement. What’s up with that? Was it just a Great Depression induced hiccup that people like him managed to appear?
Reality Check
@Amir Khalid:
So why should anyone work at all? Why not just collect unemployment and section 8 vouchers while popping out a kid every 3 years and live off the productive?
Reality Check
@Chris:
Huey Long was a Fascist. A real, bona-fide, non-strawman fucking Fascist, and people like you hold him up as some kind of idol. Sickening.
Gin & Tonic
@Reality Check: I’d hardly consider a house that went for $90k in a short sale to be a McMansion, and would hardly consider a woman with one daughter to be “breeding like a rabbit”, but what do I know? I just read the linked article, in which the CEO of a realty group says “I love Section 8.”
Chris
@Hoodie:
“If there are people in this country rich enough to own the government, they are going to own it.”
singfoom
@Reality Check: I like how you accuse us of dogma and faith like devotion to certain things, when the entire time you’re pushing the prosperity gospel.
Come on, say it Reality Check. I know you think it. The more money one has, the better they are right?
So those with the most money are obviously better than the rest of us, hands down, right?
And therefore, not having a lot of money is bad, indicative of poor morals and character.
Why not bring the orphanages and the poor workhouses back?
Roy G.
@Reaaly Check your answer confirms it, you are an idiot.
btw, Obama came to where I work a few weeks ago, and, gosh, there are indeed people who make a lot of money but aren’t so totally blinded by greed and stupidity:
Rich Silicon Valley Man Begs Obama To Raise His Taxes, Please
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/rich-silicon-valley-man-begs-obama-to-raise-his-taxes.php
Reality Check
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes, of course the CEO says that. It’s gold-plated corporate welfare as much as it is welfare for parasites. And she has 3 daughters, btw, look at the second photo cpation. But why have a two parent, stable and married household when Uncle Sam can be the second parent and you sugar daddy?
One of her daughets is 24 and still living at home FFS! What kind of loser does that? No doubt soon she’ll also have Uncle Sam as a sugar daddy, and be totally unprepared for the real world and enslaved to a life of public dependancey on the taxpayer.
John Weiss
@Reality Check: Doofus! That’s right, depend on the stock market for your retirement! I think not.
cathyx
My posts are disappearing. This is only a test.
JPL
@R-Jud: Didn’t I read yesterday that it’s your birthday.. Hope your day was special.
Reality Check
@Roy G.:
That man can pay extra taxes any time he wants! I hear the IRS accepts both checks and money orders.
General Stuck
@Reality Check:
Planet Wingnut, where shit runs uphill and everything runs on pixie dust and mindless greed.
You keep one person in a home with assistance, you create another consumer to keep the econ wheels turning. Unless of course, you are republican willing to burn it all down, to keep the poor the poorest it can be.
There are places where waste, abuse and fraud exist. But the GOP doesn’t really care abut that, because they and their friends are making money from it. And will only consider cutting off programs for the poor, and now middle class, because they are either democratic voters, or it just makes them feel good stomping on people that can’t defend themselves.
Villago Delenda Est
Pathetic little natural serfs like “Reality Check” demonstrate, every time they post, why even their own unholy masters hold them in complete contempt.
Gin & Tonic
@Reality Check:
Um, someone like, say, my son, who graduated in the top tenth of his high school class and got an economics degree from a well-known university, who can’t find work. Because there are no fucking jobs.
Chris
@Reality Check:
Yawn. You people call Obama a fascist while idolizing William F. Buckley, who was busy gushing over fascist governments back when they actually existed and mattered, so the way you wield the word “fascist” really doesn’t mean shit to me. On the other hand, I take it as a compliment of the highest order that something I said sickened you. Take all the time you need at the altar of the porcelain god, shit-for-brains, we’ll try not to miss you too much while you’re gone.
KG
Well, since everyone else is feeding the troll, I’ll just point this fact out… Did you notice the trend lines on those graphs showing who pays what in federal income taxes? Did you notice the percentage the top 1% pays has gone down (way down, actually) since the mid-80s? And at the same time the percentage that the rest of us pay has gone up? Since those graphs started in 1986, does that mean that Reagan was a really a Marxist set on destroying capitalism?
Reality Check
@Gin & Tonic:
By the time I was 26 I was buying my own home. This generation is too babied.
Chyron HR
@Reality Check:
Reality Check bashing a noble job-creating CEO? I guess he must be a filthy
Juden ratparasite or something.scav
Maybe we could suggest a compromise. We’ll leave taxes on the 1% where they are and chex_mix agrees we fund the DoD uniquely from the funds generated by federal taxes on the unemployed.
Reality Check
The fact that he graduated in the top tenth just speaks to how dumbed down our Publik Skools (the misspelling is intentional) have become, and how utterly unprepared children leave their PC colleges are for the real world so they end up back in mommy and daddy’s basements forever. We ought to be ashamed at the way the last generation has been babied and infantalized by our PC, Feel-Good, Self-Esteem culture.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@RC Cola:
Huey Long was not a fascist. He did run a political machine in Louisiana, with the full repeatedly expressed consent of a large majority of its citizens. Read all about him on wikipedia, and look up “fascism” at webster.com – or keep talking and therefore learning nothing.
.
.
David in NY
Wrong on every count.
1. Taxes are not theft, they are owed for benefits received.
2. The rich are often not productive at all — see the trust fund babies who launched the anti-estate-tax propaganda campaign just to keep every cent they were ever born with. See the Mars tribe, the Walton tribe, etc. They are leeches on the rest of us.
3. The not-rich are often more productive than the rich — see 2, above. And see lots of professionals, nurses, firemen, policemen, garbage collectors, etc. More productive than the idle rich.
You are an idiot and a sucker.
Idiot.
The Populist
@kMc: Exactly. I make over 100 K a year and of course I will “pay” more in taxes, dollar wise, than somebody below me. Problem is, I AM NOT paying my fair share.
Fair share = if a grunt level worker pays 33%, I pay 33%.
Reality Check
@The Populist:
So go ahead. What’s stopping you from paying “your fair share”? As I said, the IRS accepts both check and money order. You can be taxed more anytime you want.
David in NY
Okay, the troll just spews, no matter how wrong he or she is shown to be. Not worth the time, if he or she can’t even respond to the truth, when it’s shown to him or her.
The Populist
@Reality Check: To some extent, they may be in some ways BUT we are supposed to make every generation after us do better than we did. But then again, the trust fund babies are the pampered ones, so I would agree somewhat. Opportunities are dying off. Yes, you bought a house at 26 and I bought one at 22. Guess what? The system THEN was fairer and had more opportunities for the many to succeed.
Why have a society when there are zero opportunities with rampant cronyism taking over? Sorry, I want a fair society that allows others, willing to work hard, to have the same opportunities I did. I worked from nothing, I came from a blue collar background. I am now an owner and I guess you can say my net worth puts me in the top 2%-3%. I still want to see others succeed and we cannot have this in a country where doors close.
I run a business that needs good roads, good infrastructure and good internet, etc. in able for me to keep growing. I will gladly pay a few bucks more in taxes to get people back to work and hopefully mean more customers for my business. Why is this so hard for you people to grasp?
The Populist
@Reality Check: I have no problem with that, problem is they give it back to you tardo. But hell, you knew this right?
Idiot.
xian
i smell a whiff of desperation as Royalty Check digs deep into the “strapping bucks buying t-bone steaks” meme factory. Keep on fuckin’ that chicken, RC.
Violet
Oh, that’s crazy. I know Brad Newsham. I met him years ago. This is the second time his name has come up in the last few weeks. I heard him on a radio show where the subject of the day was cab drivers. Good for him for doing something like that.
The Populist
@Reality Check:
Sorry idiot, pensions could use some reforming but no teacher, cop or fireman I know is living high on the hog with their pensions.
Kindly take that meme and shove it back in your little right wing talking points bag o’ tricks.
The Populist
@xian: Selfish ASSES like him are losing the public debate for the first time like…ever.
He can’t win the argument so he bashes and makes ridiculous claims. “Gee, tee hee, if you want to pay more Mr Populist, send the IRS more money!” Uh huh…that works.
I guess he wishes people like me would. Problem with that is simple…I own a corporation and I can’t just hand out money unless it’s required. As for my personal income? I could do it as I said, problem is the IRS just mails it back to you as overpayment. This is fact as I actually offered to give back a stimulus check Bush gave us one year.
TheYankeeApologist
Seriously, y’all? Either this person is the most successful troll in internet history or the most hopelessly deluded person of all time. Why are you engaging it with anything except Cleek’s pie filter?
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
If you’re a Californian old enough to remember Proposition 13, Grover Norquist already is a household name, and a byword for cursing as well. I’d almost be willing to interfere with freedom of the press enough to mandate that any news item about the long-term fuck-upedness of our state’s budget and political stalemate be required to include his name and a description of how he helped get us here.
And my friends Cynthia and Janice are on the blue blanket on the crossbar of the “H”! I’m proud of them and all the Bay Area folks who got out there to send a message.
ETA: Also, this troll is just too letter-perfect to be anything but a spoof.
glitter
@ Banality Check Gold-plated Public Employee pensions would be a good place to start. Abolish them and switch ‘em to a 401(k) plan like everyone else has these days
That’s class warfare! Why should those among us who were diligent enough to get a good job and pay into our pension have to give it up and risk our retirement savings in the Great Casino because cretins like you weren’t smart or hard-working enough to get as good a job? I can’t help it if you’re lazy and unmotivated. Get a REAL job, ignoramus!
And while you’re at it, You might want to go back and get a decent education. Even for a mouth-breather your critical thinking skills are truly abysmal. Were you dropped on your head as a baby?
The Populist
@Reality Check: You sound angry. What happened to you to sound like somebody who spews stereotypes instead of facts?
I can easily stereotype you but I choose to debate. Sad, sad, sad.
The Populist
@TheYankeeApologist: I’m done dude. Figured him out as it’s obvious life has been very unkind to him.
See, I love this country and will pay a few bucks more to keep it going in the way that allows America to be one of the top nations on earth. As it stands, we are no longer one of the best countries on earth in so many areas and that just pisses ME off. Why is it he isn’t pissed by that? Oh yes, he’s angry at the riff raff for asking him to pay his fair share to live in a country that has given a lot to a lot of people. Damn I hate idiots.
The Populist
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Yep, I do. He went on Bill Maher and was properly owned.
Grover NEVER does shows like that. Since the debate on taxes started, he’s been spinning heavily on Hartmann’s show, Rachel’s show, I think he’s even been on Ed Shultz’ show and now Bill Maher.
I sense Grover knows he’s losing.
The Populist
@KG: Hence why bridges in Kentucky are being shut down and others are collapsing.
Why can’t they just admit they overspent us into debt w/r/t the wars and the Bush tax cuts? Data backs us up on this fact.
David in NY
@The Populist: Actually, the government will accept gifts, given as such.
The problem with that is, it’s no answer to any of our problems. No one person’s gift can make any real difference, and, as a legal matter, no one is required to pay more than the law demands. Of course, no one person could adequately fund the government, not even Warren Buffet, and no one gift will have any effect. What it necessary is a taxation system on everyone that is fair in taking the most from those who have benefited the most and who have the most to give, so that no one is driven into poverty by taxes, and those who will have a large surplus in any event pay the most. This also produces the biggest bang for the buck in tax terms, and any true conservative (not the radical rich) would naturally embrace such a system.
The Populist
@David in NY: Agreed…problem with idiotic statements by trolls is that they easily demand one person do it when the polls show MANY rich people who make much more than all of us combined agree on paying some more as well.
I’d rather give to a charity (which I do) than pay more if I am the only one doing it. My extra 3% isn’t going to fix a bridge or keep a teacher employed, unfortunately. THAT is the problem with troll comments.
But then I figured out how somebody like him buys a house at 26…he probably gets that sweet Americans For Prosperity cash for his many idiotic posts here. What a gig!
David in NY
“The Mars family was among 18 billionaire families who lobbied Congress to eliminate the estate tax.[5] According to Public Citizen, since 1994 the families have spent approximately $500 million on lobbying efforts.”
from Wikipedia.
This is the problem. It is probably understated here.
David in NY
@The Populist: Well, your attempt to engage was admirable.
Dr. Squid
If he’s one of “the producers”, how come he takes up about 20% of comment threads at various blogs. If his job description includes, “taking a dump on company servers,” I suppose it is productive.
Brian S
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Well, citizens who were allowed to vote, at least. And he did his best to consolidate power in the governor’s office so he could become a virtual, if not actual dictator.
Chris
@Brian S:
Long abolished the poll tax, which up to that point had disenfranchised something like three quarters of Louisiana’s population (not just blacks but tons and tons of white people who were too poor to meet it). Didn’t tackle any other Jim Crow laws, but a lot of his relief programs went to helping black people as well as whites, inciting the KKK to portray him with his arms around black people promising them free rides (amazing how little the rhetoric has changed).
As far as voting rights overall went, he made things better, and as far as the rights of minorities specifically, at the absolute worse, he was neutral.
That’s true, but consider also that there had already been a political machine ruling Louisiana for decades, that one run by wealthy farmers and industrial interests like Standard Oil (the people who’d put up those poll taxes). By the time Huey Long came into office, Louisiana had already been a “virtual dictatorship” for a long time, just by committee rather than one man.
So in that respect as well, the very worst I can say for him is that he was no better than his predecessors. Considering that he opened up his administration to scrutiny by a much larger part of the public, I’m going to say “better,” though.
I’m under no illusions that the guy was a saint, but there are no saints in politics. It’s always about the lesser of two evils (that’s why I continue to vote Democrat today, not because I’m blind to their many problems). By the standards of the time and considering his competition, I’d say Long was massively “the lesser.”
b-psycho
No adblock on the laptop, and this post now has below it an ad in Spanish for Fruity Pebbles. Odd.
The Spy Who Loved Me
@The Populist:
The 2011 33% marginal rate begins at $174,400 in taxable income (income after deductions and exemptions) and goes up to $379,150.
If you pay your “grunt” workers enough money that their taxable income is $174,400 I, along with many others, would be happy to come work for you.
The Spy Who Loved Me
@The Populist:
If you “own” a corporation, then there are no other shareholders, so within the bounds of the law, you can do pretty much and damn thing you want to. There is a way you can easily pay more in corporate taxes: just don’t take the deductions you are legally entitled to when doing your corporate tax return. Problem solved and you can salve your conscience by paying more in taxes.
Or, you can just make a direct contribution to the United State Treasury. They even have a special department just to take such gifts.
Barry
@Reality Check: Reality denier, can you even make your first sentence not contradict the second sentence? We caught your switch-up there.
Barry
@Reality Check: No, *you* are debating federal taxes.
SiubhanDuinne
@Reality Check:
Uh, hate to break it to you, RC, but the family in the second photo is a different family than the one featured in the article. Learn to fucking read, okay?
Origuy
Some hard data from the BBC on how the VAT (UK sales tax) is regressive.
BruinKid
And don’t forget that earlier story that even most millionaires want their taxes raised as well.
daniel quinn
Bay area crab diver…What? oh..never mind.
CaliCat
NOW THAT’S A MESSAGE. I live in the city and I wasn’t aware of this until I say this post. I like it very much. People need to start doing flash mobs of this 24/7.
Also too, GO NINERS