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Thom's blog
Encourage entrepreneurship
If we as a nation truly believe in entrepreneurship - the very thing that made America an economic success - then we need to pro-actively encourage and provide help and incentives to small businesses. Herbert Hoover started the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) in 1932 to float loans for companies companies that were falling into bankruptcy because so many banks were on the edge of failing that nobody could borrow money. The Dwight Eisenhower administration created the Small Business Administration (SBA) in 1953. But big businesses found ways to game the system and be counted as "small". Now would be a great time to reinvent the SBA from the ground up, making it a place where a person who wants to start an auto repair shop or a small retail store could find the capital to get off the ground. We also need to discourage or ban major corporations from their mergers-and-acquisitions mania and close tax loopholes and stop tax subsidies for them. Moving our personal banking to a local credit union is another good start.
-Thom
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 "If you're looking for something that connects the dots between the BP oil disaster, the harm it's done to the Gulf of Mexico and the people paying the price, this book is it. In a clear and compelling voice, it explains the worst environmental catastrophe of our time, then shows the way forward to protect this national treasure, safeguard our future and break our destructive addiction to oil." |
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Thom and Louise Hartmann founded the New England Salem Children's Village in New Hampshire in 1979. With states delaying payment for the children they entrust to the village, they need help with cash flow urgently. Please help if you can. |
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Watch Thom's new show on the RT channel called the Big Picture, or stream it live from 9 to 10pm, and it repeats at 11. You can catch the shows you have missed on Youtube.
Tonight: Who killed the economy and are the Wall Street vampires at it again? With Michael Hudson, author of "THE MONSTER: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America--and Spawned a Global Crisis". |
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The Daily Stack 
Quote: "Economic advance is not the same thing as human progress." -- John Clapham, (A Concise Economic History of Britain, 1957).
News for sale...where is accountability in the corporate media? With Lee Fang, Reporter/Blogger for Think Progress.org.
Hour Two: Kill tax breaks for the rich, not the middle class Thom has a rumble with Curtis Dubay, Senior Policy Analyst, Tax Policy - Heritage Foundation.
Hour Three: Who killed the economy? Thom is joined by economist Michael Hudson, staff writer-Center for Public Integrity; former reporter-Wall Street Journal; author "THE MONSTER: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America--and Spawned a Global Crisis".
RIP Gerald (Stumpy) Richardson.
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Coming up Tuesday on The Thom Hartmann Program
One week to go til election day and one of the most hotly contested races in the nation is a 3-way for U.S. Senate between Tea Party candidate Joe Miller, incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Scott McAdams...we'll get the latest from Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) and check in with candidate Scott McAdams...
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Watch & Listen to Thom
Thom & Rep. Jan Schakowsky...Tell Republicans a secret about cutting the deficit
The Good. The Bad. and The Very Very Ugly....The Brat Tax
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Thom Hartmann Program
Hi,
I believe the discussion with the heritage foundation idiot included Thom citing GDP growth by decade in support of his argument that the tax cuts hurt....
I have googled around and cannot find supporting data and would like to very much for my own arguments..
can you please help
thanks David Miller-Engel
Was anyone else as lost as I was with Curtis Dubay's argument from October 25? Here's a Heritage Foundation, "tax cuts are the solution to everything" conservative who says near the end of the interview: "Well, there are, there, tax, I mean, there are tax cuts that, um, encourage economic growth and there are tax cuts that do not. Obama's tax cuts did not change the incentives to work, save, and invest; the activities that encourage economic growth." So he is definitely admitting that not all tax cuts work, and it sounds like he's saying that tax cuts on the lower to middle classes do not work (because, per Dubay,those classes do not save, invest, or make work with the extra money). So, by method of deduction, Dubay is saying that only tax cuts on the upper classes work. But when Thom asks him the question directly, Curtis DENIES that he wants only tax cuts for the rich. Figure that one out.
There's also the earlier discussion about the French and their retirement age. Dubay seems to think that people over 60 having the option to retire with government benefits is a BAD thing for the young people entering the more opened-up job market. You see, here in the US, young people don't have to WORRY about the elderly retiring at age 60, because they have the knowledge that the job or promotion that they (maybe) get in the tighter job market will NOT be because some old guy got to retire early, leaving his position open to to someone younger. So all you American twenty-somethings, don't worry, you may be unemployed, but at least you don't suffer the guilt of having a job where you replaced some retiree!
Dubay's analysis of the current economy versus that of the 50's, 60's and 70's: the strong economic growth of the past decade (huh?) is a RESULT of the top rate tax cuts, but the sustained economic growth of the 50's, 60's and 70's? It had nothing to do with the high (74 - 91%) tax rates on the rich; it was OTHER FACTORS (which Dubay does not name) driving the healthy economy. And that economy wou have been even stronger had tax rates been lower. Got it!
Dubay also thinks that Americans should "aspire" to be like John Paulson; we should ALL go out with our $25 million dollars and make $25 billion by betting that mass quantities of split-up and rebundled mortgages will fail. What a wonderful thing to aspire to; making huge sums of money by betting on the failure of the US housing market! But you see, Paulson is creating wealth (for himself, as Dubay admits) as well as jobs (like his own, I presume).