Thom - We, or most of us know this already, and have known this for years! Call your elected representative? Kidding right? I do that until I am blue in the face. Bottom line, they will vote whatever their political options tell them to. Elect another one? They do the same!

And then you have the Nut-jobs, the tea-baggers, the true believers. They will NEVER vote for what would be in their best interests. Proof - look at the election last November - their representatives, the nut-jobs, now want to shut the government down! And these very voters are cheering them on!

Obama and the Democrats cannot wake up one morning and at the stroke of a pen and just simply eliminate the tax-cuts for the rich! THERE are laws! There is Congress! There is the Senate! Even the Supreme Court for God's sake. All owned by the robber corporations who spend Billions on the whole process to control the government and eliminate corporate taxes. Don't you think that if there would of been Democratic majority after 2008 that this wouldn't have been done? What about the Supreme Court decision on Citizen's United? Do you actually believe that Obama and the Democrats can overrule and ignore this also?

It’s the voter. Some are smart and some are just downright Not Smart! Just look at Wisconsin, the Supreme Court vote. Technically, after what has happened in Wisconsin in the last couple months, you’d think that Miss Koppenback would of won in a land slide, right? Yet in 1.5 Million votes cast, she won by 250+ votes!! That means that ½ of the voters, 750,500-, STILL VOTED FOR THE WALKER REPUBLICAN pick! What does that tell you? Simple. This no longer has anything to do with reason or self-interest, but everything to do with ideology, fundamentalism, indoctrination and the unwillingness to grasp reality. The neo-cons and their fascist paymasters have over the last 60 years, bit by slow bit, piece by piece, year in year out, carved themselves a plutocratic political empire that will in the near future implode on us all if not stopped. They, however, will never stop.

The only way this will ever end is when we, the American people, regain the control of the corporate held media propaganda machine and either regulate it or eliminate it. If we don’t, we, as Free nation, are doomed, and will just become just another failed civilization, like all the rest that lie in the bone yards of history.

Who are we kidding here? All at once we need a Progressive President, a Democratic Congress with 2/3 REAL Democrats, 62 REAL Senators, and a LIBERAL Supreme Court. If we had all these, we could technically fix ALL what the neo-cons have wrought over the last 60 years! We could. But it will never happen in my lifetime. What we see today is, unfortunately, the status quo for the coming 50 years, if not more. By then it will be too late.

We need a better way to fight the Corporate Media propaganda machine. We need something to replace it. We also need a better way to educate our young to think critically. It is no accident that fundamentalism of any stripe, is willing fodder for the neo-con fascist propaganda machine, simply due to the fact that un-critical minds are easy to manipulate, instill fear, and then mobilize to do stupid things at the expense to themselves and their families, like lemmings going over a cliff just because the one next to it is doing it.

Why has no politician asked for monetary restitution from those (corporations/individuals) who tanked a world's economy and those who benefited from it? They must make us whole again.

You are right on, dnarnadem. I have no words to express it better. We are doomed because we are fed stupidity. Okay, a few of us are smarter than average because we listen to Thom, but how many hundreds of thousands don't? They listen to Rush and his cronies, or they don't listen at all. The media is a mess. We've been indocrinated since the 80's to believe all the wrong things...and most of the people in this country, rich and poor, are sheep. "A Nation of Sheep" remember that book? Nothing's changed, in fact, it has become worse. They want to take us back to Kings and serfs. Why can't Obama see that? Doesn't he realize what will happen to his "people" if the Republicans are allowed to do as they are doing with the money machine corporations. Forget emancipation...we will all become slaves to the rich. One measly little 3% tax raise and we could all be living better. I'd even go for, say, one cent on every internet retail purchase...imagine the monies that could generate? Rather than cut funding...make money! Our representatives are really stupid. And, sadly, Obama isn't any better. I bet Michelle could figure out the best ways for our country to reduce deficits!

Ask and ye shall receive...

http://taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23408.html

Unless the IRS is lying, looks like top 1% earns 20% of income and pays 38% of taxes, top 5%- 35%/59%, while the bottom 50%- 12.75%/2.7%. I'd say the rich are paying their fair share. Now, I'm not saying a progressive system is not right. Just saying how much money is enough for the government to take from anyone? It's really how they spend our money...

"Make the wealthy pay their fair share."

Exactly. But then you fail to follow up. Yes, getting them to pay their fair share would balance the budget. But that's not the point. The point is in that sentence you wrote:

"...their fair share..."

What is their fair share? Well, the top 1% of incomes go to the people with over 40% of the wealth. Their fair share of the taxes is over 40%. But they are only paying an effective tax rate of 20%.

And why are they getting all this money? They are getting it because of unrestricted globalization. That allows the very rich to get their money from anywhere on earth. But workers can't get their money from anywhere on earth. They have to get it where they live. If they live in the U.S. then they can't scoop ups higher pay by going to some other country to work. The policies set by Congress are enriching the rich and impoverishing the poor. That's why taxes for the rich should go up.

It used to be that those with property had to defend the country. The sovereign gave you title to property in exchange for your pledge to go fight in his army to defend the nation. That was called your "fee". But that was too complex so they simplified it. Instead of showing up with your horse and your sword and your shining armor and some pikers you just paid a certain sum of money each year and the king used it to rent an army and defend your property.

But the U.S. doesn't have this fee. We don't use property taxes to fund the military. Instead, we have an income tax. The income tax is graduated because the people with the highest incomes typically have the most property. If you are very wealthy you should be paying the bulk of the federal bill because the majority of that money goes to defend us. And when I say "us" I mean our people and our property. Those wars we are fighting defend both people and property, and those with the most property are getting the most service from those wars.

This is what I mean by fairness. There is an objective way of looking at that fairness. It isn't about balancing the budget or how we can do that. It's about what percentages people should be paying to defend the nation. When we talk about how we need to tax the rich in order to balance the budget, that misses the point. The point is that they should be paying more. Because they aren't paying their fair share we have a shortfall. The sensible remedy for that is to CHARGE THEM what they OWE.

Progressive need to hammer away on this issue. This is how the other side convinced dirt poor red necks in the back woods that they should vote for Republicans, even though that was destined to take away the last living dollar those people might ever see. You have to talk about the morality in a way that people cannot fail to understand the ramifications of what they do in the voting booth. You have to show in unmistakable dollars and cents how these people are robbing the country blind. I call them "The Bandits". They aren't conservatives or Republicans or libertarians. They have no compunction about selling this country out. They've nearly looted it of all it's worth. The only thing that will stop them is the public going to the polls with the blindfolds taken off and sweeping just about every last member of Congress out on the pavement.

Please, talk about how a higher tax rate for the rich is fair. That's what will turn this discussion around.

My Congressman is a Secretary who answers the phone and sends out pre-fab letters from My Congressman.

Is it "special interest subversion of our democracy" or just plain greed which has taken over a class of madmen who are mad with greed? The things they say don't even make sense. This is the proof that money is the root of evil and the lion's share of money has gone over to poorest of the poor stewards of Nature's bounty snickering amongst themselves.

If they were doing a good job with the bounty, then fine, who cares? I personally can't imagine spending more than $250,000 a year.

We are in a National Morality Crisis which seems to cross all party lines. We have gotten here with the help of both traditional Parties and the cult Parties.

I suggest launching a Shame on You Tube which puts on public display the lives and holdings of elected officials like Hollywood Stars.

XXXXX

Our only choices are between paper or plastic. The wealthy own America. They own our media, the courts, and our government. How can one not feel despair?

It is truly amazing. I am away from my computer for four weeks and the Republicans always win. Even the question," Have the Republicans Won the Budget Debate?," seventy-four percent says yes. The more things change, the more they remain the same. While I was away from my computer, I did write down some information and thoughts that I will share with you next week.

Obama gave the class warfare victory to the economic elites and big business interests in his State of the Union, speech to the Chamber of Commerce and the budget he submitted to Congress. It is not a Republican victory but a victory of the wealthy. But, there is not really a fight in Washington, DC -- elected officials agree on the basic philosophy it is only a question of degree.

Obama's budget focused on cutting the deficit at a time when we need stimulus. He promised a budget "freeze" but he excluded the security state budgets from the freeze and let their budgets increase -- military, war, intelligence, and domestic security. The security budget is 66% of discretionary spending. Everything else in Obama's budget would be cut or kept at their current level. The Republicans just pushed the same agenda further in favor of the wealthy, militarists and corporatists.

In addition to not cutting the bloated security state budget, Obama has taken discussion of taxing the wealthy, making corporations pay their fair share and taxing purchase of stocks, bonds and derivatives off the table. Big businesses that received hundreds of billions in bailouts after crashing the economy are getting billion dollar tax refunds instead of paying taxes. Obama is silent on this economic theft (he wrote the laws that allow it!).

If you are not going to face up to security state spending and the wealthy not paying their fair share, then there really is no debate. It is all imaging and positioning by the Dems. In the end, they push a "Republican" agenda. After-all, Obama wants to raise a billion for his re-election. That is not coming in $25 donations!

Join us in revolt this Friday: www.ItsOurEconomy.US.

KZ

Our son subscribes to several magazines, such as Harper’s, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. Our son is also avid reader. There was an essay in the April, 2010 of Harper’s. The title was “The Vanishing Liberal: How the Left Learned to be Helpless” by Kevin Baker, pages 29-37. Here are some highlights from the essay – Democrats are reduced to a state of psychological helplessness; they are no longer able to overcome political obstacles; the progressives have rejected nations of destiny; they prefer the authority of experience to the claims of ideology; and for a generation or more liberalism became an almost perfect machine for the reformist impulse. When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, our democracy has ended forever. We can no longer rely on a party or a person for the work to be accomplished. Change can only come from the ground up and the work will have to be accomplished by you and me.

Our son has entered a charitable bike ride for the Red Cross. He has raised $3,200. The bike ride is 520 miles. The bike riders will travel ninety miles per day for six days. The charitable bike ride is in Louisiana. All money raised will go to Japan and the Japanese for the destruction in their country through the tsunami earthquake and the radiation released from the nuclear plants.

Rachel Maddow was great on her March 29, 2011 show. She had a segment that discussed authoritarian conservatism and libertarian conservatism. The Fascist-Nazi Party talks about small, leave me alone government but they really embrace big, intrusive government. We have liars in fascist-Nazis. With these conservative crazies in power we are not a democracy. As Americans we are enslaved and impoverished by fascist-Nazis. We are their personal slaves. Rachel mentioned that her email is flagged by the American government. She must really be bugging the conservative crazies.