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Well, both Thom and Grayson voted for the moron in the White House, I guess this is what one would call voter regret? LMAO! And if I am not mistaken, Grayson is no longer a Congressman, just another of the 1% uber liberal free loaders living off other peoples money.
LMAO! So Hillary is attacking the Republican Governor of Ohio for voter suppression, when her own home state of NY has a more RESTRICTIVE voting time frame than Ohio, too bad facts get in the way of liberal talking points.
It would force the main stream media to discuss Bernie Sanders and his policies. They would no longer be able to treat him as if he were invisible, aka Dennis Kucinich.
May We Screech
May Lefties continue not passive
‘gainst Righties’ ridiculousness massive.
May we screech
like a son of a beech
that the Right 'gainst reg’lar folks is harassive.
. . . . . . .
Liz you are wrong about one thing. 72% of Americans approve of Keystone and the congress agreed with them. What ever happened to "hope and change" six and a half years ago everyone on thom's site was in love with there government. They are all the same. The only difference is how much debt they piled up before they leave.
At long last, we are seeing writings about the historic links of the USA to Nazi Germany and fascism...the union of private capital and government. Fears of pointing out the fascist state of this "union" are fading.
There's a famous quote: "Fascism should more appropriatedly be called 'Corporatism' because it is a merger of state and corporate power".
That observation is often attributed to Mussolini, but many have pointed out that that's off target. Whoever said it, however, was on target.
There are plenty of people with values and beliefs to support a better society. But the massive amounts of money of the 1% that is flushed into politics and the media is constantly used to smother and suppress those values and beliefs. Get rid of the money and you will see a return of values that support a society that looks after the welfare of all people and the welfare of the planet.
I really believe that Bernie Sanders will be the next president of the U.S. People are sick and tired of politicians that talk out of both sides of their mouths and can never answer a simple yes or no question. People sense that the planet really is in trouble and that the rich are totally out of control. People are looking for an alternative to mainstream politicians and I believe that they have run out of patience with political gamesmanship.
The rich do not create jobs, a fair and moral economy, one in which the vast majority has plenty of money to spend, does. Share the Wealth!
Yes! the money in politics and elections is a big part of our national problem. But I also feel like we must again have values and beliefs that support a society that has "the people" at the center of our vision for the future. What will we leave the future generations to work with?
Econ writes "The fact is that the government is a massive system to redistribute wealth in the way of insurance to the poor and middle class."
The real fact is ...the top one percent own more than half of the country's wealth, and this is inequality continues to grow. The bottom 80 percent own only seven percent of the nations total wealth and this continues to decline. The wealth is getting redistributed alright, but not the way Fox has programmed you to believe.
2950-10k wrote:
"how about a working class wage hike to equal the increase in productivity over the last few decades? If this economic justice became law, minimum wage would be around $22 per hour"
I think you need an overall gradualist strategy to improve the economy. These ridiculous minimum wage hikes will likely only encourage the last remaining jobs to disapear. I would say fix the minimum wage to inflation, and then at least it would rise a few percent a year and no one would complain.
You need an industrial policy, strategic tarriffs, double the people getting science degrees, and lots of other things that America is incapable of doing.
"That wealth is being extracted from those who actually work, spend, and contribute to an economy rigged against them. "
They are able to actually work because there was an opening for them to work for. Bill Gates bought DR. Dos for very little money, licensed it to IBM, and was able to hire thousands because of it. Does Bill work now? Of course not. But his decision making enabled him to hire thousands of people to work, spend and contribute to society.
"I have to laugh when you right wing talking point guys defend the rich and degrade the low income citizens, as if it's some kind of crime that many don't earn enought to pay Federal income tax."
Not at all. I'm just saying the government is paid by the rich and spends on the poor and working class. I'm not saying it shouldn't be that way. I'm saying that Liberals should stop lying to the people that the Government is some Fuedalistic enterprise extracting money from the poor and giving it to the rich.
It is a constant refrain and I am tired of it.
Chuckle8 wrote: " the LA Times quoted a study that shows we have a flat tax."
I am unfamiliar with that study, but it is flat because the non-wealthy people are paying for their social insurance through the government. The Federal tax rate is highly progressive according to the wikki page.
pfnelkak,
Thanks for your response.
1) Thanks for aggreeging with me that Thom's title of this is false.
2) I am claiming that 86% of the government is paid by the wealthy, not that the wealthy pay 86%!
3) I am also claiming that most of the wealthy pay higher rates. Actually, I am just reading the wikki page, which for some reason you aren't. The page shows that the bottom 80% pay less than 20%.
4) You are confusing the marginal tax bracket with the amount people actually pay! I think Thom also does this. Look at the Wikki page.
5) You also quote from newer sources, so I thank you for that. The wikki page has the top 1% paying 29.5, you have 22%. However, I don't know if that is all federal or just income. Nor do I know if that is the bracket or actual, you did not include a source.
22% is still higher than the bottom 80%, which pay around 20%.
But I also think comparing income tax rates is really the way to go. Then, the bottom 40% have NEGATIVE tax rates, and the next 10% pays zero.
Now, with that fact alone, that should tell you a lot about our tax system. Our government spending (as opposed to insuring the poor), is mainly paid by the wealthy.
C. Currie, I agree and you could not have said it better. Thinking it is possible I can't wait.
Well, will we have a fight on our hands? I think more than enough folks are ready for just that if need be. The wealthy will snivel and cry in the end like the spoiled people they are but will get used to a different kind of wealth. They'll still have enough but not enough to burn like now. Good riddance. We've got to set in stone some rules so they don't sneak back in ten or twenty (ever) years. A firing squad for enforcement. No different than them killing our citizens with no health care without a second thought. Yeah, they are that bad.
With polls, without polls, pols do the bidding for their campaign contributors.
Polls continue to show Americans favor increasing taxes on the One Percenters, campaign finance reform, reigning in Wall Street, wanting Congress to vote "No" on XL Pipeline and "No" on the TPP, wanting gun control, etc... but what does Congress do instead...... vote against the interest of the majority. The solution: how about "outsourcing" Congress and make them work for $7.85 an hour with one-week paid vacation as their only benefit.
The worst offenders, you ask....the Democratic Party. At least the Republicans are coming around to the notion that they don't need to continue to pretend they're bidding on behalf of "hard-working Americans," rather instead, for the wealthy as noted by the 2012 presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.
If you want to see the day of light after Nov 2016, it may be best to get behind a presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders -- the best and full-proof reason to do so is here: http://huff.to/1FClVPf, and in particular, this paragraph from the article: “But, as I have noted elsewhere, Hillary Clinton honors her deals with the billionaires who hire her, however indirectly, even if her very public and heralded words that are spoken to adoring crowds at her political events are of no higher value than whatever is imposed upon all the toilet paper that gets discreetly flushed away unheralded to regions unknown and unnoticed. See, for examples, this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this.”
Thom, I did find your "enthusiastic" support for Hillary/partner-in-crime, in these hyperlinks indicated in the above, last sentence "this....and this, and this, and this.......":
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/19/wall-street-deregulation-clinton-advisers-obama ,\ ;
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/wall-street-republicans-hillary-clinton-2016-106070.html ;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nomi-prins/the-clintons-and-their-banker_b_7232636.html ;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/more-about-hillary-clinto_b_4907395.html ;
I would guess that Thom would (still) rather have a phony Liberal than a phony conservative in the White House, thinking instead, that Hillary would probably do less damage to the economy, less erosion on civil rights/liberties--the Constitution, and project less hubris on other high-minded intellectual and economic privileges of the political class.
Is the US Constitution really worth anything more to American voters than the paper it is written on?
I find it very disturbing to see President Obama and so many of our members of Congress who are so clearly willing to grossly violate their Oaths of Office (to support and defend the US Constitution) for their own political or financial gain on issues like NSA spying and the TPP. The US Constitution REQUIRES them to swear and abide by those Oaths in order to qualify for the public offices which they presently occupying, but they are clearly not doing that. So, according to the US Constitution, they are NO LONGER QUALIFIED to hold those public offices!
This also applies to the five Republican US Supreme Court "Justices" who clearly violated their Oaths of Office when they unconstitutionally ruled that "corporations are people" and that "money equals free speech." There is NOTHING in the US Constitution that can HONESTLY be used to support either of those two claims. It would require the ratification of a constitutional amendment to so fundamentally modify the US Constitution, but those "Justices" were probably well aware that such radical constitutional amendments could never have gotten ratified, so they simply "ruled" that such changes were true.
These examples are all IMPEACHABLE offenses! If US voters (and news media) care at all about whether or not the US Constitution is worth anything more than the paper it was written on, they are going to have to DEMAND in no uncertain terms that the US Constitution be ENFORCED!
Feel free to publish this,
Christopher C. Currie, 161 Lake Shore Drive, Pascoag, RI 02859 401-568-8266
Dr econ: If you want more citizens to contribute to Federal revenues, then they need to be paid enough to do that. Instead of folks like the Waltons pocketing all the proceeds, how about a working class wage hike to equal the increase in productivity over the last few decades? If this economic justice became law, minimum wage would be around $22 per hour. I have to ask, how much work do you think the capitalist making tens of millions per year actually performs? That wealth is being extracted from those who actually work, spend, and contribute to an economy rigged against them.
I have to laugh when you right wing talking point guys defend the rich and degrade the low income citizens, as if it's some kind of crime that many don't earn enought to pay Federal income tax. The crime is that citizens are not paid enough to pay Federal income tax. Percentage wise, someone making 30 or 40 grand per year, pay a huge amount of their income in just property tax, sales tax/gas pump, and fees, etc. All added, we're paying the same tax rate citizens in the Democratic Socialist countries are paying, and getting only a comparative fraction in return.
I didn't get a newsletter for Wednesday this week. Anybody else? I was wondering if it's because Thom said that day, "Comcast has killed us," referring to the dead phone system, and I get the newsletter through a Comcast e-mail account.
KaraGirl, you should be able to just edit your own comment.
chuckle8, I must have missed that, but I based my comment on an article I'd read.
Okay guys, this is more complex than you make it out to be. First considering all taxes (property, income, sales etc.) the LA Times quoted a study that shows we have a flat tax. Bernie has often pointed out that the wealth of the US increased by $37 trillion from 2008 to 2012 (or 10?). All of that increase in wealth went to the top 7%. It sounds like the top 7% should pay all the taxes.
I consider what I just said as irrelevant. What should be relevant is the economy. I think the Larry Beinhart measure of the economy is what we should consider. Larry says we should look at 4 factors and determine which policy will raise all of them. The 4 factors are the GDP, the DOW, the number of jobs and the median pay (inflation adjusted) for those jobs. One should note tax revenue is not one of the factors. Mr. Beinhart has noted the top tax rate above 50% is the key policy that helps the economy measured by his metrics. One should also note that when reagan dropped the top tax rate below 50% that top earners paid more in taxes. They paid 2 to 3 times more. The economy suffered; especially, the median wage.
Dr. CON;
Yesterdays top news story already taken off the newswire--------
"Red Cross missing $500 mil." (YTF)
movetoamend.org
And that's the way it will stay Thom. Sure, it may get tweeked slightly here and there for cosmetic and soundbite purposes, but that's all. Any serious change will come from the grassroots up.
Which would be more difficult to make happen: 20 days before & longer polling hours OR Protecting the integrity of the votes cast? Both are vital steps toward creating fair elections for the first time.