October 23, 2011 |
What are the Occupy Wall Street protesters angry about? The same things we’re all angry about. The only difference is the protestors turned their anger into public action. Occupy Wall Street lit the embers and the sparks are flying. Whether it turns into a genuine populist prairie fire depends on all of us.
Now is not the time for wonky policy solutions, as the media meatheads are calling for. Rather, it’s time to air our grievances as loudly as possible, which is precisely what Wall Street and its minions fear the most. Here’s a brief list of why we should be angry and the charts to back it up.
1. The American Dream is imploding...
Monday, October 24, 2011
The Shocking, Graphic Data That Shows Exactly What Motivates the Occupy Movement
Friday, October 21, 2011
Is A Flat Tax Fair?
Conservatives are always pushing for a "flat tax." It sounds so simple: One easy rate, so we all pay the same, easy to calculate... Get rid of deductions and lower the tax rates. So simple, but it turns out it is a simple trick, a scam to enrich the 1%, like so much else that conservatives are selling. Don't fall for it -- it means taxes will go up for the 99% of us who aren't really, really rich. See if you can guess what happens if you are in the top 1%. Or, just scroll down and see the the chart.
What We Have Now
We have what's called a "progressive' tax system. This means as you make more you pay more taxes. The first "bracket" of $XX dollars you make is taxed at a low rate. The next $XX dollars are taxed at a higher rate, and so on. Many people think if you "go into a higher bracket" you pay more on all the money you make, but that is not how it works. If a bracket starts at $1 million, and you make $1 million plus $1 you only pay the higher rate on the $1 that is in that bracket. Yes, that means that a 5% increase on taxes over $1 million would mean that person pays a nickel. Yes, all that screaming by Republicans is over a nickel. Screaming is what they do best.
The reason we have a progressive tax system is because we have a democracy. People who make more do so because of the investment in governent that We, the People make. We, the People pool our money collectively and use it to build the infrastructure that lets people make so much money. That's the roads, schools, police, courts, etc. -- they whole system -- that provides the foundation for our businesses to go out an compete in the world. And when our businesses do well, we ask them to pay back a dividend to the rest of us for enabling that to happen.
No Deductions
Conservatives always call for getting rid of deductions, because they are complicated. Get rid of deductions, they say, simplify the system, and you can lower tax rates. Here is the game they are playing. Suppose you have a small businesses, a grocery store. Suppose you buy $100,000 inventory and sell it for $130,000. If you get rid of deductions that means the small-grocery-owner pays taxes on $130,000 because that is the income of the store.
If you say the business owner should be allowed to "deduct" the amount paid for inventory we're back to deciding which deductions to allow. So we are right back where we started, except now the conservatives have lowered tax rates (at the top) and their big corporate sponsors will be gaming the system to give themselves more and more and more deductions just like they already do.
What Happens With A Flat Tax?
Conservatives object to the idea of the rich paying back more. They say that taxes are theft -- government confiscating money that people have earned, ignoring that our democracy enabled them to earn it in the first place. They call taxation "redistribution" of wealth. Of course, as AlterNet's Joshua Holland points out, redistribution is the core job of government. He points out that when government collects taxes and builds a sidewalk that everyone can walk on -- or homeless people can sleep on -- that is redistribution. Courts, schools, police, ports, airports -- all of it is redistribution of wealth.
So conservatives call for a "flat tax." Most notably Republican Presidential candidates Rick Perry and Herman are calling for various forms of this. Cain This means everyone pays the same tax rate as everyone else, regardless of income. Because this is about scrapping democracy's progressive tax system this necessarily means that the rich will pay a lot less. Guess who pays more to make up for that? A good example of this effect is the 9-9-9 tax plan.
The 9-9-9 Plan
The Tax Policy Center takes a look at Repubican candidate Herman Cain's "9-9-9" tax plan, in a post titled, Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Tax Plan
Herman Cain’s plan would eliminate the current individual income tax, corporate income tax, payroll tax, and estate and gift tax and substitute three taxes imposed at a 9 percent rate: 1) a 9 percent “national sales tax” 2) a 9 percent “business flat tax”, and 3) a 9 percent “individual flat tax.”
They have a table here that shows how people's taxes would change under the 9-9-9 plan. Jared Bernstein made a chart illustrating these numbers in his post 9-9-9 in One (Really Long) Graph.
So here you have it: the change in tax liabilities, compared to current tax policy, under 9-9-9, for different income groups, in one incredibly unsettling graph.
In the following chart the blue lines that are above zero illustrate how much more most of us will pay. The red lines below zero show how much less the rich and really rich will pay. The blue lines -- representing taxes on most of us -- go up. The red lines -- representing taxes on the top few -- go ... well, see for yourself.
via ourfuture.org
And there you have it: more for the already rich, less for the rest.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Socialistic Hitler Fascist Death Panel WMD Terrorist Job Killing Kenyan Muslim Regulation Tyranny
(Load)Tue Oct 18, 2011 at 07:11 AM PDT
Socialistic Hitler Fascist Death Panel WMD Terrorist Job Killing Kenyan Muslim Regulation Tyranny
-->
From now on, people who have used these words in the past or present to dismiss a conversation or hijack it should no longer be taken seriously.
I'm done with wasting time in a dishonest debate.
I'm done with having serious conversations about our nation's future being hijacked by paid shills into some absurd conspiracy theory claim of advancing communism or a gay agenda or hippies. I'm tired of debating the guy who wants to raise taxes and "free market" costs on 99% of America while the other 1% lives better than ever in a debate he can NOT win on facts. I'm tired of watching this guy invoke scary meaningless talking points while shrieking about the unfair fearmongering of unamerican liberty denying freedom hating divisive partisan class war wealth redistribution job killing over regulated higher taxes government tyranny they did this to the jews it's people, #OccupyWallStreet is people!!!!!
I'm done with it. It is wasting our time at a moment in history where we have no time to waste. Our future is at stake, and the guy rambling about socialism who fell for death panels and other nonsensical lies isn't allowed to hijack the conversation anymore. I'm not going to let them hijack our future for tax cuts for corporations or for never ending wars or whatever other sociopathic lunacy the wealthy exploiters of the other 99% have ginned up. I will not go silent as their shock doctrine wrenches away the last glimpse of democracy and hands it over to lobbyists and entrenched corrupt industry.
If you support torture, I don't want to hear about Hitler from you.
If you support subsidies for extremely profitable oil companies I don't want to hear about wealth distribution from you.
If you support the never ending wars at all costs I don't want to hear about deficits from you.
And if you insist on hijacking honest debates about our future by calling it Socialistic Hitler Fascist Death Panel WMD Terrorist Job Killing Kenyan Muslim Regulation Tyranny you should no longer be taken seriously. We don't have time for your dishonesty. You are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Consider #OccupyWallStreet a nationwide intervention, because some people are drunk on greed and power.
Here's to celebrating the first month of #OccupyWallStreet. Cheers.
For more info
1. Get this message out there. Get the word out about these protests of Wall Street's greed to everyone you know. Raise awareness, even if it is via word of mouth, every little bit helps.2. Use the twitter hashtags #OccupyWallStreet and follow us on facebook and twitter accounts related to the ongoing protests. Help put this video on your facebook pageand any other social media that you use. Make it viral.
3. Make a donation to WeAreTheOther99%'s media fund. They need funding to stay active, and without huge corporate interests backing us up like the Teabaggers have, the only way this works is with your small donations.
4. Go to OccupyWallSt.org and make a donation to our General Fund to support the ongoing protests.
5. To send care packages to Liberty Square, go to OccupyWallSt.org for more information. WE NEED WATER.
Info from http://occupywallst.org/
The UPS Store
Re: Occupy Wall Street
118A Fulton St. #205
New York, NY 10038
Money orders only please, cannot cash checks yet. Non-perishable goods only. We can accept packages of any size. We're currently low on food and water.6. Find out if there will be an #Occupation event in your neighborhood and participate and contribute there if you can't come to NYC.
7. Be a better person to your brothers and sisters around you.
You can follow me on the series of tubes they call Twitter @JesseLaGreca
Originally posted to MinistryOfTruth on Tue Oct 18, 2011 at 07:11 AM PDT.
Also republished by Class Warfare Newsletter: WallStreet VS the Working Class Occupy movement. and Team DFH.
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