Here is some info showing that it is a distortion to speak of the bottom 50% as paying no taxes.
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2011.pdf. Of course the top 1% has been doing far better than anyone else after they pay their taxes so more contribution from them is in order. And they have a lot of money invested in stock which when it appreciates in value (as stocks tend to do over the whole haul) they only pay 15% on that money. And of course we ended the estate tax. So more and more money is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands--creating a structural problem for a consumer economy that is dependent on broad-based demand.
Of course, the idea that hedge fund managers should pay only 15% of their income in taxes is ridiculous, that is why Steve responds that it won't be make a big deal with the deficit. Of course, Bush was largely responsible for creating that deficit but no matter...
Allowing our U.S. companies to send out jobs overseas and make record profits while not hiring U.S. workers and when they do not increasing their wages is the real legacy that we should be seeking to avoid give to our children or grandchildren--not some made-up concern about budget deficits from a party (Republican) that when it was in power did not cut spending and put in tax cuts that were not paid for.
Of course, Obama has for the most part not done much to aid the plight of the American worker (it is laughable and intellectually dishonest to say that Obama is a socialist given his business friendly policies or have you forgotten the records profits that U.S. businesses have been making?)
At the very least, we should close loopholes that are clearly not fair like George recommends I can hardly think that anyone not a hedge fund manager would vote against closing the loophole. If you refuse to close that loophole without seeking anything in return, then you are a shill for the rich. Period. It should not be linked at all to any discussion about spending cuts. But I will trade some spending cuts for ending the Bush tax cuts on the top 5%.
Somehow, with high taxes and high levels of unionization the U.S. economy was able to grow 3.5% a year from the late 1940s until the early 1970s. And middle-class people were able to afford to send their kids to college. Now with this laissez-faire economy the only one benefiting is the rich and the answer for any attempt to roll back to the way things used to be is that we're Communist. It seems to me in a democracy you should able to show your economic policies benefit the majority of the population. Those laissez-faire economic policies have enriched U.S businesses (well the top executives, anyway) and Wall Street to while U.S. workers (with only 7.5% unionization) do not have the ability to bargain effectively to get their fair share of the profits that were created and have seen their incomes stay flat or drop (if they have a job) And yet I constantly hear Republican middlle-class voters defending these policies that do not benefit them economically. Apart from that, is is incredibly unfair for only a very small elite percentage of the population to benefit so enormously, even if their talent or contribution to society was anywhere commensurate to their compensation (which it is not)
The drafters of the Constitution were brilliant in setting up a political system that did not seek to trust in the good of each individual branch but simply gave different branches powers to check the power of other branches of government. Somehow, this idea of an "invisible hand' had led us in economic matters to think that a hands-off approach to dealing with economically powerful players in the market is the best approach. It certainly works for them but not for the rest of us. Our main problem is not the budget deficit but the need to give workers the power to deal with corporate overreach. The extent of how much things are out of whack is clear when you look at huge profits for businesses while the economy is anemic. The fact that we are not even able to close such a undeserved loophole such as exists for hedge fund managers indicates how much things need to be fixed. So, yes, it is a big deal to get that loopfhole closed, because otherwise it is clear that the average worker is looking at a dim future if we can't get that loophole closed when other reforms are desperately needed (encouraging unionization, enforcing anti-trust laws against monopolies, taxing U.S companies who ship jobs overseas and then sell back in the U.S., etc.)
08 Jul 2011, 3:00 pm 
