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Picking on the Rich - Comments (6) View Comments
- 9/22/2011
OMG!!! President Obama is picking on the rich and big corporations again!
Earlier this month, he presented his plan to help create jobs for Americns. Now he is proposing to pay for spending in the jobs plan with higher taxes on the rich and elimination of corporate tax loopholes.
As usual, congressional Republicans are calling this class warfare.
First off, we need a distinction between households making only $250,000 or $350,000 (no one I know!) and those making $1 million, $10 million, $20 million…
I’m talking about the latter group, and so is Obama. Much of their income comes from dividends and capital gains taxed at 15 percent, versus a much higher rate for earned income.
Republicans say raising their taxes would penalize job creators. Much of this income is from financial wheeling and dealing, not anything that creates jobs. Plus, some of that financial wheeling and dealing is what helped destroy our economy, jobs and 401k values.
Regular working stiff Americans pay a significant amount to Social Security, either divvied up with their employer, or the whole thing if they are self-employed.
Taxes owed for Social Security don’t apply to earned income above $106,000, and they don’t apply at all to investment income. So for the mega-rich, only a tiny part of their income is subject to this tax.
Then there are the mega-corporations. Their share of tax payments as a percentage of federal revenue is the lowest since about 1950, even though the US supposedly has the highest corporate tax rates in the world.
We have tax subsidies for highly profitable multi-national oil and gas production companies.
We have a list of multi-national corporations that paid no income tax last year thanks to provisions in the tax code that facilitate transfers of income and wealth from the many to the few.
Mega-corporations have become experts at shifting money around among their foreign subsidiaries to end up in places like Bermuda, where there is no corporate tax.
Mega-corporations owe no allegiance to this country, yet they get constitutional personhood rights (the best free speech that money can buy) and lots of tax loopholes.
Again, Republicans say that higher taxes on these entities would penalize job creators. Yes, they are creating jobs, but not in this country! They are sitting on record amounts of cash in this country, or spending it on stock buy-backs, technology and automation (to reduce the number of workers needed), stock dividends, and CEO mega salaries and bonuses.
Then there’s that class warfare. In this scheme of things, wealth redistribution is fine as long as it’s going from the many to the few. Anyone who complains about it is “stirring up class warfare.” And anyone who suggests government policies to encourage some redistribution the other way is a socialist.
Class warfare is real. The rich and the mega-corporations have been winning big time. That’s why working stiff Americans no longer have money to spend and revive the economy.
And the national Republican Party has made it very clear which side of class warfare they are on.
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