Spintested: 09/27/11

Poverty Is Rising, But State Tax Systems Burden The Poor, While Rich Get Off Easy (CHART)

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Poverty Is Rising, But State Tax Systems Burden The Poor While Rich Get Off Easy

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As did extending Bush's tax cuts.

With Obama's deal to preserve Bush's tax cuts for the rich (making it Obama's tax cuts for the rich), 99ers were cut off. Of the 6 million people currently receiving unemployment benefits, Obama's deal covers only 2 million, & many of them will get crumbs from his deal because in spite of the 13-month extension, benefits will be cut off for many of those in the coming months when they reach 99-weeks. And only 25 states out of 53 states/territories in/of the US have 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, so that's even fewer still.

David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now! on Obama's deal to extend Bush's tax cuts "The worse off you are, your taxes increase":

"The bottom roughly 45 million families in America or households in America—and there are a little over 100 million households—they’re going to actually see their taxes go up. Republicans got an extraordinarily good deal, that raises, I think, basic questions about the negotiating skills of the President."

And even more -- The payroll tax 'holiday' in the deal (and in Obama's 'American Jobs Act') sets SocialSecurity up for its end. That's what Bush and GroverNorquist planned and why Bush believes he'll be vindicated as a great conservative in history: For ending the GreatSociety programs, by having bankrupted the nation so there's no way to pay out those benefits. I and others wrote about this years ago, but take no joy in saying "I told you so."

Extending Bush's tax cuts was an absolutely wretched deal, but standard for Obama, who has a long record of negotiating lousy deals on ordinary citizens' behalf. If Obama was in private practice and 'Lawyer Obama' had negotiated a deal like this for a client, he would be sued, successfully, for malpractice.

The purpose of the deal was so that Democratic political operatives could say, "Obama helped the unemployed"; most readers won't know the actual facts of how Obama sold out the American people. Again. Obama and Democrats have no jobs plan either. Both parties are thinning the herd.
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Get Money Out: Join 100,000 Americans

You are absolutely correct. Sorry about that -- That was a cut and paste gone horribly awry.

Everything else though is true.
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Get Money Out: Join 100,000 Americans

That is what Ratigan is pledging; to be that voice and keep this in the forefront of the 2012 election if he gets 100k signatures.

Just sign the d@mned thing!
About Politics
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Get Money Out: Join 100,000 Americans

Them, too.

Not that union money is anywhere close to being equivalent to the money that corporations pump into politics, but unions are incorporated.

What Ratigan is talking about is publicly financing elections. Like it used to be.
About Politics
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Justice John Paul Stevens Talks Death Penalty, Citizens United, New Memoir

Supreme Court is more interested in granting more powers to coporation than doing it's actual job, protecting Humans. Anyone, who thinks that the supreme court, congress, the execuetive and both political parties aren't doing the same thing, is not paying attention. It is time to rehaul our democracy and institutions before it is too late. If you are near DC or NY, then occupy and demand your democracy back. The most important thing, is electing good, ethically people from within a grassroots movement. The polical machine (controlled by corporations) with not elect someone in our corner.

The USSC has no history of protecting Corps over humans. Quite the contrary. On a different note .. how do you differentiate "humans" (individuals) from "corps" (communities of humans)?

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I, too, yearn for leadership in all branches of government that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporations) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathic character disorders.

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporation's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporations.

Now, corporations are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporations as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths. They're completely self-absorbed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competition (other corporations or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultants tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporation to behave that way. And they can't be criminally prosecuted.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican parties.
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Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

Unless you're filthy rich, why would you want a flat tax? Flat taxes disproportionately benefit the rich over poor and middle classes, and would leave the rich with more money to continue to purchase politicians.

Ratigan's project is about passing a Constitutional amendment prohibiting money in politics. Federal campaigns would be publicly financed, the way it used to be.
About 112th Congress
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Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

All good questions (which I think I know the answers to, such as individuals wouldn't be able to contribute to campaigns), but ask Ratigan.

Tweet him @dylanratigan or at Facebook, or e-mail The Dylan Ratigan Show
About 112th Congress
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

Publicly financed campaigns = level playing field.
About 112th Congress
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

or Text SIGN to +19177206888 to sign
About 112th Congress
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

Dylan Ratigan kicked off the campaign to GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS today.

Ratigan has committed to using his show on MSNBC as a platform to force this issue to the center of the 2012 elections with a petition for a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.
Here is the proposed Constitutional amendment:

"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

Sign the petition, tell friends, Facebook it, Tweet it. #GetMoneyOut.
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The Counter-Reformation: The Fall of Campaign Finance Reform

I just signed the petition for Dylan Ratigan's freshly launched project to Get Money Out of Politics.

If you want the change that you thought you were getting when you voted for Obama and Democrats, it's only going to come once the money is out of politics.

Now's the time to drive this meme; join the movement.

Go here and sign the petition.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost