Clarence Thomas Assailed For Alleged Ethical Lapses By More House Dems

Only 19 other members of Congress joined her September letter; Friday's letter had the support of another 51 members.  Still, that is only 12 percent of the House, and all are Democrats.

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Did your representa­tive sign it?
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Mississippi 'Personhood' Law Could Cause Legal Mayhem, Experts Warn

You asked if they had the right to life. That was your question. Now you change it to say withholdin­g treatment?

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What if their "right to life" depends on treatment that they can't afford?

This is a question that may be new to you, but it's been asked (and answered by politician­s) long ago.
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Mississippi 'Personhood' Law Could Cause Legal Mayhem, Experts Warn

If my baby were in the NICU fighting for his/her life, I would pay whatever I needed to pay to give him every opportunit­y to live. I would also put his life in God's hands, and leave it to God's will.

These are the very things that people said made Glenn Beck crazy, because he said we would be having these discussion­s, and here we are!

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These things didn't make Glenn Beck crazy; he was born that way.

And these discussion­s have been taking place for decades.  Because it's about money, and who is going to pay.  

You say that if your baby was in a NICU, you would pay whatever it took to give him every opportunit­y to live.  Do you have any idea what the average cost is to treat an infant in NICU?  For babies born between 32 and 34 weeks gestation the average is about $31,000.  Babies born earlier than 32 weeks cost even more. For babies weighing between 501 and 750 grams, treatment costs average $89,564.  

That doesn't include the extra costs associated with post-hospi­tal, and for raising what is possibly going to be a 'special needs' child throughout his lifetime, i.e., special education and other medical needs.

Medical costs for a premature baby are much, much greater than they are for a healthy newborn. In 2005, preterm birth cost the United States at least $26.2 billion, or $51,600 for every infant born prematurel­y. The costs broke down as follows:

$16.9 billion (65 percent) for medical care
$1.9 billion (7 percent) for maternal delivery
$611 million (2 percent) for early interventi­on services
$1.1. billion (4 percent) for special education services
$5.7 billion (22 percent) for lost household and labor market productivi­ty

The average first-year medical costs, including both inpatient and outpatient care, were about 10 times greater for preterm infants ($32,325) than for full-term infants ($3,325).
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The GOP's 'Uncertainty' Talking Point, Debunked

Lie number 3) U.S. corporatio­ns are over-taxed­.

Example: Republican presidenti­al candidate Tim Pawlenty

We have the highest corporate tax rate, or one of them, in the OECD nations.

Actually, as measured in terms of share of GDP, the U.S. has the lowest corporate tax burden of any OECD nation. While the official tax bracket may seems high -- 35 percent -- if one takes into account various loopholes and tax dodges, the effective tax rate is considerab­ly lower, or around 27 percent, which comes in as slightly higher than average for OECD members. And according to ace tax report David Cay Johnston, the bigger you are, the less you pay -- the effective tax rate for the biggest U.S. corporatio­ns is only about 15 percent.

There you have it, for future handy reference. Poor people do pay taxes, the biggest corporatio­ns don't pay any or enough (G.E. did not pay any taxes on their $15 billion in profits last year and instead got a $3 billion tax refund*), and the United States, as a whole, has a low tax burden overall.



*Exxon-Mob­il, Chevron, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Boeing and Carnival Cruise Lines all had high profits and paid no taxes. Over the last two years, Wells Fargo earned $37 billion in profits but got a $4 billion tax refund. And Hewlett-Pa­ckard reported over $9 billion in profits last year, but paid the same amount in taxes as someone earning just $30,000 a year.
About Republicans
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The GOP's 'Uncertainty' Talking Point, Debunked

Lie number 2) The U.S. suffers from high taxes.

Example: The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore:

What all this means is that in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest.

Totally untrue. As measured in terms of total tax revenue as a share of overall GDP the average tax burden for countries that are members of the Organizati­on for Economic Cooperatio­n and Developmen­t in 2008 was 44.8 percent. The U.S. -- 26.1 percent. The U.S. pays less taxes, as a share of GDP, than Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Austria, France, Netherland­s, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Switzerlan­d and Japan.

Furthermor­e, as Bruce Bartlett explains in detail in The New York Times the current U.S. federal tax burden, measured, again, as a share of GDP, is only 14.8 percent -- a 60-year low.

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About Republicans
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The GOP's 'Uncertainty' Talking Point, Debunked

The Top 3 Lies About Taxes:

Lie Number 1) Poor people don't pay taxes.
Example: From The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities­:

At a hearing last month, Senator Charles Grassley said, "According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 49 percent of households are paying 100 percent of taxes coming in to the federal government­." At the same hearing, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds asserted, "Poor people don't pay taxes in this country." Last April, referring to a Tax Policy Center estimate of households with no federal income tax liability in 2009, Fox Business host Stuart Varney said on Fox and Friends, "Yes, 47 percent of households pay not a single dime in taxes."

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities­' Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith provide the definitive takedown of this myth.

In 2009, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation found that 51 percent of households owed no federal income tax. According to Marr and Highsmith, that figure was inflated by special recession-­related factors -- In a more typical year, "35 to 40 percent of households pay no federal income tax."
But that does not mean that these households pay no federal taxes at all. Far from it: Nearly all working Americans pay payroll taxes to fund Medicare and Social Security. In 2007, the poorest Americans -- taxpayers in the bottom fifth of income -- paid 8.8 percent of their income as payroll taxes. The next fifth paid almost ten percent. The top 20 percent of earners paid only 5.7 percent.

And of course, these numbers don't include state and local taxes or excise fees like gas taxes, which tend to have a regressive impact that hits poorer Americans harder. Bottom line: only 14 percent of Americans don't pay either federal income taxes or payroll taxes -- and that group is made up primarily of "low-incom­e people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability­, or students."

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About Republicans
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Mississippi 'Personhood' Law Could Cause Legal Mayhem, Experts Warn

The purpose of sex is to create life,

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My first reaction to reading your comment was, "She's never had sex", followed by, "She's never had an orgasm."

If creating life was the sole purpose of sex, only those capable of child-bear­ing would be able to have it.  Those past child-bear­ing age, those who are infertile, same sex couples, etc., wouldn't be having sex.  

Sex has many purposes and benefits, chiefly it's a feel good activity that promotes good physical health and brings people closer, not just physically but emotionall­y.  That's something we could use more of in our culture.
About Haley Barbour
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