Let’s make this video viral.
Category: Taxes
I went to a rally on Saturday. It was held in front of the local office of Representative Jim Gerlach (R). He represents the Pennsylvania 6th Congressional District. Of course, neither Jim nor his staff were there as they don’t work on weekends. The Republicans in Congress want us to work until we are 70 years old before we can collect our Social Security retirement money. On the other hand, they only want to work 1/3 of the year and still collect full pay and full benefits.
Rep. Jim Gerlach was re-elected in November and that is because he tells his constituents that he is a “moderate”. That’s bullsh*t. He is a placeholder for Republican votes and he votes as he is told to vote by the House Speaker, John Boehner. Gerlach voted to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid yet the local press was silent about his vote. His opponent didn’t have much money and he had a large territory to cover to get name recognition. The media area is the greater Philadelphia area which makes it expensive to advertise. Rep. Jim Gerlach refused to debate his opponent because he didn’t want anyone to know anything about his opponent, Manan Trivedi. As for town hall meetings, they are held via the telephone because Gerlach does not want to be confronted by unhappy constituents. Yeah, I’ll say it. Rep. Jim Gerlach is a coward.
Enough of my rambling. Here is a picture of the poster that I was holding. H/T to Outstandinginthefield for the wording and thank you to everyone else for your good ideas. I will hold onto those for possible use at another time.
Live in your strength!
Now that the tea party and Republicans have taken back the House and control Harrisburg, let’s hold them accountable.
We want jobs, jobs, and more jobs. We want jobs in Pennsylvania that employ Pennsylvanians.
Maloney promised to finally get rid of our property taxes. We want no more property taxes.
Toomey promised American jobs. We want jobs in Pennsylvania and not jobs off shored to another country.
Gerlach promised jobs. We want jobs in Pennsylvania and not jobs off shored to another country.
Corbett promised to not raise taxes. We don’t want any more money taken out of our pay checks to bail out the State.
Republicans promised that they will reduce the deficit without touching our Social Security. We will hold them to that.
Republicans promised to lower taxes for EVERYONE. We will hold them to that.
They have two years to deliver:
- Jobs, jobs and more jobs
- No more property taxes
- Deficit reduction
- Lower taxes
We don’t want to dismantle the health care reform. We want either single payer or public option health care to replace mandatory private insurance.
We don’t want to spend two years wasting tax payers money on frivolous investigations. We want Congress to work on jobs and more jobs.
We don’t want our Social Security handed over to Wall Street. We want the Government to honor their promise to our seniors and to not use Social Security to reduce the deficit.
We don’t want endless wars. We want our troops home NOW.
We don’t want bank bailouts. We want responsible bank and Wall Street regulations.
We don’t want to keep drilling deeper and deeper for oil and gas which destroys our environment. We want renewable energy like wind power and solar power.
We don’t want to keep supporting big agriculture which sends us dangerous foods. We want safe food, produced by local farms.
Two years… that’s all they have.
Categories
I’m Shrinking!
Yes, the middle class has been disappearing. It started with the Reagan years when the tax code was written with breaks for specific companies. Some corporations received huge tax breaks while others had their taxes increased. It was described as “trickle down” economics which actually started to gush money to the top 5% of Americans. At the same time, the middle class, ever so slightly, began to diminish.
The economy had ups and downs over the years following the Reagan bandits (Savings and Loan bailouts) while the middle class continued to lose ground. During his presidency, George H. W. Bush made an announcement that we are now a “global economy”.
Next came NAFTA which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The idea of NAFTA was born during the George H.W. Bush years and it was Ross Perot that brought the voters attention to NAFTA and “the sucking sound” of jobs leaving this country. President Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law and American companies began building factories in Mexico. This creation of manufacturing jobs in Mexico gave Mexicans the opportunity to earn a living wage. Over the years, these same corporations that provided a living wage kept lowering the wages of Mexicans to the point where jobs in Mexico are now poverty jobs in sweat shops. This decrease in income has fueled the drug cartels and has increased violent crime along the Mexican border. That’s a story for another time.
So far, we have special tax breaks for specific corporations and NAFTA. Then in the year 2000, the US Supreme Court appointed the rich man’s tool as president, George W. Bush. His appointment accelerated the loss of jobs by providing tax incentives for corporations to send jobs overseas. How unAmerican and unpatriotic. The Bush administration also lowered taxes for the top 5% of Americans, the very rich, while keeping taxes high for middle class Americans. Along with two wars, the Bush tax cuts created a huge Government deficit at the expense of middle class Americans. Since the birth of Reaganomics, the wages of the middle class have slowly declined or remained stagnant.
Here are 22 statistics proving the decline of the middle class…
#1) According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
#2) The number of Americans with incomes below the official poverty line rose by about 15% between 2000 and 2006, and by 2008 over 30 million U.S. workers were earning less than $10 per hour.
#3) According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
#4) According to that same poll, 36 percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.
#5) A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
#6) According to one new survey, 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
#7) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
#8) Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
#9) For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
#10) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
Read more and all the supporting data here…
The negative effects of the Bush years washed over from 2008 into 2009. It took eight years to destroy our economy and it will take at least eight years if not more to repair the damage done by the Bush administration.
President Obama’s stimulus package included a reduction in taxes for 95% of Americans. As a member of this 95% grouping, I received a tax refund this year, the first one in many years. My taxes increased during the Reagan years and this is my first tax break since then.
Trickle down economics is a joke on the American people. It only increases the income for the top 5% while the rest of us struggle.
One more thing about the George W. Bush years, job creation remained stagnant. For the first time in over 20 years, there were no job increases. As a matter of fact, by the end of the Bush years, the job losses were on the rise and at the same time, the rich continued to get richer.
What is the Republican plan for job creation? The Republicans still stand by their “trickle down” economics theory and they insist on continuing tax breaks for the rich while at the same time providing no tax breaks for the middle class. If given the opportunity, the Republicans would repeal the Obama tax breaks for the middle class. Don’t be fooled by their rhetoric because Republicans don’t have the welfare of the middle class in mind when they speak. It’s all about Wall Street, big banks and corporations with them.
Trickle down economics… how is that working for you? It’s working for the quitter, Sarah Palin and the cult leader Glenn Beck. It’s not working for their followers and their followers are like the Branch Davidians or Heaven’s Gate. They will do anything that their leaders, Beck and Palin, tell them to do, just like puppets on a string. These money machines (Beck and Palin) are only interested in increasing their income, not yours.
Categories
For All Those Teabaggers
Remember all those “teabaggers” whining on April 15th?
In 1955, the richest 400 Americans reported an average of $12.3 in income (in 2006 dollars) and paid 51.2% of it in taxes. In 2006, the top 400 averaged $263.3 million in income and paid a mere 17.2% of it in tax.
In 1986, the richest 1% of Americans averaged $507,520 in income (in 2006 dollars) and paid 33.1% of it in taxes. In 2006, the richest 1% averaged $1.3 million in income and paid just 22.8% of in taxes.
Over the past twenty years, the richest 1% of Americans doubled their share of the nation’s income (from 11.3% to 22.1%), but saw their share of the tax burden shrink by one-third.
If taxes on the richest 400 Americans were collected today at the same rate they paid under President Eisenhower, the Treasury would collect $35.9 billion more per year.
If the tax rate on Americans who make more than $2 million per year was restored to the 1955 level, the Treasury would collect another $202 billion per year.
And if the Bush tax cuts on the rich were repealed, lower tax rates for capital gains & dividends were eliminated, a progressive estate tax was enacted, overseas tax havens were ended, a small tax was added to financial transactions, and loopholes on huge executive- compensations was closed – the Treasury would collect another $450 billion per year!
Please share with those tax whiners you know!
Source: Tax Day 2009 – Institute for Policy Studies
Washington, D.C.
Categories
Include My Tea Bag
Yes, I, too, am angry about our current tax rates and I want to throw my tea bag in the barrel. Enough of the current tax breaks for the rich that George W. Bush and the Republican Party put into place. No more tax breaks to companies for sending American jobs overseas.
On Wednesday, April 15, 2009, I want my tea bag to be included in this protest against the current tax rates that George W. Bush and the Republican Party put into place. No more tax breaks for the rich. It’s time for us to embrace President Barack Obama’s tax plan which will bring tax relief to 95% of Americans.
By the way, does anyone really want to get rid of America’s leading Socialist program, Social Security?
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UPDATE: Cash prizes are now being offered by the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity. Need a little extra cash? 😆
UPDATE 2: Prime Example of the Tea Parties… really are anti-Obama rallies… VIDEO ..
CNN’s Roesgen grills tea party protestor who calls Obama a “fascist,” says protest “highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox”
Categories
I’m Voting for Robin Hood in ’08
Remember the tale of Robin Hood, who robbed the rich and gave to the poor? He was a “redistributor of wealth”.
John McCain accuses Barack Obama of being “Robin Hood” because Obama wants to lower taxes for the middle class and raise taxes for the rich back to the pre-Bush tax rate. The poor don’t pay taxes so they won’t be getting any tax relief. Compare the tax return that you will receive under Obama’s plan against the tax return that you will receive from McCain’s plan.
From AmericanProgressiveAction.org…
In 2001 and 2003, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) opposed the Bush tax cuts, arguing that they came “at the expense of lower- and middle-income Americans” and were too costly in a time of war. As a presidential candidate, however, McCain not only embraces the Bush tax cuts but also proposes massive additional tax cuts that are even more tilted against the middle class.
To assess the McCain tax proposals, we begin by defining five key characteristics of the Bush tax cuts: they cost an enormous sum, skew benefits to the wealthy, favor capital over work, protect tax shelters, and increase federal budget deficits. We then assess the McCain proposals against these five benchmarks. Finally, we compare both the Bush and McCain plans with the conservative tax agenda known as “Five Easy Pieces” advanced by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and other conservative tax groups.
Our analysis suggests that the McCain plan shares five key characteristics of Bush policies. First, it is enormously expensive, costing more than $2 trillion over the next decade and essentially doubling the Bush tax cuts. Second, the McCain plan would predominantly benefit the most fortunate taxpayers, offering two new massive tax cuts for corporations and delivering 58 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. The Bush tax cuts provide 31 percent of their benefits to the top 1 percent of taxpayers.
Third, the McCain tax plan continues the shift of the tax burden from investment income onto earned income. Fourth, the plan not only fails to address current tax shelter problems in the tax code but in fact will lead to increased sheltering. Fifth, McCain cannot pay for his tax cuts without massive reductions in Social Security, Medicare, or other key programs that benefit the vast majority of Americans.
Cindy McCain will receive an increased tax return (over $60,000.00 more) from her husband’s tax plan while the middle class will continue to receive little or nothing. The McCain tax savings would go from $313,413.00 to $373,429.00.
From ThinkProgress.org…
In a new Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis, Michael Ettlinger documents how much the presidential candidates stand to personally benefit from the McCain and Obama tax proposals. The McCains — who report an annual income of over $6 million — would receive well over $300,000 from John McCain’s tax plan.
For further details about reported income and tax relief of both the McCains and the Obamas, visit the WonkRoom as it provides a more detailed analysis of the candidates tax plans.
WOW – can you say conflict of interest? Read some more about the redistribution of wealth upwards which is exactly what John McCain’s tax plan will do in the “Reverse Robin Hood” at Homeless in LA.
What amazes me is that middle class McCain supporters shout “No” to Barack Obama’s tax plan even though they would benefit the most from Obama’s tax plan. Why would someone from the middle class support paying higher taxes so that the wealthy could receive more tax relief? Isn’t this like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face? Isn’t voting for McCain voting against one’s own best interest? The middle class McCain supporters call Obama a “socialist”. If any of the McCain supporters travel over public bridges and public roads, benefit from police and fireman, use the public library and use public water and sewer, then they too, are “socialist”. Let’s not forget to include the recipients of Social Security and Medicare which is another “socialist” idea.
The McCain tax plan would eventually eliminate the middle class. This would foster a return to the feudalistic state where the wealthy own everything and the poor support the wealthy. John McCain’s plan rewards investments and corporations and punishes the worker who will see an increase in taxes because John McCain will tax health benefits for workers.
The choice is clear… I am voting for “Robin Hood”, the “redistributor of wealth”. His name will appear as Barack Obama on the ballot.
Pennsylvania slots will bring a whopping $169.00 in school tax relief according to an article published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
While the size of property tax reductions from slots revenue will vary among 500 Pennsylvania school districts, $169 is the average amount of relief statewide when school property tax bills go out in July, Michael Masch, state budget secretary, said yesterday. In Philadelphia, the slots money will go to lower the city’s 4 percent wage tax rather than property taxes.
Since the money will go directly to the school district, the taxpayer won’t exactly see the money. What they should see is a reduction in their school tax.
The State will be sending out notices to some taxpayers. Since many homeowners have mortgages, they won’t see a reduction in their tax escrow account until next year. Yeah, you heard me next year. That’s because banks and mortgage companies collect the taxes one year in advance. Homeowners that have their taxes escrowed will have to contact their lender to find out how much of a tax break they will receive.
The law slapped a 34 percent tax on the gross terminal revenue from the casinos, a levy that has generated $661 million in property tax relief for the fiscal year that begins July 1, Mr. Masch said.
Of that amount, $612 million will go for “general, broad-based property tax relief” for home and farm owners under age 65. The other $49 million will be used for property tax relief and rent rebates targeted just for senior citizens (age 65 and older) with incomes no more than $35,000, he said.
The amount available for seniors’ tax relief is actually $173 million, with the other money million coming from the state lottery fund, as in the past. Because of slots, the number of seniors getting tax relief will almost double, to 600,000, and the maximum tax relief will jump from $500 to $650.
You can read the article in its entirety here…
Looks like the slots won’t be putting tax dollars directly back into home owner’s pockets. If you are looking for a Government handout, you will have to wait for that “stimulus check” . With the cost of oil, that “stimulus check” might help a teeny bit with the upcoming Winter’s heating costs.
Thanks to Brave New Films… Share this with everyone you know.
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