How can people swallow this bullshit? Isn't it getting to be a bit much?
In order to give a pittance to SOME of the millions of unemployed Americans, they must fork over $700 billion to the very rich? No other choice? The Big Bad Republicans who are coming in January made them do it?
And Obama plays his stance as a populist standing for the little guy? This is why people call him a Republican in Democratic clothes - because he's shameless!
Let me go all Warren Buffet on these fools.
Tax me. Go ahead. Take my $300 a year, if it means restoring the Clinton era tax system.
Or, better yet, bring back the Eisenhower tax rates, when the top rate was 90% and corporations paid 49% of the taxes.
Or. Let's get real. People only care about high taxes because they are told that taxes are the reason that their incomes are dropping.
They can't do anything about their wages, or risk losing their jobs to China, or one of the unemployed. Every year insurance costs go up, but the choice is pay it, or lose it, so a lot of people pay it.
They still believe that they live in a democracy, so they feel that the only way to increase their income is by lowering taxes.
We are lied to without shame. Obama, who appointed a commission to "reduce the deficit" which conflated Social Security and the Federal Budget, then turned around the very next week and shamelessly added $700 billion to the Federal Deficit by making a deal with the ruling class to extend the tax cuts.
AND - they are selling it as a way to improve the economy!! The economy which has had said tax cuts for the last 10 years and has deteriorated to Great Depression depths!
Social Security is not part of the Federal Budget. You can look at your own paycheck, if you still have one, and see this.
There is Federal income tax withheld and there is FICA withheld.
The Federal tax is nominally "progressive" and the rich are supposed to pay more.
The Social Security tax is a flat tax, paid only by the poor, and their employers. Anyone making more then $106,800 doesn't pay ANY Social Security tax on the excess income. And on my paycheck, it's almost as much as the Federal tax, already.
So, here's an easy fix. Raise the damn federal withholding tax, as scheduled.
But make the SS tax cover everyone! As a flat tax, the way the right wingers want.
And stop taxing more than is paid out, as they've been doing since Ronald Reagan cut the income tax and raised the SS tax, using the excess to cover his expenses. They have been using money collected for Social Security not just to pay to the elderly and disabled, but to prop up the Federal budget, promising that the money would be repaid later.
Except that now that we're getting close to having to pay it back, they don't want to do it. So they lie and say that the money owed is not owed. So quit collecting it and loaning it! If a deadbeat announces that they aren't going to pay you back, why would you keep loaning them money?
If the Social Security tax were levied onto everyone, and it was only used to pay for current expenses, then we could LOWER the tax rate and still cover everyone, thereby increasing take home pay for workers, which is all we care about anyway!!
Simple solution, but the ruling class will not even let it be discussed.
1 comment:
All they have to do is control the radio and television news and they can say any bullshit that they want.
Nobody, not NPR, not Faux, not CNN, no major paper or magazine, is going to call them on their bullshit.
Should the last remaining pockets of liberals that believe their fellow citizens give a shit demonstrate they fuck up and do it on a Saturday so it doesn't disturb anybodies workday.
I think it all comes down to the threat of the homeless. Obey or we make you one of them. Join the union, say the wrong thing at work and we toss you out.
When the people consigned to the streets finally fight back the car-bound, i-podded, twitterized, bourgeois won't have a clue. Obama and Clinton simply don't understand why we're mad. They think they're doing a good job.
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