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Very

6 (50%)

Some

4 (33.3%)

Not sure

0 (0%)

Not really

1 (8.3%)

Not in the slightest

1 (8.3%)

Total Members Voted: 11

Voting closed: February 15, 2022, 10:51:36 AM

[Oilcanary]

My problem with VAT is it's a consumption tax and is regressive.

Poorer households would have to pay more of their income

That's a problem, for sure. But, if we want "all these things", then we all should being paying. Like they do in Canada, eh?

Nope. With great wealth should come great responsibility.

If a poor household is constantly scuffling just to get by, they don’t have the breathing space to try and move up and ahead. That renders the “American Dream” almost unattainable unless one starts off in a good position.

Consumption taxes have usually made more sense when they're true luxury taxes and so fall on those with large disposable income.

[LarryBnDC]

From the Daily Kos link that Fac posted....an actual ON TOPIC post!

This means raising taxes on the rich. The majority of Democrats in Congress agree on that. They're trying to reestablish the idea that everyone paying their fair share of taxes is just how government is supposed to work, and they see this huge, absolutely essential, and highly popular  infrastructure proposal as the way to do it.

"What we're doing is generating revenue, but we are also making a major area of American government more fair, so people don’t feel they've been played while the rich person gets off scot-free," Sen. Ron. Wyden, the Oregon Democrat chairing the tax-writing Finance Committee, told The New York Times. He's been working on tax policy changes for corporations, the energy industry, and the rich. That means raising corporate taxes from the 2017 GOP tax scam rate of 21%—it was 35% pre-2017, and Democrats have proposed rates of 25% and 28%. They should go back to 35%, but we'll see how much they want to fix this.

Wyden's team is eyeing a couple of other 2017 measures, including one that’s letting millionaires using partnerships and limited liability companies take a tax break meant for small businesses, and the carried-interest loophole that allows private equity firms to claim the fees they get from clients as capital gains (taxed at 20%) instead of income (taxed at 37%). Wyden is also proposing getting rid of a range of tax breaks—44 separate provisions—that give the fossil fuel industry a windfall and replacing them with tax breaks for green energy producers.

For the super-rich, Biden wants to raise the top tax bracket from 37% to 39.6% and to tax stock sales for millionaires as income rather than capital gains. There's support for that among rank-and-file Democrats in Congress. "Taxes need to be raised on corporations and need to be raised on that wealthiest of people who got a terrible, tremendous windfall from the Trump tax game," Rep. Steve Cohen a Democrat of Tennessee, told the Times.

Voters like the idea, too. As Kerry Eleveld writes, "For nearly two decades, more than two-thirds of American taxpayers have told Gallup they don't think corporations pay their fair share in taxes … In fact, just a couple months ago, Pew Research Center polling found that at least 80% of Americans said one of their biggest complaints about the federal tax system was the fact that some corporations and wealthy individuals don't pay their fair share."

80 percent.  Time for our elected reps to start listening to their constituents.  This just makes sense.  And how many of those rich people got rich on the backs of people working really hard for meager wages?  If anything, Democrat's proposals are too tame.  It is time to stop apologizing for long overdue wealth distribution.  Who really earns our nation's wealth - some dude in an office masturbating with numbers on a screen, or someone busting their hump in a sawmill where it's 110 inside and the air is full of sawdust?

Here is some food for your thought on this complex matter: 1. Wealth inequality has increased but is not exploding.

The share of domestic wealth held by the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans rose from 7% to 14% over the past four decades, 1978–2016.[4] That increase is significant, but it is only half as large as the estimates that proponents of a wealth tax frequently cite.
The richest Americans tend to be self-made entrepreneurs: 67% of the Forbes 400 richest Americans are self-made, and eight of the top 10 all got to where they are by creating successful businesses.

There is no evidence that reducing wealth inequality will increase economic growth. It may even harm growth because it discourages saving and investment.

2. Of all the possible types of ways to collect revenue, wealth taxes are the least desirable.

Wealth taxes are inefficient and ineffective because wealth is inherently more difficult to measure. Privately held companies, for example, are not traded in public markets, which means that there are no stock prices by which one can objectively gauge their value. Also, financial assets can be hidden or moved abroad with the click of a mouse or converted into other assets that are hard to value.

A dozen European countries had a wealth tax in 1990, but most abandoned them because they were ineffective and expensive to administer. In part, the taxes failed to raise much revenue because wealthy individuals easily moved their assets across borders to avoid taxation. Today, only Switzerland, Norway, Belgium, and Spain still have wealth taxes, but the rates—0.3%–1%, 0.85%, 0.15%, and 0.2%–2.5%, respectively—are much lower than the 2%–6% proposed by advocates such as Senator Elizabeth Warren for the United States. With a small enough rate, there is much less incentive to evade the tax, but far less revenue is raised. Switzerland collects the most from its wealth tax; and it only brings in about 3% of its tax revenue.[5]

Wealth taxes distort behavior in a way that is harmful to economic growth and national prosperity. By taking a fraction of people’s wealth each year, the tax reduces the return to investing and discourages saving. This can reduce growth because investing and capital accumulation are critical to innovation.

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/whats-wrong-with-a-wealth-tax

I know that only addresses part of what you posted, but it is interesting.

I guess the billionaires (Koch Foundation, eat all) who fund the Manhattan Institute would be against a wealth tax.

Unfortunately the information about wealth taxes failing in Europe is outdated as of earlier this month:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/05/g-7-nations-reach-historic-deal-on-global-tax-reform.html

Looks like you didn't read the piece, Larry.  The wealth tax they were discussing was on individuals. What you linked to regards corporate tax.

I pointed out the source of the piece is another in a string of Koch funded propaganda outlets they call think tanks.

The link I posted was in response to this from the body of the article;

”A dozen European countries had a wealth tax in 1990, but most abandoned them because they were ineffective and expensive to administer. In part, the taxes failed to raise much revenue because wealthy individuals easily moved their assets across borders to avoid taxation. Today, only Switzerland, Norway, Belgium, and Spain still have wealth taxes, but the rates—0.3%–1%, 0.85%, 0.15%, and 0.2%–2.5%, respectively—are much lower than the 2%–6% proposed by advocates such as Senator Elizabeth Warren for the United States. With a small enough rate, there is much less incentive to evade the tax, but far less revenue is raised. Switzerland collects the most from its wealth tax; and it only brings in about 3% of its tax revenue.[5]”


The link I posted in relation to the above is the G7 to levy a 15% Minimum tax thus making it hard to take your money from country to country.

[josh]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/21/politics/monmouth-poll-election-audits/index.html

[LarryBnDC]

NCAA




https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/ncaa-championships-always-have-same-losers-its-unpaid-athletes-n1263007

[facilitatorn]

http://www.rawstory.com/veteran-suicide-eclipse-combat-deaths/

[josh]

Several Republican senators sign on to support last bipartisan infrastructure effort

Nearly a dozen Republican U.S. Senators have joined Democrats in the chamber to support a fledgling bipartisan compromise to spend hundreds of billions to repair and upgrade various infrastructure across the United States.

Eleven GOP senators signed onto the framework of a deal to support a $1 trillion package that targets transportation, broadband Internet and water upgrades without raising corporate taxes.

The proposal is a compromise to President Joe Biden's American Jobs Plan, which aims to upgrade critical U.S. infrastructure in need of repairs, like roadways, bridges and tunnels.

Republican support for Biden's plan has been rare and Wednesday's agreement marked a significant shift in the chances for a bipartisan effort on infrastructure.

"We support this bipartisan framework that provides a historic investment in our nation's core infrastructure needs without raising taxes," the Republican and Democratic senators said in a statement.

"We look forward to working with our Republican and Democratic colleagues to develop legislation based on this framework to address America's critical infrastructure challenges."

From GopherArchives

[LarryBnDC]

Several Republican senators sign on to support last bipartisan infrastructure effort

Nearly a dozen Republican U.S. Senators have joined Democrats in the chamber to support a fledgling bipartisan compromise to spend hundreds of billions to repair and upgrade various infrastructure across the United States.

Eleven GOP senators signed onto the framework of a deal to support a $1 trillion package that targets transportation, broadband Internet and water upgrades without raising corporate taxes.

The proposal is a compromise to President Joe Biden's American Jobs Plan, which aims to upgrade critical U.S. infrastructure in need of repairs, like roadways, bridges and tunnels.

Republican support for Biden's plan has been rare and Wednesday's agreement marked a significant shift in the chances for a bipartisan effort on infrastructure.

"We support this bipartisan framework that provides a historic investment in our nation's core infrastructure needs without raising taxes," the Republican and Democratic senators said in a statement.

"We look forward to working with our Republican and Democratic colleagues to develop legislation based on this framework to address America's critical infrastructure challenges."

From GopherArchives

Fucking “Moderates.”

[Holly Martins]

  This was days after another group of Protestant clergy, representing 37 denominations and presided over by Norman Vincent Peale, had declared that a Roman Catholic president would be “under extreme pressure by the hierarchy of his church.”

Kennedy vowed that, if elected, the oath that he would follow was the one he took upon his inauguration to defend the U.S. Constitution.

At a time when some equated Catholic teachings to socialism, the Massachusetts senator said: “I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.”   

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/20/trying-pressure-biden-catholic-bishops-forget-lessons-jfk/

(...)

Biden is far from the first Catholic politician to in fact come “under extreme pressure by the hierarchy of his church” over their support of the law when it comes to abortion rights.

In 1984, New York Archbishop John J. O’Connor castigated then-Gov. Mario Cuomo (D) and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro over their support for legal abortion. O’Connor would also warn Catholic politicians who supported abortion rights that they could face excommunication from the church. When Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, also a Catholic, was campaigning in Missouri in 2004, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke publicly warned him “not to present himself for Communion” — a punishment that Canon Law 915 reserves for “those who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin.”   

(...)

But if Catholic clergy are going to draw such lines around the issue of abortion, why not punish politicians who disregard other pro-life social teachings of the church, including its opposition to the death penalty, which Francis has called “inadmissible”? Or its support for freer immigration and generous social services for migrants? Or helping those who are poor? Or its decree that addressing climate change is a grave and urgent moral imperative? 

[bankshot1]

Repubs want credit for infrastructure after stiffing America on covid relief.

Is half a loaf of infrastructure better than no loaf?

Or is sharing credit with fascists bakers worth a bite of bread that might not be ready in 8 years?

Or that may turn into bread crumbs if the bakers upon regaining power, decide more strudel for the rich

And the hungry can eat cake.

This is where a Machiavellian mind is needed, and the Repubs have one, I'm not sure the Dems do.

[Holly Martins]

Fucking “Moderates.”

Taxes must be raised or we will move ever closer to Debtor Nation,  owing tens of trillions to Asian pension plans.   Making corporate tax on a par with pretty much every other developed nation, i.e. pre-2017, would be a good start.   At this point,  that might have to be a separate bill,  with debate focused specifically on that,  under national spotlight.  Restore corporate tax,  restore sane tax brackets,  boost enforcement funds for the IRS, squish LLC scamming,  downshift military budget to protection v aggressive World Cop,  etc.

[josh]

https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124

September 2020 data.

[facilitatorn]

http://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/21/senate-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal-495351

[facilitatorn]

http://www.salon.com/2021/06/22/american-apartheid-and-the-wealth-gap-how-white-supremacy-drives-inequality/

[LarryBnDC]

Fucking Moderate Democrats are gonna be the death of democracy


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/opinion/republicans-democrats-manchin-filibuster.html

Negotiating against yourselves is just fucking idiotic!

The only compromise the Republicans will agree to is total capitulation!

What the ever loving fuck is wrong with so many white people in this nation?

[LarryBnDC]

What the ever loving fuck is wrong with so many white people in this nation?

Asked and answered!

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/22/american-apartheid-and-the-wealth-gap-how-white-supremacy-drives-inequality/