About
Learn More about our progressive online community for the Granite State.

Create an account today (it's free and easy) and get started!
Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


Search




Advanced Search


The Masthead
Managing Editors


Jennifer Daler

Contributing Writers
elwood
Mike Hoefer
susanthe
William Tucker

ActBlue Hampshire

The Roll, Etc.
Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch, finch, beech
Democracy for NH
Live Free or Die
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Granite State Progress
Seacoast for Change
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
Tomorrow's Progressives

Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Krauss
Landrigan
Lawson
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Primary Wire
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes
Welch

Campaigns, Et Alia.
Paul Hodes
Carol Shea-Porter
Ann McLane Kuster
John Lynch
Jennifer Daler

ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC

National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
The Next Hurrah
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo

50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

Looting - UPDATED

by: bloomingpol

Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:11:42 PM EST


Two groups of policy experts weighed in on the effects of the Ryan budget proposal, the Roadmap to America's Future, the Republican plan to cure the economy that most Republicans have been running away from because it has third rail issues, i.e. getting rid of Social Security and Medicare, among other programs.  Turns out there's a lot more there for those of us who aren't rich to not like.

First

The Roadmap would give the most affluent households a new round of very large, costly tax cuts by reducing income tax rates on high-income households; eliminating income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolishing the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the alternative minimum tax. At the same time, the Ryan plan would raise taxes for most middle-income families, privatize a substantial portion of Social Security, eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, end traditional Medicare and most of Medicaid, and terminate the Children's Health Insurance Program. The plan would replace these health programs with a system of vouchers whose value would erode over time and thus would purchase health insurance that would cover fewer health care services as the years went by.
bloomingpol :: Looting - UPDATED
Second

An analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center found that the richest 1% of Americans -- those making more than $633,000 a year -- would find their tax burden cut in half in 2014. The more one makes, the bigger the cut -- millionaires who Republicans have already taken good care of would find their taxes cut even more dramatically, by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

To make up the difference, we'd all have to pay a new consumption tax on goods and services. On the whole, the tax burden would shift dramatically from the wealthy to the middle class.

And best of all, even with new taxes on the middle class, and the massive cuts to Medicare and Social Security, Ryan's roadmap still wouldn't balance the budget for a very long time.

Sounds like something Judd Gregg and Kelly Ayotte could go for.  Oh, yes, why do I call it looting?  I flipped Ayn Rand's use of looting in her juvenile version of capitalism to reflect what really goes on when Republicans run things: a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class, the actual engine of our economy, to the true parasites, those who live off looting the rest of us.

Update:  Matthew Yglesias points out some more problems with the Roadmap:

That said, the plan would also likely destroy the private health insurance system in the United States by eliminating the tax preference for employer-provided health insurance plans. This tax preference is not very good public policy, but it's a hidden government intervention that's critical to making our "private" insurance system work, insofar as it works at all.

and

Meanwhile, by completely eliminating corporate income tax and taxation of dividends, he's opening the door to massive tax evasion.
Tags: , , , (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
Looting - UPDATED | 2 comments
OK. (0.00 / 0)
Let's say you've convinced yourself that wealth is a sign of success and virtue.  So, you set about accumulating wealth and you not only don't feel successful, but other people don't recognize your virtue.  What to do?  Clearly, the answer is to accumulate more wealth and rub other people's nose in it until they surrender and admit you're great.

Will that be satisfying?  Probably not.  Because the real problem is a sense of personal insecurity and fear that no amount of material wealth can supplant.

Meanwhile, our economy is ruined.  But, it wouldn't be the first time.  Lots of civilizations have fallen because some irrational people got their hands on the levers of power.  They're people who want to control other people because they have no self-control.  And, since they have no self-control, they have to be stopped.  Their sense of self-preservation can't be counted on to stop them because they have no sense of self.


Corporations are people too! (0.00 / 0)
The Supreme Court reaffirmed that drugged-out fantasy fascist wet dream cogent analysis earlier this year.

The Republican Party supports its first President's formulation: "Government of the people*, by the people*, for the people*.

* But corporation kinfolk are not laborer-type people, please.


Looting - UPDATED | 2 comments

Connect with BH
     
Blue Hampshire Blog on Facebook
Powered by: SoapBlox