If Tax Day fills you with dread and anger, that's not irrational — at least not if you're poor or middle class. The United States tax code is so warped, so skewed in favor of the wealthy, that it is in effect hastening the arrival of the new Gilded Age.
But Democrats countered that once you disaggregate tax extenders for the rich from the ones that help the poor, there's no political will to do what's right.
The Dems didn't have the "political will to do what's right" when they had botth the White House and majorities in Congress. Why would they expect the republicans to do any better?
mcp
The american political system is a two-headed snake devouring american dreams and lives from both sides.
A simple point of fact.
The United States of America has one of the highest inequality gaps in the developed world when it comes to income inequality.It is not something that "going to happen if Republicans elected" It has already happened.
This process has already occurred and this process happened under administrations that were run by Democrats and by Republicans. It is in other words bipartisan.
The only real difference is this. The Republicans openly admit this is what they are going to do because that is all they need to do to appeal to their base when it comes to an election. The Democrats go after a different base and garner the support of that base through manipulation , pretending to speak to the concerns of inequality while continuing to develop policies intended to help the rich.
How are the Republicans making the rich even richer? Why, they know how do percentages, just like ma and pa taught them.
1986 "tax reform" instituted a wide range of regressive changes to the income tax code. The Democrats have continued to tout 1986 reform as a successful bipartisan effort. Obama has kept tax reform in the spirit of 1986 at the top of his second term to-do list. In 2003 the Democrats were complicit in reducing the number of millionaires paying estate tax.
Harper's Magazine runs an interesting page of statistics in each issue. It would be quite compelling if someone with research savvy could publish the AVERAGE returns on each corporation's purchase (generally through lobbyists and/or campaign "contributions" a/k/a bribes) of a politician--including sitting presidents, senators, congressmen and congresswomen and assorted department heads whose trajectory 8 times out of 10 sends them right through the corporate-paying revolving doors into cushier salaries, post government "service."
Let's see those numbers, i.e. reliable returns on political "investments."
The Dems go after Finance, Insurance, and other millionaire interests while Repugs like Big Oil and the average millionaire-billionaire polluter who covets all things tied to free enterprise as long as he can get away with reserving costs for the communities impacted.
However, increasingly, big money funds both teams so that it can't lose. Either way, whichever Trojan horse is put into place, quid pro quo arrangements will need to be satisfied. Bankers and hustlers are also known to fund both sides of wars. In this way, Big Money can't lose but the rest of us suffer in myriad manners. Who said that it's not much more difficult to fund two teams if you're already funding one. A plethora of viable parties would exert greater costs which is one reason why Big Money funds (and ensures) the primacy of the duopoly.
You are focusing on supposed individualistic personality flaws. The problem is systemic. If Big Money owns, manages, and controls elections by controlling mass media and the public's access to info about potentially viable contenders (while also pre-vetting the selection process, itself), that means no one gets close to the Oval Office who is not beholden to those that funded them. Obviously if the problem is systemic (and it is, nor did Citizens United help matters apart from making them worse), then both parties gain the taint. Molly Ivins spoke about this--"that you dance with them that brought ya" a decade ago.
By trying to place the focus on WHICH party is worse or which is more of a sell-out, perception remains trapped inside of the Sports Arena where it's always about two teams vying for winner and loser roles.
Roseann Barr was interviewed on R T.V. and I was amazed to hear her say this very thing along with the FACT that millions of women are over the juvenile football level of consciousness (which so quickly extends to war) that is so much a part of so many men. There are FAR wiser and more all-encompassing frames than the same one that is endlessly volleyed on this site by persons who have no other jobs.
They work hard to make the Dems as bad as or worse than Repubs. Again, that keeps consciousness locked into the old ring. And I think that is the point. What's critical is identifying Systemic Failures...
My mantra for the year: We, the 99%, cannot afford to support the rich, the 1%, anymore. To do so is suicide.
Taxes have proven inefficient as vehicles to close the wealth gap. Iin America taxes widen disparity. No surprise there when these are established by the wealthy.
Taxation in countries like Norway seems to work satisfactorily as a result of a more democratic government where people inform themselves and vote overwhelmingly as only democracies do
Trying to take away with taxes what politicians of both stripes continue to legislate is just going around in circles. Most problems we face can be solved when the gov't STOPS funneling tax (and borrowed) dollars to the top.
Even local gov'ts are well into it. Recently saw a local news story about how the city council bought a building for millions and now lease it to IBM for $1/yr. They're looking at 40-60 jobs which haven't yet appeared but the mayor defended the action and the local media stopped talking about it.
Really, all the arguing about it is useless, the main thing is the GOP and others have done one of the biggest con jobs in world history. They have brainwashed probably a majority of Americans that 1. Taxes are inherently evil. 2. We can live as a society without paying much in taxes and it will somehow "work out." This last one is the nail in the United States as a coherent society. We have a post Reagan group of younger adults who have literally no concept of what it cost to build the society they live in. Infrastructure, schools, ad infinitum. Talk to them and you'll find out how disinterested in the topic they are. They have been taught in classic Libertarian fashion that what goes on in their space is ALL that counts.
Reagan was able to play upon this, and the "human potential movement" (see capitalism hard at work) that surfaced simultaneously lets people off the hook, after all, they are keeping their corner clean. They aren't going to want to give for the future, for they are afraid deep inside there won't be one. Ayn Rand couldn't be prouder.
