Reagan budget chief slams GOP on taxes

Pamela - posted on 11/09/2010

Did you ever try to pull yourself up by the bootstraps? I mean literally? Cause you know what happens when you do? You just sit there because you CAN'T get up. I know cause I tried it. Just to see.
Regarding Ike, Republicans use Ike as they see fit. Ike actually warned the American people in his last address to the nation as President, against lobbyists and corporations having access to our legislative system. This fact is ignored by Republicans because it doesn't fit their current narrative.

Sara - posted on 11/09/2010

Reagan was the first post WWII president to substantially increase the national debt. Between Reagan and the two Bushes, they account for at least $9.2 trillion out of our current national debt. The formula for all three presidents was cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires with excessive military spending. In short, more out go than in come. George W Bush almost DOUBLED the national debt.



Here are z facts at the zfacts website: http://zfacts.com/p/461.html

So, if the Republicans needs a fiscal conservative icon - it should NOT be Ronald Reagan. It should be Dwight D Eisenhower, as he paid down most of the war national debt in his two terms in office. He had no hesitation at all to tax the rich at double the rate we do now. Why? No one was supposed to get rich during our war for national survival, everyone was supposed to sacrifice together. We had full employment on the battlefields and full employment at home in factories supplying our troops. Ike presided over the shift from a full employment war time economy to a full employment peace time economy, BOTH PRODUCING TANGIBLE GOODS. He was the first to warn us against the military industrial complex.



Now Republicans have all but forgotten Ike and the military industrial complex is part of the Republican Party corporatocracy. THEY OWN THE GOP. We need to go back to a full employment economy producing tangible goods, but those billionaire corporations are outsourcing jobs at a record breaking pace now. Now, we have a different type of war for national survival against those corporations the will greedily collapse the economy and get bailed out by tax payers while outsourcing jobs to India and China.



We now live in a world where the top 25 hedge fund managers can mastermind the collapse of the housing market and economy, and then in 2008 (a recession) year post record breaking profits, and in 2009 make an average of ONE BILLION DOLLARS EACH. Or as one study discovered, a CEO making as much in one single day as one of his factory workers made in the entire year. The top two percent of the rich in the world own 50 percent of the financial wealth while the bottom 80 percent own just 7 percent. Most of that top 2 percent is in North America.



The latest study shows the wealthy do not spend the money they get with tax cuts, they save it. NO TRICKLE DOWN (except that sound of the super rich urinating on the rest of us). Where do they save it is the next question. During the court trial of UBS, a favorite offshore bank, it was discovered that there were almost FIVE THOUSAND American accounts set up for tax evasion. That is just one bank. What would happen if other banks had to go to court and divulge the information on all of the rich American tax evaders?



Historically, when marginal rates were above fifty percent, we prospered, the middle class was large, we ran managable deficits and there were no runs on banks. So, roll back the Reagan tax cuts, go back to a marginal tax rate of fifty percent, and it'll be a start.



We know what Reagan did, and what it did to the economy. we also know what came after Reagan and the effects of that too. It isn't rocket science but trying to justify voodoo economics approaches the density.



I like another solution - impose a one or two year surtax of ten percent on anyone with a net taxable income of a million or greater, and those who profited from the Bush global financial meltdown will be the ones tapped to pay it back.



There is one more thing that must be done - there should be additional tax penalties on offshore investment if marginal taxes are raised. the purpose of raising them is to force those with discretionary income to invest it, but without ensuring that it's domestically invested it defeats the purpose.



We already know this works. It's how the middle class was created and how it grew until it began shrinking with Reagan.



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Kate CP - posted on 11/09/2010

Bootstraps.