Update: Excuse Me Rep Donna Edwards. IF the "Tax Cuts For The Rich" will cost $700B over the next 10 years why don't you tell us that the "Middle Class Tax Cut" that you supported the other day costs $1,500 Billion?
The House bill would make permanent all the expiring tax cuts for single people earning less than $200,000, and married couples making less than $250,000—including lower tax rates on wage and investment income.
It includes a provision to protect most taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax in 2010 and 2011. It would also extend certain expiring tax benefits for low-income families, including a more generous child tax credit and earned income tax credit.
The bill would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
The Democrats just introduced a second proposal to extend Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax cuts for the Middle Class. (Note: this is not the "Bush Tax Cuts"). This will cost $600 billion over 10 years.
Do you notice that the costs of "Tax Cuts For The Rich" are enumerated but various news casts stay away from the "good" tax cuts for the middle class? See the details here
My summary: If you look toward the government for your viability you are making a serious mistake.
Subtitle Of This Blog Post: How To Debate A Progressive Fundamentalist
On WAOK's morning show yesterday the debate over unemployment payments and the "Tax Cuts For The Rich" was at a fevered pitch. I am actually stunned to listen to people who flex over "THEIR MONEY" that they paid to the federal government and how they have the final say on where this money should go.
This is the same mentality that was displayed in the pre-Rust Belt industrial cities as those with a union consciousness talked about how hard they worked for company X and that they want their money in return. We see the results of how that deep pocketed entity that is despised as their exploiter could not surmount their draw upon them. Labor costs are the largest expense for the average corporation. For the USA Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are the bulk of the budget. They like to focus on defense spending as the largest but the claims don't stand.
How Do You Confound Their Indictment?
You have to listen to the indictments that progressive-fundamentalists render. It is always TRANSACTIONAL in nature. Today they are forcing their enemies to prove that the "Bush Tax Cuts for the rich CREATED JOBS". The morning host demanded that her conservative friends call in and tell her how these tax cuts for the rich created jobs.
To be honest with you her most frequent conservative friends are also Republicans. They are going to seek to defend their party and they are going to accept the TRANSACTION without thinking their way around the indictment.
The real question that should be asked to circumvent the transaction is: SINCE WHEN DID YOU DEMAND THAT THE POLICIES YOU SUPPORT CREATE JOBS?
Michigan's Jennifer Granholm, governors of Ohio, Wisconsin ,various mayors of Detroit, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Rochester, Newark, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland have ALL been reelected after large job losses. Their left-wing base looking past the massive job losses and/or erosion of the districts and instead voted to retain their ideological permanent friend.
The truth is that they don't know how to create jobs. Their efforts are for short term JOB RETENTION. If you look at the UAW contracts prior to the industry collapse the companies were forced to redeploy employees to other areas, retraining them instead of laying them off. This is the same line of thinking that is present in Europe were workers that are "redundant" remain on the company payroll or matriculate to the "government payroll".
The truth is that they focus upon "employment" and the needs for the workers to receive a pay check while abstracting the market value of the work and how it is plugged into a larger business process. Look at the cities where progressive-fundamentalism is most entrenched. Detroit and Milwaukee are key examples of this. Despite having these policies successfully implemented by the labor unions and the political machine against the corporations - both of these classes lost as their adversaries - the corporations shut down or relocated their operations elsewhere. The fact that these groups advance their interests in implementing unsustainable compensation models in support of a standard of living that is beyond the productive capacity of the market to deliver - a fatal crash of the entire eco-system is the inevitable result.
Look at the present stock of real estate, smaller businesses that support the people within the communities and the ability for the local government to tap a healthy tax base in support of the services they deliver. All of this is gone. They WON at what they were struggling for but LOST what they were hoping to retain: economic security.
The Bush Tax Cuts
For the record my personal viewpoints have been permanently changed after attending the "Fiscal Wake Up Call" tour by the Concorde Coalition a few years ago.
The fact is that both extremes are off the mark on this issue. The present spending and debt loads held by the US government are unsustainable. The amount of interest service on this debt will one day be the largest single spending component of the US federal budget.
Americans are going to have to avail themselves to the reality that we are going to have to both:
- Pay more in taxes
- Expect less from our central government
Failing to do this will lead to a catastrophic failure of the system and then everyone's interests will be undercut.
Though I am generally opposed to tax increases I would accept increases that aren't used by Washington for more expansionary spending. Instead they should be used to put us upon more sound fiscal ground.
Regarding spending - the structural mistake that this country has made has been to adopt the centralized spending model. With the notion that there should be a higher minimum standard of living afforded to all because of their membership in America the federal government has become the great resource redistributor. The only viable option to insure long term success is to push the competencies for the production of a community's standard of living as close to the periphery as possible. The big government schemes do not work. They have the same effect of consolidation as do corporate mergers do.
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