Time to raise taxes on the rich

[OhioChick]

Wed September 14, 2011

(CNN) -- According to new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week, median household incomes adjusted for inflation declined by 2.3% in 2010 over the previous year. The data also showed that 46.2 million Americans lived in poverty in 2010 -- the highest number in the 52 years the Census Bureau has been tracking such data. But that data is even more depressing in contrast to the skyrocketing fortunes of America's super-rich.

Between the second quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2010, our nation's total income rose by $528 billion. Of that economic growth, $464 billion went to pretax corporate profits. Just $7 billion went to wages and salaries. In other words, 88% of the brief recovery went to corporate profits and just 1% -- that's right, 1% -- went to workers, according to a study by economists at Northeastern University. By contrast, when the United States was recovering from a downturn in the early 1990s, 50% of the growth in the national income went to wages and salaries. (And actually, in that period leading up to the tech boom, average corporate profits declined 1%.)

It's not that working Americans aren't working hard. Worker productivity has risen steadily, but wages have still been stagnant. But the income of the top 1% of Americans? Rapidly rising.

At what point do we realize enough is enough -- that giving more and more money and power to big business and the super-rich will never translate into more jobs, better wages and a better economy but simply more yachts and luxury villas? At what point do we realize that conservative anti-tax extremism is nothing but blatant greed masquerading as lousy economics? At what point do we realize that class warfare isn't a liberal goal but in fact a conservative reality, advanced through decades of policies that help the rich cheat the middle class?

More: http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/14/opinion/kohn-tax-the-rich/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

[vi5]

1. We need the Democratic party to point this all out.

Not sort of point it out, maybe.
Not point it out but making sure not to appear too shrill or mean.
Not point it out on one hand and then talk about "job creators" or "regulation" being bad or "free trade" being good on the other.
Not pointing it out only so much that you don't alienate big money donors.

We need a political party to unambiguously and vigorously point this stuff out and fight for regular working Americans, and to make the case for the American people.

They have almost to a number failed miserably at that, and until we get a group of people in there and in charge of our party who will actually do this, and until we stop rewarding mealy mouthed mediocrity, we are going to continue down this road to destruction.

[closeupready]

3. On a national level, they won't do that, because they are also beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts.

I think the percentage is something like 75% of Democratic Congress members are millionaires, and the proportion in the Senate alone is like 90%. So no, they aren't going to push policies that will impact their own personal finances like that. There are exceptions, but do they number more than a handful?

[vi5]

4. Exactly....

I didn't mean to mistakenly imply that they WOULD do this. Just that until a large enough group in the Democratic party did this, that we were screwed.

But yeah, agreed. It's not going to happen.

[closeupready]

2. Not gonna happen.

nt

[Rageneau]

5. We need to redistribute the wealth by guilliotine.

[gordianot]

6. The time is coming wealth in currency and electronic bits will mean little.

The ultra wealthy will need peasants to buy goods. Slaves can become hard to control and overseers are treacherous.

[yurbud]

8. when the servants and middle managers for the rich realize they and their families are being screwed

by their masters too, they will slow walk, leak, monkey rich, and just plain quit rather than participate in their own demise.

Wikileaks and the cyberattacks of Anonymous are just a couple of faces of that.

[gordianot]

7. Duplicate