NA Confidential: Sanders: "We've got to own up to it."

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Sanders: "We've got to own up to it."

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

9 comments:

VetteMan said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12:17 PM
VetteMan said...: I read this today and thought it would have a place here.

(On Jan. 1, 2011, federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply. …the highest federal personal income tax rate will go 39.6% from 35%, the highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains tax rate to 20% from 15%, and the estate tax rate to 55% from zero. …Tax rates have been and will be raised on income earned from off-shore investments. Payroll taxes are already scheduled to rise in 2013 and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will be digging deeper and deeper into middle-income taxpayers. And there’s always the celebrated tax increase on Cadillac health care plans. State and local tax rates are also going up in 2011 as they did in 2010. Tax rate increases next year are everywhere.)

There has to be a middle ground. We need to spend less borrow less and tax less.

We can't let people down that are out of work because of the bad ecomonoy (unemployment is 9.8%).

My plan: No tax increase for anyone for two years, extend the unemployment for up to 104 weeks for everyone. The hard fact is we have to draw the line some where. That's why we need a middle ground.; 12:19 PM
Karen B said...: I think the middle ground is letting the tax cuts stay in place for those least able to pay for them (e.g. the middle class) and letting them expire for those already easily able to shelter a good portion of their income from taxes so they wouldn't pay the top 39% rate anyway. If you want to argue that $250k is too low and not "truly rich enough" to be raising taxes on, I might entertain that argument, but in general people with money know how to shelter it, so they almost never really pay the quoted tax rates. When they gripe about taxes, I start hearing tiny violins. Seriously, Warren Buffet has said unequivocally that his secretary pays a greater share of her income in taxes than he does.

Spend less/tax less makes a great sound bite, but what are you going to truly spend less on? Social Security? Medicare? Military? Those take a large portion of federal spending on their own. Doctors are facing huge cuts in Medicare reimbursements as it is, and we're fighting un-winnable wars on multiple fronts around the world. So where are we going to find enough spending cuts to cover millionaires getting a continued tax break?

Speaking of Social Security...there's a push to raise the retirement age once again. Those who are pushing for that are ignoring the fact that if retirement age is pushed too far up, it will result in more people of old-but-too-early-to-retire age filing for social security disability, which actually pays more than regular social security. So the net result will be more paid out rather than less.; 4:54 PM
RememberCharlemagne said...: Your chaotic and violent society,even when it wants peace, even when it is in a state of apparent repose, carries war within it as the sleeping cloud carries the thunderstorm. The ethical values of unrestrained capitalist competition inevitably encouraged man's inhumanity to man. For this tormented society, to protect itself against the anxieties which constantly rise from its own depths, is perpetually obliged to thicken its armour plating; in this age of limitless competition and overproduction. There is only one way finally to abolish war between people, it is to abolish war between individuals, it is to abolish the economic war, the disorder of present society, it is to substitute for the universal struggle for existence, which ends with the universal struggle on the battlefields, a regime of social peace and unity.

Jean Jaures, French Socialist, 1895; 7:47 PM
VetteMan said...: Karen said:

"If you want to argue that $250k is too low and not "truly rich enough" to be raising taxes on, I might entertain that argument"

In the spirit of middle ground I would like to see the the cut off at 1 to 2mil. That would take out the true small business.

Cuts should come from 5% of the top of the big 3 and look for all the waist they talk about. Time to find it, hell if I can find my keys, they can find the programs that are wasteful.

Soc. Sec. Should be cashed out for those under 40 with a one time buy out. It's not right to pay into a plan then move the bar every few years. We all know it's not going to last.; 9:51 PM
Jeff Gillenwater said...: Only 2% of all households in the entire United States have incomes of more than $250K. I think small business owners are well covered by that number.; 11:14 PM
Karen B said...: I was under the impression that small business income would not count in that $250k number. There was a small business exemption either passed or suggested y the administration as a way to bridge the divide. I would certainly support shielding small businesses from tax increases.; 11:24 PM
John Gonder said...: This most admirable of American politicians attains and maintains his high ground because he solicits and accepts relatively little in campaign contributions.

Campaign finance reform, ie. publicly funded campaigns,is our best bet to break the ties of the self-serving,greed-centered,venal, corporate lackeys (lobbyists) to those who do their bidding (congressmen and senators), thereby subverting the peoples' interests, imperiling our democracy and our very survival.; 11:52 PM
VetteMan said...: It looks like all of the Bush tax cuts will stay in place and the Goverment will add upto 13 more months of unemployment insurance.; 4:05 PM