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The New Class War: In 12 years, the 400 richest Americans have seen their taxes cut by half

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For the wealthy, times are good
Think Progress:
New data released by the IRS reveals that, over a period of 12 years, tax rates for the richest 400 Americans were effectively cut in half. In 1995, the richest 400 Americans paid, on average, 29.93% of their income in federal taxes. In 2007, the last year for which the IRS has released data, the richest 400 Americans paid just 16.63%.

In 1995, just 12 of the 400 richest Americans paid an effective tax rat of between zero and 15%. By 2007, that number skyrocketed to over 150. The massive reduction is due to both Bush-era tax reductions for the wealthy and the aggressive exploitation of tax dodges and shelters.

Keep this in mind as we watch the debt talks spiral down the drain. The White House has been proposing up to about $4 trillion in cuts, but want to see increased revenues be part of the deal. For Eric Cantor and other House Republicans, though, that's a showstopper.

Taxes for the richest Americans have been cut nearly in half over the last decade, but we're talking about defaulting on the national debt rather than raise them back up again by even one penny. No adjusting depreciation schedules for their corporate jets; no crazy raising-of-taxrates up to what they were during the Clinton years. All of that's off the table. Instead, Cantor and the others insist that the entire deficit burden be shouldered by cutting the social safety net for seniors and the poor. And this is while corporate profits and the incomes of the wealthy have skyrocketed.

It's an offensive position. Let's make that clear?it's not just ridiculous, or irresponsible, or unrealistic, but patently offensive. When you cut taxes for the wealthy in half, and threaten to shut down the government and/or default on the national debt rather than raise them back up again by one penny, that's class warfare.


Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/FqBaA09ddS8/-The-New-Class-War:-In-12-years,-the-400-richest-Americans-have-seen-their-taxes-cut-by-half

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Right Turn: Mitch Daniels doubles down on social issues 'truce'

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) was recently interviewed by the Hoover Institution's Peter Robinson. The full interview airs Monday, but the released clips are already causing a stir:

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031104844.html?wprss=rss_politics

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Right Turn: Mitch Daniels doubles down on social issues 'truce'

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) was recently interviewed by the Hoover Institution's Peter Robinson. The full interview airs Monday, but the released clips are already causing a stir:

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031104844.html?wprss=rss_politics

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Abbreviated pundit round-up

Visual Source: Newseum

Paul Krugman :

A number of commentators seem shocked at how unreasonable Republicans are being. ?Has the G.O.P. gone insane?? they ask.

Why, yes, it has. But this isn?t something that just happened, it?s the culmination of a process that has been going on for decades. Anyone surprised by the extremism and irresponsibility now on display either hasn?t been paying attention, or has been deliberately turning a blind eye.

Charles Krauthammer is still pretending that the Simpson-Bowles Commission produced recommendations.

Alexandra Petri:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that to turn the public against public figures, it is best to portray them as dumb or boring. Al Gore? Mitt Romney? Boring. Dan Quayle? Sarah Palin? Dumb. "Crazy" won't stick. "Crazy" works only when your audience is limited to people who already agree with you. After all, one man's crazy is another man's clairvoyant.

So after months of identifying Michele Bachmann as a foaming-at-the-mouth Tea Party darling, the People Who Craft Election Narratives began to find themselves in a bind. And suddenly, the narrative shifted. Now, it is not that Bachmann is crazy. It is that she is dumb.

This was a miscalculation. Michele Bachmann has many traits, but "dumb" is not among them.

R. Emmet Tyrell caricatures himself in another rant about what he labels Kultursmog, "that set of ideas and tastes that are utterly polluted by left-wing values and carried by the liberal news media to pollute people's minds." Latest victim of Kultursmog? That nice Mr. Murdoch:

Anyone encouraging the government of the United States to investigate a news organization without proper cause is an enemy of freedom. And the harassment of Rupert Murdoch is being executed by enemies of free speech. Step back a minute. Murdoch has a record of saving the free press. He has propped up newspapers all over the English-speaking world. He has purchased the greatest newspaper in America, The Wall Street Journal, and made it better.

Roger Cohen:

Just about everywhere in the Middle East there has been movement?stirring, remarkable, uneven?as the region breaks old chains of despotism and seeks its slice of the modern world. But Palestinians and Israelis remain stuck in their sterile and competitive narratives of victimhood, determined, it seems, to ensure past rancor defeats promise.

It?s been a year of terrible waste.

There is no alternative to resolving this most agonizing of conflicts but neither party ever quite gets to that realization. After 63 years the balance of power is overwhelmingly skewed in Israel?s favor and the one country that might redress that balance?the United States?is unwilling to because its politics allow no room for that. In general when power is so skewed between two parties peace is elusive.

Katha Pollitt wonders how the hell Erica Jong, of all people, became clueless about sex.

Lisa Schweitzer notes that Greece is having a fire sale of public assets and the United States could wind up doing the same, to the glee of some:

But rushing to privatize state-owned assets can lead to terrible infrastructure deals that let private companies walk away with prime assets and leave taxpayers with no guarantee of better services or lower fees. ?

Many European countries and cities have privatized infrastructure and city services. You want to use the highway?you pay. You want to stroll through a "public" garden?you pay. You can avoid higher taxes, but if you want the services, you pay the private company that holds the franchise. It is a system that works fine for those with cash to spend.

Roger Bybee:

The failure of Obama and other top Democrats to defend public spending and the public sector?along with their incessant repetition of other key pieces of conservative economic dogma?has allowed Republicans to divert America?s attention away from its most pressing problem: the prolonged, agonizing jobs crisis.

Democrats utterly failed to use the worst economic crash in eight decades to thoroughly refute and bury the self-serving conservative theory of ?trickle-down economics."

Simon Tisdall:

Hillary Clinton's 11-day round-the-world tour is remarkable even by the high-flying standards of US secretaries of state. It's certain to make headlines around the globe. But paradoxically, this diplomatic tour de force may unintentionally highlight the apparently inexorable decline of American power and influence. It will be notable as much for what is not said as what is.


Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/I_nb0aDt2pM/-Abbreviated-pundit-round-up

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Stromberg: Won't climate change help America?

Ever heard this one: Even if the Earth's climate changes, warmer temperatures will be good for America -- longer growing seasons, perhaps? Or its cousin: Humans will simply do what they've done for millennia -- adapt to changing temperatures with different technology and behaviors? Isn't that bet...

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/07/AR2011030704221.html?wprss=rss_politics

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