From the plow drivers at the Maine Department of Transportation and Maine Turnpike Authority, to the environmental workers at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, the public workers we represent provide quality services that keep our communities safe and strong. Just like our neighbors, we send our children to the local schools, drive on local roads, use the state parks and count on public safety in our communities. We also pay property taxes, excise taxes, state and federal income taxes, and sales taxes. So our interest in adequately funded public services runs deep.
Voters in Maine and across the nation sent a clear message Nov. 6: It’s time to put the middle class first by ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of all Americans. Instead of further eroding public structures to pay for the Bush tax cuts, make the wealthiest Americans start paying their fair share.
Because of the work we do, we get an up-close and experienced perspective on the state of public services throughout Maine. When we see opportunities to deliver public services more efficiently or with greater accountability, we speak up. We make our voices heard at work, in the Legislature and in our communities. Over the summer, we even petitioned Gov. Paul LePage to prevent the privatization of Crescent Beach State Park in Cape Elizabeth.
We can all agree that Mainers have endured several years of austerity budgets. Necessary repairs to Maine’s highways and bridges have been postponed indefinitely, and thousands of low-income and elderly Mainers have been cut off from Medicaid. Classrooms are growing more crowded; programs and services are being cut; and teachers are buying their own supplies.
It didn’t have to be this way, and it doesn’t have to be this way. So many of the cuts made to publicly funded services in Maine over the past two years were made simply to pay for upcoming state income-tax breaks largely benefiting the wealthiest Mainers — tax breaks that are contributing heavily to a projected $750 million gap in the next two-year state budget. All the while, local property taxes keep going up as more and more costs are shifted from state government onto our communities.
Right now, some politicians in Washington, D.C., are poised to try to push our entire nation down the same austerity path that has unnecessarily created so much hardship for working Mainers, retired Mainers and their families. Federal budget cuts endanger Medicare, nursing home assistance, college tuition aid and other programs important to the economic safety and prosperity of middle-class families.
Few object to austerity when it’s required. During wars or natural disasters, people understand the need for rationing. In New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, few complained about restrictions on gas sales because gas was in tight supply.
What’s wrong with the austerity imposed by Republicans in the 125th Maine Legislature and now threatened by some politicians in Washington is that it’s largely a self-created crisis. Politicians at both the state and national levels have opted against collecting the revenue needed to fund the programs our society needs. The priorities of the wealthiest Americans have taken precedent over the priorities of middle class families.
What the politicians have done in recent years is cut taxes on those who need tax relief least — the wealthy — supposedly in pursuit of economic growth that never materialized for most of us. The Bush-era tax cuts turned trillion dollar surpluses into trillion-dollar deficits.
High-end tax cuts have never been shown to boost economic growth or hiring. The sluggish economy that followed the Bush tax cuts proved that. Right now, wealthy people and the corporations they invest in are sitting on a huge pile of cash. They’re waiting for more customers to buy the products they’re selling. The only way those customers will show up is with a strong middle class with secure jobs and incomes, along with smart public investments in roads, highways, education and health care.
Don’t let the federal government repeat Maine’s mistakes. Before we cut another dime from public services, we need to make sure wealthy households are contributing their fair share to debt reduction. Tax cuts should be allowed to expire on the richest 2 percent – households with more than $250,000 in annual income. This would raise $1 trillion over the next decade to retire debt and strengthen programs like Medicare. At the same time, tax cuts should be extended for the other 98 percent of us, increasing our purchasing power.
Take it from your local plow driver and other public servants: Our beleaguered community services can’t absorb any more cuts. Let Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins know that in the current budget debate, increased revenues through higher tax rates on the wealthy must come first.
A resident of Caribou, Ginette Rivard became president of the Maine State Employees Association, Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, in November 2011, after serving four years as vice president.
Mainers have endured austerity budgets? A sluggish economy followed the Bush tax cuts? Tax cuts have never shown to produce growth or hiring?
This type of blazing ignorance is why our country is in serious trouble. These type of people should be banned from public discourse.
how’s them bush tax cuts working? its the bush recession,even republicans say so
And it will be the obama depression!
Continued (relative) stagnation is possible, though a drop into depression? Doubtful.
The Bush tax cuts led to an improvement in the economy. They had nothing to do with disaster created by the government-caused mortgage debacle.
completely wrong–the housing disaster was caused by deregulation–of the top 25 subprime lenders only 1 was subject to the regulation you are talking about..and the tax cuts did nothing for the economy–the bush economy was very poor, but you knew that
“To the extent that there were mistakes in housing policy that
contributed to the recession, those were necessarily committed by
Bush political appointees at the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other agencies. To the
extent that banks and other financial institutions made mistakes or
engaged in fraudulent activity, it was either overlooked or
sanctioned by Bush appointees at the Securities & Exchange
Commission, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Commodity Futures
Trading Commission, and elsewhere”.
“But the truth was always that the economy performed very, very
badly under Bush, and the best efforts of his cheerleaders cannot
change that fact because the data don’t lie. Consider these
comparisons between Bush and Clinton:
• Between the fourth quarter of 1992 and the fourth quarter of
2000, real GDP grew 34.7 percent. Between the fourth quarter of 2000
and the fourth quarter of 2008, it grew 15.9 percent, less than half
as much.
• Between the fourth quarter of 1992 and the fourth quarter of
2000, real gross private domestic investment almost doubled. By the
fourth quarter of 2008, real investment was 6.5 percent lower than it
was when Bush was elected.
• Between December 1992 and December 2000, payroll employment
increased by more than 23 million jobs, an increase of 21.1 percent.
Between December 2000 and December 2008, it rose by a little more
than 2.5 million, an increase of 1.9 percent. In short, about 10
percent as many jobs were created on Bush’s watch as were created
on Clinton’s.
• During the Bush years, conservative economists often dismissed
the dismal performance of the economy by pointing to a rising stock
market. But the stock market was lackluster during the Bush years,
especially compared to the previous eight. Between December 1992 and
December 2000, the S&P 500 Index more than doubled. Between
December 2000 and December 2008, it fell 34 percent. People would
have been better off putting all their investments into cash under a
mattress the day Bush took office.
Since she was right and used facts I don’t see what your issue is, unless you realized that your blazing ignorance is the problem. That would be called an epiphany and I am glad to see you working on self improvement.
“A sluggish economy followed the Bush tax cuts?” FACT ===There has been more job growth under obama then under BUSH.”Tax cuts have never shown to produce growth or hiring?” Yup again — tax cuts yield deficits; nothing else.
Buying the myth that lower taxes creates jobs is what has us in trouble Taxes are the lowest they have EVER been been for a decade and yet we are in a recession Go figure . The proof is in the results.
Punishing producers obviously does not improve the economy. Tax cuts do not cause deficits — obviously the cause of deficits is spending more than is taken in taxes. Statism has failed everywhere. We are still in a recession because of it, just as the 1930s New Deal unnecessarily kept the country in a major depression for a decade. Obama has improved nothing and wants to destroy more in his “fundamental change” of the country. The double talk from the left as it tries to further destroy what is left of a free economy reaches new Orwellian proportions daily.
Typical left-wing, redistributionist boiler-plate. Taxing the “rich” is not going to do squat (especially for any meaningful budget or debt help) so then they will argue to tax the next level of “rich”, and then the next level, and so on until even YOU and yours will be considered “rich” as well. Well done America, when you vote for decline, you usually get it.
ya mean like the ryan budget wants to cut your mortgage interest deduction, like they want to tax your employer provided health care so they can give more tax cuts to the wealthy, that dont do anything for the economy
Your lack of logic is showing. What you just said is that the rich can’t steal enough to make a difference so we should just let them steal, and steal more.
Not at all Nars, I am saying that taxing an engine of a vehicle only slows (or even stops) its progress, which is not good for anyone involved. And that the definition of “rich” seems to be anyone who makes more than you, so be careful what you wish for.
That is not what he wrote. The logical fallacies are your own.
“The Rich” are not “stealing” because they are rich, and there is no end to who will and is being falsely accused and dragged down. Successful people, regardless of how they attained their success, are being scapegoated for punishment by the typical nihilistic egalitarian left fanning envy and resentment. Their policies are reducing us all — except for the privileged political class — to a lowest common denominator.
There aren’t enough rich to destroy through redistribution to pay for what the left demands, even if that were proper and ethical, which it is not. Collectivism always runs out of other people’s money. Once the “principle” is implemented that a minority can be scapegoated to be sacrificed to “society”, any minority is an open target — that means all of us.
A leftist society has never been able to tolerate an independent ‘middle class’, let alone wealthy entrepreneurs, and is out to destroy it and them even if it wrecks the whole economy in the process, which it is. They want people unionized and dependent on government, which is unsustainable and fails everywhere it is imposed. That is not the path to prosperity.
The Federal government is already following Maine’s progressive descent.
move
About that “redistribute” thing.
The rich depend on government services far more than the average joe lunchbox. Without shipping ports, Defense of ships on the high seas, and the military to “take out” socialists like Chile’s Salvator Allende, the “global economy” would grind to a screeching halt.
A large part of our tax dollar (everything we spent in Iraq) goes to furthering the cause of the businesses owned by the wealthy. Do you suppose we would be in the middle east at all if the US oil companies were not there?
Spoken like a true isolationist. The head in the sand-thing did not work out so well prior to WWII either. Of course, since you seem to suggest that US businesses pose more of an existential threat than Islamist extremism, Chinese threats to the global economy or a resurgent Russian autocracy, you should be satisfied and amenable with the decline and direction of our country.
Spoken like a realist – a pragmatic is closer to the truth. I don’t think there is anything in his post suggesting isolationism, nor even a repudiation of the “way it is”, simply a statement of “how it is”.
Do you have any grasp at all that the entire economy depends on industry and the protection of private property rights? Do you have any grasp at all that the vast majority of taxes are taken for redistribution and not protection of property rights, and that the targeted “The Rich” are already paying the vast majority of that? The left will engage in any sophistry to try to rationalize their hate-filled, full of resentment, nihilistic egalitarianism.
It’s not going to balance the budget to be sure, but it will help. It is common sense compromise being discussed here – nothing draconian. If the GOP wants to show they can budge an inch and demonstrate common sense, here’s their chance. I won’t hold my breath.
The “it’s only fair” tactic grows tiresome. REAL common sense would dictate cutting spending, but no one on the left has the political courage to offer that!
Yes. Though partisan politics aside for a minute – is letting the tax cuts expire for everyone – 100% for sake of the top 2% logical? Seems to me that will please both the far right and the far left and no one else.
The left is demanding to to raise tax rates that have been in place for over a decade. Not raising taxes is not a “tax cut”. There should be a tax cut, not any tax increases. Scapegoating the “2%” is more leftist class warfare fanning resentment and dividing people in a statist strategy of divide and conquer.
that were TEMPORARY –tell ya what–you go ahead and pay more taxes so they can give the wealthy more
Get over yourself…your cliche posts reek of the same bias you claim the article has. There is no scapegoating by me. The rich will still be comfortably rich. There poor will still be poor. This is a pragmatic compromise, not ideological.
Yes or no – keeping the tax cuts in place for the middle and lower classes is better than letting all the tax cuts expire?
“Compromise” and “fairness” do not mean furthering the left’s agenda with even higher taxes, spending and punitive controls. For a “compromise”, begin lowering taxes and removing controls in the proper direction — down — in a process of eliminating statism.
I don’t think you understand the concept. I support moderate economic platforms – 50/50 on the Socialism/Capitalism scale, give or take a few points – you on the other hand, seem to suggest full out, all the way to the right, capitalism. Which is as foolish and ineffective as all the way to the left socialism.
Supporting a capitalist free market system doesn’t demand blindness to the glaringly obvious. Over recent years the collective wealth of our nation has become concentrated in the hands of an embarrassingly small fraction of our population. There is no economic theory that would describe this as a healthy development but there is ample experiential evidence to suggest that it is a particularly negative trend. No nation can maintain a stable economy absent a substantial middle class with the means to uphold both consumer spending and savings rates. Simply put, money is to society what oil is to an engine; when it stops circulating properly serious consequences soon follow.
…and it isn’t government’s job to promote ANY economic theory It isn’t governement’s job to ensure the free market succeeds by subsidizing it thru preferential taxation…..or recreating the “rules’ of the game (aka Wall street) .
Free Marketer don’t seem to get what a REAL free market is .It is NOT government s job or role to either facilitate or obstruct business. Government is NOT an arm or branch of the chamber of commerce. I KNOW, I KNOW some want to be. and spend tons of money trying TO make it so..
Government is intended to serve one group and put their interest ONLY ahead of all others —“the people’ . AND NO corporation are NOT people.—- no matter what the activist court thinks and declares .Our forefathers would be turning over in their graves.
Fascism is not a free economy. It is the form of socialism in which private property is acknowledged only in name, while being controlled by government power on behalf of a political class. Government is not supposed to be serving anyone’s interests, in the name of “the people” or anything else, only protecting the rights of individuals to the freedom to pursue their own interests. That includes not taxing them for redistribution; refraining from higher taxes is not “preferential tax breaks”. It also includes individuals in voluntary associations called “corporations”. Attacks on freedom of speech of “corporations” are attacks on freedom of speech of people.
guess i’ll listen to one of the framers of this mess rather than an economic genius like you—“(MarketWatch) — “How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy.” Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, “Four Deformations of the Apocalypse.”
Get it? Not “destroying.” The GOP has already “destroyed” the U.S. economy, setting up an “American Apocalypse.”
all your whining about statism–look up oligarchy or plutocracy—you’re obviously one of the gullible ones
attacks on corporate “freedom of speech ” ARE NOT attacks on freedom of speech of people–you’re truly are brainwashed aren’t you
The middle class is the first to go under statism and collectivism and its destruction of freedom. Production is not created by ‘oiling with money’. There is nothing wrong with anyone rising as far as he can in a free, productive economy. There is a lot wrong with statists preventing it and destroying a productive economy that makes widespread prosperity possible.
Not a problem. Cuts at the federal level can easily be made up by state budget increases here in Maine. The plow drivers and other public servants should have no trouble convincing their neighbors to vote for higher state taxes.
Take it from state employees? State employees already take it from us. Ms Rivard is a union official with a vested interest in maintaining or increasing the state work force. This article sounds like a long complaint that she isn’t getting the raise she wants.
I notice that her solution is to tax more, not to cut spending. Both revenue and spending need to be on the table. State employees provide much needed services, but I can’t believe there aren’t ways to make state government more efficient. We already pay some of the highest taxes in the nation here in Maine, and we’ve seen what happens when politicians are given more money. Rarely do they spend it wisely.
I take nothing from you. I earn my paycheck. GE takes it from you, Exxon takes from you, Wal-Mart makes you pay their employees welfare because they are too selfish to cut a penny from the Walton fortune. Employers that want to be multi billionaires instead of billionaires at your expense take it from you. Tax dodgers like Romney with his Cayman Island tax shelters, his 13% tax rate, while shipping jobs to China while running down the American flag, are taking your tax dollars are taking from you.
State employees had their pensions stolen to pay for those tax cuts, have had their pay and benefits frozen for four years to pay for another can of yacht polish paid for those tax cuts.
No, don’t tax them more, (than me) just tax them at the same rate I pay, you pay, your mother pays, tax those who are taking from you. I earn my money the old fashioned way. I work for it.
I agree that spending cuts are also necessary, though unless they are done in a moderate, gradual way (with respect), they aren’t going to go over well. Extreme cuts delivered with arrogance and disrespect simply won’t fly.
The point that they write that lowering tax rates costs money is the point when I stop reading.
which is why you will stay uninformed .They “like “you that way.
Reading misinformation is purely a waste of time. Wasting time on Left wing Propaganda is even worse.
And your inability to address the merits of the article and show how they constitute “misinformation” and “propaganda” is telling of how you spend your time. Time for a nap?
Here come the ad hominem attacks. (For your information, “ad homeinem” is defined as: “appealing to one’s prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one’s intellect or reason”.
http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html
Your comment above expresses an opinion, but fails to validate that opinion. Your argument, rather than making a baseless attack on the author as spreading misinformation and propaganda, would be better made by addressing the merits of Ms. Rivard’s argument, actually showing why you think it is misinformation and propaganda. The economics doesn’t support your view.
The article is left wing union propaganda filled with fallacies, as explained throughout this thread and elsewhere for a very long time. It is not new. Woodswalking1 merely rejected the claim that not reading propagandistic misinformation is “staying misinformed”, and that he saw what this article was from the stock leftist, fallacious collectivist premise claiming lowering taxes to be an expense.
you’re the one spouting propaganda–right wing style-you’ve been shown to be wrong times too numerous to count and you still persist..i’m sure like most tax whiners, you don’t pay all that much in taxes
Typical! A union stooge wanting to tax ‘the rich’. You want everyone paying their “share”? How about the 50 % that pay NO tax? What’s THEIR share???
This was nothing but bloviating form someone that, thanks to union thuggery, is overpaid and under-worked!
Unless you are living under a rock you know everyone pays taxes. How about using facts, not Fox facts?
The vast majority of Federal revenue comes from individual and corporate income taxes. About half the population does not pay income taxes.
another right wing lie—-“Mitt Romney’s “47%” who pay no federal income tax include several thousand of the highest-income households in the country. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 4,000 households with incomes over $1 million ended up with zero federal income tax liability in 2011. Another 14,000 made between $500,000 and $1 million.
In 2009, six tax filers among the country’s 400 richest tax filers owed absolutely nothing in federal income taxes——This, despite the fact that those six filers belong to a group whose average adjusted gross income clocked in at $202.4 million, according to new IRS data
Overall, according to the Tax Policy Center, “of the 38 million tax units made nontaxable by the addition of tax expenditures, 44 percent are moved off the tax rolls by elderly tax benefits and another 30 percent by credits for children and the working poor.”
only 18.1 percent of American households paid neither federal income taxes nor payroll taxes in 2011, says the Tax Policy Center. Of that 18.1 percent, 10.3 percent were elderly and 6.9 percent were non-elderly households earning less than $20,000 year, which include low-income families and students. About one in 20 is non-elderly with income over $20,000.
get a clue====Mitt Romney’s “47%” who pay no federal income tax include several thousand of the highest-income households in the country. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 4,000 households with incomes over $1 million ended up with zero federal income tax liability in 2011. Another 14,000 made between $500,000 and $1 million.
In 2009, six tax filers among the country’s 400 richest tax filers owed absolutely nothing in federal income taxes——This, despite the fact that those six filers belong to a group whose average adjusted gross income clocked in at $202.4 million, according to new IRS data
Overall, according to the Tax Policy Center, “of the 38 million tax units made nontaxable by the addition of tax expenditures, 44 percent are moved off the tax rolls by elderly tax benefits and another 30 percent by credits for children and the working poor.”
only 18.1 percent of American households paid neither federal income taxes nor payroll taxes in 2011, says the Tax Policy Center. Of that 18.1 percent, 10.3 percent were elderly and 6.9 percent were non-elderly households earning less than $20,000 year, which include low-income families and students. About one in 20 is non-elderly with income over $20,000.
Liberals who “analyze” taxes in terms of “tax expenditures” equated with taxes not allowed to be collected have no credibility. It is well known that the wealthiest Americans are paying enormously more income taxes, out of all proportion to their fraction of the national income.
bull
And nothing says “hypocrisy” more than those who enjoy the fruits of organized labor, while condemning those who struggle to keep them there.
“What the politicians have done in recent years is cut taxes on those who
need tax relief least — the wealthy — supposedly in pursuit of economic
growth that never materialized for most of us. The Bush-era tax cuts
turned trillion dollar surpluses into trillion-dollar deficits.”
What she is saying is the tax cuts were worth two trillion dollars a year which is a bald faced lie. Why is the truth so difficult for democrats to face? I agree, the tax cuts need to go away but lets get serious about the deficit. The tax cuts going away will not erase Barrack Obama’s trillion dollar deficits. Making Maine’s tax cuts go away will not erase the fact that Maine spends more than it takes in and has for a long time. Unless we want to confiscate the money of the wealthiest Americans, we need to stop spending more than we take in. Why is that such a hard concept to understand?
It’s not a hard concept. However we have one side that refuses to increase the ins where it makes sense and one side that refuses to decrease the outs where it makes sense, so it’s no surprise.
Maintaining the status quo in the entitlement mentality by raising taxes is not the proper goal even if it would work, which statism does not.
Getting back in the black will require increasing revenue and decreasing spending. Get back to balance and then let’s talk tax cuts and spending increases.
Clinton ran a surplus. Tax rates were higher. The sainted Ronnie raised taxes eleven times. Howard Hughes became the richest man in the world under a 91% tax rate.
After 12 years of give aways to the rich, to the banksters, there were no jobs created by the so called job creators. OOPS! Sorry, they created millions of jobs, in China and the Cayman island.
You sound like an immature angry trash spewing adolescent. In one of your other posts you accuse others of bloviating and yet, that’s all you have done. You accuse Romney of tax dodging and if by that you mean violating tax law, than you are most likely a liar. Oh BTW have you checked out Obama’s buddy and advisor Jeffery Immelt? From reading your posts you don’t appear smart enough to be a Maine state employee. And, if your are a state employee you in fact do take plenty from the Maine income tax payer. When you say that Walmart. GE, and Exxon are the real takers. At least they provide a product that we can choose or refuse to purchase. Not so with paying Maine taxes. Maybe you are watching too much MSNBC.
You apparently have no idea of who paid what taxes in reality because of whose policies and that not taking from people isn’t a “give away”.
Revenue collected increased after the tax cuts. Tax cuts from over a decade ago did not cause a deficit and do not “have to go away”, nor, as you wrote, would that compensate for the damage from Obama spending. Leftists cannot understand that one cannot consume more than is produced because they have no concept of production, only demands for entitlements without regard for where it will come from or the rights of those made to provide it. They do want to confiscate wealth — not just of “the wealthiest”, but also the next group down, the next group down from that, etc. There is no end to their nihilistic egalitarianism dragging us all down to a lowest common denominator that will help no one but those in power. Even while damaging the economy further, they think that dragging the people down whom they resent is more “fair”. Do not assume that prosperity is what they are after.
more conservative bs–here’s the truth
“Even if we limit the analysis by starting in 2003, when the dividend and capital gains tax cuts began, through the peak year of 2007, the result is still less income than at the 2000 level. Total income was down $951 billion during those four years.
Average incomes fell. Average taxpayer income was down $3,512, or 5.7 percent, in 2008 compared with 2000, President Bush’s own benchmark year for his promises of prosperity through tax cuts.
Had incomes stayed at 2000 levels, the average taxpayer would have earned almost $21,000 more over those eight years. That’s almost $50 per week.
And to be sure, the Bush tax cuts which have already drained the Treasury of $2.3 trillion were a major contributor to the record U.S. income gap:
In only two of the eight Bush years, 2006 and 2007, were average incomes higher than in 2000, but the gains were highly concentrated at the top. Of the total increase in income in 2007 over that in 2005, nearly 30 percent went to taxpayers who made $1 million or more…
One of every eight dollars of the tax cuts went to the 1 in 1,000 taxpayers in the top tenth of 1 percent, the annual threshold for which was in the $2 million range throughout the last administration.
“There is no end to their nihilistic egalitarianism dragging us all down to a lowest common denominator that will help no one but those in power.” But what the reality of the past 40 years has been just the opposite… and shows little sign of ending. Those in power rely on the wealthy to maintain the entrenched position of the two parties in power. It has not been egalitartarian forces on the ascendency… It is has been war-making, profit-taking promoters of the globalization of markets and the upward flow of incomes and wealth from labor to capital since the 1980’s. You have things entirely backwards…
I hope the State Employees union has the same fate as the Union at Hostess just did. There is nothing government employees do that I can’t live without.
Unionization of tax funded employees should be illegal as they own the political power to put money in their own pockets.
At least Hostess is bargaining with it’s “own money” whereas the politicians are bargaining with the state employees with “our money”.
You said: There is nothing government employees do that I can’t live without.
Then don’t expect a state cop if you need one. Don’t expect a fire marshal to investigate to find that your house burned down because of the Chinese electronics you bought from Wally world.
Test your own food and if you can’t, and it kills you, too bad. You are a sad person, knowing nothing, seemingly proud of your ignorance and bile. I feel sorry for you. If you ever decide to listen, to learn, or seek help, please post again.
I bargain with my money. I work for it, I earn it, and you don’t get to say what I do with it.
To equate the enormous scope and corruption of this collapsing collectivist statism with legitimate, limited purposes of government like preventing crime in a free society is preposterous. Rejecting the “services provided” by statism is not to advocate the false alternative of anarchism. The point is clear: We don’t need you. Decent people in government performing legitimate government functions know their value. So do many others who would prefer to work in a private economy that no longer exists.
Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.
Vladimir Lenin
Simplistic…
Truth generally is.
whoa…! How could anyone argue with that logic…?
Glad to se we’re in agreement.
“Truth” is seldom simplistic, so on that point, we share little.
You didn’t catch the sarcasm. Truth is very simple…opinions on the other hand, lead to volumes of writing in an attempt to persuade others to adopt a “fellow travler’s” way of thinking.
Your sarcasm is not so veiled… Your suggestion that Bolshevism is alive and well in our market economy, threatening our children, is an outdated, thoroughly debunked fallacy which simplistic comments claiming “truth” fail to explain, let alone substantiate. Faux News, Glenn Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush, any other of the right wing bloviating talking heads can pontificate all they want about it, we are not socialist. We are not ruled over by Marxist-Lenist ideology. You haven’t proven anything in our current market economy is remotely related to M-L ideology. Especially not by a simplistic suggestion offered in an out of context quote from Vladimir Lenin. Folks paying into SS, Medicare, or unemployment insurance through payroll taxes is not a socialist policy or system. It benefits society. Even you.
Never suggested that SS was a socialist policy…..it was however a ponzi scheme. When enacted the average life expenctancy was 62.5 years for a working male,(you can start getting your SS checks at 65), FDR’s bean counters didn’t factor into the equation medical advancments. As for the Lenin quote, how is that taken out of context, he did say it and it pretty much came true. As for the typical left drivel about Fox (which i rarely watch),….Why do they scare you so
Ms. Rivard – “Fair” is a relative term. The top 10% of income earners already pay 70% of the federal income taxes in this country. And for what? For your party’s leader to blow $800+ billion on state and local worker salaries and benefits that are simply unsustainable.
Any readers of this op-ed should understand that Ms. Rivard is the ultimate lobbyist who cares not one bit about the biggest csisis facing this country – its extraordinary debt. We are the brokest nation in the universe, but she and her union buddies seek to expand govt to even more unsustainable levels.
No sale.
$800 billion+. I have little patience and less time for someone who can’t count, doesn’t have the numbers right by an order of magnitude (look it up).
Let me give you a chance. How exactly have the Democratic leadership been able to force states to spend money on state employees. P.S. They can’t.
Your so called top earners have gotten 93% of all income so they can afford to support the country that allowed them to increase incomes by over 300% while the rest of us have taken a loss.
Don’t you even have a clue that if your number is right, and with the tax breaks they get, how absolutely like kings they have become?
No, you don’t have a clue and will continue to run to the front of the lines defending the same people that laugh at you. Yes, they laugh and rightly so.
This poster’s snooty self-acknowledged “impatience” notwithstanding, the combination of Federal and state laws that imposed union political privilege in a growing public sector at the expense of the larger private, productive economy is bankrupting the states and exposing the leftist ideal of government-run employment and dependency as morally bankrupt. The billions and trillions accumulating over time are devastating, not an excuse to create a diversion over which number in what state under which law.
This apologist for statism continues to evade that the highest earners are paying most of the taxes out of all proportion to their income. You don’t tell other people what they can “afford”. It is not yours to take and redistribute, and it is not your place to tell other people what their priorities for private investment and spending are and proceed to take what you want by government force.
The left further confuses not being forced to pay more in taxes as “getting tax breaks”, as if the government owns their money and has given it away by not taking it. Our lives are ours by right, not a gift from government.
The left is very confused about who are the “kings” as they smear anyone who has been successful despite the progressively increasing statism. The “kings” are those in the political class — including those politically privileged figures on ‘wall street’, the crony fascists — who are running and cashing in on the progressively increasing statism that is increasingly giving us fascism with communist slogans. But the left smears anyone who is successful, as if becoming wealthy were evil regardless of how, as it concocts arbitrary “classes” in which to shove and smear people people with nothing in common.
The notion that some people have been “allowed” to succeed and therefore should be punished for it by being taxed more is a thinly disguised rationalization for extortion and an attack on property rights. The successful are morally “allowed” to keep what they still have because it is theirs. The snarling leftists have no right to fleece someone because the collectivist government did not take it sooner, thereby “allowing” them to succeed. Their “allowing” other people to partially keep what is theirs’ is no gift. We don’t owe anything to the vandals who did not break into our homes, “allowing” us to enjoy and improve on what is ours.
The hysterically increasing resentment and scapegoating is by no means restricted to “the rich”; they are after anyone who has anything left as everything else collapses. No one is safe from this unprincipled
looting of anyone in any minority conveniently targeted for resentment
as a scapegoat. The progressive imposition of statism over decades in
this country, now accelerating with the America-hater in the White
House, have consequences. The chickens are coming home to roost, but the left is lashing out at anyone who has been able to be successful as now the scapegoat for paying for a problem he did not create. This is their warped notion of “fairness”.
no,laddie, you’re the one with warped notions–i always enjoy posters who get their wrong information from right wing sites–and you really like that word don’t you.instead of statism perhaps you should ponder oligarchy –thats the system we live under–and BTW–all you social and economic darwinists, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
“You don’t tell other people what they can “afford…” But somehow you presume to think that YOU can…
You must belong to the 1%, because that is the attitude many, not all by any stretch (some wealthy folks do acknowledge their obligation to participation in the world all of us inhabit) seem to harbor.
“It is not yours to take and redistribute, and it is not your place to tell other people what their priorities for private investment and spending are and proceed to take what you want by government force.” The wealthy have captured government and have skewed tax policy and other public policy (bankruptcy law, for instance) to their benefit, so I’d be careful with your pronouncements about what folks in a somewhat functional representative democracy can or can’t do. “It is not yours…” Well, sometimes it is for representative government to take from some for the benefit of all.
Like Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations said: “”What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”
The US Census of 2010 found that nearly 30% of Americans live in conditions that are or are nearly poor. At African poverty levels…? No, but unable to provide food, shelter, and health care consistently.
Excellent description of the farce the GOP and right-leaning independents have been foisting on the country for DECADES. This is NOT about the debt or the deficit, this is now, and always has been about dismantling social safety nets for the middle and lower classes, so more wealth can flow UPWARDs. The austerity conversation is how to INCREASE the destruction of the middle class, NOT how the middle class, the drivers of demand and job creation in our economy, will be built up, supported, prosper. When the middle class is strong and vibrant, when there are good incomes supplying the middle class with opportunities for college or technical training for their children, with income to afford medical care, to live financially stable lives, THEN you have job creation and a more stable economy. Giving tax breaks to the wealthy DOES NOT create jobs… it gives the wealthy more money…
The cry from the right is, as Romney so succinctly but disingenuously described, we are a nation of “takers…” BS. Romney’s and the gop’s delusion is summed up with this statement:
“The breathtaking growth of [personal] entitlement payments…. In 1960, U.S. government transfers to individuals from all programs totaled $24 billion. By 2010, the outlay for entitlements was almost 100 times more… the nominal growth in entitlement payments… was rising by an explosive average of 9.5% per annum for fifty straight years…” From Nick Eberstadt’s book, A Nation of Takers…
Except, it is BS… Here is why:
“But of that 9.5%, 6.9% simply matches the growth of potential nominal GDP from inflation, labor-force growth, and productivity growth.That leaves excess entitlement spending growth of 2.6%/year.
That excess has three causes. First, 38% of federal transfer programs are health programs. Few indeed drop out of work today and become moochers because they want to qualify for Medicaid, or they look forward to Medicare. A government that pays doctors for treating sick people does not a nation of takers make.
Second, an aging population since 1960 is responsible for 1/10 of today’s non-health transfers. And the depressed economy is responsible for another 1/7: more old people, families that don’t normally qualify for food stamps qualifying for them because of unemployment, and workers who paid into the unemployment insurance system using it for what it was intended for. This is not a shift in the generosity of our safety net.
Subtract off these, and you are left with the third cause: our non-health safety net has become more generous over the past two generations.
By how much?
The non-health aging- and cyclically-adjusted transfer spending of the federal government has grown since 1960 relative to potential GDP at a rate of 0.9%/year.
That is less than one-tenth of Eberstadt’s headline number
It is that less than 1%/year growth rate is supposed to have turned us from a self-reliant entrepreneurial people in 1960 into “a nation of takers”, an “an incoherent amalgam of interest groups … vying for benefits … at the expense of other Americans” today?
That dog won’t hunt. That fish won’t swim. That bird won’t fly.”
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/11/josh-marshall-top-romney-advisor-dan-senor-says-the-election-result-shows-there-is-some-kind-of-systemic-crisis-today-in.html
The austerity freaks, and yes that is what they are, would push the economy back into recession, which is what austerity in Europe has done to the EU’s economy, in service to a failed ideology that tax cuts to the wealthy creates jobs… IT DOES NOT.
Great answer. Only one quibble. Social Security, Unemployment security, Medicare and Medicaid are not entitlements, they are earned benefits paid for and there when we need them.
They are not earned benefits. The government puts the money taken for them and puts them into the General Fund where it is spent. Current beneficiaries are being paid a government entitlement not subject to appropriations out of taxes being collected from others. These programs have been run this way since the beginning. It is a fraudulent pyramid scheme. People who have been forced to pay into this scheme for decades have every right to be angry that they have been forced to rely on something that is collapsing — except for those that favored it politically all along. There is no ideal solution to this mess, the damage has been done and the chickens are coming home to roost. The answer is not to make it worse with more unsustainable entitlements wrecking the economy and punishing those forced to pay for it.
Hyperbolic rhetoric about the demise of SS and Medicare is unsupported in the case of SS, and unhelpful in the case of Medicare. You skew the debate with rhetoric that doesn’t describe the reality of either program. SS can be made solvent for the next 75 years by relatively minor adjustments. Medicare is thornier because of rising health care costs. Your chicken little, the sky is falling, hyperbole (not chickens coming home to roost) obscures rational conversation about solutions and decision-making.
A prosperous economy is created by people free to produce in a free economy who are not punished for it. Taxes for redistribution are part of the punishment. “Giving” tax breaks is not “giving” anything to the people no longer required to lose as much of what is theirs. The government does not own the money and does not “give” anyone anything by not taking it.
Jobs are a consequence of a prosperous economy; no one lives and works to give jobs to anyone else and “giving jobs” is not the justification for lowering the punitive taxes.
Austerity in entitlements in Europe is the consequence of collectivism running out of other people’s money, as it always does. There is no such things as “generosity” with other people’s money. Trying to blame the collapsing European economies on not taxing “the rich”, who are to be regarded as an unlimited source, even more is preposterous. Austerity results from limiting redistribution which is not there to redistribute. Collectivism and statism fail everywhere. The entitlement mentality causes the dog-eat-dog pressure group warfare of everyone trying to live at everyone else’s expense, which moral canibalism improves nothing except for the rulers cashing in on it.
What a bunch of claptrap… Europe is not running out of money because of “collectivism…” That is just right wing BS terminology for a situation you don’t appear to understand… A society of people does better, has less civil strife, people are happier, when they don’t have to worry about health care, about their financial security. Europeans get that. The market economies of Europe have provided for their people quite well. The current economic problems in the fringe economies of the EU are in crisis, one, because of the same speculative bubble multinational banks and the private derivatives market caused in the housing sectors (and subsequent bursting of the bubble), and two, the EU became a monetary union without creating the political union necessary to back up the common currency when it hit the skids. The evidence doesn’t support your reactionary, anti-communist paranoia theory… The market economies of EU and the US are not socialist for providing social safety nets. (The US has the stingiest social safety net of them all…)
Apparently you are unaware of the empirical data that shows the top 2% in this country receiving about 93% of income, owning about about 90% of assets and wealth, having opportunities and options unavailable to the lower income levels and middle class investor is evidence of, one, almost unprecedented inequality (rivaled most recently by the inequality in the late 1920’s), and, two, the UPWARD redistribution of wealth, income and opportunity since 1979… Post WWII the economy boomed for ALL income earners, not just the top 2%, and the effective tax rate on the top quintile was, what 91%? From 1979 on, due to changes in economic policy favoring the wealthy income, wealth and opportunity have flowed upward, not downward. Your anti-communist, anti-socialist prejudices are OUTDATED.
Do these socialists ever study before they spew forth their rhetoric?
If the IRS grabbed 100 percent of income over $1 million, the take would
be just $616 billion. That’s only a third of this year’s deficit. Our
national debt would continue to explode.
Find a new talking point. For instance, let’s start looking at the net worth of these unions. For instance, the SEIU Credit Union is worth nearly sixty million alone. Makes you wonder the net worth of all the public sector unions. I’ll bet they could have more impact through confiscation of their monies than all the “evil rich” in America.
Take your own advice, mallen. One, the national debt isn’t exploding. Two, we live in a market economy and rightwing rhetoric that calls our market economy socialist is both uninformed and just reenforcing the BIG LIE that people who pay into Social Security or Medicare through payroll taxes are “moochers” and the programs are “socialist.” They aren’t, neither the people nor the programs. If the correct economic policies were followed the debt and deficit would continue to trend DOWNWARD. Please stop with the rightwing propaganda that is not only inflammatory but dishonest. SS and Medicare are not socialist. People pay into these programs, as they do unemployment insurance… Lying about our social safety nets is a favorite past-time of the right wingers, and tea partiers, but are nothing but LIES.
This shows you that what Rivard is saying is not “socialist rhetoric.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd4HDautaUw
It also shows that what folks like you fail to understand and propose as “solutions” to our fiscal problems actually make the problems worse. Austerity in Europe has driven the EU back into recession. You folks are proposing the same thing for our economy. After all, the agenda you have bought into is NOT about debt and deficit reduction at all, it is about destroying the social safety net… It has been the agenda of the right since SS was first enacted…
Here is an excellent description of why austerity measures, such as those in Europe that have pushed the EU economy back into recession, are the WRONG tact for our policymakers to take. Austerity is a nice sounding remedy that will make the problem worse, not better. Here’s why:
http://watsoninstitute.org/news_detail.cfm?id=1388