Sunday Night Charts & Graphs – Corporate Tax Rates

November 25, 2012 by Leave a comment

Over Thanksgiving I had the rare opportunity to see a cousin of mine who lives on the East Coast and works in the arenas of business and political consulting. He’s a smart fellow and I certainly respect his opinion. And just as Rachel Maddow predicted, we wound up talking about the so-called fiscal cliff.

My cousin pointed out that the United States’ corporate tax rate is higher than that of other countries, including western Europe.

“Really?” I asked. “What’s the corporate tax rate of the Scandinavian countries?”

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Saturday Night Charts & Graphs – Obama v. Gore, First Term Private Job Growth

November 3, 2012 by 2 Comments

Okay, so I believe that the recovery would be further along had President Obama and the Democrats passed a larger stimulus. Hey, they could have spent the money on improving the power grid and guarding against storms in the Northeast! Plus, I think it’s a mistake to jump on the Tea Party bandwagon and pretend that focusing on the debt during an economic downturn is anything other than an excuse to cut the social safety net…and thereby make the economic downturn worse. For more insight into this stupidity, take a gander at Dean Baker’s article for Salon.

That said, even with one arm tied behind his back, Obama’s record on private job creation has trounced George W. Bush’s record. Here’s the chart, via ThinkProgress.

Can someone remind me why capitalists are supposed to hate Barack Obama?

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Good News and Republican Delusions

October 5, 2012 by 4 Comments

The latest job numbers are out, showing an increase of 114,000 jobs in September, with unemployment down to 7.8 percent. Now, one could still complain about those numbers, stating that they aren’t good enough, and arguing that more needs to be done to spur growth through investment — as opposed to encouraging decline by cutting investment in the name of slaying the Deficit Dragon.

But conservatives aren’t doing that. They aren’t making a case for how to produce a healthy economy with decent jobs and career opportunities for all. Instead, they’re concocting conspiracy theories.

Here’s Jack Welch on Twitter…

And there are plenty of other examples, from radio host Laura Ingraham to the Republican media outlet called Fox News.

I actually think that the conservative reaction helps President Obama’s re-election campaign. A lot. By reacting with such outrage, conservatives are suggesting that these are fantastic numbers that (if true) would mean that Obama is doing a terrific job. Considering that most people will believe the numbers put forth by the non-partisan bureaucrats at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it means that today the conservatives are making a loud and forceful argument on behalf of Barack Obama’s stewardship of the economy.

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Monday Night Video – Republican Tax Weakness

September 24, 2012 by Leave a comment

Democrats could have been attacking Republicans on taxes all along, particularly for the inequities in the code which mean that the poor and the middle-class pay much more in terms of what they need to pay for food and housing, while the wealthy and corporations get tax incentives to make more profit. But Democrats have traditionally run from the tax fight. Lost in the details — and the fun — of Romney’s tax returns and disdain for the 47% is that the Democrats have finally found a way to reverse the tax debate and force Republicans to pay defense. The Obama campaign is handling this very well in their ads so far, not at all resting on the laurels of their recent advances in the polls.

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Friday Night Charts & Graphs – Non-Payers of Income Tax by State

September 21, 2012 by 7 Comments

As noticed on DailyKos, reminded of by 0dysseus, and featured on the Tax Foundation website.

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Thursday Night Charts & Graphs – Share of National Income By Wealth

September 20, 2012 by 6 Comments

Over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum posted this graph of national income by wealth, asking why those who have so much are so angry.

DRUM: The last 30 years in the United States have been better for the rich than any time or place in human history. High-end incomes are up spectacularly. Tax rates are down. Welfare reform has been the law of the land for 15 years. Private sector unions are all but extinct. The wages that business owners pay to their employees have been virtually flat for more than a decade. For the rich, it’s been a golden age. And yet, America’s wealthy class nonetheless seem to be in an absolute fury. The looters want their money, the government is resorting to socialism, the president who rescued the banking industry hates them, and their tax dollars are all going to support a bunch of freeloaders and shirkers.

Where does this come from? Why are the very people who have done the best so angry? It’s mystifying.

I agree with his description of the situation, but not with his bewilderment. If Drum is looking for the logic, it’s quite simple. The wealthy want it all, and they can never have enough.

That’s why Romney was speaking from his heart at that secretly-recorded fundraising speech. His heart is located in his wallet, like the charitable Christian he is.

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Quote of the Day: Matthew Yglesias on Ben Bernanke

September 11, 2012 by Leave a comment

But if you want to understand why Ben Bernanke can’t adopt the policies that would repair the American labor market, all you have to know is this. If he fixes the problem, then people will (rightly) ask why he didn’t do it two years ago and his reputation will be in the toilet. He needs it to be the case that the only tools at his disposal are risky and of questionable efficacy.

- Matthew Yglesias (September 11, 2012)

Ben Bernanke, Vampire Chairman

Ben Bernanke, Vampire Chairman (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

SEE ALSO
Not By Rights: DeMarco, Bernanke and Draghi protect unemployment and recession

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Tuesday Night Video – Romney Economics

August 28, 2012 by 1 Comment

I discovered the Obama Campaign’s website RomneyEconomics via the following video…

The website is pretty good — concise, factual, and sharp-edged…

Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts promising more jobs, less debt, and smaller government. Here’s what Massachusetts got instead:

Romney Economics didn’t work then, and won’t work now.

Perhaps Mitt Romney really is the current standard bearer for Reaganomics?

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Want to Save an Easy Trillion Dollars? Step One, Cancel the Bush Tax Giveaways to the Rich

August 27, 2012 by Leave a comment

ThinkProgress has a short post up which includes this graphic from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, demonstrating how allowing the Bush tax cut for the wealthy to expire would save nearly a trillion dollars over the next ten years.

I would like to point out that this is a slightly conservative option. A centrist option would aim to recover the revenue that we lost from having these tax cuts in the first place. A progressive option would aim to recover the lost revenue and then cut the deficit even further through additional tax hikes on those who can afford it.

As is usually the case, the progressive option would be the most fiscally responsible, but the children in the beltway would rather clap their hands harder so that one day Reaganomics will work.

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Quote of the Day: Paul Krugman on Paul Ryan’s Fantasy World

August 14, 2012 by 5 Comments

Look, Ryan hasn’t “crunched the numbers”; he has just scribbled some stuff down, without checking at all to see if it makes sense. He asserts that he can cut taxes without net loss of revenue by closing unspecified loopholes; he asserts that he can cut discretionary spending to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge, without saying how; he asserts that he can convert Medicare to a voucher system, with much lower spending than now projected, without even a hint of how this is supposed to work. This is just a fantasy, not a serious policy proposal.

- Paul Krugman on his blog (August 13, 2012)

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Tuesday Night Video – Robert Reich Explains Why Taxes Need to be Raised on the Rich

July 24, 2012 by Leave a comment

H/t: The Fifth Column

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File This Under “Obama Should Never Have Stopped Saying This”

June 25, 2012 by Leave a comment

We were told that huge tax cuts — especially for the wealthiest Americans — would lead to faster job growth.  We were told that fewer regulations — especially for big financial institutions and corporations — would bring about widespread prosperity.  We were told that it was okay to put two wars on the nation’s credit card; that tax cuts would create enough growth to pay for themselves.  That’s what we were told.  So how did this economic theory work out?

- President Barack Obama in Cleveland, Ohio (June 14, 2012)

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