Great point Bev. I have recopied a post I made the other day in case you did not see it. It comes from Senator Sanders and is posted on The Nation web site.

The American people are hurting. As a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, millions of Americans have lost their jobs, homes, life savings and their ability to get a higher education. Today, some 22 percent of our children live in poverty, and millions more have become dependent on food stamps for their food.

And while the Great Wall Street Recession has devastated the middle class, the truth is that working families have been experiencing a decline for decades. During the Bush years alone, from 2000-2008, median family income dropped by nearly $2,200 and millions lost their health insurance. Today, because of stagnating wages and higher costs for basic necessities, the average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. The average American today is underpaid, overworked and stressed out as to what the future will bring for his or her children. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.

But, not everybody is hurting. While the middle class disappears and poverty increases the wealthiest people in our country are not only doing extremely well, they are using their wealth and political power to protect and expand their very privileged status at the expense of everyone else. This upper-crust of extremely wealthy families are hell-bent on destroying the democratic vision of a strong middle-class which has made the United States the envy of the world. In its place they are determined to create an oligarchy in which a small number of families control the economic and political life of our country.

The 400 richest families in America, who saw their wealth increase by some $400 billion during the Bush years, have now accumulated $1.27 trillion in wealth. Four hundred families! During the last fifteen years, while these enormously rich people became much richer their effective tax rates were slashed almost in half. While the highest-paid 400 Americans had an average income of $345 million in 2007, as a result of Bush tax policy they now pay an effective tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest on record.

Hey Beverly, i mentioned this last week. as much as i was behind the president during the election, about the 2001 tax cuts, but he can't raise taxes while we are still in a recession, i don't care what the economist are saying, we are in a very weak recovery. i said last week and yesterday to Eric, make the tax cuts to the middle class perminate and delay the experation for the tax cut to the wealthy. i said wait a year but the republican would only say the president did it because of the Nov election. do it for 2 years untill we SEE where this economy is going. Bush made the mistake of not resending those cuts the moment we fighting 2 wars, Obama would be making as big a mistake if he lets those tax cuts expire. americans need cash in there pockets, every american.

last night i was watching CNN in arizona and the protestors are going to march to the capital, have a sit in and get arrested, but they are not going to have any ID!!! None of them. they are going to show how hard it will be to inforce the new immigration law. i don't agree with them,(Portesters) .part of me agrees with arizona and the other part agrees with the feds. but i love the way they have taken a page from the civil right movement, back them they over loaded the jails and caused havac, this is going to show people how hard it will be to inforce this law.

also last night in fox News they were blasting the president on immrigration while there sub title on the screen was saying that more illegally are being caught at the border then in the last 2 years as well as record numbers are being deported. seems to me the producer of that show should have changed the topic untill the screen was changed, and O"Rielly says they are the BEST cable news on the air.

YEA RIGHT!!!!

US Navy,

Sorry I'm responding so late, but want you have said just breaks my heart. I'm one of the middle class and a single mother. I can see how people are stuggling because I've been through it. But I think I brought my daughter up well and she will graduate from college with a BA, MA and now she will have a ED.S degree. It has been rough but at the same time it's been worth everything.

I hope what you said will cause people to open up their eyes.

Thanks again US Navy!!

I'm sorry, but a 4% tax increase on the 5% of people who make over $200,000 is not going to hurt those people at all. They might have to buy a Gulfstream 4 instead of a Gulfstream 5, or take a week's less vacation. But it will cut Billions from our deficit. It's not as if Obama wants to put the tax rate up to where it was in 1985. He just wants to put it back where it was when Clinton was President and the middle class was doing better.

The problem is that you can't really attribute economic adversity to the tax cuts. Revenues to the federal government increased $4.1 trillion over the course of the Bush administration relative to the Clinton administration.

There are many factors underlying the current economic situation. Leaving money in the hands of taxpayers, including rich ones, actually could not have had a deleterious effect on economic output and consumption.

It does, however, deny it to the government who instead of adjusting it's appetite for spending (yes, the Bush administration, too) used government power to increase the deficits and the national debt by over spending and completely trashing the increased revenues. This all has a mirror image in my own state. The whole argument is about taking more money away from citizens to solve problems that we have no assurance will be solved now or in the future, because the solutions all appear to be oriented to "more revenues". That just ain't going to cut it.

Also note that emerging from the 2000-2001 recession, despite 9/11 etc., was statistically much faster than the stagnation we are experiencing after a full year plus of "stimulus".

It seems that when you all talk about raising taxes, there is an implicit and naive assumption on your part that the government will do the right thing with your money, yet there is no recent evidence to support that.

I will support a tax increase, which should be on every citizen of this country, when I'm confident that it will result in a decreased deficit and a decreased national debt. Unfortunately, that will involve a lot of other sacrifice, because in order to get me to buy in the following will also have to be proposed:

1) Increase in the Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes by 1% for both employer and employee.

2) An across the board 10% reduction in the payout structure of Social Security of at least 10%, beginning with new recipients in 2012 and excluding the bottom 20%.

3) An across the board 10 % reduction in defense spending.

4) An across the board 20% reduction in the department of education.

5) An across the board reduction in federal wages of 10%.

6) Apply the remaining stimulus funds back to the deficit.

7) Establishment of Social Security IRA's, to be administered and regulated by the Social Security administration.

8) An across the board 10% reduction in the budget of HUD.

9) Repeal of the Consumer Protection agency, another budding black hole federal bureacracy that won't do a single one of us any good. It will cost billions, however.

10) An across the board 50% reduction in foreign aid, except for purely humanitarian and emergency efforts.

11) A 1% national sales tax, proceeds of which will be allocated to nothing but debt reduction. The tax will be 2% if you can't produce valid residence or immigration status.

The point is that we aren't going to do a damn thing significant to get us out of the hole we're in if we aren't all in it together. There are no meaningful reductions to be had except in the areas where we spend the most money.

I repeat: I am not averse to paying higher taxes (I'm not in the $200-$250,000+ category, not even the $100,000+) to help our country fix it's economic problem. At this moment, due to the Bush years (not revenue problems, spending problems) and the quantum leap by the Obama administration, I don't trust them to do the right thing. Even the Clinton administration increased the national debt by 1.4 trillion.

Richard, Washington State - Now THIS is what I have been waiting to see - REAL proposals from a REAL Conservative on what we can do to move this country forward. Kudos to you, Richard, for actually breaking from the 'attack' mode of the right-wing and having the GUTS to put some pretty reasonable suggestions on the table.

I can safely say that there are some things that you have proposed that I can support. I can support the following:

#1 - increase in SS and Medicare Payroll taxes by 1% - IF and ONLY IF that increase is isued to re-fund the SS and Medicare programs so there is no deficit.

#2 - IF and only if ALL payouts are evaluated fairly, so that someone who has paid into SS for years does not get bounced out on a 'technicality'.

#3 - This goes without saying. I think that 10-15% would be enough. The Defense dept will not even notice the reduction.

#7 - SS IRAs - great idea; hopefully the money is re-invested in Muni and utility funds that will be used to fund our infrastructure in THIS country.

#10 - reduction in foreigh aid - again, 10-15% would be enough to start. Maybe we could aid some cities in THIS country for once?

#11 - A 1% national sales tax - IF and only if it is used to reduce the deficit.

I cannot support the following items:

#4 - reduction in support of the dept of education - this should be REFORMED so we have higher standards for our children and learning shuold NOT be something that 'happens' but encouraged. We really want to discuorage the 'Palin Syndrome', where learning is looked upon as 'foreign'.

#5 - reduction in Federal wages - I don't agree that we should reduce ANYONE's wages EXCEPT for Congress. I believe that they should ONLY be paid by the legislation they pass.

#6 - Apply stim funds back to the deficit - I don't agree. Leave the remaining stim funds fora rainy day or for loans/stimulus for States that need it.

#8 - reductions for HUD - Don;t agree, since not everyoune owns their own home. Shuold be reformed so that HUD is more accountable for whom they help, though

#9 - repeal CPA - we should revisit this when we can see how effective it is. The mere fact we have a CPA is probably going to produce some dividends in the short run.

I have to say, Richard, this is a pretty good list of things. I do agree with you that we ALL need to band together to move us forward. Now, if there was a Republican that was a REAL statesman that offered up these proposals, I would be more apt to listen to what is being said.

Does that mean YOU are that man, Richard? You are making a good first effort, and I applaud you for that, even though I don't agree totally with all of your ideas.

#4 - The federal department of education is ineffective and I would actually prefer its complete elimination.

#6 - To politicians today, there is no such thing as a rainy day fund. It's just another "opportunity". Just take it completely off the table.

#8 - Not understanding your point

#9 - By then it would be too late. The CPA is "do something" political theater. It's like someone runs a stop sign and causes an accident and the solution is to put up five more stop signs at intervals in the block preceding the intersection. It might work, but it will really piss off the 99.9% of people who don't run stop signs. It's not worth the overkill.

Thanks for all the backhanded compliments, by the way. Your approval is cherished.

Forgot #5 - Congress is responsible for federal wages. My guess is that federal wages haven't been affected as much as private wages. You know, the deline in family income of $2200 that everyone here touts. All federal wages should take a hit, as much as private wages. It's only "fair" isn't it?

Richard - the compliment wasn't intended to be backhanded, but I can provide you with a fresh backhand if you want it.

Seriously, though, out of the 11 items on your list, we agree on over half (6 out of 11). The other 5 can be negotiated in some form or fashion.

If you and I can do this - center-left can work with center-right - Conservative working with a Liberal - then why on earth can't our elected officials do their jobs? I guess it goes to show you that when it comes down to things, we are NOT that different. it is just made to seem that we are.

Richard, this is a good start.

Fair enough.

Obama has put a freeze on the wages of all top officials in his White House and his cabinet. I may be wrong, but I think freezing wages on other government employees requires action by congress. That is not reducing wages, but at least it is not increasing them automatically every year.

Anna Molly,

Great post. The republicans keep on saying the tax cuts pay for themselves, create jobs etc. You have see many of them. The facts are there is no proof this is true. Bush Sr. called this very thing Voodoo economics back when he ran against Regan. It did not work for Regan, i did not work for George Jr. so why in the he!!would it work now??? Makes no sense but the republican keep pushing this to no end. Glad to see that you are not buying it either.

If a rich person spends $1 million to renovate his house, it provides an equal stimulus as the 500 spending $2000.

You might not think it's "fair" that the rich person can do that, but the stimulus is just as real.

Richard, I disagree. If $1 million is spent building and funding new houses, the stimulus of that neighbourhood is more than if 1 person spent a million to renovate a house.

I have seen this in action.

That means that for every person who buys a house funded by that million, they will spend at least $50,000 on durable goods for that house, giving the economy a BIG boost. THIS is what you want to stimulate your economy.

Right now, the banks are sitting on 'excess inventory', and are not building or selling the houses they have, so they are nto being furnished, rehabbed or anything.

Anna Molly was talking refrigerators, not houses. It was a one on one comparison of a limited scenario. Your response isn't really relevant.

Besides, the people employed by the "rich" person, contractors, architects, the craftsmen, carpenters, decorators, retailers, etc. go out and spend the money in their neighborhood. In the end, the rich person has $1 million less in cash and each person involved has more than they did before.

To weigh in on this comparison being used, giving the rich person $1 million in stimulus to spend is not the same as giving $2000 to 500 people in the middle class, in my opinion. Yes, the same amount of money is there to be injected into the economy, but the rich person could have done that anyways, they have the disposable income that the 500 people don't. Take the $1 million away from that one person and there's still a good chance they still renovate their house if they want to. Take the $2000 away from each of those 500 people and they probably don't buy that new refrigerator, as chances are pretty good they are living paycheck to paycheck as it is.

Richard, the backhand applies here and I stand by what I said.

So what if you were talking about refrigerators? What I stated is that the $1 million spent on houses will yield a greater infusion into the economy than the $1 million spent by a rich fellow. I gave my examples.

Is it REALLY necessary to be so difficult after all we have been through?

Interesting discussion - if only it were all that simple. Let's not forget that there are many permutations off of any scenario.

For example, in this instance since it is unlikely that the 500 people living paycheck to paycheck are going to buy the top-of-the-line refrigerator that the rich person would have, the manufacturer(s) will see that there is a run on low-end merchandise and ramp up operations accordingly. And, since the sales of the high-end merchandise is not meeting quotas the decision is to phase out the line. As a result, we add new jobs to the low-end that requires less qualified workers and reduce jobs where more experienced workers are needed. And, since these workers have more experience, they are over-qualified for the positions available on the low-end line. And, since the high-end units are no longer selling, they might as well just shut down the R&D division as well. Finally, the company realizes that since it is only making one or two models that are consistent sellers, it would be cheaper to just have them manufactured in Mexico.

Moral of the story - it is difficult to know exactly what will happen in an economy this large.

Pietro:

Where are you getting the $1 million in the first place? I know where mine is coming from, it's the rich man.

If you're talking stimulus, well then I guess it's coming mostly from rich people, too.

But I still don't necessarily agree with your assertion. $1 million spent in one place is just as good as $1 million spent elsewhere.

Now, Tim above is the most honest, or maybe he makes the point clearer. He just wants to take more from those who have and give it to those who don't have so much, although I think we're getting pretty low when the government is buying the lower income people refrigerators.

The fact is that the average person in this country that's living at the official poverty level has one already.

I just prefer it to be laundered through the pocket of the owner rather than the transferee.

Richard - in this scenario, it doesn't matter where the $1 million comes from. So for grins and giggles, let's just say that the $1 million comes from the stimulus. The rich guy got lucky on the largess of the American Government.

I don't agree with your assertion that $1 million spent in one place is just as good as $1 million spent elsewhere. In your scenario, you have the righ guy renovating his house. Yes, he does 'stimulate' architects, builders, etc., but the range of his stimulus is limited.

In my (better) scenario, that $1 million is used to build 100 $100,000 houses. Of those 100 households, all of them will be spending a mimimum of $10,000 to furnish and buy durable goods for that house. That 10,000 turns over at least 50 times in that local economy. $10,000 spent on a new house is a LOW figure; it is more like $30,000 - $50,000 if the house is a new house, but I digress.

I don't disagree with you that the economy is stimulated, just that in my scenario the stimulation reaches a LOT more pockets than yours.

To wrap this up - rich people are concerned about rich people, so I ahve no delusions that they do ANYTHING out of the largess of their hearts. They DEFINITELY don't SPEND money out of the largess of their hearts, that's for sure.

Eric,

I could not agree with you more. The middle class is seeing their spendable income decreasing while the people in the top two tax brackets continue to collect more and more power and wealth.

I assume from your statements that the companies you run are not in it to make a profit - since making a profit would obviously be greedy. Can you tell me though, why it is that you believe the people that have invested in your companies should not get a return on their investment. Many of them are retirees that depend on their investments to live.

Of course, I may be mistaken. Perhaps you aren't complaining about the companies making a profit, just the "management". The greedy people at the top of the corporate food chain that dare to think that just because they direct the activities of thousands of employees and run multi-billion dollar operations, they should get paid as much (or even more) than baseball and football stars. God forbid!

Or maybe I'm completely off base and the real issue is just that these greedy people need to pay more so that others can live better. After all, it is their responsibility to pay for whatever programs the government comes up with - no matter how effective they are or how much they cost. And, of course, I'm certain that since it is their civic duty to finance these things, they will simply leave the prices for their products the same and make less profit.

Or perhaps there is just a fundamental lack of understanding about how our economy works.

So then the question is "How much is enough?" If the rich business owner were making 50 times more or even 100 times more than his workers, there would be more profit to hire more workers. If the business owner takes 500 times more than he pays his workers, he has to offshore the worker's jobs in order to be able to keep the business profitable over and above his huge salary. Who does that help? How much profit is enough? How much income is enough? I don't mind businesses making big profits, but how much do you need? Especially at the expense of your workers.

Heartlight,

I'm certainly not naive enough to believe that the scenario you described doesn't occur, but, it is also important to be intellectually honest. The vast majority of business owners run small businesses and the so-called "rich" making $250K certainly aren't making 500, 100, or even 50 times what their employees are making. These are the "greedy" people? People that have invested their own time and money to build up a business? The same people that can lose their life savings trying to keep their businesses afloat during recessions?

And, just to mention it, those filthy rich making that $250K may also have a larger house, more expensive cars, etc. and just like anyone else they have to make the payments. Many people live up to their means and if their payments are four times as much, they had better be making four times as much or they will have just as much of a problem as the person making less.

Finally, I'd like to turn the question around - I don't mind employees making a good wage, but how much do they need? Especially at the expense of the company. How many employees are ready to take a pay cut (especially if it is a union shop) when the company is struggling because of the economy? How many are willing to work longer hours to make sure the company is profitable? How many workers care whether or not the owner is sinking his life savings into the company to keep it afloat, as long as they are getting their paychecks?

The real problem in this country is that the politicians are very adept at playing one group against another, to their benefit - class, race, gender, etc. Reality, however, is not quite what they would like us to believe.

w Bush - although I agree with your sentiment, what is the alternative? If the Democrats 'sit on their hands' in November, that will allow the GOPers to get in. Is this what Democrats and Progressives REALLY want? Are we that short-sighted about our OWN agenda that we will let the GOPers discourage us into giving up?

Democrats, as a rule, are not fighters - they are thinkers. We can see this in how Democrats govern. Unfortunately, if we do NOT fight, we will lose our voices and agenda.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in November.

Beverly,

Amen to that.

Does anyone remember when Ed Rendell was a paid Fox News hack whose job it was to deliver all the standard Democrat talking points of the day?

Sounds like the job of Governor of Pennsylvania isn't that much different.

And how many ways ARE there to spell "Ari Fleischer"?

Two hacks whose time has come and gone.

June in Florida,

Great posts. I agree, I just wish our so called "friends on the other side of the aisle" would agree. I meant to post to Max Power below but it ended up here.

To add to what you've already posted, I'm posting a source from Business insider about the disappearing middle class. It speak about the globilization and outsourcing of jobs.

Disapearing Middle class
83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.

• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.

• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.

• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.

• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.

• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.

• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,SPY,MCD,WMT,XRT,DIA

June,

Whether or not he gave the "Biggest Tax Cut In History" has nothing to do with whether or not what Max said is true or not. And, unfortunately it is true. The rates across the board will go up, the marriage penalty will be reinstituted, the death tax will go from 0% to 55%, etc.

This isn't a Republican lie, it is simply the effects of allowing this set of tax cuts to expire.

Since the population and workforce continued to expand throughout that time period and yet the average unemployment throughout the same period ran about 5.2 percent, jobs were obviously created. While it may be possible to make a case that the quality of job or pay received was not as good, it is not accurate to suggest that they were not created at all.