Commentary: GOP has a lot of nerve

[babylonsister]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/337/story/63412.html

Commentary: GOP has a lot of nerve

By Jack Z. Smith | The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

With President Barack Obama proposing to increase the top income tax rates for wealthy Americans, Republicans are engaging in an orgy of hyperbole.

snip//

Why weren't Republicans screaming about "redistribution of wealth" when George W. Bush, as president, was redistributing wealth upward via a series of tax cuts disproportionately benefiting the affluent? In that same period, Bush refused to support Democrats' proposals to boost the federal minimum wage for low-income workers above a paltry $5.15 an hour. Now that's "politically ruthless," Mr. Gerson.

Many wealthy Americans, just as many middle-class Americans, have been jarred by the current economic meltdown. But the incomes of the wealthiest Americans have risen sharply over the past two to three decades. The top 1 percent of income earners in 2006 (those with adjusted gross incomes of $388,806 or more) accounted for 22 percent of all Americans' income in that year. A decade earlier, the top 1 percent accounted for only 16 percent of total income.

Contrastingly, many middle-income and lower-income Americans have seen little or no gain in real, inflation-adjusted income in recent years, while experiencing huge increases in healthcare costs and diminished retirement security as companies abandon traditional pension plans.

Obama became president less than seven weeks ago.

He inherited a nightmarish situation from Bush – record federal budget deficits, two costly wars and an exceptionally brutal recession featuring rapidly escalating unemployment, the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression, a severe credit crunch, a U.S. auto industry in free-fall and a decimated stock market.

Whew, it's a good thing that Bush wasn't like Obama, isn't it? Otherwise, Bush might have left us in a real pickle.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. and this was in the Star Telegram?

Even Texas gets it.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Donkeykick]

3. And...

what gets me is why haven't those people been spending all of that savings on goods and services. The blue collar worker sure as H#LL can't afford to do it. Maybe they need more tax cuts. :eyes: :wtf:

But the incomes of the wealthiest Americans have risen sharply over the past two to three decades. The top 1 percent of income earners in 2006 (those with adjusted gross incomes of $388,806 or more) accounted for 22 percent of all Americans' income in that year. A decade earlier, the top 1 percent accounted for only 16 percent of total income.

[mckara]

4. Trying to Light a Candle in a Dark Room

I wonder if conservatives can read, or have a conscience?

[TankLV]

5. The repuke argument: It's "THEIR" money so it's right for them to "retain" it.

The government is "taking" "their" money - and it has no business doing so.

So their logic follows that if you make more, any change to the tax structure would affect those who have more in the first place - whether it's tax cuts or tax increases.

Therefore, the "poor" who don't pay any taxes should get NO "tax cuts" and will get no "tax increases".

No "progressive" tax structure talk allowed - everyone should pay the same exact percentage.

You're agrument will therefore fall on deaf ears.

It's THEIR argument, not mine, and I hear it from all the repukes at work all the fucking time...