This is possibly the most incendiary news article I've seen all year

[EVDebs]

Stroke the rich
IRS has become a subsidy system for super-wealthy Americans IRS winks at rich deadbeats
David Cay Johnston

Sunday, April 11, 2004

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/04/11/INGV560VO41.DTL

snip>

""The federal tax system that millions of Americans are forced to deal with before April 15 is not at all what you think it is. Congress has changed it in recent decades from a progressive system in which the more one earns the more one pays in income taxes. It has become a subsidy system for the super rich.

Through explicit policies, as well as tax laws never reported in the news, Congress now literally takes money from those making $30,000 to $500,000 per year and funnels it in subtle ways to the super rich -- the top 1/100th of 1 percent of Americans.

People making $60,000 paid a larger share of their 2001 income in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes than a family making $25 million, the latest Internal Revenue Service data show. And in income taxes alone, people making $400,000 paid a larger share of their incomes than the 7,000 households who made $10 million or more.""

snip>

DUers, this article should be REQUIRED READING. Dems and progressives should actively be seeking to REDRESS this tax system that subsidizes the SUPER RICH at everyone else's expense.

"You can have great wealth or a democracy, but you cannot have both"--Louis Brandeis

[Maestro]

1. And the one

burden by a larger tax burden than someone making 5 times my salary. How F'D up is that? The story better have legs.

[acmejack]

2. The year is young

* is just getting warmed up. The damage is going to be grim.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. I agree

Before long every family who isn't super wealthy and an oil man (or possibly woman) will be feeling it.

[unhappycamper]

3. you might want to read "perfectly legal"

the book 'splains it all.

[Eric J in MN]

7. Same writer as the article (nt)

nt

[blm]

4. The reason WHY the media doesn't cover these stories indepth? Most workers

in and around the newsrooms and networks are employees making 30-50,000 a year.

The corporate honchos and stockholders in the media line their pockets, too, while the worker drones suffer the increases in THEIR tax burden and rise in healthcare costs.

[EVDebs]

8. Cowed into silence, so to speak. Are these non-union newspaper workers ?

I seem to remember "Media Monopoly" by Ben Bagdikian showing that the tax benefits from mostly family-owned papers who then sold into chains was huge. Keeping the secret storyline of these tax benefits going into families (like the Scaife's) would make keeping the drones silent easier.

[Montauk6]

6. So, we taxpayers funded the creation of Catwoman??????

"Two billionaires in New York, the art dealer Alec Wildenstein and his former wife, Jocelyn, testified under oath in their divorce that for 30 years they never filed a tax return. They have not been prosecuted."

[EVDebs]

9. Ummmmm, looks that way, huh ?

One of the reasons I posted this article, Montauk6, nice catch !

And my local paper is a NYT subsidiary but won't print David Cay Johnston's stuff. This is way too high voltage for their tastes. Too many pissed-off Joe Sixpaks out there and, who knows, we could even see tax equity in this country ! But the Super Rich can't have that, no no !

[Montauk6]

17. Yes, but...

The Joe Sixpack freeper won't CARE that he's getting fleeced by the super rich. They bought into the trickle-down scam hook line and stinker. In fact, they beam with pride as Rush puffs on his fat cigar swingin' his 9-iron. They've been brainwashed (and, believe me, I know, I've been there) into thinking that any move towards the rich, in the name of economic justice, is really just a veiled move against the little guy. I know I used to be CONVINCED that if the liberals keep on persecuting the super rich, they'll just pull up stakes and abandon the country and THEN where will be!!!!??

[Nay]

20. Yes, and add to that the people who think THEY will be rich one

day and thus want no taxes on the rich because it will hurt THEM in the near future. . .then throw in the people who hate Clinton's penis, and you have the big dumb Repub voting bloc.

[Montauk6]

29. OMG!!!! I FORGOT ABOUT THAT ONE!!!!

How silly of me!! That also takes me back to '84 when I was a Ayn Randroid at the "socialist-collectivist" University of Michigan and, as a first time voter, having PROUDLY pulled the lever for Reagan, I took a Philosophy course and the professor came in the day after the election wearing a black armband, and I was so disgusted at this evil commie lib (I too LOL at my silliness back then). Anyway, outside his office he clipped a letter to the ed and posted it on his door; it was a fellow (to me) misguided useful idiot who boasted on supporting the goopers in anticipation of one day being in that billionaire boys club.

Ahhh, youth...

(PS: One of my profs back then was Walter Mebane who has been mentioned on these boards recently as he is one of the Ohio vote task force members. I remember he looked like he was barely out of high school.)

[flygal]

28. Amway people

or Scamway as I call them. I have friends who blindly follow these "Christian" people thinking they'll have a **shit you not** 10 car garage!!! Now come on people - did Jesus really intend for his followers to need 3 full size bedrooms used as CLOSETS for ONE person!!

They totally vote repug and spend all their dough going to "functions" and have actually had to downsize their apt. because they have gotten so far in debt following this dream. These people will still vote as their told - and never question the tax breaks their upline gets because someday it will be them. :thumbsup:

[googly]

30. and how about the Hannity argument..."I have never been

employed by a poor or middle class person, it is only
rich that employ other people"!!

[Nikki Stone 1]

10. Recommended. We need a 3rd now.

Need to keep track of this.

[EVDebs]

12. Thanks. We also need to get this into the DU 'talking points'

Johnston's book "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else" along with "The Race To The Bottom" by Alan Tonelson and "Two Income Trap" by Elizabeth Warren and her daughter would make a nice sylabus to an online economic education for anyone.

Oh, I missed "Wealth and Democracy" by Kevin Phillips. It shows how concentrations of wealth were the downfall of all other economic empires in the past, Spain, Holland, Britain, and now seemingly, the USA.

[Nikki Stone 1]

13. How is that done?

nt

[EVDebs]

23. Check out Post #21 , another of Johnston's articles and his book

which was already mentioned. What I mean is this MUST get onto DU's list of articles and when you team it up with former Repub Kevin Phillips' book "Wealth and Democracy" you get a very forceful economic argument that is hard to argue against...since it's the stonecold truth.

[sandnsea]

11. Fleecing of the FICA

I've been saying this for a while now. They are taking our FICA taxes to pay operating expenses and giving tax cuts to the wealthy, then turning around and saying our FICA is worthless IOU's.

Most recently:

"Meantime, President Bush was in Parkersburg WV, where he made a rather astounding statement. He told the students at West Virginia University that they needed “assets that the government can't take away.” Does that mean Bush is planning to stiff the American working people out of the $1.9 trillion dollars that the government owes them? In the Senate Mock Debate Monday night, Senator Stabenow asked Senator DeMint whether he would commit to standing behind the promise to pay the American people, just as the government stands behind the promise to pay China, Japan and other nations who hold US debt. As with President Bush, Senator DeMint made no such promise to pay. What kind of “daddy party” is this? Sounds more like a deadbeat dad party to me."


http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=672

[EVDebs]

14. Chapter 8 "How Social Security Taxes Subsidize the Rich"

in Perfectly Legal. You gotta read this book, sandnsea. Republicans too will get more than their fill. It looks more and more like it is "Wall St." vs. "Main St." out there.

Congress needs to switch sides !

[indepat]

15. The lowest 20% paid as much of their income in taxes at all levels

of government as did the highest 20% according to data from the BLS, as I recall, and that data were collected before the tax cuts which have been enacted since 2001. Every Repuke tax initative is to further the regressiveness of the tax system already in place, every one without exception.

[oxbow]

16. Anyone else think we're returning to something like

the robber baron days? It's time for a media blitz on this article. This is an important issue because it's tax time right now,
because the gap between the rich and poor is growing in our country
and because tax "reform" is on top of Bush's agenda for his
second term.

[EVDebs]

22. It makes you want to scream 'stop them before they kill again'

or go to the window and with everybody else scream 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore' !!!!!!

[kath]

27. Paul Krugman thinks we're returning to the robber baron days - he wrote

a very good article about this in the NYT Sunday Magazine in October 2002, titled "For Richer":

http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/ForRicher.html

Excerpt:
When I was a teenager growing up on Long Island, one of my favorite excursions was a trip to see the great Gilded Age mansions of the North Shore. Those mansions weren't just pieces of architectural history. They were monuments to a bygone social era, one in which the rich could afford the armies of servants needed to maintain a house the size of a European palace. By the time I saw them, of course, that era was long past. Almost none of the Long Island mansions were still private residences. Those that hadn't been turned into museums were occupied by nursing homes or private schools.

For the America I grew up in -- the America of the 1950's and 1960's -- was a middle-class society, both in reality and in feel. The vast income and wealth inequalities of the Gilded Age had disappeared. Yes, of course, there was the poverty of the underclass -- but the conventional wisdom of the time viewed that as a social rather than an economic problem. Yes, of course, some wealthy businessmen and heirs to large fortunes lived far better than the average American. But they weren't rich the way the robber barons who built the mansions had been rich, and there weren't that many of them. The days when plutocrats were a force to be reckoned with in American society, economically or politically, seemed long past.

<snip>
We are now living in a new Gilded Age, as extravagant as the original. Mansions have made a comeback. Back in 1999 this magazine profiled Thierry Despont, the ''eminence of excess,'' an architect who specializes in designing houses for the superrich. His creations typically range from 20,000 to 60,000 square feet; houses at the upper end of his range are not much smaller than the White House. Needless to say, the armies of servants are back, too. So are the yachts. Still, even J.P. Morgan didn't have a Gulfstream.

As the story about Despont suggests, it's not fair to say that the fact of widening inequality in America has gone unreported. Yet glimpses of the lifestyles of the rich and tasteless don't necessarily add up in people's minds to a clear picture of the tectonic shifts that have taken place in the distribution of income and wealth in this country. My sense is that few people are aware of just how much the gap between the very rich and the rest has widened over a relatively short period of time. In fact, even bringing up the subject exposes you to charges of ''class warfare,'' the ''politics of envy'' and so on. And very few people indeed are willing to talk about the profound effects -- economic, social and political -- of that widening gap.

<much more> A lengthy article, but WELL worth reading.

[LdyGuique]

18. I seem to spend my life being angry

I never meant to become such an angry person. It's not even really my nature. I've worked hard for years to stifle anger and find some middle path of tolerance and acceptance of life as it is, rather than how I'd like it to be. But, this last year has taken all of those years of anger management and exploded it.

This article is just another powder keg of resistment that I feel. I've had my tangles with the IRS -- I know how draconian they can be. And we were just little frogs in a great big pond.

Let me interpret the mood that has descended over me:

1) These people are either paying lower taxes, no taxes, or EVEN not bothering to file.

2) These people are the ones who have bought most of the elections, from cities to states to the federal government.

3) These people have been the most vocal about supporting tax subsidies to send nearly all of American manufacturing jobs overseas during the past 25 years and are working to outsource most of the American white collar jobs overseas right now.

4) These people are the loudest supporters of amnisty programs for illegal immigration and are currently hiring illegal immigrants whenever possible with little or no benefits (such as the Walton heirs).

5) These people are behind the fascist movement that is turning our government into a dictatorship.

I AM PISSED!!!!

[NVMojo]

19. I am pissed too. This must be stopped but HOW???

[EVDebs]

24. Please send/email the original linked article and the one at post#21

both of those in a nutshell are in "Perfectly Legal" the book. We MUST start a movement (shades of Arlo Guthrie !) at this point. Groundswell word of mouth can 'git 'er done'.

Like the AK person who posted earlier, I, too, AM PISSED !!!!!!

Exclamation points and underlined and with Oak Leaf Clusters

[EVDebs]

21. Second most incendiary article...How rich got richer by same guy

see post at

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1716090&mesg_id=1716090

Jeeez, 11 kicks ! Reminds me of a po-M by Charles Boles a.k.a. Black Bart...goes like this:

""I've labored long and hard for bread,
For honor and for riches,
But on my corns too long you've tred
You fine-haired sons of bitches""

Black Bart the Po8

[sellitman]

25. Kick

:kick:

[Karenina]

26. And another

:kick:

[laylah]

31. yet another n/t

[Catchawave]

32. I think our tax system needs to be overhauled before SS

Either with a flat or consumption tax ? Here's a recent article on the flat tax:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0308/p01s03-woeu.html

...and consumption tax:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/ConsumptionTax.html


The system we have now just sucks, imo.

[Drifter]

34. I am in favor of a flat tax ...

only because, the reason we need progressive taxes, is because most in the upper bracket can play games with their money, and end up paying much less than your average citizen.

I believe a flat tax is fair as long as there are NO exemptions of any kind ever.

A complex tax system will always benefit the rich.

Cheers
Drifter

[EVDebs]

39. Sorry, drifter, we already HAVE a flat tax ! Ch 7 of Perfectly Legal

Ch 7 of Perfectly Legal shows that when you consider the overall taxes (federal, state and local) that taxes for everybody are in the 20% range FOR EVERYONE.

When you consider that around 60% of corporations paid no corporate income taxes at all, you can see where Joe Sixpak is getting the shaft here.

Neocons also love to confuse the public by concentrating on FEDERAL taxation to the exclusion of all other taxes. This is where they will say that the rich pay most of the taxes and therefor deserve more tax breaks/cuts.

[senseandsensibility]

33. kick

n/t

[FSogol]

35. Print this out and put it on the company bulletin board [NT]

[Catchawave]

36. another *kick*

this is important dammit. Not to mention alot of DUers may need to get their heads out of Camilla's ass and come back to the DU fold...:P

[Beaverhausen]

37. Good suggestion! I just did that.

[lonestarnot]

38. Printed and it's on the bulletin board!

[EVDebs]

40. Remember, Chapters 7 and 8 of Perfectly Legal are the most devastating

to the Republican cause. Ch 7 is on the AMT but shows how the US really has a 'flat tax' for everyone which is regressive, not progressive, taxation.

Ch 8 is all about how Social Security taxes are subsidizing the rich.

I can hear screams in the Republican camp now !

[many a good man]

41. His book should have ignited a firestorm when it came out last year

This is one issue you could rally 99.5% of the people around...tax fairness.

The Republicans' game is to present themselves as perpetual tax cutters-- and Dems as tax hikers. Here is a perfect way to raise revenue WITHOUT raising taxes on the middle class. TAX FAIRNESS is the "morality" issue for 2006 and beyond.

We must jolt the apathetic and cynical citizenry into believing politics CAN do something for the people, that someone really is fighting on the side of the people (including the ones who bear the brunt of the tax burden: those earning between 75-550K). Johnston is waiting for someone more telegenic than himself to pick up his message and run with it.

We need another E.V. Debs!

[FSogol]

42. You are 100% correct

Tax Fairness should be a main issue for the Democrats.