It's Time to Pay the Bin Laden Tax

[Newsjock]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/07/974021/-Its-Time-to-Pay-the-Bin-Laden-Tax



... What the Progressive Caucus also hasn't done is ask all Americans - as FDR did 70 years ago - to pick up some of the tab for the nation's wars. That's one of the three pillars of any Bin Laden tax: everyone pays, the rich pay more, and raise at least $3 trillion over 10 years.

Here's how it could work:

For ten years starting in 2013, income tax rates could be rolled back to something like their pre-2001 levels, but with some important exceptions. First, given the record income inequality and declining average household income now plaguing the United States, rates for the lowest brackets should not return to their Clinton-era levels, but instead rise by only 1% to 2%. The current top two family of brackets starting at $212,300 and $379,100 would go back to 36% and 39.6%, respectively. Importantly, in keeping with the wartime tradition that the rich pay substantially more, new brackets at $1,000,000 (42%), $2,500,000 (44%) and $5,000,000 (47%) should be introduced. (As this New York Times graphic above shows, those levels would still be half of their World War II peaks.) In keeping with the "everyone pays" principle, the capital gains tax rate would return to its 1990's boom-era level of 20%.

These proposals should produce the needed revenue to offset the $3 trillion in past and future costs surrounding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (By way of comparison, letting all of the Bush tax cuts expire would have added in $3.8 trillion in new revenue to the Treasury over ten years.) Other steps, like reigning in Medicare and Medicaid costs, raising the threshold for annual income exempted from Social Security taxes to $250,000 would more than meet the Obama Deficit Commission's goal of trimming the $14 trillion national debt by $4 trillion over the next decade. To boost revenue further, the Bin Laden War Tax could also include a 2% national sale tax. Call it a "Victory VAT."

[RC]

1. Set aside a trillion or so to fight the Military Industrial Complex, so they can't

start any more wars.

[dkf]

2. Don't care what you call it...looks pretty reasonable to me.

Not too hot on the vat though. It's regressive and it will probably grow into the flat earthers dreams of a flat tax.

[Donnachaidh]

3. uhh NO on the national 2% sales tax

Jeez louise -- we're paying close to 10% now in some areas of Georgia. Adding that tax would hurt the poor. Let the rich pay their share.

[bobbolink]

4. What would you like for people to pay on this who already don't have money for a place to live,

for adequate nutrition, for transportation, or any other necessities?

What is it you would like for us to give?

Our LIVES? Would that make it work for you?

Maybe you could sell our organs, would that help?