And the benefit to consumers? About $28. We can't afford more Republican economics like this. This article is only for the state of Washington so imagine this across the US.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Appropriations subcommittee and has endorsed Clinton. She doesn't support a federal gas tax suspension.
"She has a firsthand look at what's going on with our transportation systems, our roads and our bridges, and from her perspective, this is bad idea," said her spokeswoman, Alex Glass.
There's no guarantee that the plan would result in lower gas prices, but it would deteriorate highway funding, Glass said.
"The gas tax funds the Highway Trust Fund, and there are a number of critical infrastructure needs -- roads and bridges across the country -- that need to be maintained and repaired," she said. "We just can't afford to have crumbling infrastructure."
Good grief. How are you people going to run against McCain, should you steal the election, when all you do is praise him? Any chance you could take a moment away from trying to destroy Obama and destroy McCain, just a little bit? But supporting tax cuts at a time of massive deficits? Come on. What's next, embracing guns? Oh. Yeah. I forgot.
Oh, also, Markos pointed out Hillary's "shameless hypocrisy" on this very issue. She used to think a GOP plan to play politics with the gas tax was a bad idea.
In his first post at MyDD, our friend Josh Orton examines the latest campaign finance shenanigans from John McCain. Based on an article in today's NY Times about McCain's use of his wife's private corporate jet, Josh finds that McCain breaks two campaign pledges in one fell swoop. Nice work for the so-called champion of campaign finance reform:
Not only is [McCain] exploiting a loophole to save millions, he's actually going back on an earlier pledge. In early 2007, McCain's campaign swore off the practice of using corporate jets:
When McCain first ran for president in 2000, he defrayed some travel costs by flying on corporate jets. Under Federal Election Commission rules at the time, candidates could bill their campaign accounts the cost of a first-class ticket for a corporate flight.
But now, his campaign has said, McCain is abiding by a pledge to stay off corporate jets. In the past year, that has meant spending more than $1.1 million on charter flights, according to filings by his leadership committee.
Now McCain could claim that the problem is mitigated here because the corporation is his wife's, and technically the letter of the law was followed. I don't buy that, since one of the underlying principles of campaign finance regulation is to gain back the public's trust and reduce even the "appearance of corruption."
But even then, McCain is still going back on his word, since, as the Times story notes:
Last summer, just before starting to use his wife's plane, Mr. McCain was quoted in a newspaper report as saying that he did not plan to tap her substantial wealth to keep his bid for the Republican presidential nomination going.
"I have never thought about it," Mr. McCain was quoted by The Arizona Republic as saying at a July appearance. "I would never do such a thing, so I wouldn't know what the legalities are."
Not only did he think about it, he did it.
When McCain released his tax returns -- but not his wife's tax returns, the McCain campaign made this statement:
Note About Mrs. McCain's Financial Information:
Since the beginning of their marriage, Senator McCain and Mrs. McCain have always maintained separate finances.
That's a lie for many reasons, but tetting Senator McCain use Cindy's corporate jet isn't exactly keeping finances separate.
Josh Orton asks the right question that every one in the media should be asking (and would ask if they weren't all afraid of McCain):
Can Mrs. McCain please release her full tax returns now?
The GOP Congress and Bush years will be looked back on for years by big business as the best of times. Competition was frowned upon, government regulation was changed to self regulation, war profiteering seemed to become patriotic to the GOP, taxes were cut and companies were allowed to easily move beyond the US borders in the name of free enterprise and now, the proof is there that big business is held to another standard in terms of taxes. We have problems ranging from banks begging for cash around the world, food crisis in terms of quality and quantity, higher cost of living and stagnant pay and now small business being punished while the big guys get another free ride. The best democracy money can buy.
The tax audit rates of the largest companies are less than half what they were 20 years ago while more small and mid-size businesses are coming under scrutiny, according to an organization that monitors the Internal Revenue Service.
The US economy is so far beyond dishing out checks for a few hundred bucks. Wall Street and the GOP made a royal mess of things and it's so obvious that the checks in the mail are only going to help people pay off credit card debt or pay for necessities such as energy if not food. I would hardly expect anything more from McCain who foolishly (parrot-like, in fact) suggests "tax cuts and less regulation" are the answer, but the Democrats need to wake up.
There are a number of possibilities that are out there such as re-building the nations infrastructure that the GOP has let crumble. It's not glamorous but bringing it into the modern world is necessary after budget cuts. Maybe it's something else but with the problems ahead and the need to get real money (not tax cuts for Ferrari purchases) moving for regular people. Just imagine what we could have done without the war in Iraq but even with it (for now) something serious needs to be done.
I've noticed several mentions in the press of senior Clinton staff saying that Hillary will release her tax returns when other Americans do so, near April 15. Check out what senior adviser to the Hillary campaign Ann Lewis said the other day about this issue:
"Since I have not personally begun to do my tax returns for this year, I suspect that most Ohio voters are a lot like me, which is, they've still begun to think that they've got to pull all their records, I'm not sure how much time they're gonna spend looking at everybody else's tax returns in the next 3 days."
The subtle implication being "come on, who HAS finished this year's taxes this early?!" In addition, Hillary's staff keeps saying that her returns will be released at the "customary" time, around April 15. Well, yes, that's the customary time for THIS year's taxes to be finished. But this April 15 is not the customary time to complete your taxes for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, unless you're Leona Helmsley. Hillary's tax returns for those years were completed April 15 years ago, they've never been released, and a simple visit to a Kinkos can get them out to the public right now. Cute answers implying that we're simply talking about this year's returns won't cut it. And it's troublesome that the campaign is trying to confuse the public with their answers. No one can explain why she won't release the papers now.
Mr. Lazio pledged to release his tax returns soon after entering the Senate race in May, but had not done so, raising suspicions about whether he had the kind of financial problems that have tripped up other politicians in New York in recent decades.
The campaign of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, criticized the delay, asking whether he was hiding something.
And more from one of Hillary's current top advisers:
''Rick Lazio can't explain why it took three months to release his taxes,'' said Howard Wolfson, a Clinton campaign spokesman. ''Now he won't come clean with New Yorkers and reveal the real cost of his reckless trillion-dollar tax plan. It's time for Mr. Lazio to stop playing games and start talking straight.''
How is Hillary going to fight Mr. Straight Talk in the fall when her own campaign isn't holding true to its own "straight talk"? She can't. Another theme Hillary won't be able to hit on.
Howard Wolfson, the chief spokesman for Mr. Lazio's opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, even showed up at a Lazio event in Harlem to fan the flames [over his tax returns].
[T]he question is why Clinton and Wolfson were so obsessed by Lazio's returns that they were disrupting his events, but they now treat it as an irrelevancy when Hillary's returns are requested. There's occasionally the suggestion that different standards apply to a primary. But that makes no sense, especially when you're already an officeholder. Republicans are entitled to see Hillary's returns before making their decision, but not Dems?
No, it seems more like a reflection of the way Hillary and her team think. Principled people would reason as follows: "Since we made a huge fuss about Lazio's returns in 2000, to be consistent we should be very diligent about being just as transparent as Obama and releasing our own returns this year. Otherwise, we would be behaving like hypocrites."
But that's not what they're doing. So the reasoning is apparently this: "We acted like Lazio's tax returns were a big deal in 2000 because it was in our self-interest to do so, and this year we'll act like our returns aren't a big deal because it's in our self interest to do so. We don't act on principle, and we don't care about being consistent, and we don't care about being hypocritical."
Is there another explanation? If not -- what a great role model for our daughters!!!
It'd be great for our nominee to hit John McCain on his refusal to release his taxes, but, oh, that's right, we can't because Hillary is doing the McSame old thing.
Hillary likes to tell us that she's been "fully vetted" before, so there will be no more surprises if she becomes our nominee. Really? Putting aside her husband for a moment, let's talk about her taxes. Hillary and McCain are both refusing to release their tax returns. (Obama released his returns last April, 2007.) Hillary says she'll release hers once she becomes the nominee. And McCain won't make any promises at all.
What is Hillary afraid that we'll find in her returns?
The candidates preceding Hillary released their returns before they were the nominee. According to the Washington Post, "Sen. John F. Kerry released his returns in December 2003, long before winning the nomination; Vice President Al Gore's returns, of course, were already public." And Kucinich, Dean, Clark, Gephardt, and even evil Joe Lieberman released his returns.
Then there's Bill Clinton. In 1992, Bill Clinton made his tax returns public during the primaries. But, there was a catch. He didn't release his 1979 and 1978 tax returns. Those were the returns showing that Hillary had made a 10,000% cattle-futures profit that raised a few eyebrows.
So is that why Hillary isn't releasing her returns? Because she knows that sometimes tax returns hide things that might appear (or be) scandalous? But even that argument doesn't make sense since Hillary has promised to release her returns AFTER she becomes the nominee. That means that she has no privacy interest in her tax returns, she's going to let the public see them soon anyway, but she simply doesn't want Democratic voters to get the chance to have her tax returns inform their vote during the primaries.
See, here's how it works. Hillary's tax returns could have something foul-smelling in them, like her 10,000% profit on the cattle-futures. If she releases her returns now, it gives you and me and every other Democratic voter the chance to judge her on what's in her returns, and vote accordingly. But if she waits until after she becomes the nominee, she knows she has us by the, uh, cattle-futures. As a Democrat, I might not vote for Hillary in the primary if I see something fishy in her tax returns. But in the general election, of course I'm going to vote for Hillary, regardless of what's in her returns. At that point, only Republicans will hold Hillary accountable for something fishy in her returns so she mitigates the damage by releasing them later rather than sooner.
So in a nutshell, Hillary says she's been fully vetted, that there are no more surprises in her life. But Hillary doesn't want you to know what surprises might be in her tax returns, lest it influence your vote. But she doesn't care if you see her tax returns a few months from now, when it's too late to influence your vote. That means that privacy isn't Hillary's concern here, since she's pledged to release the returns eventually. Her concern is that she hasn't yet been fully vetted, and she wants to keep it that way until it's too late for us to get buyer's remorse, or at least act on such remorse if we get it. There may be another cattle-futures type scandal in her current returns, for all we know. And were she to release her tax returns now, Democratic primary voters and super delegates might not like what they find, and vote accordingly. And we can't have that.
Meanwhile McCain can only talk about permanent tax cuts for the wealthy (who have already prospered enormously under Bush) and read Greenspan's book. Sheesh. The GOP simply can't see what everyone so easily sees. The economic boom only applied to the thin layer at the top while everyone else struggles. If that's what McCain wants to promote on the campaign trail, good luck in November.
Except for the late 1990s, pay has been stagnant for more than a generation, barely keeping pace with inflation. In 1973, the median male worker earned $16.88 an hour, adjusted for inflation. In 2007, he earned $16.85.
For many families, the stagnation has been moderated by the addition of a second paycheck as more women went to work, and their pay rose over the same period.
But the largest gains went to workers at the top of the pay scale. Now, economic worries are rising fastest in households with smaller paychecks, and that chasm is widening.
"Over the past decades, whether inflation was much higher or lower, or incomes grew faster or more slowly, there has never been such a wide divergence in the experiences" separating richer households from poorer ones, Richard Curtin, the director of the University of Michigan's consumer survey said in summing up the most recent figures.
Of course...taxpayers. The middle class. Hell, let's just round up all of the bad debt from the war, the fools that tried get rich quick schemes with subprime mortgages, Wall Street executive payouts and then just send the bill to regular folks. Oh sorry, it's already happening. Naturally options for writing off losses by individuals is slightly more limited, with limits of only a few thousand dollars per year.
A $270 million annual deduction would save Bank of America something more than $100 million a year in federal and state income taxes. The long-term tax-exempt rate, which is based on Treasury rates and other things so complicated that they make my teeth hurt. The rate changes each year, Willens says, but not by much. When I asked how it's calculated, Willens, a master of tax arcana, threw up his hands. (Metaphorically, of course.) "It's like the formula for Coca-Cola," he said, "no one outside the circle knows it" and it's so complicated that, "no one else wants to find out."
The Republicans are in such trouble if the economy continues to take over as the leading concern. Their only plan is to throw around even more tax cuts. Yes, they've worked so well for the broad majority of Americans, how could anyone not be thrilled at the prospect of more? Tax cuts for the wealthiest has only helped separate the richest from the rest at rates not seen since the Great Depression. It doesn't help the GOP that the other leading issue is Iraq, as in $1.5 trillion and counting, while the US economy falters.
Churchill summed it up nicely when he said "you can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." We've repeatedly tried tax cuts for the richest and guess what?
Here we go again. Another Republican who wants to turn back the clock to before the Industrial Revolution. Haven't we seen enough lunacy from the loony party? I have to laugh with the VAT tax Huckabee (oh sorry, he's calls it a "FairTax") that will somehow scrap the current tax system and replace it with a highly unfair tax on the middle class. Haven't we already debated this issue decades (centuries?) ago and concluded that this will be a big hit to those in the middle? And taxing everything that moves, including little Billy and Susie who are doing jobs for the neighborhood such as mowing lawns, shoveling snow and babysitting? How fair is that?
Even Adam Smith concluded that a progressive tax (what we have today) was a better option that would be fair to all economic groups. Haven't we already seen enough giveaways to the richest Americans in the last few years? Just how well has that worked for the rest of us? More on the Huckabee unFairTax plan after the jump...
Like any tax on consumption, the biggest burden, comparatively, would fall on the poor. To help compensate for this, the plan would provide a monthly check from the government to every American household, rich and poor alike.
The rebate amount would be set to equal what a household living at the poverty level would pay in taxes, leaving some of the poor better off and cushioning the proposal’s impact on the middle class.
But, apart from the administrative nightmares associated with giving every household a rebate, it would still not prevent transferring a substantial part of the current tax burden from those with annual incomes above $200,000, who tend to save a large part of their income rather than spending it, to those earning less.
“Even with the rebate counted the way FairTax supporters want it calculated,” said Bruce Bartlett, a conservative tax analyst and policy maker in the Reagan administration who has emerged as one of the proposal’s most powerful critics, “there would be an enormous shift in the tax burden from the wealthy to those with lower and middle incomes.”
Good grief, no. The Republicans are always looking at new ways to punish the middle class and give a free ride for corporate America and here's their latest plan. Slap a VAT on who knows what and then slash corporate taxes, because the US is already known as such a tough place to do business. Uh huh, the world business community is always talking about what a tough place it is to do business. Who buys this nonsense?
The Treasury document is partly an attempt to counter a proposal by Charles Rangel, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to cut the corporate rate to 30.5 percent from 35 percent. Rangel’s bill contains proposals to offset his tax cuts with the elimination of special tax breaks for corporations.
So Rangel is lowering the corporate tax rates but the GOP still isn't happy? I may have my disagreements with Rangel's new tax plan but I hope that he gives it right back to Paulson. I mean sheesh. I know Paulson is a nothing now that he left Goldman and went to work for Bush but this is just stupid. Maybe Paulson needs to get out more and see the world because the US is the business climate that most in Europe would love to have at home.
Now remember, as a US citizen this is completely illegal and not allowed though for businesses, it's perfectly OK to pack your bags and stop paying US taxes. US citizens are required to file US taxes regardless of where they reside and even if you rescind your US citizenship, you are required by law to continue filing (and possibly paying) for 10 years.
Why corporate America is allowed to operate with such different terms speaks volumes. Halliburton must be so happy to have saved $133 million in taxes. Why does Halliburton, who has profited so handsomely courtesy of the US government, hate America?
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Friday that the alternative minimum tax — which is expected to generate as much as $1 trillion over the next 10 years — could be eliminated by balancing it out with even more tax cuts.
Giuliani's remarks prompted a bewildered response from his audience of technology executives. Both Republicans and Democrats said they assumed that the candidate must have misspoke as he responded to a question about the tax and its affect the middle class....
Giuliani told the 700-member audience of the Northern Virginia Technology Council that he wants to cap the tax, and perhaps eventually eliminate it altogether.
"Over time we can figure out how to eliminate it. ... If we were going to eliminate it, though, we'd have to balance it with additional tax cuts," Giuliani said, leaving confused expressions on his audience. "That might be by making the Bush tax cuts permanent."
It's rather clear that he didn't misspeak. Giuliani is playing a cute game of pandering to the right, saying things he doesn't believe, and now he's tripping over his lies.
It's interesting to see what happens when people ask questions and it's just not possible for Giuliani to stick with the classic "9/11, we're all going to die" answer. And to think that worked so well for him in the past. He's going to need to scare the hell out of people soon or else his future in the GOP presidential race is limited.
Several dozen people jeered when Giuliani, in response to a question, said he would not be in favor of what they call the fair tax.
"I have to study it some more," the former New York City mayor said. "I don't think a fair tax is realistic change for America. Our economy is dependent upon the way our tax system operates."
The House Budget Committee held a hearing with Dr. Peter R. Orszag, Director of the Congressional Budget Office. Orszag says that the amount of money lost to Bush's tax cuts equals the amount of the current deficit.
Rep. Edwards: Let me ask you a question: based on your analysis for fiscal year 2007, what percent of this year’s deficits is the result of the tax cuts passed since 2001?”
Dr. Orszag: “I’m going to have to give you the exact number later, and it depends how you do the accounting, but the revenue effect of the 2001 and 2003 tax legislation is roughly one and a half percent of GDP, which is about the size of the federal deficit today.”
Rep. Edwards: “So put that in lay terms, had we not had the tax cuts passed since 2001, according to CBO analysis, the deficit would be how much smaller?”
Dr. Orszag: “If you just do a simple accounting exercise that takes that estimated revenue effect from the Joint Committee on Taxation and compare it to today’s deficit, it would roughly eliminate the deficit.”
The private equity crowd would like everyone to believe that they are taking enormous risks and providing such a great service and incurring great risks that they deserve to pay only 15% instead of the standard 35% taxes. Nonsense. Their value is highly overrated to most everyone other than themselves and the benefits are limited to their own banking accounts. Private equity is great and it helps to keep money moving that can lead to new jobs and tax dollars, but to have such a delta simply is not fair.
With a similar debate happening in London, the other major international financial center, it should be interesting to see how both countries address this issue. Naturally, the private equity crowd is crying the same pitch, that they need to stay competitive or else that market will pack up and leave. Sure, I hear Germany, France, Sweden and Japan are cheap places that are rolling out the benefits for private equity and can't wait to slash taxes for a small group and maintain high taxes for everyone else. Right.
It's about time Congress starts addressing excesses such as this. There is just too much pressure on average American families to overlook discrepancies in the tax code like this. Moving back to the traditional American value of fairness is perfectly reasonable. Some will try to spin this as class warfare but that is just the same old spin and rubbish that they always say when they are asked to pay their fair share. What we have now is anything but fair. Congressmen Rangel and Levin are correcting what needs to be corrected.
Seriously. Let's just add the charge to everybody's taxes next year, a nice little line-item. Total costs of the war in Iraq will soon be $500 billion, to date, and with 100 million Americans filing tax returns each year (the actual number is somewhat higher, but for the life of me I can't find it), that comes to about $5000 a taxpayer. (And I'm just talking about the actual up front defense costs - the real cost of the war is estimated at $2 trillion dollars, that's four times what we're paying for the defense side of it, so that makes the real cost to taxpayers around $20,000.)
We're paying for it anyway, why not put it in our tax returns so that we're forced to see exactly how much the Republicans' little patriotic venture in Iraq is costing every American taxpayer. Most Americans have no idea what the costs of this war are, in lives, in money, in national prestige. But the one thing we can show, quite personally, is the cost in dollars.
The Iraq war is the biggest tax increase in American history. I'd love to see someone amend the tax code and require a line-item on all of tax forms adding $5,000. Then see how long the war goes on for.
