Month: March 2011

Sen. Sanders’ Bill to Tax Millionaires Has Surprising Precedent

Jon Ponder

One of the first things Ronald Reagan did upon becoming governor of California in 1967 was ram a $1 billion tax increase — about $5.5 billion today — through the state legislature. The additional revenue was needed to balance Reagan’s first state budget, which included a deficit as well as a huge increase in government spending.

chart-at-risk-programs-vs-tax-breaksAt the time, Reagan’s tax increase was the largest ever levied by a state — and it hit Californians right in the middle class:

Reagan campaigned in 1966 on cutting government, but his first budget exceeded [his predecessor Democratic Gov.] Pat Brown’s by half a billion dollars. “Taxes should hurt,” Reagan said, and they certainly did – especially for the middle class. The billion dollar tax increase to pay for that big increase in government spending was sweeping: the sales tax jumped from three cents to five; bank, corporation and inheritance taxes went up half a percentage point to six percent; liquor taxes rose from $1.50 a gallon to $2; cigarette taxes leaped from three cents a pack to 10; and the maximum income tax rose from seven to 10 percent.

In 1968, Democrats were able to stop another Reagan tax increase — this one on food, utility bills and services like haircuts. In 1971, he raised taxes on banks and corporations.

Despite the current mythology about Reagan, he was even more tax happy as president, raising taxes at least seven times during his eight years in office, including the largest corporate tax hike then to date.

[…]

Comparing Abortion to Slavery Is ‘the Holocaust of Analogies’

Jon Ponder

At minute 2:25:

Look … listen … I know these guys want to make a point, but you don’t do it by appropriating the worst thing that happened to other people. Equating anything you don’t like to slavery trivializes centuries of suffering. It’s like the holocaust of analogies.

— Daily Show Senior Black Correspondent Larry Wilmore reacting to right-wingers comparing abortion to slavery.

The Right’s Target List

Trish

This list was started on Twitter, by Peter Daou:

As I’ve said, the right’s target list speaks volumes: unions, scientists, academics, public broadcasters, health providers, women.

We can think of a few more.

  • Gay people, especially those in long-term, loving relationships who want to marry and/or adopt children
  • Veterans, once they’ve been injured, maimed, or traumatized in defense of our country
  • Children, when they are out of the womb and require food, health care, or education
  • People who adhere strictly to religious faiths, unless it’s Christianity
  • Anyone who wasn’t born an American citizen but yearns to become one
  • Doctors who want to protect children from accidental shootings
  • Mass transit, renewable energy, and anything else that does not involve paving more land for more cars and SUVs

We’ll stop now but please keep this list going. What else do Republicans, tea partiers, and the right want to get rid of?

Senate Democrats Defeat House Tea Party’s Job-Killing Budget Bill

Jon Ponder

The U.S. Senate saved between 700,000 and 1 million American jobs today by defeating the House tea party’s budget bill which contained $61 billion in budget cuts:

The cuts would have plunged the economy into the second Republican-driven recession in two and a half years.

The House-passed budget bill (HR. 1) was voted down 44-56. Lawmakers voting against the measure included two Independents and 51 Democrats, as well as [Tea Party Caucus members] Jim DeMint (SC), Mike Lee (UT) and Rand Paul (KY).

The three tea party senators presumably voted against the bill because they felt the $61 billion in cuts were not sufficient. Sen. Paul recently called for $500 billion in cuts, a move so drastic it’s unlikely the U.S. economy would recover from it for decades.

A study released at the end of February from Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics who also served as the chief economic adviser to the McCain-Palin presidential campaign in 2008, found that the tea party budget cuts would put around 700,000 people out of jobs.

Just days before Zandi’s report was released, a confidential Goldman Sachs analysis of the bill predicted it would slow growth by 2 percent, which would translate into the loss of at least 1 million jobs.

Analysis of the tea party’s budget bill by the Center for American Progress also found that the bill would lead to the loss of about 1 million jobs.

Based on these reports, it’s clear that had the tea party budget bill passed, the cuts would have plunged the economy into the second Republican-driven recession in two and a half years.