Bob Lord

Posted by Bob Lord

John Edwards spoke about our country being "two Americas." Edwards was attempting to shine a light on poverty in America. By "two Americas" Edwards meant the America most of us knew and the poor in America. But there's another way to view America as two Americas: The rich and everyone else. 

But we can have alternative views of "two Americas" only as long as you have a real middle class. As the middle class evaporates, the alternative views merge. Of course, in a merger, only one party survives. In the "two Americas" merger, it very clearly will be the "rich and everyone else" view that survives.

In a post yesterday at inequality.org, Why Are Luxury Car Sales Growing at Record Rates, Salvatore Babones describes the transfer of wealth and income from the rest of us to the rich.

Posted by Bob Lord

Citizens for Tax Justice does great work. Virtually all of their research papers and policy statements are spot on.  But not this one: State-by-State Figures on Obama’s Proposal to Limit Tax Expenditures.

The tax code is wildly rigged in favor of those at the top. There is no question in my mind that the wealthy should pay more in taxes, not just because we need the revenue, but because we'll never reverse the massive concentration of wealth and income at the top unless the tax rates at the top increase significantly.

So does that mean any proposed tax increase that would be borne disproportionately by the rich is a good idea? Absolutely not.  

In its report, CTJ analyzes the effect of Obama's proposal to limit the tax benefit of the deduction for state and local taxes, charitable deductions and certain other deductions to 28%. This would reduce the federal tax benefit of the deduction flowing to taxpayers whose marginal tax bracket is greater than 28%. 

Although the CTJ report is not a position paper, the clear implication left is that the Obama proposal makes sense because it would raise much needed revenue and would impact only those at the top 3.6% of taxpayers. 

But unfair tax increases are bad policy, no matter how uniquely they impact those most able to pay. And the Obama proposal, when applied to the deduction for state income tax, is flat out unfair.

Posted by Bob Lord I have another post up at Inequality.org, Looting the Treasury to Benefit Big Insurance. When the Tax Code last was overhauled, in 1986, a tax preference that largely benefits wealthy taxpayers and essentially functions as a subsidy to the insurance industry was on the chopping block, but was spared. In this … Read more

Posted by Bob Lord

The Blue Meanie posted yesterday about the control by the top one percent. His post was spot on, especially the closing, where he noted how Professor Krugman's cynicism regarding the prospect of the one percent simply coming up with a new (specious) justification for their austerian policies was entirely justified. 

As I've noted in previous posts, we're living through a great experiment: How much wealth and how much income can we jam into the top 1% before the bottom 90% explodes?

The justification for Krugman's cynicism is everywhere you look. I read this article in the NY Times on Monday: Economists Agree: Solutions are Elusive. The reporter's second of two observations regarding a conference hosted by the Intenational Monetary Fund of the world's top economists:

Posted by Bob Lord The Republic's Doug MacEachern has few peers among journalists when it comes to mindless repetition on Republican talking points. In a short post yesterday, Looking to inhibit hiring? Try high corporate taxes, Dazzling Dougie bashed Obama because Obama, according to Dougie, found "lowering corporate tax rates" to be a stumbling block … Read more