AU COURANT ATTITUDES RECOMMENDS: “IMPOSTOR: HOW GEORGE W. BUSH BANKRUPTED AMERICA AND BETRAYED THE REAGAN LEGACY” (BRUCE BARTLETT)
The George W. Bush Tax Cuts, which disproportionately benefited the super-rich and super-powerful, are the root of our fiscal problem according to no less than Republican Bruce Bartlett, who held senior policy roles in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. For example, on July 26, 2011, Mr. Bartlett said the following in the NY Times’ Economix Blog:
“Few people remember that a major justification for the 2001 tax cut was to intentionally slash the budget surplus. President Bush said this repeatedly during the 2000 campaign, and it was reiterated in his February 2001 budget document. In this regard… the Bush-era tax cuts were highly successful. According to a recent C.B.O. report, they reduced revenue by at least $2.9 trillion below what it otherwise would have been between 2001 and 2011. Slower-than-expected growth reduced revenue by another $3.5 trillion. Spending was $5.6 trillion higher than the C.B.O. anticipated for a total fiscal turnaround of $12 trillion. That is how a $6 trillion projected surplus turned into a cumulative deficit of $6 trillion… These facts notwithstanding, it has become a Republican talking point that the Bush tax cuts did not, in fact, reduce revenue at all — something the Bush administration itself never asserted… It is hard to know where these totally erroneous ideas come from. Federal revenue fell in 2001 from 2000, again in 2002 from 2001 and again in 2003 from 2002. Revenue did not get back to its 2000 level until 2005. More important, revenue as a share of G.D.P. was lower every year of the Bush presidency than it was in 2000… What will happen at the end of next year when the Bush tax cuts expire is already a matter of intense budget negotiations. Perhaps the whole point of the apparent Republican disinformation effort to deny that the Bush tax cuts reduced federal revenue is to make the reverse argument next year — allowing them to expire will not raise revenue.”
It’s crystal clear that Republicans are culpable of using a talking points smoke screen. Au Courant Attitudes encourages you to read Mr. Bartlett’s riveting best seller “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.”
12:00 am • 2 April 2012
HOW MUCH MONEY HAS BEEN LOST TO THE U.S. TREASURY DUE TO THE BUSH TAX CUTS?
Do you want to find out how much money has been lost to the U.S. Treasury due to the George W. Bush Administration’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Visit Citizens for Tax Justice and the National Priorities Project’s new website
www….costoftaxcuts.com When Au Courant Attitudes did, the cost of these tax cuts since 2001 was: $1,072,415,657,735 for Top 5%; $733,229,861,807 for the Top 1%; and $339,185,795,929 for the Next 4%. It’s increasing every second! The expiration of these tax cuts will also help bring the budget deficit under control. See More
costoftaxcuts.com
With the help of Citizens for Tax Justice, National Priorities Project is tracki
ng every dollar the U.S. Treasury loses from tax breaks for the wealthiest five percent—American families and individuals who in 2011 will make at least $176,000 and on average $477,453.See More
12:00 am • 1 April 2012
THE HIDDEN ENTITLEMENTS (CTJ STUDY)
Republicans use a math “problem” ploy to avoid discussing valid reasons why the super-rich ought to pay their fair share of taxes. They alone benefitted from the deleterious policies of the George W. Bush Administration, which are indisputable. Although they’ll never admit it, they know the George W. Bush tax cuts aggravated income disparity, came with the worst economic expansion in more than five decades, and turned budget surpluses into budget deficits; these tax cuts should expire ASAP. Robert S. McIntyre, the director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a nonpartisan research and advocacy group that fights for tax fairness at the federal, state and local levels, said: “A Congress that is eager to challenge low-income welfare entitlements ought to be at least as tough—if not tougher—on welfare entitlements for the well-heeled and politically powerful if it truly wants to bring the budget deficit under control” in The Hidden Entitlements (1996 edition). According to the CTJ study, these tax entitlements a/k/a tax expenditures: (1) currently cost the federal government two-and-a-half times as much as all means-tested direct entitlement programs such as welfare and Medicaid; (2) will soon surpass what the federal government spends on defense, roads, environmental protection and all other “discretionary” programs combined; and (3) are reductions in taxes that are awarded to people and companies that engage in congressionally-favored activities (with no limit on their total cost). Au Courant Attitudes agrees with Mr. McIntyre’s analysis: “We can’t pretend that tax loopholes for corporations and the affluent don’t affect the rest of us… To make sense of the budget and our tax system, we must root out some of the expensive corporate and high-income welfare programs in the tax code.” Urge your members of Congress to be tough on welfare entitlements for the super-rich and mega corporations.
10:00 am • 29 March 2012
DECREASE DEFENSE BUDGET & BRING TROOPS HOME!
The George W. Bush Administration that left items out of the budget, namely, the cost of fighting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Congress needs to increase revenue by making the powerful, entitled super-rich pay their fair share. Why does Congress keep giving them egregious loopholes and subsidies? Tax reform eliminating these entitlements would be a positive first step, so Kudos to the Barack H. Obama Administration for proposing it. Yes, before the enactment of the Bush tax cuts, the Bill Clinton Administration left our country with projected budget surpluses. Too bad President George W. Bush didn’t leave the top income tax bracket at 39%; instead he gave not one, but two tax cuts that benefited the super-rich inordinately, and took us into two very costly wars and adopted an expensive give-away to the drug and insurance industries (Medicare Part D), none of which were paid for. Every year that US has a budget deficit, the national debt grows, so Au Courant Attitudes urges you to demand that the super-rich ante up. Also, insist that the federal government economize by seriously decreasing the Defense Budget and bringing most of our troops and their families, which are stationed abroad, for example, in Germany, Japan, Italy, United Kingdom etc., etc. home ASAP.
10:00 am • 28 March 2012
FROM SURPLUS (CLINTON) TO DEFICIT (BUSH)!
The Bill Clinton Administration gave us a surplus, but spending got way out of hand during the George W. Bush Administration that resulted in a trillion dollar deficit. Au Courant Attitudes believes in pay-as-you-go, which is exactly what President George W. Bush didn’t do during his two terms in office. The Republicans fail to address this! We need to increase revenue, reduce the deficit, and make sure that out-of-control spending doesn’t happen again.
10:00 am • 27 March 2012
DEFICITS COUNT!
A detractor suggested Warren Buffett “make a ‘gift’ payment…” to the Treasury. The super-rich benefitted the most from the Bush tax cuts, which never should have been enacted in the first place. These obscene tax cuts, the expense of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the adoption of Medicare Part D (a health and drug industries’ designed prescription drug program, which currently is a huge, perpetual give-away to them), TARP, and increases in discretionary non-defense spending cost more than five (5) trillion dollars. Yes, these policies of the George W. Bush Administration affected our growing deficit much more than the Barack H. Obama Administration’s policies. If the super-rich pay their fair share of taxes, the deficit will be substantially reduced. The first step towards liquidating the deficit should be closing the loopholes and eliminating the subsidies in the tax code as the White House recently proposed. Those who benefitted the least should not be the first to pay for the follies of the George W. Bush Administration and its super-rich cronies. Surely we can agree that former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was right and Vice-President Dick Cheney was wrong when they discussed the looming fiscal crisis in 2002. Mr. Cheney told the Treasury Secretary O’Neill that “deficits don’t matter”, but obviously they do matter.
10:00 am • 26 March 2012
TAX REFORM IS WHAT IS NEEDED!
The George W. Bush Administration’s deficit will not be paid if one super-rich individual (Warren Buffett) makes a gift payment. Tax reform is what is needed. David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, author (Free Lunch), and University of Syracuse lecturer, who specializes in economics and tax issues,agrees with Mr. Buffett and Au Courant Attitudes. In his books, he divulges why details on the super-rich who earn millions every year are very hard to uncover. They notoriously stash much of their wealth in off-shore tax havens in the Caribbean and Switzerland, for example. Mr. Johnston also describes the loopholes and other gimmicks the super-rich can use, replete with impressive examples. He explains the ways how too many of them are hiding their money, delaying payment of taxes, and then investing what normally would be paid in taxes for a profit. Yes, we need to “Close the loopholes and eliminate the subsidies in the Tax Code, so the entitled 1% pay its fair share.”
10:00 am • 25 March 2012
THE ENTITLED 1% NEEDS TO PAY ITS FAIR SHARE!
Listen to Warren Buffett’s videos on YouTube. He paid just over 17% of his taxable income while the average tax burden of his employees was 36%, which is more than double. Mr. Buffett is a patriot who sincerely believes that the super-rich need to help cut the George W. Bush Administration’s budget deficit. This is why he repeatedly urges the government, especially the billionaire-friendly Congress, “to get serious about shared sacrifice.” Why didn’t the George W. Bush Administration repeal the pre-9/11 tax cuts and forget about enacting the post-9/11 additional tax cuts when it decided to fight two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and to allow the insurance and drug industries to design Medicare Part D, a huge give-away to themselves, without raising taxes. How did the George W. Bush Administration forget about paying-as-you-go?
The American Prospect reports: “The White House is asking Congress to lower the top corporate tax rate to 28 percent, while ridding the code of any loopholes and subsidies. Manufacturers will get special breaks, in accordance with Obama’s push to spur domestic manufacturing jobs, and their maximum effective tax rate would be set at 25 percent. Republicans have long argued that the U.S. has one of the steepest corporate tax rates in the world. But, while the U.S. does have a high tax rate, after factoring in all the loopholes, many U.S. businesses end up paying taxes that are even lower than businesses in other rich countries., according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.” Support the Obama Administration’s push “to lower the top corporate tax rate to 28 per cent, while ridding the [tax] code of any loopholes and subsidies”, which brings me to my original rallying cry: Close the loopholes and eliminate the subsidies in the Tax Code, so the entitled 1% pay its fair share.
10:00 am • 24 March 2012
THE PAYROLL TAX FAVORS THE SUPER-RICH TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE MIDDLE CLASS
Listen to Bill Gates and Warren Buffet tell it like it is on YouTube. Their videos explain why the super-rich like them should be paying more taxes. The tax… rate the wealthiest Americans paid on the top portion of their earnings at the end of Ronald Reagan’s first term was 50%; under Richard Nixon it was 70%; and under Dwight Eisenhower it was 91%. These are undeniable facts not mumbo jumbo. Guess what? Mitt Romneys’ effective tax rate for 2010 was 13.9%. Au Courant Attitudes agrees with Messrs. Gates and Buffet, the current tax code including the payroll tax favors the super-rich to the detriment of the middle class. Mr. Buffett readily admits that his effective tax rate is lower than any of his employees. We need to return to a more progressive tax system in the United States.
10:00 am • 23 March 2012
WELFARE ENTITLEMENTS FOR THE SUPER-RICH ARE BURIED IN THE LOOPHOLE-RIDDEN TAX CODE
The facts are in: Welfare entitlements for the super-rich and super-powerful, which are buried in the loophole-ridden tax code, cost the federal government more than twice what it spends on all means-tested entitlements; furthermore, the cost of these welfare entitlements (a/k/a tax expenditures) is neck and neck with what the federal government spends on defense, roads, environmental protection and all other “discretionary” spending combined. Therefore, these welfare entitlements (egregious loopholes and subsidies) for the well-heeled and politically powerful must be bared, so the public can take steps to compel Congress to eliminate them, which will bring the budget deficit under control. Read The Hidden Entitlements by Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, for all the facts.
8:00 am • 23 March 2012
