Herman Cain: A Wannabe President Wants T o Raise your Taxes…

  as is the usual Republican way in order to pay for even more tax breaks for the wealthy.

   ABC News says that Cain’s 999 plan would up the taxes on the middles class and the poor. That should come as no surprise to anyone.

ABC News DESTROYS Cain's 999 plan Shows it doubles taxes on Middle Class

by Lefty Coaster      Wed Oct 12, 2011

Overshadowing the quibbles from the Right this new ABC analysis of Cain's ultra regressive 999 tax plan, broadcast  on the Network News tonight should sink Herman Cain's Presidential campaign more quickly than just about anything I can think of.

9-9-9 Plan Would Almost Double Taxes on Middle Class

By Ben Forer
Oct 12, 2011 6:19pm

Cain developed the plan with the help of a little known accountant from Cleveland named Rich Lowrie.

However, a much longer list of economists say Cain’s plan would be a tax hike for the lower middle class and a tax windfall for the wealthy.

If you have a family of four with an income of just under $50,000, they would pay more under the Cain plan. Currently, they are taxed at just less than 7 percent and pay $3,400 in income tax. Under Cain’s plan, they would be taxed at 9 percent or pay $4,500.

That’s $1,100 more.

Although the family would save almost $4,000 in Social Security taxes, it would have to give up the child tax credit of $4,000. Furthermore, it would pay an additional national sales tax of 9 percent on everything purchased, including groceries and clothes, which totals about $2,000.

That means under the Cain plan that family would be almost doubling its taxes, going from $3,400 to $6,500.

Well not quite double but a hefty 9i% increase in taxes for a typical Middle Class family under Cain's 999 tax plan.

So if the Middle Class is a big loser under Cain's 999 tax plan who would the big winners be? Wealthy Elites that's who. Duh!

The poor would be made to pay more under Cain's 999 tax plan too to pay for his huge tax cuts on huge incomes.

Cain's 9-9-9 plan: Good for the rich, bad for the poor

The changes in income taxes would turn away from the progressive tax policy that's shaped U.S. policy for a century, based on the principle that the wealthier people are, the more they can afford to pay in taxes to the society that's enriched them.

"The plan could be expected to raise substantial amounts of revenue, but does so largely by skewing downwards the distribution of tax burdens," said a new analysis of the Cain plan this week by Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor of tax law at the University of Southern California. He's also a former chief of staff at the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which analyzes all tax legislation for Congress. "The 9-9-9 Plan would materially raise the tax burden on many low- and middle-income taxpayers."

Others agree.

"It's regressive, relative to what we have now," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a joint effort of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, center-left policy-research centers. "It would raise taxes for people at the bottom and lower taxes at the top end."

Essentially Cain's proposition to voters is just a more radical version of the entire Republican Party's efforts to keep taxes on the wealthy low by making everybody else pay more.

Technorati Tags: Herman Cain,ABC News,999,Republicans,Current Events,An American Gothic

#OWS Driving Conservatives Crazier

 

Occupy Wall Street roundup, Day 25

By Hunter for Daily Kos      Tue Oct 11, 2011

 

Pay to the order of John Paulson (@elliottjustin/twitpic)

Reactions from conservatives and the financial sector are picking up, perhaps because they realize this thing isn't just going away on its own. Significantly, much of the reaction falls into the "delusional, possibly insane" category, which perhaps speaks to a wee bit of panic in the upper echelons. Or maybe they've just lost the ability to come up with any responses to anything that aren't delusional and/or insane.

Among the Occupy-related events, punditry, and other things-of-note for today:

• Today Occupy Wall Street protestors marched to the homes of some of New York City's wealthiest people leaving giant "checks" made out for $5 billion, the amount of state money that will be lost when New York's "millionaire's tax" expires at the end of the year. The targets were Rupert Murdoch, David Koch, hedge fund manager John Paulson, and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Wait, Murdoch and Koch live in New York City—an ultraliberal den of high taxes so very oppressive to the wealthy that even conservative stalwart Rush Limbaugh turned tail and ran, rather than pay his share? I don't know if I'm impressed by their apparent courage in the face of such rampant liberalism, or just surprised that they're rich enough to live literally anywhere on the planet, and yet they still chose New York. Huh.
• John Paulson, meanwhile, says, "Instead of vilifying our most successful businesses, we should be supporting them and encouraging them to remain in New York City and continue to grow." (Note: John Paulson is not related to ex-Treasury Secretary-slash-ex-Goldman-Sachs-CEO Hank Paulson. Also note the giddy praise of the reporter in that piece, relating how some wealthy financial speculators are finally saying "what many are thinking." Sheesh.)
• The situation in Boston continues to be among the most tense, nationally. Last night, over 100 protestors were arrested. A first-hand account can be found here. Boston Mayor Tom Menino exclaimed, "I will not tolerate civil disobedience in the city of Boston," which sounds like satire until you realize he was serious. I guess we just don't like tea parties like we used to?
• Eric Cantor continues to be confused about the protests. While no longer quite willing to call the protestors a "mob," he still doesn't like them. You see, the tea partiers were protesting the government, but Occupy Wall Street is "pitting one part of our country against another":

  “The ire from the tea party’s standpoint is at Washington,” Cantor said. “It is about the government and its policies, and how that affects this country.”

  “Do you not see the government as representing the people?” [Politico's David Rogers] asked.

  “Sure, it’s of the people,” Cantor responded. “But we’re in an elected position and trying to lead, to solve problems. I don’t believe that our role is to inflame a division between different parts and sectors of American society.”

  If it doesn't make sense to you, just remember that Eric Cantor has made a political career out of making no sense at all on issues of taxes, economics, government and public opinion.

• Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, says the protests are a plot against the Jews. Wait, what? Aside from being nonsensical (see: Cantor), I think it also means he's stealing Glenn Beck's only remaining schtick ... so I eagerly await that lawsuit.
• Conservative fundraiser and consultant Nathan Wurtzel, on the other-other-hand, keeps it classy:

  

• It turns out conservative mostly-ex-wunderkind James O'Keefe, who is on probation and lives with his parents, was indeed in Liberty Plaza yesterday in order to edit together a film about (I think?) how those crazy hippies in the park are really just all money-hungry or something. A rather lackluster effort; I'm not sure what about that made O'Keefe think it was worth the possible probation violation.
• Rounding out crackpot conservative reactions to Occupy Wall Street day: my God, David Brooks is an idiot. Still, if you had told me that Brooks would write a column linking the Occupy Wall Street protests to the need for a third party that would pursue all of his great conservative ideas like cutting corporate taxes, etc., I never would have believed you. No, I would have said: it's just too stupid. Dean Baker responds here.
• A Ben & Jerry's flavor coming soon? Nope, not quite. Just photoshop. Good name, though.

Technorati Tags: #OWS,Occupy Wall Street,Conservatives,Wall Street,Current Events,An American Gothic

Herman Cain: Typical Republican Hypocrite

   it seems that the Teabagger Party still does not quite understand that the voting records of all of our elected officials can easily be looked up on the Internet, or they just simply have memory lapses when it comes to their darling critters running for the highest office.

   The Tea Party dislikes the TARP ( bailouts ) idea, but they love one of the candidates who supported it. Their current darling is one Herman Cain, asshat from Florida. He supported Bush’s TARP, as did Romney and Perry, and they are all three of them trying to get their followers to not remember that.

Jed Lewison          Fri Oct 07, 2011

Here's the story tea party Republicans like to tell: infuriated with the TARP bank bailouts (passed in 2008 during the Bush administration), tea partiers decided to take control of their party from establishment politicians and replace them with true conservative outsiders. You know, guys like Herman Cain.

The only problem is that back in 2008, guys like Herman Cain were the exact same establishment figures telling Republicans why they should support the bailouts.

Here's Cain in October, 2008:

Far from Nationalization, Purchase of Bank Stocks Is a Win-Win for Taxpayers

Earth to taxpayers! Owning stocks in banks is not nationalization of the banking industry. It’s trying to solve a problem.

The unprecedented financial crisis has caused the Treasury of the United States to take unprecedented measures to help solve the problem of frozen credit and cash flow for U.S. businesses.

Now Cain tries to spin his support by saying that it's the implementation that he didn't like, not the program, and that he warned people it could go wrong. But this is what he said back then:

These actions by the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Bank and the actions by the Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation (FDIC) are all intended to help solve an unprecedented financial crisis. Unlike steps taken prior to and during the Great Depression, these actions have a high probability of success.

In order for these collective actions to work, the media needs to calm its crisis rhetoric, and Congress needs to just shut up with its political rhetoric.

Now don’t tell Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but if this works, and I believe it will, the Bush Administration will have gotten this one right.

And he still makes the case that bailouts were a good idea—just that they were expected incorrectly.

Of course, it's not like today's Republican primary voters have any great options if they don't want to be complete hypocrites on their "fundamental opposition" to the TARP bailouts. Mitt Romney was a big supporter, and even though Rick Perry didn't specifically mention the word bailouts, he did urge Congress to pass an economic rescue package at the same time that it was voting on TARP. At the time, everybody took his words to be an endorsement of TARP, and he didn't push back until long after they became unpopular.

So that leaves Republicans with either Michele Bachmann or Ron Paul—if they want to be consistent. Or they can listen to what Herman Cain told them to do in 2008, and just shut up.

Originally posted to The Jed Report on Fri Oct 07, 2011

Also republished by Daily Kos.

Technorati Tags: Herman Cain,Tea Party,2012 Election,Politics,Current Events

The 99 Percent Do Not Protest Wealth

The Jobs agenda

Dante Atkins for Daily Kos   Sun Oct 09, 2011

What started in Zucotti Park is spreading across America. The playing field of the American economy has gotten so slanted toward the wealthiest among us, the rules so biased in their favor, that with no organizational assistance from a national propaganda network and no funding from shadowy billionaires and their front groups, self-organized demonstrators are peaceably assembling in the thousands and tens of thousands. From Wall Street in New York to Spring Street in Los Angeles, activists among the self-styled 99 percent have decided that living off the trickle-down of the plutocrats and corporate CEOs who crashed the economy, and not only came out clean on the other side, but more likely enriched themselves significantly in the process.

    Meanwhile, on Wednesday, a major corporate CEO passed away.

  Earlier this year, the corporation he managed had the largest market capitalization of any company on the planet. Given the shares he held not only in this corporation but also in several others with which he was affiliated, this man was undoubtedly among the wealthiest one percent of Americans. But far from being reviled for his wealth, power, influence and status as the executive of a massive company at a time when it is highly unpopular, Steve Jobs was nearly universally admired. The sudden announcement of his death, though not entirely unexpected given his recent abdication of his role at Apple, inspired profound sadness among legions of fans and monopolized news network coverage.

The Republican politicians who serve Wall Street and have dedicated themselves to protecting the interests of America's most fortunate have declared that the Occupy Wall Street movement is the enemy, that the participants in the protests sweeping the nation are a mob of anti-capitalists who are jealous that they can't have what rich people can have and want to take by force what they cannot afford to buy—presumably, as Herman Cain might say, because they didn't work hard enough. But if that were the case, why was a figure like Steve Jobs so revered, while the CEOs and hedge fund managers of Wall Street are so reviled? If the left is so interested in punishing success, as so many Republicans claim, why are the supposed anti-capitalists not celebrating the death of the head of the second largest publicly traded company in the world?

Unlike so many of my friends, associates and fellow bloggers, I am not a fan of Apple products. I have a seldom-used iPod Classic. My iTunes library barely exceeds two gigabytes. I have never had an iPhone, nor a Macbook of any kind. An iPad might be in the cards simply owing to the "coolness factor," should I ever be blessed with a combination of an indulgent mood and a confounding excess of spare cash. In fact, my fondest memory of Apple comes from the games I played on the Apple IIe my family had when I was very young. But despite using the products of his company's chief competitors, I have always had an enormous respect for Steve Jobs.

By all accounts, Jobs was not motivated primarily by financial success. He was motivated, rather, by a desire to do something unique, something completely different, to change the way people lived and interacted with each other through technology. To be innovative, to constantly push the cutting edge. Clearly, he succeeded. And along the way—from inventing the personal computer to launching the iPad 2—he created not just a successful product line, but a series of devices that changed the way millions and millions of people work, live and play. And whether in respecting his life or mourning his death, very few will resent Steve Jobs the billions he earned for the value he provided to so many.

The main ire of the occupiers of Wall Street is not directed simply toward people who are wealthy. Rather, it is directed at the financial sector: a series of institutions whose ostensible purpose is to provide the liquidity that greases the wheels of the American economic engine. But instead of fulfilling their mission to help their customers make money, the financial sector has decided to engage in corrupt, fraudulent and abusive practices to extract an ever-increasing profit from the credit they provide, and use those ill-gotten gains to garner legislation and tax rates that favor their agenda and methodology. Not only is the financial sector not providing quality products for the profit they extract; there are doing the exact opposite. They turn people out of their homes illegally through forged documentation like Bank of America, or shortsell the same low-quality investments they sold to their clients to make a shameful profit at both ends of the deal.

That wasn't Steve Jobs' agenda, nor is it the agenda of any other innovator whose desire is to create value that improves people's lives. The legions in New York and across the country do not protest wealth; they do not hate success. Rather, they object to those who extract value through predation rather than contribute value through innovation and creativity.

Technorati Tags: Occupy Wall Street,Steve Jobs,Wall Street,Current Events,99 Percenters,Economy,Bank Of America