Greeks Bearing Gifts....

[j_b]

The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

[j_b]

The top 1% of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.

 

[j_b]

More than 40% of Americans who actually are employed are now working in very low paying service jobs

 

[j_b]

For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

[j_b]

Our competition: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.

 

[j_b]

Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.

 

[prole]

..... along with workers that were able to maintain some footing, .......

 

Yea. Thanks taxpayers!

 

As long as bureaucracies are staffed by working human beings, I don't have a problem with those human beings making a decent living, having safe workplaces, and after a certain amount of service, enjoying a comfortable retirement. That this seems beyond what's reasonably possible these days shows not only how low our expectations and the lot of workers in this country have sunk (not how high unionized public workers have risen) but what a massive failure the restructuring begun under Reagan and continued under the corporate political class of both parties has been.

 

"But we can't afford it!", you cry. The fact is, we could. But that would require actually looking at where our money's been going all these years, where it is now, and figuring out how to get it where it really needs to go. Or you can keep shaking down the bus drivers, toll-booth operators, and other just-marginally-better-off workers because they're easier prey than the real, protected game stalking out there.

[j_b]

The top 10% of Americans now earn around 50% of our national income.

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

[j_b]

but hey! let's keep going after the fat cat bus driver/teacher/nurse ...

[tvashtarkatena]

Safe to say at this point that taxing the rich more, although certainly an incomplete solution to so much long term inequity, is step one in restoring fairness to our economy. I don't think anyone here actually disagrees with that statement, right?

 

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

 

[j_b]

Safe to say at this point that taxing the rich more, although certainly an incomplete solution to so much long term inequity, is step one in restoring fairness to our economy. I don't think anyone here actually disagrees with that statement, right?

 

Those who disagree have so much intellectual integrity that they won't speak up. The same way they don't speak about the ginormous military budget or health care costs that are bankrupting us (yet they complain about medicare). I wish the weasels stopped taking cover behind the obstructionist congress to argue gutting public services and employee benefits.

[Jim]

Safe to say at this point that taxing the rich more, although certainly an incomplete solution to so much long term inequity, is step one in restoring fairness to our economy. I don't think anyone here actually disagrees with that statement, right?

 

 

Catcalls aside, yes, a change to the revenue side is needed. But being shrill (not you) isn't going to change the grim politics. The governor will be lucky to squeak thru the modest sales tax proposal. So now what? Oh yea, think bigger

 

Now awaiting a concise reply to the practical real world issue that must be tackled in this immediate session.

[j_b]

because rehashing ad-infinitum about sovereign debt the way you do isn't shrill? all the while you ignore private debt that dwarfs public debt?

 

It was time to be practical when the state income tax was on the ballot, yet you managed to be against it because you wanted to cut spending anyway. There is the regressive sales tax as a temporary fix but they could also cut loopholes and tax breaks.

[prole]

The governor will be lucky to squeak thru the modest sales tax proposal. So now what? Oh yea, think bigger

 

Why do you think that is, that she'll be lucky to get that through? From the looks of the way the larger frame of the debate has shifted in the last couple months (remember how you said even discussing the revenue side was impossible just a short while ago), perhaps the problem is that people haven't gotten shrill enough.

[j_b]

don't you know that bitching every day about the "need" to cut spending is going to create momentum for raising revenue?

[Jim]

The governor will be lucky to squeak thru the modest sales tax proposal. So now what? Oh yea, think bigger

 

Why do you think that is, that she'll be lucky to get that through? From the looks of the way the larger frame of the debate has shifted in the last couple months (remember how you said even discussing the revenue side was impossible just a short while ago), perhaps the problem is that people haven't gotten shrill enough.

 

Actually, if you read what she is proposing, is to put a half cent sales tax increase to a public vote - AND - it's not at all clear she has the votes for this regressive tax. Oh yea, a bold strike.

 

My guess is that any MEANINGFUL revenue conversations will not occur until public unions earn the confidence of taxpayers. Which doesn't look like any time soon. Commence arm waving.

[j_b]

Actually, if you read what she is proposing, is to put a half cent sales tax increase to a public vote - AND - it's not at all clear she has the votes for this regressive tax. Oh yea, a bold strike.

 

I guess that must mean your activism toward raising revenue hasn't been very effective. Perhaps, if you spent less time arguing for austerity, it'd make a tiny difference?

[prole]

My guess is that any MEANINGFUL revenue conversations will not occur until public unions earn the confidence of taxpayers.

 

They'd probably get a long way towards doing that without the warmed over "welfare queens" and "fat-cat" bus driver mafiosi narrative you seem happy to buy into.

 

BTW, I'm not sure if this is considered arm-waving, but that's got to be the single worst political strategy I've ever heard. If I take "earning confidence" to mean taking cuts to pay and benefits.

[Jim]

I think that's one of the points. It's not a political strategy. I'll leave it with this. I see a need for the long, drawn out work needed for a more equitable and progressive system. But I'm enough of a realist to see the current fiscal problem of the state, for instance, is in need of change in employee benefits that are supplied by the taxpayers, most of which have taken far more cuts than the public sector. Seriously - in this economic climate we should be paying 100% match, with no limits, on UW employee contributions to their retirement package?

 

Equitity for all. Unless it's taxpayer funded of course.

[tvashtarkatena]

One might argue that tough times are THE time to make profound changes.

[JayB]

Congress can (and has) regulated an individual farmer's right to grow wheat for his own consumption (because it effects the overall supply, and therefore price, of wheat in general). And yes, this is from a SCOTUS ruling.

 

Yeah, I think Congress can limit executive pay. I also think Obamacare is gonna pass muster, but hey, SCOTUS is always a crap shoot.

 

I find it fascinating that a self-described champion of individual liberty could applaud this decision:

 

Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity. A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat for on-farm consumption. The U.S. government established limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to drive up wheat prices during the Great Depression, and Filburn was growing more than the limits permitted. Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it.

 

The Supreme Court, interpreting the United States Constitution's Commerce Clause under Article 1 Section 8 (which permits the United States Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;") decided that, because Filburn's wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn's production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce, and so could be regulated by the federal government."

 

Guess what the folks writing the majority decision cited as precedent in Gonzales vs Raich in 2005?

 

Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes.

 

 

For bonus points, guess which justice wrote the following in his dissent to that decision:

 

"If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress' Article I powers -- as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause -- have no meaningful limits. Whether Congress aims at the possession of drugs, guns, or any number of other items, it may continue to "appropria[te] state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce.""

 

Here's to hoping that the ruling on the ACA demolishes the retarded precedent set by this and other grotesque abuses of the Commerce Clause to justify whatever the folks in the government happen to want to mandate or criminalize.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fairweather]

Hey FW, if you're so unwilling to see anyone else's point, how can you expect them to try and see yours?

 

Better check this idea out with your friends here. Maybe even ask them to test it out.

[Fairweather]

 

 

What a fucking loathsome creature.