GOP Trickle Down Tax Cuts Have Never Helped American Families

15 million Americans are unemployed and 10 million more underemployed.

We see the rich getting richer while everyone else is working harder for less money and going more into debt.

Let's figure out where our jobs and wages went and, most importantly, how to get them back.

Our largest multinational corporations are hording a record treasure of several trillions of dollars in cash rather than investing that money in America and the richest 1% of Americans are sitting on yet more unused wealth.

The Federal Reserve reports corporate cash balances alone grew to $2.05 trillion in September 2011 on a quarter over quarter cash reserve growth rate of nearly 5 percent. Neither the cash rich corporations or the richest 1% of Americans are not putting their decades worth of tax cuts to work to create jobs for Americans.

Doling out yet more tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans and our largest multinational corporations will not induce them to use their already huge treasure trove of cash to create new jobs or move the jobs they have already off shored back to the U.S.We hear talk of trillions over here and billions over there, of government shutdowns, of cutting 100... no 61... no 38 billion dollars from Social Security, Medicare, FEMA disaster recovery, road and bridge maintenance, so our bridges stop falling down. What the heck? If you're like me, you might be thinking -- "Wait, I might actually like that stuff..."

There is a truly courageous alternative — the Congressional Progressive Caucus' Budget proposal, which represents what the American people really want. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has proposed a budget that balances the budget in just ten years without cutting Social Security and Medicare.

The Progressive plan repeals the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, which saves three trillion dollars. Second, the plan cuts corporate taxpayer handouts to pharmaceutical, insurance and petrochemical industries and adds a new income tax bracket for billionaires. That raises at least an additional three trillion dollars. In the next decade the plan also cuts defense spending by about $1.8 trillion. The Progressive plan also lifts the Social Security payroll cap of $106,800 per year (2011) so that wealthy individuals who take home millions and billions of dollars in earnings every year can pay their fair percentage share of Social Security support, too.

The Progressive plan not only protects and strengthens Social Security and Medicare for decades to come, it puts America back to work through infrastructure and high tech investments.

President Obama is now calling for millionaires, billionaires and billion dollar multinational corporations to pay their fair share of taxes as part of a debt reduction package, In response, Republicans are not only defending the tax cuts they gave to the wealthy over the past decade and more, they are calling for yet more tax cuts for the rich.

The wealth are the job creators, Republicans argue, and the "trickle down" tax cut economic growth will be hampered if the rich are required to pay their fair share to maintain America's roads and bridges.

Americans are starting to understand the truth of the about graph and graph at right; the trillions of dollars of tax cuts Pres. G.W. Bush and Republican controlled congresses gave to millionaires, billionaires and billion dollar multinational corporations in the last decade has never trickled down to every day working man and woman.
In the first public polling available on the so-called "Buffett Rule" specifically -- the proposal to raise taxes on millionaires advocated by billionaire investor Warren Buffett -- Daily Kos/SEIU's weekly "State of the Nation" survey asked the following:

Q: Do you support or oppose ensuring that people who make over a million dollars a year pay the same percentage of taxes or more on their total income as those who make less than a million dollars a year?
Support: 73
Oppose: 16
Not sure: 11

The answer even wasn't close. 73 percent of all Americans, including Republicans, supported the idea, versus 16 percent who did not, and 11 percent who were unsure. Every demographic sub-group favors the idea. Republicans back it 66-17 -- Even self-identified tea partiers, the weakest supporters, are at 52-29.
In recent polling, voters have shown a willingness to include raising taxes within a plan to address the deificit, and especially on those Americans making $250,000 or more. A recent Pew survey showed 66 percent support for that idea, and 63 percent in a poll from CBS News and the New York Times. The President himself has seemingly grasped on to that sentiment, going on the road promoting his jobs and debt reduction plans with populist rhetoric. It's also further evidence that Obama is distancing himself from the ongoing squabbling of Congress, embracing more popular proposals and taking them directly to voters.
Charts from ConnectTheDotsUSA.com

Related: 

• A Severely Conservative Or A Progressive Budget 

L'Shanah Tovah - May You Have A Good Year!

Rosh HaShanah (ראש השנה) is the Jewish New Year. It falls once a year during the month of Tishrei and occurs ten days before Yom Kippur. For 2011, Rosh HaShanah begins at sunset September 28, 2011 and ends at nightfall on September 30, 2011. Together, Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are known as the Yamim Nora’im, which means the Days of Awe in Hebrew, or more commonly, the High Holy Days.

Rosh HaShanah literally means “Head of the Year” in Hebrew. It falls in the month of Tishrei, which is the seventh month on the Hebrew calendar. The reason for this is because the Hebrew calendar begins with the month of Nissan (when it's believed the Jews were freed from slavery in Egypt) but the month of Tishrei is believed to be the month in which God created the world. Hence, another way to think about Rosh HaShanah is as the birthday of the world.

Rosh HaShanah is observed on the first two days of Tishrei. Jewish tradition teaches that during the High Holy Days God decides who will live and who will die during the coming year. As a result, during Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur (and in the days leading up to them) Jews embark upon the serious task of examining their lives and repenting for any wrongs they have committed during the previous year. This process of repentance is called teshuvah. Jews are encouraged to make amends with anyone they have wronged and to make plans for improving during the coming year. In this way, Rosh HaShanah is all about making peace in the community and striving to be a better person.

Even though the theme of Rosh HaShanah is life and death, it is a holiday filled with hope for the New Year. Jews believe that God is compassionate and just, and that God will accept their prayers for forgiveness.

Happy New Year!

Challenge To Texas Voter Registrar Rules And Process

Last week Voting for America (Project Vote) sent a letter to the State of Texas, alleging that various parts of the state's voter registration rules and process violate the National Voter Registration Act.

The challenged areas include the geographical restrictions on where Texas voter registrars may operate, the lack of standards for training voter registrars, the lack of guidance about when an application is considered incomplete, and the requirement that green cards be returned in person within five days.

Project Vote (or Voting for America, Inc.) is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) that promotes voting in historically underrepresented communities, working to ensure that our constituencies can register, vote, and cast ballots that count. The organization was incorporated in 1994 as 'Voting for America,' and officially became 'Project Vote/Voting for America' in 1997. Project Vote is unrelated to Project VOTE!, for which President Obama worked in 1992.

Project Vote has been tied by the right wing messaging network to one of the right's favorite, and now defunct, punching bags, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN). A sizable number of Republicans -- 25 percent -- still think ACORN (and by association, Project Vote) is plotting to steal the election for Obama in 2012.

The Voting for America letter to TX SOS Hope Andrade says,

Water Development Board Report Says Texas "Will Not Have Enough"

The Texas Water Development Board has published a draft of its five year 2012 water report for the state. The 295-page plan published last week in the midst of the worst-ever single-year drought Texas has ever experienced, is a sobering read.

This year just set the record for most Federal Emergency Management Agency declared disasters declared in the U.S. And we’ve still got 3 months to go. Most of those disasters are associated with record-shattering extreme weather events matching events climate scientists predict will occur as heat-trapping gases are pumped into the atmosphere fueling global warming and long term climate change.

Chart of Annual Federally Declared Disasters
h/t Tamino for the FEMA chart. FEMA’s data is here.

It is clear that the trendline of major disasters in this country is upward and likely will continue upward for the foreseeable future. And these disasters aren’t merely increasingly in number, but in ferocity.

For Texas the ongoing disaster of increasing ferocity will be that "In serious drought conditions, Texas does not and will not have enough water to meet the needs of its people, and its businesses, and its agricultural enterprises," according to the Texas Water Development Board's report.

According to Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas will break another record for the driest 12-month period on record by the end of September. He said the drought has cost Texas $5.2 billion in agricultural losses alone, with at least another billion from drought-related wildfires, and the NCDC says this is already Texas' most costly drought in recorded history.

The Texas Water Development Board's report says that if Texas does not plan ahead, a drought as bad as that of the 1950s could cost Texans $116 billion a year by 2060, the report says, and cause the potential loss of more than one million jobs. Building new reservoirs and wastewater treatment plants and other water infrastructure is projected to cost $53 billion.

The report offered a number of recommendations to the Legislature. Texas lawmakers, it said, should get moving on three reservoir sites (Turkey Peak Reservoir, Millers Creek Reservoir Augmentation, and Coryell County Reservoir). Lawmakers should also make it easier to site other reservoirs, and to transfer surface water between different areas. They should require public water utilities to audit their water losses annually rather than every five years.