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Mind-Blowing Charts From the Senate's Income Inequality Hearing

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Josh Harkinson - Feb. 10 (News Report) - In another sign that Democrats have embraced income inequality as a cause célèbre, the Senate Budget Committee held a hearing on the subject today. The committee's ranking Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, managed to look concerned during two hours of testimony about the kneecapping of the Middle Class—not that it should have been all that difficult. Here are some of the hearing's most striking charts ...

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Money and Morals

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Feb. 10 (Opinion) - Conservatives have started telling us that the growing inequality is about a decline in morals. But it’s mainly about money.

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Washington Is Rigged

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Elizabeth Warren - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - Many people who work for a living pay 25, 28, or even 33% of their hard earned money on taxes. We should get rid of the special protections that allowed Mitt Romney to pay only 14% of his income in taxes. That's what the Buffett Rule is all about: making sure those who have already made it pay their fair share to help the folks behind them get ahead.

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Brian O’Shaughnessy on the VAT

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

tradereform.org - By Brian O'Shaughnessy - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - The question is not whether we have new taxes, high taxes or low taxes. The question is whether we have smart or dumb taxes in relation to promoting economic growth and international competitiveness.

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6 Shocking Ways Capitalism Is Failing Working America

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Les Leopold - Feb. 01 (News Analysis) - Capitalism is coming apart at the seams and the middle-class is paying the price.

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Ford may post best year since 1998

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Louisville Courier-Journal - By Bloomberg News - Jan. 26 (News Report) - Ford Motor Co., boosted by a one-time tax gain, may report its most profitable year since 1998, while weakness in Europe and Asia cut fourth-quarter earnings.

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Fmr. Obama Adviser: Focus on U.S. Inequality in Election-Year SOTU Has Occupy Wall Street's Imprint

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jan. 25 (News Analysis) - In his last State of the Union speech before the November election, President Obama defended his record addressing the financial crisis and called for greater economic fairness. He warned that Wall Street would no longer be allowed to play by its own set of rules. But the bulk of the speech dealt with the economy. We get reaction from Jared Bernstein, former chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and past member of President Obama’s economic team.

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As Romney Releases Tax Returns, Fmr Senate Investigator Says: We've Got To Start Taxing Corporations

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jan. 24 (Interview) - tax evasion could seriously cripple the already struggling economy. Blum appears in "We’re Not Broke," a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film examines widespread corporate tax evasion in the United States and the increasing role of offshore tax havens. "Has [Romney] cheated? No," Blum says. "What he’s done is take full advantage of a system that has been structured the way it is because of political influence and a tremendous amount of lobbying money on Capitol Hill...

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On day of Mitt Romney's tax release, poll finds widespread support for raising taxes on the 1%

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Kos - By Laura Clawson - Jan. 24 (News Analysis) - The Times highlights the partisan divide, but when you have nearly 7 in 10 Democrats, nearly 6 in 10 independents, and about 4 in 10 Republicans agreeing on something, I'd call it a position with significant bipartisan support. Additionally, about half the people surveyed thought that capital gains and dividends should be taxed the same as work, instead of at the much lower rate that allows non-working people like Mitt Romney to pay such low tax rates. Romney, meanwhile, is running for president so he can lower his own taxes while raising taxes on everyone making less than $40,000 a year and increasing the deficit. He sure does have his finger on the pulse of working America, doesn't he?

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One Percent, Many Variations

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Shaila Dewan, Robert Gebeloff - Jan. 15 (Special Report) - Adam Katz is happy to talk to reporters when he is promoting his business, a charter flight company based on Long Island called Talon Air. But when the subject was his position as one of America’s top earners, he balked. Seated at a desk fashioned from a jet fuel cell, wearing a button-down shirt with the company logo, he considered the public relations benefits and found them lacking: “It’s not very popular to be in the 1 percent these days, is it?”

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Warren Buffett Ready to Take Republicans' Tax Challenge

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Time - By Rana Foroohar - Jan. 11 (News) - Buffett has pledged to match 1 for 1 all such voluntary contributions made by Republican members of Congress. “And I’ll even go 3 for 1 for McConnell,” he says. That could be quite a bill if McConnell takes the challenge; after all, the Senator is worth at least $10 million. As Buffett put it to me, “I’m not worried.”

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The GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By WSJ Editorial Board - Dec. 21 (Opinion) - GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest. The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play. Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

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The Whoppers of 2011

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Dec. 21 (Fact Check) - Despite what you may have heard in 2011: The new health care law won’t cost many jobs (and they’ll be poorly paying jobs at that). Republicans aren’t proposing to “end” Medicare (and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has signed onto a modified version of the GOP plan). Most of the “millionaires” who would pay higher tax rates under a Democratic proposal aren’t job-creating small-business owners. President Obama’s mother didn’t really fight to get health insurance coverage as she was dying. And there was plenty more spin and deception in 2011. Obama claimed he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher. Michele Bachmann endorsed a claim that HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. Joe Biden claimed rapes quadrupled in Flint, Mich., after police layoffs. And that’s just some of the nonsense we debunked.

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Op-Ed Contributors: Don’t Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself.

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Ian Ayres, Aaron S. Edlin - Dec. 18 (Opinion) - To keep inequality in check, tax the wealthiest 1 percent when their income gets out of proportion with median income.

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For Hire: Lobbyists or the 99%?

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

publicampaign.org - Dec. 16 (Special Report) - This report builds on a recent report on corporate tax dodging by Citizens for Tax Justice by examining lobbying expenditure data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics. We also look at publicly available data on job creation, federal campaign contributions, and executive compensation, to understand how these corporations have been spending their cash.

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Suspect Claims from Obama’s ’60 Minutes’ Interview

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By D'Angelo Gore - Dec. 13 (Fact Check) - President Barack Obama made a couple of questionable claims during a recent interview with Steve Kroft of CBS’ “60 Minutes.” Obama said that “John McCain’s former economist” said that the stimulus “created or saved 3 millions jobs.” Mark Zandi did say that the stimulus created about that many jobs, but … More >>

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NPR Tries to Track Down Those Millionaire Job Creators

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FAIR - Dec. 09 (Opinion) -

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Bachmann’s Bad Economics

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Eugene Kiely, Dave Bloom - Dec. 07 (Fact Check) - Michele Bachmann wrongly claims there is “not one shred of evidence that lowering the payroll tax rate created jobs.” Actually, the economy has gained more than 1.4 million jobs in the 11 months since the payroll tax holiday began. That’s 84 percent more jobs than were added in the same … More >>

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Fact-checking the Chamber of Commerce

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Bill Adair - Dec. 07 (Fact Check) - The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has begun its "voter education" drive, running ads that attack Democrats and boost Republicans. The blitz is beginning in Iowa, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington, including this ad against U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. PolitiFact Ohio checked the ad's claim that Brown "voted to block American energy production and increase energy taxes" and rated it Mostly False.

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Florida Democrats say Mitt Romney dismissed middle-class tax cuts as 'little Band-Aids'

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Becky Bowers - Dec. 07 (Fact Check) - As the president pressured Congress to extend his payroll tax cut, Florida Democrats issued a statement calling Republican opposition "shameful." "With Republicans like Mitt Romney belittling middle class tax cuts as nothing more than 'little Band-Aids,' the Republican Party is sending a clear signal to the American people: they are willing to raise taxes on middle-class Americans just to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and big oil," says a quote from Florida Democratic Party executive director Scott Arceneaux.

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Fixing America's jobless problem

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Peter Dreier - Dec. 07 (Opinion) - Thousands of long-term unemployed Americans from across the country have converged on Washington this week to dramatize their plight and to urge Congress to extend federal unemployment insurance benefits and the payroll tax cut, and to pass President Obama's jobs bill.

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Thirteen Ways to Tax the Rich

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

truth-out.org - By Jack Rasmus - Dec. 03 (Opinion) - In order for it to have impact, it must be further clarified, or else it will be misinterpreted by politicians pushing ideas which they will falsely claim would tax the rich - such as Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's phony 9-9-9 plan, or even Obama's "millionaires' tax." Here are 13 true, progressive tax-the-rich proposals:

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Cracks in the GOP dam?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Greg Sargent - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - Buried in this big New York Times piece on the continuing war over the payroll tax cut extension is a telling detail: Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said Tuesday that she had suggested a tax increase on high earners that protected employers from that burden. “I don’t think we should be imposing additional taxes on working families at a time when the economy is so fragile,” she said. Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said his party’s plan could involve a small increase in taxes for some high-income people who meet certain criteria. In other words, senators Collins and Roberts are looking for a way to support the millionaire surtax, or something like it.

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We Are the 99.9%

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Nov. 24 (Opinion) - A large fraction of the top 1 percent's gains have actually gone to an even smaller group, the top 0.1 percent - the richest one-thousandth of the population.

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The Pledge: Grover Norquist's hold on the GOP

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

60 Minutes - By Steve Kroft - Nov. 22 (Special Report) - As head of Americans for Tax Reform since 1986, Grover Norquist has transformed a single issue - preventing tax hikes - into one of the key platforms of the Republican Party. As Steve Kroft reports, his biggest coup was getting more than 270 members of Congress, and nearly all of the 2012 Republican presidential primary candidates, to sign a pledge promising never to vote to raise taxes. But some opponents say the pledge may be hindering a solution to America's debt crisis.

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