A great reminder about why, exactly, tax cuts for the wealthy should seem ethically WRONG right now. Congress is chipping away at safety net programs such as Food Stamps (200,000 people are basically going to lose $140 each month with which to buy food) and Medicaid. Unfortunately, trickle down doesn't work, and hasn't been working for these people:
"Poverty has risen across the past four years to 37 million and counting, by the government's own measure, while the number of homeless children in public schools is at 600,000 and up. In 2004, some 38 million Americans - including nearly one in five children - lived in households that found it difficult to afford food, 6 million more than in 1999. These are the numbers that should be driving the nation's lawmakers, not the cynical desire to carry rebellion only to the brink of victory, followed by still another last-minute cave-in by the misnamed moderates." - NYT Editorial, "Profiles in Pusillanimity"
1 comment:
I'm no tax accountant, but there was recently a discussion on Slashdot regarding the Google Execs being happy with $1/year salaries. What this thread mentions is that they make about $1.6 billion max by selling their stocks. If the posters are right, this is at a lower 15% tax rate, compared to a 35% tax rate if they had received the monies by salary.
If this is true, this should be seen as unfairly shifting the tax burden onto the middle class. Especially when you consider that from a macroeconomics standpoint, trickle down economic strategies have never been shown to work (i.e. former presidents Bush and Regan).
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