Category: Class War

Budget talk

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

A conference call with Congressional Budget Office spokesman Ken Baer and White House adviser David Plouffe tonight was probably aimed at growing indignation in the blogosphere over the proposed Obama budget, which features your proverbial draconian cuts to just about every social program — except Social Security and Medicare.

It wasn’t likely that bloggers would be happy with the conversation, since once we got into the details of arguing different cuts, it looked as though we were buying into the White House frame that the cuts were urgently needed in the first place, and most of us don’t believe that’s true.

Baer’s opening remarks focused on “shared sacrifice.” Some bloggers weren’t buying it. (I know I didn’t.)

My question: “When you’re talking about shared sacrifice, clearly, the working and middle class is getting a disproportionate slam everywhere they turn with this budget, and you’re talking about a few, what sound like token items to the rest of us out here, and I wonder how you rationalize that during this severe economic recession.”

Baer said people got that impression from the stories that were released early, without looking at the big-budget picture. (Click here.)

Anyway, no one on the outside really knows what they’re up to. Is this a ploy to back Republicans into a corner over popular programs? Is this a strategy to get the public to support Social Security cuts later? Your guess is as good as mine. I wouldn’t take it too seriously just yet.

In the meantime, here’s a roundup of some budget stories:

Ezra Klein: The U.S. Government: An insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.

HuffPost: Republicans Response: It would be better to pass nothing.

David Dayen: Festival of budget links!

Washington Monthly: Republicans have forgotten all about “jobs, jobs, jobs’!

Iran

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Courage is contagious:

TEHRAN, Iran — Clashes between Iranian police and tens of thousands of protesters wracked central Tehran on Monday as security forces beat and fired tear gas at opposition supporters hoping to evoke Egypt’s recent popular uprising.

The opposition called for a demonstration Monday in solidarity with Egypt’s popular revolt that a few days earlier forced the president there to resign after nearly 30 years in office. The rally is the first major show of strength for Iran’s cowed opposition in more than a year.

Police used tear gas against the protesters in central Tehran’s Enghelab, or Revolution, square and in Imam Hossein square, as well as in other nearby main streets. Demonstrators responded by setting garbage bins on fire to protect themselves from the stinging white clouds.

Eyewitnesses said at least three protesters injured by bullets were taken to a hospital in central Tehran while dozens of others were hospitalized because of severe wounds as a result of being beaten.

“An Iranian dies but doesn’t accept humiliation,” demonstrators chanted. “Death to the dictator,” they said, in a chant directed at hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Wishing won’t cut it

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

It’s understood that Obama’s budget is a wish list, one that Congress is unlikely to fulfill. Keeping that in mind, it looks like he’s trying to cover his butt on the recent tax cuts. If he thought they were so bad, why didn’t he veto them?

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — President Barack Obama’s new budget proposes to end Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, returning to a longstanding pledge while also giving small businesses a number of breaks but rescinding preferences for oil and gas companies.

Sent to Congress on Monday, Obama’s spending and tax blueprint for fiscal 2012 eliminates the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for families making more than $250,000 annually. Late last year, Obama and congressional Republicans struck a deal to extend those cuts for two years, but Obama has now painted a target on the cuts again.

“These policies were unfair and unaffordable when enacted and remain so today,” Obama said in his budget message. He said he’ll push for them to expire in 2012. Read 2012 budget documents on White House web site.

The budget also seeks to raise about $46 billion by taking away oil and gas companies’ tax deductions and credits, including a credit for oil and gas produced from marginal wells. The energy proposals are repeats of last year’s budget and are staunchly opposed by the oil industry. Obama intends to use the extra revenue to fund clean energy research. Read story about Obama’s 2012 budget proposal.

Obama also wants to end tax breaks on U.S. companies’ overseas income which would reap a total of $129 billion over 10 years. Obama proposed the same thing in last year’s budget. This year’s proposal comes as the White House is working with corporations and lawmakers on proposals to overhaul the corporate tax code — though the budget contains no specific proposals on corporate tax reform.

As part of his overall $3.7 trillion request for 2012, Obama is also proposing a “patch” for the alternative minimum tax that’s paid for by a 30% reduction in itemized deductions for high-income taxpayers. The AMT was originally intended to be levied on wealthy Americans.

Meanwhile, the budget also extends or expands a number of credits for families and individuals, including the earned income tax credit and the child and dependent care tax credit.

In the weeks leading up to the release of the budget, Obama spoke repeatedly about the need to invest in areas like clean energy and high-speed rail, and the budget gives a number of tax cuts to businesses.

Included are an elimination of capital gains taxes on investments in small business stock; making permanent the research and experimentation tax credit; and extra credits for properties used for advanced energy research.

Looks like a lot of “See, folks, I’m really on your side” without any real strategy to back it up.

Unions banned

~ susie ~ 6 Comments

I’m not clear on whether this is something that will be lifted when things calm down, or if this will be in effect until elections are held. If the latter, that means unions will be forbidden from organizing for an election slate:

CAIRO – Egypt’s new military rulers will issue a warning on Monday against anyone who creates “chaos and disorder”, an army source said.

The Higher Military Council will also ban meetings by labor unions or professional syndicates, effectively forbidding strikes, and tell all Egyptians to get back to work after the unrest that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

The army will also say it acknowledges and protects the right of people to protest, the source said.

Protesters argued heatedly in Tahrir Square over whether to stay or comply with army orders to leave. “The people want the square cleared,” one group chanted. “We will not leave, we will not leave,” replied another.

Police officers, emboldened by Mubarak’s downfall, gathered outside the Interior Ministry to demand higher pay. Warning shots were fired in the air. No one was hurt.

Workers from the health and culture ministries staged demonstrations as Egyptians began venting pent-up frustrations.

Thousands of workers have staged strikes, sit-ins and protests over pay and conditions at firms and government agencies in fields such as steel, textiles, telecoms, railways, post offices, banks and oil and pharmaceutical companies.

Egypt declared Monday a bank holiday after workers disrupted operations at the country’s main state banks.

Protest organizers were forming a Council of Trustees to defend the revolution and urge swift reform from a military intent on restoring law and order during the transition.

Mahmoud Nassar, a youth movement leader, said: “The army has moved far along to meet the people’s demands and we urge it to release all political prisoners who were taken before and after January 25 revolution. Only then will we call off the protests.“

They’re still winning the class war

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Oh, I am so tired of these political minions who talk out of both sides of their mouth — and their media enablers. Have you noticed how few journalists even think about our point of view? The Iraq and Afghanistan wars continue to drain the national treasury and beggar our nation, and the president just signed a trillion dollar tax increase FOR MILLIONAIRES AND BILLIONAIRES. Hell-o?

And somehow, we’re supposed to pretend that those things do not contradict this “austerity” blitz from a Democratic president. We’re supposed to nod and agree when they justifying it by saying stupid things like, “We’re cutting back on spending, just like Americans do around their kitchen tables.”

As if we all pay cash for our homes and cars.

And now, at a time when new college graduates face record levels of unemployment, we’re going to add this to the average family’s economic burdens. Why should we believe anything they say about the deficit “crisis” when they don’t address the ten-ton WAR elephant in the national living room?

WASHINGTON — In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama promised thatinvestment in education and getting the next generation of Americans ready to face their own “Sputnik” moment would be a focus of his administration. But at least one component of his FY 2012 budget, which will be released tomorrow, will likely pile more debt upon students who decide to pursue graduate school, potentially making the dream of higher education even more unattainablefor many Americans. The move, say administration officials, is needed to ensure that a popular financial aid award stays available at current levels.

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew said that interest on graduate school loans will begin building up while students are still in school. Currently, interest does not begin compiling until after students graduate.Host Candy Crowley questioned Lew about whether this would make graduate school less accessible for many Americans:

CROWLEY: Here’s the problem, I guess. If you are a graduate — let’s take one of your examples. You’re a graduate student; you are, right now, getting loans. You don’t have to pay those loans or any interest on them until you graduate. But now you have to pay — or it accumulates, I’m assuming — you have to pay interest beginning on day one of grad school, and that makes it so that you can’t go to grad school.

LEW: Well, let’s just be clear. Interest will build up, but students won’t have to pay until they graduate. So it will increase the burden for paying back the loans, but it will not reduce access to education. That’s, I think, part of how you can responsibly have a plan that deals with the challenge of solving our fiscal crisis, getting out of the situation where the deficit is growing and growing, but also investing in the future.

Unbelievable. Don’t these economic wizards have any friends or relatives outside that Beltway bubble, someone who could knock some sense into them?

Elite

~ susie

Kevin Manahan from the Newark Star-Ledger:

Let me get this straight: Chris Christie, the governor born on third base, the guy who grew up in Livingston and lives in Mendham, the guy who sleeps beside an investment banker who makes about a half mil a year, the guy with the multimillionaire stock-broker brother who some say bought Christie the U.S. attorney’s job, the guy who could fit my entire house in his kitchen, the guy with filthy-rich friends (public and secret) who write him checks, the guy who could melt down his door knocker and feed a mission for a month — that guy called me an elitist?

Hold on a second, the mechanic is on the phone. He wants to know if I’ll spring for new brakes on my elitist ride — a dented 2005 Toyota Corolla with 99,000 miles on it. I’m thinking I’ll tell him no, because any day now the bottom is going to rust out and I’ll be able to stop the car like Fred Flintstone does. That is, if the accelerator doesn’t get stuck on the floor mat.

Recently, Christie decried “the elite on the editorial boards of newspapers.” Well, the last guy who drove the governor anywhere was rewarded with a cushy six-figure job on the Parole Board, even though he already was collecting a 90K pension. The last person who drove me anywhere was my wife — when I hurt my back and had to go to the clinic last week. She got a kiss.

Elitist? My sons are still laughing. They figure the Christie children probably have to file tax returns just for their allowances. When my kids were looking for summer jobs, they said, “Dad, maybe the governor needs a lifeguard for that pool in his yard. Ask him.”

I told them, “If you’re drowning in the governor’s pool and you make less than $500,000, you’re probably on your own.”