The Right Wing Pushback to Occupy Wall Street

I came across this today on my Facebook page:



Only in America do minimum wagers fight for the rights of millionaires to keep their collective foot on the throats of the "have-nots."

A new website has cropped up called, "The 53%." This is a response to the Occupy Wall Street protesters, and according to their cute, little pictures with their signs, they seem perfectly happy working multiple jobs to make ends meet, pay for college and don't understand why the OWS protesters, "want something for nothing." (I put that in quotes because I've seen it on multiple signs.) Their failure to understand what the protests are about is painfully obvious.

This isn't about partisan politics. This isn't about Democrat vs. Republican, Liberal vs. Conservative. This isn't about getting something for nothing. This isn't about iPads or smart phones or new cars. This is about a matter of fairness.

These people are protesting the fact that Wall Street has the government's economic policy by the balls, with one party in their pocket while the other party plays along as well. Both parties collect plenty of coin for their campaign coffers from Wall Street.

As former, and hopefully future, Congressman Aman Grayson so elequently described in last Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, and which I'll paraphrase here, the people standing on the streets day in and day out are there because Wall Street basically wrecked the economy three years ago and no one has been held responsible for it. No one's been indicted. No one's been convicted. Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme bilked people of $50 billion in investments and retirement savings and that made the front page headlines for months. But $50 billion is a fraction of what Wall Street's games cost the country - 20% OF OUR NATIONAL NET WORTH - you and I as taxpayers bailed them out so we wouldn't fall into a catastrophic collapse. And yet here we sit three years later and absolutely nothing has changed in terms of their practices to avoid flirting with the edge of the financial abyss again. In fact, they received multi-million dollar bonuses for their efforts. Does that seem fair to you? Even GOP candidate Buddy Roemer (yes, a Republican) agrees with and backs the OWS movement.

Does it seem fair that Bank of America has decided to earn an extra $3 BILLION a year simply by charging it's customers $5 a month to use their debit card for purchases? Does it seem fair that Citibank arbitrarily raised credit card interest rates to 29.99% for no reason other than to skim some more of our hard-earned money before credit card legislation stopped (or at least slowed down) their loan sharking ways?

This isn't about hating the rich. I don't have a grudge against rich people. For those who earned their way and clawed their way up the financial ladder, good for them and their fortunes. For those who were born into money, well who am I to moan about it? But if I'm paying 28-33% in federal taxes, they'd better pay the same goddamn rate. What's wrong with that? Why should they pay less? Reinvestment for job creation? Please. Enough with the "job creators" bullshit. How many stock brokers create jobs? Why should a hedge fund manager or a stock broker have a lower tax rate than a teacher or a carpenter or a sanitation worker or a research scientist?

If you think someone playing with other people's money should be entitled to a lesser tax rate than someone who works as hard as the misguided person holding this sign, then it's time to recalibrate your moral compass.

ADDING... Although I assert this is not about right versus left, the title of this post remains relevant as the something-for-nothing-get-a-job-hippies-welfare-queens attitude of the anti-OWS voices screams of right wing memes.

Buffett Birthers?

Seriously?

The Hill reports big names in Congress are starting to say Buffett "needs to reveal his finances if his views on tax rates are going to serve as the basis for Obama administration policy."

NRSC chair John Cornyn (TX), who took the call to Twitter Thursday, explained to ABC News that knowing how Buffett makes his money could change the way people view the so-called "Buffett Rule" that President Obama is making a cornerstone of his call for increased taxes on the super-rich.

John Cornyn should pay attention because I believe this is exactly what Warren Buffett admitted to. He is taxed at a lower percentage on capital gains for really doing nothing but investing his money.

Here he is on Charlie Rose, WITH A COPY OF HIS TAX RETURNS!



Hey Buffett Birthers, just say "Oops" and get out! And now that we've seen that Mr. Buffett has made his tax returns public, I'd like to see the Koch brothers' returns, please.

Poor Rep. Flemming Eking Out An Existence at $774K Per Year.

Here's the perfect example of the GOP disconnect in the class warfare/tax fairness issue. Republican Louisiana Rep. John Flemming owns Subway shops and UPS storefronts. His income from those businesses is $6 million yearly. But he has the balls to whine that after expenses, he only takes home $600,000. After after home expenses, he only has $400,000 left to reinvest.



First of all, it's none of my business if Flemming's home expenses are $200,000. But whatever happened to tightening your belt at home during hard economic times? What happened to living within your means? Second, it doesn't seem like he's counting his $174,000 Congressman's salary in his take home total. Finally, Flemming claims to have 500 employees. At $5.4 million in expenses, he's paying far less than $10,800 per employee that his number equals divided by 500 employees.

So, John Flemming is a liar when it comes to job creation. But what's really galling is that what he sees at practically nothing, his $774,000 "take home pay" can hire 15-20 teachers, or police officers or firefighters.

And these are the politicians the Tea Party types defend? Pathetic.

GOP: $4 Trillion in Cuts

It's so simple to step on the necks of the downtrodden, isn't it?

Republicans will present this week a 2012 budget proposal that would cut more than $4 trillion from federal spending projected over the next decade and transform the Medicare health program for the elderly, a move that will dramatically reshape the budget debate in Washington.

...The plan would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills. Mr. Ryan and other conservatives say this is necessary because of the program's soaring costs.

Okay, can we now talk about something realistic because this is an obvious ploy, a joke. And yet, the Republican Party continues to be taken seriously somehow. I'll be waiting for the Tea Party to take the streets in droves chanting, "Keep your government hands of my Medicare!" Let's see them protest even the idea of considering Paul Ryan's "fuck you" to the poor and elderly.

And by the way, this is just a number that they put out there. There is nothing in the plan on how to get to this number without literally killing hundreds of thousands of people by denying them financial assistance with their day to day lives in terms of medical care. Remember "Repeal and Replace"? Whatever happened to that?

ADDING... Of course, they can't just say they're going to cut spending. They're going to cut taxes too!

Conservative activists who are familiar with the Ryan plan said they expect it to call for a fundamental overhaul of the tax system, with a 25% top rate for both individuals and corporations, compared to the current 35% top rate. It is expected to raise about the same amount of money as the current system, however. Lawmakers already are considering ways to accomplish that by reducing or eliminating some deductions and other tax breaks.

Cutting the top tax rate by 10% but bringing in the same amount as the current system? So you know what that last line actually means. Those of us "individuals" who actually pay 35% currently but are able to itemize some deductions and get a refund can kiss that goodbye. But corporations that currently pay LITTLE TO NO TAXES because of loopholes at a 35% rate, can continue to rape the US economy at the 25% rate. And those who are in lower tax brackets will probably wind up paying the same or maybe even a bit more. But that doesn't matter to the GOP - they know that the working class poor don't have a real voice in Washington, so who's going to know?