Hey, A Billionaire Speaks: Bill Gates supports higher taxes on the top percentile; doesn’t buy argument that taxes hinder jobs.
Everyone remember that guy that founded Microsoft? You know, the guy who is the second richest man on the planet? Well, he spoke last Thursday and came out in support of higher taxes on the rich:
“Even as the economy improves and you end the wars, you’re going to have to raise taxes and certainly, whatever form it takes, and I’m not an expert on this — the rich should bear a larger increase than the rest,” the billionaire founder of Microsoft told Fox News Thursday in Switzerland, where he is attending the World Economic Forum.
He also talked about the argument that higher taxes lead to less jobs:
“There is no strong correlation between job creation and what the tax environment has been at any point in time,” Gates said. “If something’s a profitable activity, you’re going to engage in it. Yes, there are tax rates that are so high that people may work less. But that’s — you have to get up in the 50, 60 percent range before that’s the case.”
Interesting. The world’s second richest guy talking about the effects of taxes on job creation. The guy that helped create an entire industry. Hm, you’d think people would listen.
This Week in Politics: Obama doing what he does best, gives powerful State of the Union Speech.
Boy, Obama knows how to speak, doesn’t he?
Every year, around January, the President speaks to Congress and to the people of America about the current state of the country. In the speech, he gave some facts about the current state of the country in terms of job creation and about his future plans for this country.
It’s important to note though, the President has no real power to pass laws in the United States. That job goes to the Legislative Branch. Usually, a certain party will control both the Presidency and the Congress which makes passing laws a lot easier (getting the amount of votes, etc). However, this isn’t the current case and if you’ve kept up with the history of Obama-approved bills and laws that have passed the Congress since the Republicans took power… Well, you’ll see they haven’t passed that many.
So, it’s kind of a tough position for the President to be in. People will tune into the speech, listen to the President’s suggestions and wonder why nothing has really changed. Well, now you know. He can suggest and lay out a plan but unless Congress actually takes an initiative or serious look at his plan we won’t see any of the President’s changes at all.
Regardless, this State of the Union was a great speech as always and the President talked about a lot of things. He talked about the banking industry and starting a new group to investigate the practices that the banks did that led us to the housing market crashing. He talked about taxes on company’s that send jobs overseas. He talked about the 3.2 million jobs that were created in America.
It was overall a great speech and if you have the time click the link and watch the enhanced version of the speech that shows you facts alongside the President’s speech.
Obama’s back and he’s not holding back at all.
Sorry, still alive.
I’ve been busy with school and work and have kind of neglected this blog but I’m back. :)
A lot of things have happened in the past few weeks and I guess I’ll start with the State of the Union speech that President Obama gave a few days ago.
Any direct questions are always welcomed!
The winner of tonight’s South Carolina primary.
So much for inevitable.
Mitt Romney’s once 24 point lead in the Gallup daily tracking poll is now down to just 10 points. Gallup editor Frank Newport told MSNBC that Romney’s support was “clearly collapsing.”
The poll is a five day rolling average so it doesn’t even fully reflect the last few days which, of course, haven’t been Romney’s best.The old Republican standard: the more you get to know the GOP candidate, the less you like them.
Behold! What the Stop SOPA blackout managed to accomplish in 24 hours.
See our story behind the SOPA blackout.
If only we had this much of a change when the NDAA was being voted on.
You might as well call the GOP the “Party of the Rich”. Each and every candidate is catering to the millionaire and billionaires who pimp out their pockets. It’s basically like a prostitution of government money, in which the GOP is doing everything the rich tells them to. They still want to get paid.
Except the middle class is the one getting screwed.
The 2012 Republican candidates are largely in lockstep when it comes to economic policy, wanting to give huge tax cuts to the rich and corporations while doing next to nothing to boost consumer demand or help the middle class and the unemployed who have been battered by the Great Recession. In fact, according to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, the average tax cuts received by the richest 1 percent of Americans under the Republican plans would be 270 times as large as the cut received by the middle class:
The share of tax cuts going to the richest one percent of Americans under these plans would range from over a third to almost half. The average tax cuts received by the richest one percent would be up to 270 times as large as the average tax cut received by middle-income Americans.
Perry wins the award with a tax cut for the richest 1 percent that is 270 times larger than his middle class tax cut, while Gingrich’s is 190 times larger. Santorum and Romney pull up the rear with tax cuts for the rich that are 100 times larger than the cuts for the middle class, while CTJ did not analyze Jon Huntsman or Ron Paul’s plans. (CTJ uses a current law baseline, rather than a current policy baseline, to calculate its cuts. Using a current policy baseline, millions of middle class families would see a tax increase under Romney’s plan.)
CTJ also noted that “the cost of the tax plans proposed by Republican presidential candidates would range from $6.6 trillion to $18 trillion over a decade.” Therefore, “even the meager tax cuts that would go to low-income and middle-income taxpayers under these plans would almost surely be offset by the huge cuts in public services that would become necessary as a result.”
Look at the graph. It’s insane. This, my friends, is the party that would much rather help out billion dollar corporations and give them a break rather than help out the folks, like our parents, in the middle class who could actually use a thousand dollar tax break.
Ridiculous.
(Source: thepoliticalfreakshow)
Breaking: Mitt Romney wins New Hampshire, according to the The Associated Press.
Note: “Other” is doing better than Rick Perry!
Yeah, it’s official. Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee if you somehow didn’t think it would happen.
Sorry Republicans.
Heh, time to see the Republican field implode on itself.
The charge on the police docket was “disrupting class”. But that’s not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw her arrest for spraying two bursts of perfume on her neck in class because other children were bullying her with taunts of “you smell”.
“I’m weird. Other kids don’t like me,” said Sarah, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit and bipolar disorders and who is conscious of being overweight. “They were saying a lot of rude things to me. Just picking on me. So I sprayed myself with perfume. Then they said: ‘Put that away, that’s the most terrible smell I’ve ever smelled.’ Then the teacher called the police.”
The policeman didn’t have far to come. He patrols the corridors of Sarah’s school, Fulmore Middle in Austin, Texas. Like hundreds of schools in the state, and across large parts of the rest of the US, Fulmore Middle has its own police force with officers in uniform who carry guns to keep order in the canteens, playgrounds and lessons. Sarah was taken from class, charged with a criminal misdemeanour and ordered to appear in court.
The Republican National Committee argued in federal court today to allow corporate campaign donations to candidates for federal offices.
Rick Hasen: “Especially if Romney is the nominee, expect this to be rolled into Romney’s ‘corporations are people, my friend’ line, the Bain Capital stuff, and the recent ‘I like to fire people gaffe,’ with Occupy undertones, for Democrats (or their super PAC surrogates) to make an anti-corporate, Populist message for Obama’s reelection.”The RNC will argue next in favor of candidates for federal office being employees of the same corporations….even after being elected and assuming office.
Isn’t any different from President Obama being in bed with J.P. Morgan and now Citigroup.
Regardless, we need the Populist, anti-Corporate message in the mainstream. Campaign influence on both sides is the real current threat to Democracy.
That and stuff like the NDAA but, hey, who cares about that meaningless stuff.
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