Tax Protestor Crashes Plane Into Office Building.

[Vic Vega]

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus leaving a speech on health care by the President yesterday were met by tea party protesters chanting "Kill the bill, nigger." The incident has been confirmed by Congressmen John Lewis (D-Ga), Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo), Andre Carson (D-In), and House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC). Cleaver was spat on by a protester. In a separate incident, Barney Frank was called a "faggot" in what the Huffington Post describes as "deliberately lisp-y screams."

Note: these are ugly words, but what happened yesterday was ugly. I want to make it clear how ugly.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/03/tea_partiers_dr.php

Look the only reason these folks havent started burning crosses on the WH front lawn yet is because they figure they'd be shot for it.

[michaelintp]

Of course the fact that several Republican lawmakers and persons involved with the Tea Party movement strongly condemnend the slurs is disregarded here. Indeed, it is laughable how the 'Right Wing Bloggers' article cited above by Reginald references this fact, almost as a footnote, but spins around to disregard it, as though a couple of assholes yelling insulting slurs are somehow the fault of those who strongly disagree with the Administration's policies. By the same token, some idiot bloggers on the Internet merit greater attention than statements by Members of Congress.

We are not living in Alabama in 1963, but of course this is the spin. To distract people from the real issues.   

No surprise. That is what politics in America has turned into ... a slur fest.  Both from the Right and from the Left.

[Reginald Hudlin]

Well, besides nutcases like Bachmann who literally can't spell "America" in her press release, who are part of the Tea Bagger crowd, there are too many Republicans whose idea of a denunciation is "that was bad, but...the Democrats started it!".  No, the race baiting started with the Tea Baggers, and their historical antecedents. 

This is why I also posted the Christopher Buckley article.  He's certainly a man of conservative pedigree, and he's expressing frustration with the wingnut branch of his party. 

But back to my original question:  How is providing health care to more Americans a bad thing?  People certainly seem to like Medicare.

[michaelintp]

Reginald, on a personal note ... Do you think I personally condone racial slurs, or make excuses for them in any way whatsoever? Do you think my viewing Obama as emerging from the Progressive Wing (with all that entails) of the Democratic Party is off base? While we disagree, do you believe that my concerns (given where I am coming from in terms of economics) are nothing but a mere pretense to criticize President Obama because he is black?  I don't think you think this of me.

In answer to your healthcare question, there was a good op ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday and addressed your question:

The ObamaCare Crossroads
The vote is really about who commands the country's medical resources.

With the House's climactic vote on ObamaCare tomorrow, Democrats are on the cusp of a profound and historic mistake, comparable in our view to the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act. Everyone is preoccupied now with the politics, but ultimately at stake on Sunday is the kind of country America will be.

The consequences of this bill will not only be destructive for the health-care system and the country's fiscal condition, though those will be bad enough. Inextricably bound up in a plan as far-reaching and ambitious as ObamaCare are also larger questions about the role of government, the dynamism of American enterprise and the nature of a free society. Above anything else, this explains why Democrats have had such trouble convincing the public, let alone their own Members.

***
Most acutely in the balance is the future of U.S. medicine. On the opposing page we reprint a 1996 essay by the great Milton Friedman that is more relevant than ever. Drawing from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel "The Cancer Ward," the late Nobel laureate traces the ways that national health care fundamentally alters "the consensual relation between the patient and the physician."

In our world of infinite wants but finite resources, there are only two ways to allocate any good or service: either through prices and the choices of millions of individuals, or through central government planning and political discretion. This choice is inexorable. Stripped of its romantic illusions, ObamaCare is really about who commands the country's medical resources. It vastly accelerates the march toward a totally state-driven system, in contrast to reforms that would fix today's distorted status quo by putting consumers in control.

Friedman lays out how the country arrived at our current pass, starting with the World War II-era decision to offer tax subsidies for employer-sponsored coverage only. Like the company store, this inefficient and inequitable preference encourages workers to be paid in kind rather than cash, and over the years the third-party payer system it entrenched has inhibited competition and desensitized patients to the costs of their own care. With the 1965 creation of Medicare for seniors and Medicaid for the poor, government has come to play the leading role in shaping the way care is paid for and provided.

Naturally, the result has been high and rising costs. Since 1962, the share of the economy devoted to health care has risen to about 17% from 6%. Today, health entitlements account for about 5% of GDP but on current trend will rise to 7% in 2025 and about 15% in 2062.

That is the problem President Obama inherited, as it were. Yet rather than fundamentally changing these incentives, he chose instead to create a new middle-class insurance entitlement that will transform the way U.S. health care is financed, and thus delivered. Such a "universal" system has been the core liberal aspiration since the age of Bismarck. But time and again this political ambition has been thwarted by American individualism, distrust of government power, the checks and balances of the political system, and, every so often, good judgment in Washington.

Once the health-care markets are put through Mr. Obama's de facto nationalization, costs will further explode. The Congressional Budget Office estimates ObamaCare will cost taxpayers $200 billion per year when fully implemented and grow annually at 8%, even under low-ball assumptions. Soon the public will reach its taxing limit, and then something will have to give on the care side. In short, medicine will be rationed by politics, no doubt with the same subtlety and wisdom as Congress's final madcap dash toward 216 votes.

As in the Western European and Canadian welfare states, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies will over time become public utilities. Government will set the cost-minded priorities and determine what kinds of treatment options patients are allowed to receive. Medicare's price controls will be exported to the remnants of the private sector.

All bureaucratized systems also restrict access to specialists and surgeries, leading to shortages and delays of months or years. This will be especially the case for the elderly and grievously ill, and for innovation in procedures, technologies and pharmaceuticals.

Eventually, quality and choice—the best attributes of American medicine in spite of its dysfunctions—will severely decline.

Democrats deny this reality, but government rationing will become inevitable given that overall federal spending is already at 25% of GDP and heading north, and Medicare's unfunded liabilities are roughly two and a half times larger than the entire U.S. economy in 2008. The ObamaCare bill already contains one of the largest tax increases outside the Great Depression or the world wars, including a major new tax on investment income—and no one seriously believes it will be enough.

So a vote for ObamaCare is also a vote against the vitality of American capitalism. Business elites have mostly held their tongues, or calculated that they can later dump their health-care liabilities on the government. Yet ObamaCare will lead to much higher levels of taxation across society. The tax wedge—the share of labor costs that never reaches workers but instead goes straight to government—will start flying towards the 50% that prevails today in most of Europe. In America, without the same welfare state obligations, it hovers near 30%.

***
A self-governing democracy can of course decide that it wants to become this kind of super-welfare state. But if the year-long debate over ObamaCare has proven anything, it is that Americans want no such thing. There is no polling majority or any bipartisan support, much less a rough national consensus, for this expansion of government power. The election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts for Ted Kennedy's seat, of all things, was as direct a referendum as you could have.

So if the health bill passes in the House, it will only do so the way it did in the Senate, with a narrow partisan majority, abetted by political bribery and intimidation, budget gimmicks and procedural deceptions. An entitlement the country can't afford and doesn't want may pass because of sheer ideological willfulness. The ugliness of the bill, and of its passage, means that some or all of it might be repealable, but far better not to make the tragic mistake in the first place.

[Vic Vega]

Health care is already de facto rationed by personal means. That is if you are broke its the emergency room for you when you are seriously ill. And the rest of the time you suck it up.

Besides I'd like to see somebody go ON RECORD as saying they want Medicare, Medicaid AND the heath benefits the veterans get dismanted.  Since these programs have been around for decades and comprise a very large part if not the majority of Heath Care spending.

What the Health care bill does is regulate the non governmental part of the industry. No recisions, no failure to insure for pre-existing conditions. It exchage the Insurance industry get 30 millon new customers. They have little reason to complain (yet they did anyway).

I'd take the cost control issue serously when the pundits notice that a public option would have actually lowered costs by means of competition. If they're is a cheaper option out there Insurance Companies will adjust costs to keep pace. The same folks yelling for cost control were the exact same folks yelling for no public option and no group rates for pharmacuticals-(The VA hospital does allow for group bargaining and thier costs for prescription drugs are lower than folks on medicaid or medicare).

If folks get insured and go get regular checkup because they can now afford to, many illnesses will be nipped in the bud BEFORE they become serious and expensive.


 

[michaelintp]

Well, besides nutcases like Bachmann who literally can't spell "America" in her press release, who are part of the Tea Bagger crowd, there are too many Republicans whose idea of a denunciation is "that was bad, but...the Democrats started it!".  No, the race baiting started with the Tea Baggers, and their historical antecedents. 

This is why I also posted the Christopher Buckley article.  He's certainly a man of conservative pedigree, and he's expressing frustration with the wingnut branch of his party. 

But back to my original question:  How is providing health care to more Americans a bad thing?  People certainly seem to like Medicare.

First to Vic:  This is the nuttiest thread in the world, don'tcha think?  I think we should have named it, "Let's debate with Michaelintp about everything" thread.  Because we've gone so far afield from the original topic.  But whatever (I wish we had created a new thread; first about "racism" in the Tea Party Movement, and second, differing views on Obamacare (or at least have this discussion in the "Health Care" thread). But ... what is done is done, haha.

I am highly suspect of ANY new program of the magnitude of Medicare, operated by Government (with all the inefficiencies that entails). I think anyone who thinks that Government costs will diminish as a result is deluding himself.  Just as I think those folks are deluding themselves when they mock Conservatives because those Conservatives' mental time-frame goes beyond March 21, 2010, with regard to issues of the deficit, national debt, taxation, and the like.

Now to Reginald:  Regarding Bachmann, I understand that you don't like her.  I donno about the typo you refer to in some press release, but of course that is relevant to absolutely nothing. The reference does more in disclosing your feelings about the woman than anything else.

As to the Buckley article, he's pretty much pointing fingers at everyone, with the ultimate conclusion that we are in one hell of a mess.  Like me, I think he agrees that all this "slurring" back and forth is terribly unproductive.  But not likely to stop. The Wall Street Journal op ed outlined some of the origins of the mess we find ourselves in, and where it is now likely headed.

So long as political discourse is typified by the language of "hate" (nothing new, as in the mantra "I had Bush" -- remember that?) we can look forward to going further and further down the toilet. I think that was, in part, the message of Buckley as well.   

As to Buckley's comments as to tax increases ... how high is he willing to go?  Federal effective rates moving up to, say, 50% plus state rates exceeding 10% plus the "Alternative Minimum Tax" that denies deductions to folks who live in states that impose high income taxes, plus a plethora of other taxes (sales tax, use tax, and a number of others).  For goodness sake, why the hell work at all, if you are a slave to Government for 60-70% of the year?

Throughout this thread we have seen references to other Federal Programs, and just about everyone here ignores the reality that these programs (as projected) will bankrupt this country, and nobody (in DC) has the balls to address 'em because they are too politically sensitive.  I'm talking about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on, all the "nondiscretionary entitlement programs." The WSJ op ed touches on this a little bit as well. Add on top of that the other "income redistribution" programs, including the one that has recently engendered such controversy.

Everyone is so frickin' short-sighted (and in this, I am pointing the finger at both Republicans and Democrats). Like "Fiscal Responsibility" ... what's that?  Doesn't go beyond today (or at most, the next election). Seems like our Congress needs a good dose of Repo Men, to remind them that our national financial planning must actually contemplate tomorrow.

But, of course, my primary concern has always been the geopolitical (notwithstanding the content of this thread).

So I guess I should step back, breath deep, and enjoy a moment of calm. At the end of the day, I guess all these economic realities don't matter. Because true economic hell will not really break loose for a number of years, and by that time it is more likely than not that most of our cities will be in cinders, or at least significantly depopulated. That will reduce the cost of all those doggone entitlement programs.

Oh, and Reginald, I am really interested in your answer to my "personal note" questions, in my prior post. Honest. 

[Reginald Hudlin]

Michael, are you seriously asking that question of me?  At this point? Really?

[michaelintp]

Michael, are you seriously asking that question of me?  At this point? Really?

Good. That's all I wanted to hear. 

You see, I'm really not alone. Sure, there are some jerks, bigots, and so on ... but there really plenty of sincerely concerned folk as well. Though we may have highly divergent views, it is so important for all of us to remain aware of this (with regard to this issue and all other issues we discuss).

[moor]

Well, besides nutcases like Bachmann who literally can't spell "America" in her press release, who are part of the Tea Bagger crowd, there are too many Republicans whose idea of a denunciation is "that was bad, but...the Democrats started it!".  No, the race baiting started with the Tea Baggers, and their historical antecedents. 

This is why I also posted the Christopher Buckley article.  He's certainly a man of conservative pedigree, and he's expressing frustration with the wingnut branch of his party. 

But back to my original question:  How is providing health care to more Americans a bad thing?  People certainly seem to like Medicare.

First to Vic:  This is the nuttiest thread in the world, don'tcha think?  I think we should have named it, "Let's debate with Michaelintp about everything" thread.  Because we've gone so far afield from the original topic.  But whatever (I wish we had created a new thread; first about "racism" in the Tea Party Movement, and second, differing views on Obamacare (or at least have this discussion in the "Health Care" thread). But ... what is done is done, haha.

I am highly suspect of ANY new program of the magnitude of Medicare, operated by Government (with all the inefficiencies that entails). I think anyone who thinks that Government costs will diminish as a result is deluding himself.  Just as I think those folks are deluding themselves when they mock Conservatives because those Conservatives' mental time-frame goes beyond March 21, 2010, with regard to issues of the deficit, national debt, taxation, and the like.

Now to Reginald:  Regarding Bachmann, I understand that you don't like her.  I donno about the typo you refer to in some press release, but of course that is relevant to absolutely nothing. The reference does more in disclosing your feelings about the woman than anything else.

As to the Buckley article, he's pretty much pointing fingers at everyone, with the ultimate conclusion that we are in one hell of a mess.  Like me, I think he agrees that all this "slurring" back and forth is terribly unproductive.  But not likely to stop. The Wall Street Journal op ed outlined some of the origins of the mess we find ourselves in, and where it is now likely headed.

So long as political discourse is typified by the language of "hate" (nothing new, as in the mantra "I had Bush" -- remember that?) we can look forward to going further and further down the toilet. I think that was, in part, the message of Buckley as well.   

As to Buckley's comments as to tax increases ... how high is he willing to go?  Federal effective rates moving up to, say, 50% plus state rates exceeding 10% plus the "Alternative Minimum Tax" that denies deductions to folks who live in states that impose high income taxes, plus a plethora of other taxes (sales tax, use tax, and a number of others).  For goodness sake, why the hell work at all, if you are a slave to Government for 60-70% of the year?

Throughout this thread we have seen references to other Federal Programs, and just about everyone here ignores the reality that these programs (as projected) will bankrupt this country, and nobody (in DC) has the balls to address 'em because they are too politically sensitive.  I'm talking about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on, all the "nondiscretionary entitlement programs." The WSJ op ed touches on this a little bit as well. Add on top of that the other "income redistribution" programs, including the one that has recently engendered such controversy.

Everyone is so frickin' short-sighted (and in this, I am pointing the finger at both Republicans and Democrats). Like "Fiscal Responsibility" ... what's that?  Doesn't go beyond today (or at most, the next election). Seems like our Congress needs a good dose of Repo Men, to remind them that our national financial planning must actually contemplate tomorrow.

But, of course, my primary concern has always been the geopolitical (notwithstanding the content of this thread).

So I guess I should step back, breath deep, and enjoy a moment of calm. At the end of the day, I guess all these economic realities don't matter. Because true economic hell will not really break loose for a number of years, and by that time it is more likely than not that most of our cities will be in cinders, or at least significantly depopulated. That will reduce the cost of all those doggone entitlement programs.

Oh, and Reginald, I am really interested in your answer to my "personal note" questions, in my prior post. Honest. 

Tax Rate was essentially 40% early post WW2.  I'm assuming that's why we have highways, bridges, and reforested national parks.   The fleecing started well before Bush, Clinton and even Reagan, but gumption's been missing on Capitol Hill for a looooong time now. 

[michaelintp]

Moor, what was the Federal Income Tax Rate when Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks were created?

The "tax rate" is only the tip of the iceburg, in terms of determining the effective rate of taxation.  For example, prior to the 1986 Tax Reform Act, if a person earned $500,000 in earned income but lost $500,000 from operating crappy real estate ventures, he would have had a net income of zero and thus paid no tax (because at the end of the year, he had no more money than when he started).  After the Tax Reform Act, different types of income are placed in different "baskets" so a person can literally have no real net income, or even a net loss, and still owe tax from the income in another "basket."  That is just one example.  Today we also have the Alternative Minimum Tax that denies people the "benefit" of full deductions for charitable contributions, state and local taxes, interest deductions, depreciation deductions, and so on (if those deductions are too high for that individual - a real problem for ordinary folk who live in high tax states like California or New York, who are not wealthy and who get hit by the AMT).  Everyone acknowledges this is terribly unfair, but few in Congress are willing to repeal the AMT because the cut to the Government's take would simply be too large.  The only point I'm trying to make, with these simple examples, is that the mere comparison of the nominal maximum tax rate from decades ago and today is very misleading.

Beyond that, you don't have a problem with a person literally paying 40% of his income to the Federal Government, 12% of his income to the State, a meaningful percentage in state and local taxes, and (upon death) eventually a substantial estate tax? This means that for well over one-half of every year that person is working as a servant for the State, not even counting the amount the Master will eventually confiscate upon that person's death, screwing over the decedent's kids. To my way of thinking, when the Government's take starts to expand into many months of your labor, and also takes a meaningful part of your children's inheritance, the System has crossed the line from necessary taxation (to cover the very basic essentials that every State must provide) to the imposition of servitude.

We do not live in Ancient Egypt or Feudal Europe. All property does not belong to the King. The Individual does not live, and does not work, and does not retain his earnings, by the grace of the Monarch.

The important thing to remember when looking at someone else is ... it is not your money and it is not my money.  It belongs to the person who earned it.  It is his alone, to do with as he pleases (including using it for charitable purposes, if he wishes, something that used to be important to people).  That is what freedom is all about.

[Reginald Hudlin]

Michael, here's a great essay that expresses the heart of a lot of peoples' frustration with the Tea Party/Republican axis. The racist, bigoted, ignorant mean spirited attitude that is fueling much of the Tea Party movement, and the number of Republican lawmakers that at best either ignore or encourage such toxic behavior is as big a threat to this nation as deficits or national security.  These attitudes cannot be tolerated;  they destroy the country from within.


An Absence of Class
 
By BOB HERBERT
Published: March 22, 2010

Some of the images from the run-up to Sunday’s landmark health care vote in the House of Representatives should be seared into the nation’s consciousness. We are so far, in so many ways, from being a class act.

A group of lowlifes at a Tea Party rally in Columbus, Ohio, last week taunted and humiliated a man who was sitting on the ground with a sign that said he had Parkinson’s disease. The disgusting behavior was captured on a widely circulated videotape. One of the Tea Party protesters leaned over the man and sneered: “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town.”

Another threw money at the man, first one bill and then another, and said contemptuously, “I’ll pay for this guy. Here you go. Start a pot.”

In Washington on Saturday, opponents of the health care legislation spit on a black congressman and shouted racial slurs at two others, including John Lewis, one of the great heroes of the civil rights movement. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was taunted because he is gay.

At some point, we have to decide as a country that we just can’t have this: We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress — epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here.

It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.

For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.

This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.

Glenn Beck of Fox News has called President Obama a “racist” and asserted that he “has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

Mike Huckabee, a former Republican presidential candidate, has said of Mr. Obama’s economic policies: “Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff.”

The G.O.P. poisons the political atmosphere and then has the gall to complain about an absence of bipartisanship.

The toxic clouds that are the inevitable result of the fear and the bitter conflicts so relentlessly stoked by the Republican Party — think blacks against whites, gays versus straights, and a whole range of folks against immigrants — tend to obscure the tremendous damage that the party’s policies have inflicted on the country. If people are arguing over immigrants or abortion or whether gays should be allowed to marry, they’re not calling the G.O.P. to account for (to take just one example) the horribly destructive policy of cutting taxes while the nation was fighting two wars.

If you’re all fired up about Republican-inspired tales of Democrats planning to send grandma to some death chamber, you’ll never get to the G.O.P.’s war against the right of ordinary workers to organize and negotiate in their own best interests — a war that has diminished living standards for working people for decades.

With a freer hand, the Republicans would have done more damage. George W. Bush tried to undermine Social Security. John McCain was willing to put Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Oval Office and thought Phil Gramm would have made a crackerjack Treasury secretary. (For those who may not remember, Mr. Gramm was a deregulation zealot who told us during the presidential campaign that we were suffering from a “mental recession.”)

A party that promotes ignorance (“Just say no to global warming”) and provides a safe house for bigotry cannot serve the best interests of our country. Back in the 1960s, John Lewis risked his life and endured savage beatings to secure fundamental rights for black Americans while right-wing Republicans like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were lining up with segregationist Democrats to oppose landmark civil rights legislation.

Since then, the right-wingers have taken over the G.O.P. and Mr. Lewis, now a congressman, must still endure the garbage they have wrought.

[moor]

In 1918, the top rate of the income tax was 77% on income over $1,000,000 to finance World War I.... dropped to around 60% during the Great Depression and shot back as high as 94% (on all income over $200,000) in 1945.  Top marginal tax rates stayed near or above 90% until 1964 when the top marginal tax rate was lowered to 70%. The top marginal tax rate was lowered to 50% in 1982 and down to 28% under Pres. Bush in 1988.  In 1990, the top marginal rate was raised to 31% (which sealed the President's fate at one-term).  In 1993 Pres. Clinton raised the top marginal rate to 39.6%.  That tax rate remained until 01 when Pres. Bush lowered the top marginal rate to 35%.  Thanks to the sunset provision, this rate is scheduled to expire in 2011 and rates shall return to the '93 rates.

This was the top rate, not what ordinary folk were taxed, but my point remains - in what context, historically, have the working population in this country not been called upon to pay their share?  I don't recall studying about tea party movements during either of the Great Wars, or during the passage of Medicare and the Civil Rights Act. 

AMT was designed to help fund Vietnam, and was birthed during the LBJ administration, and implemented under Nixon.  It was designed as a check on the numerous tax loopholes for the rich, some of whom avoided paying taxes altogether.  It's failed to keep up with inflation, which is why it now slams some in the middle class, however Congress, time and time again, from Nixon to Clinton has had the opportunity to repeal it and refuses to do so.  Again, where where was the Tea Party platform during the budget crisis of the early 80s?  Drastic cuts for the upper income and increased military spending.... yet no outcry.  What about the 86 Reform Act?  Nothing... not a peep.   When Bush I increased taxes on the rich in 90, he sealed his legacy as a one-term president, but set the groundwork and all but handed the credit to Clinton for building the surpluses seen in the mid 90s. 

The historical context of apportioned taxing of those who can most afford it seems pretty clear to me.  I don't get why all of the partisan politicizing over middle class taxation when the real issue is what are we going to do about the wealthy who are grossly underpaying.  I'm not talking about the 200K folks either.

[Curtis Metcalf]

Just for clarification, the rates moor is quoting are the top marginal rates meaning the rate on the last dollar of taxable income. The actual rate (taxes paid / taxable income) is lower as the top marginal rate is applied to taxable income exceeding a threshold. That threshold is currently around $380,000.

So, at $400K, your average rate would be 28.71%. At $1M, the average rate would be 32.48%. Remember, that's taxable income, i.e. after deductions.

Here's a calculator to play with.

[michaelintp]

Advocacy of tax increases is usually typified by the attitude of "let the other guy pay."  "Let the 'rich' pay."  With the further subtext, "Maybe I'll benefit from the wealth transfers."  Today that passes for compassionate, charitable sentiment.

No wonder Conservatives give a higher percentage of their income to charity than those on the Left.

Also, the notion that the current Administration is not interested in significantly expanding the scope and size of Government ... does not comport with reality.

Michael, here's a great essay that expresses the heart of a lot of peoples' frustration with the Tea Party/Republican axis. The racist, bigoted, ignorant mean spirited attitude that is fueling much of the Tea Party movement, and the number of Republican lawmakers that at best either ignore or encourage such toxic behavior is as big a threat to this nation as deficits or national security.  These attitudes cannot be tolerated;  they destroy the country from within.


An Absence of Class
 
By BOB HERBERT
Published: March 22, 2010

Reginald, the Axis?  What images does that term conjure up?   

The article you posted very much reads to me as the mirror image of what one sees from the Radical Right.  I’m surprised you see it as a good article, constructive in any respect (other than serving its purpose of “preaching to the choir”).  The goal of the article seems to be to demonize Republicans and Conservatives.  This is nothing new from the Left, of course.

For example: “George W. Bush tried to undermine Social Security.” On the contrary, Bush recognized that where Social Security is headed is untenable, and tried to implement a rational fix, while most of the idiot politicians in Washington kept their heads in the sand because the sh*t would not hit the fan until years after the “next election.”

You would not know from the slanted screed (errr … article) that you posted that majorities in both parties (um … surprise … Republicans and Democrats) voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Yes, there were notable exceptions, like Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who voted against the bill, remarking, "You can't legislate morality."  However, Goldwater had supported previous attempts to pass Civil Rights legislation in 1957 and 1960. The reason for his opposition to the 1964 bill was Title II, which (given his libertarian bent) he viewed as a violation of individual liberty.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 

Goldwater later admitted he was wrong when opposing then embracing civil rights reform calling it “one of his greatest regrets.” And, coming from Goldwater, who always said it like it is (honestly conveying his true sentiments, even at political expense), I have no doubt that he meant it.  Recall his words (err ... or look at a video ... of his famous acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention):

 “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

These are sentiments that I could not agree with more. 

The author you cite, Bob Herbert, with his heart-wrenching anecdotal stories, snippits of quotes probably taken out of context, and purveying old stuff from the early 1960’s to bash Republicans and Conservatives a half-century later is … well, lame.  It serves nothing but a rhetorical purpose.  Though, no doubt, it is well received by its audience, to reinforce their hatred today of Republicans and Conservatives.  And to distract people from the real economic and geopoltical issues that face us. Which, very clearly, was the objective of the author.  He had his effect on you.

Reginald, please … this is 2010, not 1960.

[moor]

Advocacy of tax increases is usually typified by the attitude of "let the other guy pay."  "Let the 'rich' pay."  With the further subtext, "Maybe I'll benefit from the wealth transfers."  Today that passes for compassionate, charitable sentiment.

No wonder Conservatives give a higher percentage of their income to charity than those on the Left.

Also, the notion that the current Administration is not interested in significantly expanding the scope and size of Government ... does not comport with reality.

Let everyone pay, not just the rich.  But in that same respect, why should anyone be allowed to underpay? 

And, anecdotally, as a father of 2.5 who's firmly entrenched in the lower-middle end of the spectrum, I'll be the first to tell you that I'm hardly benefiting from any "wealth transfers". 

You could also argue that Conservatives who give higher percentages of their income benefit from doing so, but don't necessarily give more when based on other metrics of giving, such as hours worked, income foregone, etc., given the tax implications.

My last point would be this:  the last true fiscal conservative in the White House was Mr. Bush, Sr. - a man who by all counts has been largely ostracized by the descendants of his own party, and who arguably had missteps, but will probably never get the credit he deserved for trying to right the ship when he had a chance - his attempts to moderate on many policy decisions of his predecessor cost him his job.