Bridging the Gap

You could call it Romnesia, but really and truly, has team Romney forgotten about Bush? Well that’s an excellent question, so here’s what WaPo’s Ezra Klein has to say about it in this excellent column:

“It was, after all, only four short years ago. And it didn’t go so well. The Bush economy is one of the worst on record. Median wages dropped. Poverty worsened. Inequality increased. Surpluses turned into deficits. Monthly job growth was weaker than it had been in any expansion since 1954. Economic growth was sluggish. And that’s before you count the financial crisis that unfurled on his watch. Add the collapse to the equation, and Bush’s record goes from “not so good” to “I can’t bear to look.”
Was all that his fault? Of course not. No economy is entirely under the president’s control. He didn’t create the tech bubble or 9/11. His responsibility for the financial crisis is, at best, partial. But Bush’s economic policies — including massive, deficit-financed tax cuts, and his reappointing of Alan Greenspan to lead the Federal Reserve — mattered. And, rightly or wrongly, the American people blame him for the aftermath. He left office one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history. And the anger has stuck: A recent YouGov poll found that 56 percent blame Bush “a great deal” or “a lot” for economic problems. Only 41 percent said the same about President Obama.

Given all that, you’d think Republicans would be running from anything or anyone who even vaguely reminded Americans of our 43rd president. In fact, the GOP seems eager to get the old gang back together.”

Interestingly, Romney is considering as his VP two of Bush’s budget directors, Mitch Daniels and Robert Portman.

If this is not enough, Romney is surrounding himself with Bush people. Moreover, there is Republican noise for Jeb Bush for VP, with some even wanting a brokered convention to nominate Jeb to run against President Obama!

And then Romney’s economic advisers, Greg Mankew and Glenn Hubbard, both chief economists for Bush. His health adviser, Lanhee Chen, worked on health policy for Bush – remember Medicare Part D, which was off-budget, adding to the deficit.

It is true that the Obama WH has plenty of Clinton people, they did not act in lock-step to Clinton policy, crafting the stimulus to counteract the economic depression, and enacting the P&P ACA, otherwise known as ObamaCare.

On the contrary, the Romney-Bush people are planning to reinstitute the Bush policies as follows:

“The Romney campaign’s rethink has been shallower. The candidate’s platform calls for extending all the Bush tax cuts and then adding more. It calls for repealing many of the new financial regulations but says nothing about what it would put in their place. The difference is that Romney talks much more about deficit reduction than Bush did and spends much less time emphasizing policies to reform the education system or expand health-care options for seniors. Where Bush sold himself as a “compassionate conservative,” Romney has sold himself as “severely conservative.””

Thus, it is as if Romney is unaware of the awful economic times we have been through, as his emerging program seems to focus on returning us to the same flawed Bush economic policies with many of the same old Bush people involved. This man Romney is a tsunami in the making; the American people need to understand and reject a regurgitation of the Bush disaster!

Considering the amount of work and responsibility the POTUS has, his gross pay has decreased significantly each year that he has served as our President. Moreover, in 2011, the Obama’s donated about 21% of the gross to charity.

In addition, VP Biden, considering the importance of his position, actually has a very modest income.

Here are is an overview of their Income Tax Returns:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and his family paid more than $160,000 in federal taxes last year on earnings of $789,674, the White House said Friday.

The president’s 2011 federal income tax return shows that about half of the first family’s income is the president’s salary. The rest comes from sales of Obama’s books.

Obama’s effective tax rate is just above 20 percent – lower than many Americans who earn less. He has made tax-rate fairness a campaign issue, arguing that millionaires and other very wealthy people should not pay a smaller share of their incomes in taxes than people who earn much less.

“He believes that people like him should be paying an effective tax rate that is no lower than the rate paid by hard-working, middle-class Americans,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday.

The White House did not say exactly what rate Obama thinks would have been fair for him in 2011, but using a calculator posted on the White House web site, more than 56,000 millionaires would have paid taxes at a lower rate.

Obama’s proposed “Buffett Rule” would not have applied to him last year, since he earned less than $1 million.

The plan is named for Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained that rich people like him pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than middle-class taxpayers do. Many wealthy taxpayers earn investment income, which is taxed at 15 percent. Obama has proposed that people earning at least $1 million annually – whether in salary or from investments – should pay at least 30 percent of their incomes in taxes.

The push for the realignment draws renewed attention to the effective tax rate of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a millionaire who is paying 15.4 percent in federal taxes for 2011 on income mostly derived from investments.

By contrast, the top nominal rate for taxpayers with high incomes derived from wages, not investments, is 35 percent.

The White House released a copy of the president’s tax return, which also shows charitable donations of more than $172,000.

Obama is donating after-tax proceeds from his children’s book to the Fisher House Foundation. The charity helps veterans and military families receiving medical treatment.

The family tax return is fairly simple by the standards of wealthy people with multiple assets and sources of income. Obama listed his two daughters as dependents and his occupation as “U.S. President.” Michelle Obama listed her occupation as “U.S. First Lady.” They listed 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as their primary address.

The first family reported income of $1.7 million for 2010, much of it from the sale of the president’s books. They paid federal taxes of $453,770.

Their adjusted gross income for 2010 was far below the $5.5 million they reported for 2009, also mostly from book sales.

Carney said Obama earned even less in 2011 because of “fluctuations” in book sales.

For Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, this year’s tax return looks almost identical to last year’s.

Returns for 2011 released by the White House show the Bidens paid $87,900 in federal taxes on adjusted gross income of $379,035. Their income was $143 below their 2010 return, but their tax bill was $1,274 higher. In both cases, the effective tax rate was just over 23 percent.

On the latest return, the Bidens listed $5,540 in donations to charity.

Most of the couple’s income came from the vice president’s salary of $225,521 and Mrs. Biden’s wages of just over $82,000 for teaching at Northern Virginia Community College.

Paul Krugman has written a wonderful column which reveals the Ryan Plan for the disaster it really is for our country, and questions why more people, centrists in particular, are not criticizing it the way President Obama has, his calling it a “Trojan Horse”.

“So, can we talk about the Paul Ryan phenomenon?

And yes, I mean the phenomenon, not the man. Mr. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the principal author of the last two Congressional Republican budget proposals, isn’t especially interesting. He’s a garden-variety modern G.O.P. extremist, an Ayn Rand devotee who believes that the answer to all problems is to cut taxes on the rich and slash benefits for the poor and middle class.

No, what’s interesting is the cult that has grown up around Mr. Ryan — and in particular the way self-proclaimed centrists elevated him into an icon of fiscal responsibility, and even now can’t seem to let go of their fantasy.

The Ryan cult was very much on display last week, after President Obama said the obvious: the latest Republican budget proposal, a proposal that Mitt Romney has avidly embraced, is a “Trojan horse” — that is, it is essentially a fraud. “Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country.”

The reaction from many commentators was a howl of outrage. The president was being rude; he was being partisan; he was being a big meanie. Yet what he said about the Ryan proposal was completely accurate.

Actually, there are many problems with that proposal. But you can get the gist if you understand two numbers: $4.6 trillion and 14 million.

Of these, $4.6 trillion is the revenue cost over the next decade of the tax cuts embodied in the plan, as estimated by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. These cuts — which are, by the way, cuts over and above those involved in making the Bush tax cuts permanent — would disproportionately benefit the wealthy, with the average member of the top 1 percent receiving a tax break of $238,000 a year.

Mr. Ryan insists that despite these tax cuts his proposal is “revenue neutral,” that he would make up for the lost revenue by closing loopholes. But he has refused to specify a single loophole he would close. And if we assess the proposal without his secret (and probably nonexistent) plan to raise revenue, it turns out to involve running bigger deficits than we would run under the Obama administration’s proposals.

Meanwhile, 14 million is a minimum estimate of the number of Americans who would lose health insurance under Mr. Ryan’s proposed cuts in Medicaid; estimates by the Urban Institute actually put the number at between 14 million and 27 million.

So the proposal is exactly as President Obama described it: a proposal to deny health care (and many other essentials) to millions of Americans, while lavishing tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy — all while failing to reduce the budget deficit, unless you believe in Mr. Ryan’s secret revenue sauce. So why are centrists rising to Mr. Ryan’s defense?

Well, ask yourself the following: What does it mean to be a centrist, anyway?

It could mean supporting politicians who actually are relatively nonideological, who are willing, for example, to seek Democratic support for health reforms originally devised by Republicans, to support deficit-reduction plans that rely on both spending cuts and revenue increases. And by that standard, centrists should be lavishing praise on the leading politician who best fits that description — a fellow named Barack Obama.

But the “centrists” who weigh in on policy debates are playing a different game. Their self-image, and to a large extent their professional selling point, depends on posing as high-minded types standing between the partisan extremes, bringing together reasonable people from both parties — even if these reasonable people don’t actually exist. And this leaves them unable either to admit how moderate Mr. Obama is or to acknowledge the more or less universal extremism of his opponents on the right.

Enter Mr. Ryan, an ordinary G.O.P. extremist, but a mild-mannered one. The “centrists” needed to pretend that there are reasonable Republicans, so they nominated him for the role, crediting him with virtues he has never shown any sign of possessing. Indeed, back in 2010 Mr. Ryan, who has never once produced a credible deficit-reduction plan, received an award for fiscal responsibility from a committee representing several prominent centrist organizations.

So you can see the problem these commentators face. To admit that the president’s critique is right would be to admit that they were snookered by Mr. Ryan, who is the same as he ever was. More than that, it would call into question their whole centrist shtick — for the moral of my story is that Mr. Ryan isn’t the only emperor who turns out, on closer examination, to be naked.

Hence the howls of outrage, and the attacks on the president for being “partisan.” For that is what people in Washington say when they want to shout down someone who is telling the truth.”

Here is a brief video which explains in simple terms the benefits we Americans are already accruing and will accrue from the Affordable Care Act:

In a recent dialog between Bill Moyers and Jonathan Haidt, the following exchange between Lesley Stanl and House Majority Leader John Boehner illustrates a major problem encountered since the Cheney/Bush administration came to power:

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: We have to govern, that’s what we were elected to do.

LESLEY STAHL: But governing means compromising.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: It means working together.

LESLEY STAHL: It also means compromising.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: It means finding common ground.

LESLEY STAHL: Ok, is that compromising?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: Let me be clear I am not going to compromise on my principles, nor am I going to compromise the will of the American people.

LESLEY STAHL: You’re saying “I want common ground but I’m not going to compromise.” I don’t understand that, I really don’t.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: When you say the word compromise, a lot of Americans look up and go, ‘oh, oh, they’re going to sell me out.’ And so finding common ground, I think, makes more sense.

LESLEY STAHL: I reminded him that his goal had been to get all the Bush tax cuts made permanent. So you did compromise.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: We found common ground.

LESLEY STAHL: Why won’t you say– you’re afraid of the word!

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: I reject the word.

Mr Boehner here is exhibiting a trait which we have seen over and over again with Congressional Republicans in the last decade, which is, they cannot compromise. Here is Mr Haidt’s explanation:

“Once you’ve crossed over from normal political disagreement into Manichaean good versus evil, to compromise, I mean, we say, you know, his ethics were compromised, you don’t compromise with evil. Now, I think it’s especially an issue for Republicans because they are better at doing, sort of, tribal team based loyalties. The data we have at http://www.yourmorals.org/index.php shows that conservatives score much higher on this foundation of loyalty, groupishness.”

This is what I call the “absolutist” mentality. An absolutist simply cannot compromise, because it has to do with inerrant principles.

To explain this, Mr Haidt makes a distinction between The Greatest Generation, Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neal, who came of political leadership age post WWII through the ’80′s, and the Baby Boomers, Newt Gingrich, who began taking power in the ’90′s.

The Greatest Generation fought World War II. Came home. Built the country, ran the economy, and created a consensual government.

On the other hand, there are the Baby Boomers:

It’s not responding together to a foreign threat. It’s fighting each other over whether this country is doing evil, or good. So you get the good/evil dichotomy about America, and about each other happening in the ’60s, and ’70s, when these people grow up, assume political office. Now, you got Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. It’s a lot harder for them to agree than it was for Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan.

This was the beginning of polarized politics, which over the last decade has grown extreme on the Right, as evidenced by the fact that all the offers to compromise came from the Left, whereas the Right used any tactic to avoid compromise, in fact, to obstruct, to obfuscate, and practically shut the government down.

To see the entire 47 minute dialog, watch this:

Jonathan Haidt Explains Our Contentious Culture from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Republicans determine not to mention that federal taxes under President Obama are the lowest since WWII, including the Bush tax cut years. Lest we forget:

Mike Lofgren, retired in June 2011 after 28 years as a staff member in the U.S. Congress, most recently for Senate Budget Committee Republicans, explains here how the media has done such an inadequate job in covering tax policy, not holding the politicians accountable for their “flimflam”, thus favoring Republican tax policy.

I have pointed out may times on CSPT that an examination of tax policy and its impact must take into account the total tax picture, meaning including all other taxes such as property taxes, sales taxes, social security taxes, medicare taxes, gasoline taxes, fuel oil taxes, alcohol taxes, which, when added up, cause our tax system to be regressive on the middle and poor. This is poor tax policy!

And then we have the Mitt Romney federal tax proposal, which makes matters even worse for the middle and poor:

“Several of the other Republican contenders have tax plans similar to Cain’s. The plan being pushed by Mitt Romney, the putative front-runner, is as follows: those making more than $1 million annually would receive an average federal income tax cut of $145,000 by 2015, while those making less than $40,000 would see their federal income taxes increase.”

Mr Romney recently claimed that he isn’t concerned about the poor, because they have “a safety net” which he will fix if needed, isn’t concerned about the wealthy because they’re “doing fine”, but that he wants to focus on the middle class because they are struggling.

Obviously, Mr Romney is not telling the truth, and neither do his Republican colleagues, who speak only about federal taxes, and not about the impact on the poor and middle from the total tax hit which they get.

Put this together with the stagnant wages during the past three decades, and you have one major reason of many why so many Americans are struggling and suffering these days. Do Mr Romney and the Republicans care? The answer is obvious!