Taxing the rich can pay for everything

In this post at Working-class Perspectives, the blog of of the Center for Working-class Studies at Youngstown state Universtiy, author Jack Metzgar demonstrates how taxing the rich can pay for everything.

Taxing Only the Rich CAN Pay for Everything

It’s time for everybody who wants to say anything about “Obamacare” and taxes to tell the rest of us their income class. I live in one of the 13.5 million households with a six-figure income between $100,000 and $200,000. I could afford to give back the annual $2,500 tax cut George Bush gave me in 2001 and 2003, but our current president has pledged that he won’t allow my taxes to increase by a single dime.

I thought this was foolish and unfair when candidate Obama promised it, but now I understand why he put himself in this trick box. My income class serves as a sort of buffer zone to protect the working class from being attacked with taxes on their health insurance and soda pop. The only way to ever have a discussion about what to do about our rapidly growing income inequality is to leave us, the vast majority of middle-class professionals, harmless.

Read the whole post here...

Waiting For Obama

by Norman Markowitz

In the mid 1930s, playwright Clifford Odets, then a Communist Party USA member, wrote a powerful labor drama, Waiting for Lefty, which many believed caught the spirit of the time. Its main setting was union meeting where angry workers are debating whether or not to strike. An old guard union leader, named as I remember "Happy Fat," calls upon the workers to be moderate, wait, wait, wait for the new administration to provide aid, wait for a message from another official, Lefty, to give them more information. Finally, after the story of the workers struggle against the depression is told, a leftwing militant (to people at that time and place a Communist) passionately addresses the workers and tells them to abandon their illusions, that Lefty may never come, that they must strike and strike now. The play ends in a cathartic moment as the actors and the audience join together shouting Strike.

Today, we are all waiting for Obama as the economic crisis deepens around us. Today we are reading about auto executives asking for a federal bailout and the UAW being asked to make significant concessions (as if workers wages and benefits are somehow comparable to executive pay). No sane worker anywhere who has union based supplemental unemployment benefits for example would compare that to an "unemployed"executive's golden parachute.

If Agate Keller, the militant hero of Waiting for Lefty was around today (I hope I am spelling his name correctly because I have not really seen or read the play in a very long time and my internet access is erratic) he would tell workers to tell their union leaders that they did not create this disaster and they must not be punished for it. That a democratic government with a small d represents the people, not the corporations. That a Democratic congress and President with a big D was elected by labor and moderate and lower income people, not by big business and the wealthy, who have shown a very distinct preference in elections for the Republican party since the late 19th century.

"Bailouts" in advanced industrial countries of anything, banks, corporations, state and local governments, education, housing, can't be separated from serious regulation in the interests of workers and consumers. A socialist solution of course would be public ownership connected to job, benefit and wages guarantees to workers (an equivalent of the government "loan guarantees" to capitalists). The present "race" to save through bailouts the system from the top down without substantial protections and benefits for labor and moderate and low income people can only result in a greater political and social crisis. If congressional Democrats act like the fictional Happy Fat" in Waiting for Lefty, going along with corporate bailouts on corporate terms, they will be shooting themselves and the President in the foot even before the administration begins.

The Racist Edge of Bush's "Free Market" Agenda

Tax cuts for the wealthy and those who earn millions from capital investments, free trade and tax loopholes for companies who move jobs and production out of the country, federal investment in war and corporate cronies are the hallmarks of Bush's economic theory.

Reward your friends and punish your enemies.

This Bush axiom couldn't be more true in terms of the impact of Bush's economic fundamentalism on African Americans. The entire world saw the inhuman lack of concern and urgency Bush felt in responding to the humanitarian crisis following Hurricane Katrina, especially as it impacted areas where African Americans lived in large numbers. But the Bush economy has been grindingly and painfully eroding small economic African Americans were able to make in the 1990s and has widened the inequality gap.

The Center for American Progress recently published its analysis of economic trends in the African American community under the Bush regime using data culled from government sources. Among its findings were the following:

African Americans’ median income declined by an average of 1.6 percent per year under the current administration. In 2006, African Americans’ median income was $32,132, which is actually $2,603 lower than their median income of $34,735 (in 2006 dollars) in 2000. This is an annualized average growth rate of -1.6 percent. In contrast, this number increased at an annual average growth rate of 3.2 percent from 1992 to 2000. And African Americans’ median income is still substantially lower than Whites: In 2006, their median income was $32,132, as compared to $52,432 for Whites.

African Americans’ usual median weekly earnings have stagnated under Bush. In 2006, the usual median earnings of African Americans employed full-time was $554.00 per week—$136.00 dollars less than that of white Americans. In 2000, the usual median earnings of African Americans employed full-time was $553.14—in 2006 dollars—meaning that their usual median weekly earnings grew by just $0.86 under the current administration.

Under Bush, the percent of African Americans without health insurance has increased from 18.5 percent to 20.5 percent. In 2006, 7.9 million African Americans were not covered by health insurance. The rate of African Americans not covered by health insurance increased by an annual average percent point change of 0.30 between 2000 and 2006. This is a much different picture compared to the 1990s. From 1992 to 2000, the number of uninsured African Americans decreased from 20.1 percent to 18.5 percent, an average annual percent point change of -0.20.

The growth rate of the number of employed African Americans has been 4.2 times slower under the current administration than it was during the 1990s. Between 2000 and 2006, the number of employed African Americans grew on average by just 0.7 percent each year, which is markedly lower than the 2.8 percent annual growth rate experienced between 1992 and 2000. Additionally, this growth rate was noticeably faster than the 1.5 percent that Whites saw between 1992 and 2000, whereas under the Bush administration their growth rates have a difference of just 0.1 percent.

The employment to population ratio for African Americans has declined faster than that of the Whites under the current administration. In 2007, the employment to population ratio —the percentage of the civilian population that is employed—for African Americans stood at 58.4 percent compared to 63.6 percent for white Americans. Between 2000 and 2006, the employment to population ratio for African Americans declined by an average of -0.4 percent each year after increasing by 0.8 percent on average between 1992 and 2000. The employed share of the African-American population grew faster than the employed share of the White population throughout the 1990s, but has shrunk faster than Whites since then.

Unemployment levels for African Americans increased by an average of 0.2 percent each year under the current administration after declining in the 1990s. In 2007, the unemployment level of African Americans stood at a distressing 8.3 percent while white Americans hovered at 4.1percent. This is a sharp contrast to the movement of these levels throughout the 1990s, when African Americans' unemployment averaged an annual decline of -0.8 percent between 1992 and 2000. Importantly, Whites saw a slower decline in unemployment between 1992 and 2000 with an average growth rate of -0.4percent.

The increase in African-American homeownership has been slower under Bush than the 1990s. The homeownership rate for Whites increased three times faster than the homeownership rate for African Americans between 2000 and 2006. During this time, the homeownership rate for African Americans increased by an average annual growth rate of just 0.1, from 47.2 percent to 47.9 percent, whereas Whites’ homeownership rate increased by an average annual growth rate of 0.3 percent. This trend is in part because African Americans have actually seen their rate decline since 2004. Compare this to the 1990s, when African Americans’ homeownership rate increased by an average annual growth rate of 0.8 percent from 1994 to 2000. Whites' rate was 0.6 percent during this time (homeownership data by race are not available before 1994).

More African Americans are in poverty under Bush. More African Americans were in poverty in 2006 than in 2000, just after we saw a vast improvement the 1990s. In 2006, 24.2 percent of African-American individuals were in poverty. Compare this to 2000, when 22.5 percent were below the poverty line, a percentage point change of 0.28. Poverty among African Americans decreased substantially from 1992 to 2000, going from 33.4 percent to 22.5 percent, or an annual average percent point change of -1.36.