One of the weirdest things about this very weird political season is that Republicans are excoriating President Obama for raising taxes. But he didn’t. A big part of the stimulus package was a tax cut for 95% of working families. For our house, it came to about $25 in every paycheck, every two weeks. The sad thing is that most people don’t realize it, and don’t give him credit for it. And so the lies continue to spread.
Continue reading →The most shocking story of the day is up at Think Progress: Tennessee County’s Subscription-Based Firefighters Watch As Family Home Burns Down . Seriously, Obion County has a subscription-based fire department that only covers those who subscribe, rather than the normal sort that is paid out of taxes and covers everyone. So firefighters came to the fire and watched as that family’s home burned to the ground. They hadn’t been paid, so they refused to help. It’s the perfect example of life under a libertarian, big business conservative vision of life, where we have no mutual responsibilities to our community … Continue reading →
Via Ezra Klein, I found this link to a Third Way proposal (PDF file) for a taxpayer receipt that would show how your portion of federal taxes is split among different government functions. This is the example they give: I love this idea! I think it is educational, perhaps even mind-blowing, to look at the details of where our taxes dollars are spent and in what proportion. When you think about the federal budget, the numbers are so huge that it is easy to be confused about the proportion that goes to the military, or to parks. Even though the … Continue reading →
I like this very much. It’s the clearest presentation I’ve seen of what’s at stake in the fight over the Bush-era tax cuts. I wish the White House had put this out weeks ago. Maybe then I wouldn’t have heard so much misinformation in the discussions on this subject on the news channels.
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