Man that top 2% of American households sure have a lot of pull in the Senate. A lot of pull.

Did FDR have to put up with this kind of rubbish?

Let's be honest -- it would be horrible for millionaires if it went back to the tax rates under Clinton. Their portfolios would grow, their houses would increase in value -- the horror!

Gee, Obama doesn't have to do anything to raise taxes on the rich since they just have to expire. How dumb is the senator from Indiana?

The main concern for the public and businesses is health care which is a key component for economic recovery.

Mainstream thinking or CW is difficult to break through. No one likes paying taxes, but they are a necessary evil. If we want health care someone has to pay for it. That means all of us like it or not!

** Northern Observer Yes FDR, too, had to wade thru the same BS.

'Cause the only people they know or hang out with make well over $250k, and that is their reality. Screw the majority of their constituents.

"Man that top 2% of American households sure have a lot of pull in the Senate. A lot of pull."
Posted by: Northern Observer

I think the issue is most Senators pull in over $250k when you add in spousal and other income. I would love to see the numbers, but most I suspect are closer to $500k then to $250.

I just Googled Obama's income and CNNMoney.com has his 2006 income at $991k and his net worth at $1.3M. It would be nice if the media pointed out that Obama is going to raise his own taxes.

Others for 2006 in Millions
--------------
H Clinton
Income $12.1M
Net Worth $34.9M

Edwards
Income $3.7M
Net Worth $54.7M

Giuliana
Income $17.0M
Net Worth $52.5M

McCain
Income $3.9M
Net Worth $40.4M

Romney
Income $37.6M
Net Worth $202M

Thompson
Income $9.4M
Net Worth $8.1M

WTF, Steve? You seem to think that there are other people in this country that matter besides the very rich??

Steve Benen wrote: "Many seem to have internalized conservative, conventional thinking on taxes -- Obama wants to 'raise' them, centrists and Republicans don't like the idea."

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE stop pop-psychologizing the media's reporting on this and other issues and deal with the reality that the corporate-owned mass media is propagandizing the American people on behalf of its ultra-rich owners.

"Seem to have internalized conservative thinking"?

How about "the corporate-owned media seems to be reading the same scripted talking points from the same corporate-written script that the corporate-owned Republicans and corporate-owned 'conservative' Democrats are reading".

Another point to keep in mind is that doing nothing will raise the tax rate for the highest bracket to 39.6%. Bush’s 2001 tax cuts expire December 31, 2010. How do you call it an Obama tax increase if the top rates are being set by laws signed by Bush?

According to this handy tool ...
http://www.factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTGeoSearchByListServlet?_lang=en&_ts=254246262544

In 2000, Nebraska had ~8900 households with income over $200K out of a total of ~667K households.

In Indiana, that number is ~34000 out of ~2.3M households.

Senators Bayh and Nelson, is it really worth it to deny universal health care in order to keep these 43000 comfortable households paying artifically low taxes?

Another point to keep in mind is that doing nothing will raise the tax rate for the highest bracket to 39.6%. Bush’s 2001 tax cuts expire December 31, 2010. How do you call it an Obama tax increase if the top rates are being set by laws signed by Bush?

Kevin McC - Thanks for the tip. Here's a link. Not only does the 35% marginal rate go up to 39.6, as Kevin points out, but the top dividend rate does too, and the cap gain goes up to 20%. So what is Bayh talking about?

AGAIN, it's not just "Democratic centrists."

Russ Feingold has also expressed concerns about the budget omnibus bill.

Maybe someone should let Steve Benen know.

Can we bury the accusation that "tax and spend" is a bad idea? The only bad idea is "taxing and stealing" or "spending without taxing." Taxing and spending *is* the responsible thing to do. Its called *paying your bills* and to the extent that the country should consider its budget a family budget its what families do in times of trouble. They work harder, raise more money, and pay for what they need.

fuck heath shuler and the new dems.

aimai

SocraticGadfly wrote: "Russ Feingold has also expressed concerns about the budget omnibus bill."

Really? Is Russ Feingold expressing the same "concerns" that the so-called "centrist" Democrats have?

The same "concerns" that Steve Benen is writing about?

The "concern" that allowing the huge Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire on the schedule that Bush and the Republicans wrote into law is a "tax increase" on the American people as a whole, when in fact Obama's budget will reduce taxes for more than 90 percent of taxpayers?

Quoth Ben Nelson:

I have major concerns about trying to raise taxes in the midst of a downturn of the economy

How about we make a deal. If, when the tax increases are about to go into effect in 2011, we're still "in the midst of" the present economic downturn, we can consider the validity of that as an argument to repeal the tax increases. But we don't make policy today based on the assumption of an eternal downturn.

Many seem to have internalized conservative, conventional thinking on taxes

I'll stipulate that the Republicans will run ads claiming that all these Democrats raised taxes.

Republicans = Taliban

Centrist Dems = child-molesting Al Qaeda suicide bombers

Wealthcare.

We already have it folks, in the guise of bailouts.

Call it TARP, but it's wealthcare...taking care of the wealth of the few at the expense of the many.

But then again, isn't our government a government for the rich and nothing but the rich so help us god?

Obama was elected by the people.

He knows who needs higher taxes. (hint: it ain't the effluent....oops I mean affluent)

These guys are wrong on so many levels it's difficult to know where to start.

1) Tax rates remain WAY BELOW historical norms for the highest tax rates.

Highest tax rates under that commie socialist Ike: 91%

Highest tax rates under that pinko Nixon: 70%

Highest tax rates under that pinko commie lover Reagen: 50%

2) Everybody earning less than $250K get a tax cut!

3) Statutory corporate tax rate of 35% is a JOKE because most corporations don't pay anywhere near that rate. The effective tax rate is about 17% to 25% depending on the reports you trust, and about 1/3 of all corporations paid NO TAXES AT ALL.

If anything, the evidence suggests that the stupidly low tax rates help create the Bush Depression. Getting out of it will be difficult, and if history is any guide, taxing the rich at top tax rates of about 90% is a good place to start. This is what WORKED the last time we were in a depression.

How about making it clear that these are not Obama's tax increases; they are Bush's. Bush planned them, promised them, promoted them.

The so-called 'tax increase for the rich' isn't Obama's doing. See: Bush, George W.

ScottW -- Thompson has $9.4M in income, but only $8.1M in net worth? He must have a pretty amazing cash flow and buying habits.

The most important thing, jack that capital gains rate back up to the same as regular earned income. (Ironically, Reagan did that!- "broadening the base") There's no excuse for those flippers to get a better rate for their worthless trading, it's just a donor reward program.

" 'I have major concerns about trying to raise taxes in the midst of a downturn of the economy,' said [Sen. Ben] Nelson, the conservative Nebraska Democrat."

Both President Roosevelt and President Clinton raised tax rates on the Rich & Corporate "in the midst of a downturn of the economy", with SPECTACULAR results.

The most depressing thing is that people who are opposed to allowing tax cuts to expire when that expiration was specifically written into them to keep them from blowing a hole in the budget long-term call themselves "fiscally conservative" and the universal reaction isn't just to point and laugh.

Simple: cut ALL the "earmarks" put into the budget by these 14 traitors, as well as all the Republican earmarks, then let them vote on the lowered budget.

I'm always glad to have Ben Nelson remind me of why, back in the day when I did a lot of transcontinental driving, I always scheduled myself to hit Des Moines at dusk and Laramie at dawn, thus never seeing anything but a few lights in Nebraska.

It seems to me that the key to slowing the steadily increasing economic downturn requires, first, action to get consumers spending again. Everyone else in the economy, individuals and businesses alike, are depending on increased consumer action to save their financial butts.

So it makes sense to subsidize the mass of consumers with tax reductions, which the Obama plan does admirably. But that cost is going to have to be covered by the government somehow. It also makes sense to increase the taxes on those who are leaching off the consumers in order to pay for it.

Just because some conservative legislators (members in good standing of the "leach" class who are depending on increased consumer spending to preserve and augment their wealth) would object to him and his immediate circle of friends and supporters being singled out for minor tax increases to pay for this desperately needed stimulus. They really don't want the distinction between the critical mass of consumers and the "leach" class to get a hold on the public imagination. The problem is not the minor tax increase itself. The problem is that they have a major stake in the long term investment in convincing the public that everyone gets wealthier if the government is made smaller and less useful and money is fed to the wealthy (leach) class to trickle down to everyone else be some magic called "job creation." The truth is the practice of financing trickle down economics has led primarily to moving good jobs overseas where the jobs are created to make a larger profit for the "leaches."