Did you see the GOP presidential debate in Florida this week? It was a bunch
of millionaires bickering about who owned how many stocks in Fannie Mae,
what "blind trusts" were all about, defining who illegals*
were, how they paid their taxes, and what Swiss banks accounts were used for.
* Mitt said he was pro-immigration, and he used
his father as an example, even though his dad was born to American citizens
in Mexico.
The presidential candidates at the debate complained that low income earners
and the abject poor were the cause of our high cost for healthcare. You know who
I mean, all those lazy "free riders" who are gaming
the system to collect unemployment benefits, take
drugs, and don't
pay any taxes.
You know who I'm talking about, those "other" Americans, many who
are grandmothers, military veterans, and college graduates - - those who are now
destitute and need food stamps, just because of people like Rick Santorum,
Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and George W. Bush. They, and almost
everyone else in the top 1%, can't possibility feel the pain of the 99%, and
most probably don't care.
"If you don't have a job, blame yourself!"
We
didn't outsource all the jobs that could have paid us a "living
wage" just so that we could all over-work and under-pay ourselves - - or so
that we might qualify for food stamps and become "free riders".
As far as taxes are concerned, according
to Leonard Burman (a tax expert and a professor of public affairs at the Maxwell
School of Syracuse University) the solution to our unfair tax code, is
relatively straightforward...just tax the rich as everyone else is taxed.
Simple. The top 1% has had these unfair
tax breaks for the past 100 years.
Mr. Burman suggested we return to some of the principles of the Tax Reform
Act of 1986 that was championed by Ronald Reagan - - broaden the base, lower
overall tax rates, and tax capital gains and unearned income at
the same level as ordinary income.
We need to simplify the income tax code and eliminate many tax shelters and
other preferences (such as the special tax rate that Mitt Romney and the top 1%
pays for capital gains, dividends, etc.)
But we should NOT impose a flat tax or consumption tax (like a VAT
tax) as the Republicans propose, because that would only put a higher burden of
taxation on middle-class and low-income earners, since the greater proportion of
their earnings are spent on consumption (basic living expenses) than the top 1%
spends doesn't spend proportionately to their overall income.
Here’s a quick rundown of what the Federal income tax brackets are expected
to be for 2012:
Tax Bracket
Married Filing Jointly
Single
10% Bracket
$0 – $17,400
$0 – $8,700
15% Bracket *
$17,400 – $70,700
$8,700 – $35,350
25% Bracket
$70,700 – $142,700
$35,350 – $85,650
28% Bracket
$142,700 – $217,450
$85,650 – $178,650
33% Bracket
$217,450 – $388,350
$178,650 – $388,350
35% Bracket
Over $388,350
Over $388,350
* This is the special tax rate that Mitt
Romney and the top 1% pays for capital gains and dividends (etc),
rather than being taxed as ordinary wages, even though it's all still personal
income that they're earning.
Also, what many people don’t realize is that our progressive federal income
tax brackets reflects marginal tax rates, not a rate that is applied to
your entire income. Here’s a quick example based on the current income
tax rates…
A married couple filing jointly in 2012 with a taxable income of $100,000
Their income from $0 to $17,400 is taxes at 10%.
Their income from $17,400 to $70,700 is taxed at 15%.
Their income from $70,700 to $100,000 is taxed at 25% - they don’t have to pay
25% in federal income taxes on the full amount they earn. This works out
to a less effective tax rate they pay.
And here are a few related points:
The personal and dependency exemption will rise to $3,800
The standard deduction for married filing jointly will rise to $11,900
The standard deduction for singles will rise to $5,950*
* A single person with no children who earns $8,700 or less should only pay
10% for federal income tax on $2,750 after their $5,950 standard deduction. This
would also include unemployment benefits. A single person earning $10,890 or
less is considered to be earning poverty
wages.
If someone earned over $35,350, they would pay a higher tax rate than the
13.9% effective tax rate that Mitt Romney paid on $21.6 million in 2010;
and Mitt also has an expected tax rate of only 15.4% on $20.9 million that he
earned last year.
Last year 50% of all U.S. workers earned
less than $26,364 - - and the
poverty level for a family of four is $22,350. Many
of them earn so little that the standard deduction and personal exemptions
might only absolve them from paying any federal income taxes (but they
still must pay all other taxes).
And of those families that can afford their own healthcare insurance,
they paid an average of $414
per month last year. The unemployed who might have been eligible for COBRA
also couldn't afford the high insurance rates. It's not that they're "free
riders", they just can't afford the cost of healthcare insurance after they
pay for rent, heat, electricity and food.
It should also be noted that the burden of taxation on these low-income
earners is higher than on the top 1%, because 100% of their earnings are taxed
for Social Security, whereas millionaires like Mitt Romney have their Social
Security taxes capped on the first $110,000 of all their earnings.
During one debate in Florida, Mitt Romney called those that made so little
money and couldn't afford their own healthcare plan "free-riders" for
using emergency rooms in the hospitals whenever they or their children got sick
or injured.
Why do all the Republicans and Mitt Romney always castigate
the poor, low-income earners, and the unemployed? Especially when they are
so fortunate themselves? Why do they always blame the unemployed, the poor, the
"illegals", and the low-income earners for all this nation's problems?
They have a lot of nerve complaining about the poor and low-income workers,
saying "45% of Americans pay no taxes at all" - - and that we "should
put more skin in the game". They've already skinned us alive!
And how many people have the Republicans, the top 1%, and Mitt Romney been
responsible for making people like me "free riders"? It's THEY
who have created the vast income disparity, the wealth inequality, and the high
unemployment rate...not us.
And it seems to me that with their unfair
tax breaks for the past 100 years, it's been THEY who have been
waging a class war on US, and that THEY have been the
"free riders".
Tell congress to change the tax code...no more free riders!
And why aren't the top percent's capital gains taxed as regular income?
And why do they accuse the poor and unemployed of waging a class war against the
ultra-wealthy?
Let's briefly review a few of the millionaire's, billionaire's, and
Republican's talking points regarding a fairer tax code:
"We don't want to raise taxes on anyone."
"The rich pay more in taxes than anyone else."
"We shouldn't be taxing the job creators in a bad
economy."
"We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending
problem."
"45% of all Americans don't pay any taxes at all."
"If you raise my taxes, I might have to quit my job." - Bill
O'Reilly
"Taxing capital gains is double taxation."
"Taxing millionaires will kill their ambition and discourage investment."
"Raising taxes on millionaires is punishing success."
"Taxing the rich and giving to the poor is a redistribution of
wealth."
"Raising taxes on the rich is a form of socialism."
Mitt Romney recently used the
old argument of "double taxation" because corporations pay a corporate
tax before allocating personal income to their top executives (salaries,
bonuses, stock options, etc).
In 1921 was when capital gains were first taxed at the preferential rate of
only 14.5%, and they went to their highest rate in 1977 when they
were taxed at 49%. Today they're only 15%, thanks to the Bush tax cuts - -
about where they were 90 years ago when
the tax code was first changed to no longer tax capital gains as regular
income.
Congress understood this part of the tax code for almost a century. The
working-class has been hoodwinked all this time. Mitt
Romney doesn't even come close to a ranking on the 2011 Forbes
Fortune 400 list, but he and almost everyone else in the top 1% has been
paying a lower tax rate than almost everybody else has been for many decades.
But now that we know this, millionaires, billionaires, and Republicans like
to tout that 45% of all Americans pay no taxes at all. That's a flat-out lie.
This 45% they're referring to are those who earn
less than $27,000 a year, when the
poverty line for a family of four is $22,314. With child credits and other
personal deductions, they might not be obligated to pay federal income taxes,
but they pay many other taxes through consumption.
Most people in this very low income bracket spends almost ALL
their income in "personal consumption" for the very basic necessities.And guess what? Millionaires, billionaires, and Republicans
want to impose a consumption tax (e.g. flat tax or VAT tax) on
them too! Unbelievable!!!
Now in 2011 we have 30
million under or unemployed Americans and another 75
million earning near poverty wages. Millionaires, billionaires, and
rich Republicans are now complaining because very poor people don't have to pay
taxes. That's just like calling paraplegics lazy and complaining about them not
having to go to work! Crazy!
Besides, I thought they didn't want to raise taxes on "anyone".
But instead, the very rich would rather deny those with so little, just so that
those with so much, wouldn't have to pay a little more. That's just plain
disgusting and immoral! It's nothing more than raw greed. When is enough
ever enough for these people? And when is it ever too
much?
In 2010, notes Syracuse University tax expert Len Burman, Americans making over $1 million that year
earned $258 billion just in capital gains...and they all paid Mitt Romney's very
low tax rate.
John
Hammergren, the top exec at the California-based McKesson, pocketed $145
million last year after cashing out stock options. He pays a lower tax rate on capital gains while not even breaking a
sweat -- less than someone else that's earning $35,000 a year breaking their back.
JPMorgan filings last week revealed CEO Jamie Dimon will receive $17.6 million in stock awards for 2011, a little boost from the $17.1
million in stock he grabbed in 2010. Can you say a 15% tax rate?
Also at JPMorgan: the head of investment banking, James E. Staley, was granted restricted stock valued at $7.8 million and he has
options valued at an added $2 million. Mary E. Erdoes, head of asset management, received restricted stock valued at $7.1 million
and a further $2 million in options. All pay the very low15% tax rate.
Morgan Stanley’s CEO James P. Gorman will receive $9.7 million in deferred compensation for his work last year, according to a
regulatory filing. This number includes $4.7 million in deferred cash and equity linked stock and an additional $5 million in restricted
stock. In 2010, Mr. Gorman received $7.4 million in stock and his total compensation for the year was $14 million (taxed at 15%)
These numbers also include Mr. Gorman’s base salary of $800,000 (only this part of his salary
might be taxed as ordinary income after deductions).
Other senior executives at Morgan Stanley: The wealth management chief, Gregory J. Fleming, and Paul J. Taubman, co-head of
institutional securities, were both granted restricted stock valued at $3.4 million. Colm Kelleher, the other co-president of institutional
securities, received restricted stock valued at $1.9 million. His grant is less because he is based in Britain and there are different
requirements on the mix of his pay. Ultimately, he will receive the same as Mr. Fleming and Mr. Taubman, a company spokesman
said. Morgan did not release how much deferred cash these senior executives will receive.
Citigroup also disclosed that its CEO John P. Havens received a stock award valued at $3.47 million. Its consumer banking chief,
Manuel Medina-Mora, got $2.64 million and its chief risk officer, Brian Leach, received an award valued at $2.36 million, according to
regulatory filings. All of them pay a 15% tax rate (the middle-class pays the
higher 25% tax rate).
Look at our defense
industry: Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens earned $21.9 million, Northrop
Grumman CEO Wes Bush reaped $22.8 million, and Boeing CEO James
McNerney cleaned up with $19.4 million...ALL IN ONE YEAR...and they all
only paid 15% for taxes on their stock options for "performance"
compensation.
In 1963 the highest
marginal income tax rate was 91% on base salaries or wages earned as
"regular income", today most of the top 1% use this "capital
gains tax loophole" to avoid paying the higher tax rate of 35% for the top
marginal rate by paying the lower 15% capital gains rate.
In all fairness though, one rich man had whined that he had to pay an effective personal income tax rate of 53 percent last year
-- and he would favor a flat tax. Blackstone Group LP Chairman Stephen Schwarzman
said he was taxed at 36 percent by the U.S. and 17 percent by state and local
governments (but we all have to pay state and local taxes, even those
poor people I mentioned earlier.)
Schwarzman was paid a $350,000 salary last year, but he didn't receive any
stock options or a bonus that year.
But what Schwarzman didn't say was that he owns about $399.2 million worth of
Blackstone vested stock, and the value of his unvested stock was worth
$544.7 million. When Schwarzman cashes out, he will only have to pay the lower
tax rate of 15% for capital gains.
Stephen Schwarzman was ranked 169th on Forbes
magazine’s list of the world’s richest people earlier this year, with an
estimated net worth of $5.9 billion. Poor guy. He had to pay the regular top
marginal tax rate last year....boo-hoo.
But yet, the rest of us will either have to pay a higher tax rate than he
does if we earn $35,000 a year -- or unless you're very poor and not have
to pay any federal tax at all. But then you'd be envied and castigated by the
very rich.
Poor Mitt Romney...his $370,000 in speaking fees last year (that he says, "wasn't
very much") might have been taxed at 35%...because it wasn't a stock
option, a SWAG
investment, carried interest, a gift, an inheritance, a generation-skipping
estate, a trust find, or a capital gain...it was just plain old ordinary
"earned" income...like we earn.
Obama suggested that anyone earning more than $1 million a year should be
taxed at 30%...which would also mean lowering the top marginal rate of 35% for regular
earnings over $380,000 a year.
Yet all the millionaires, billionaires, and Republicans want ALL their capital
gains to be taxed lower than the current 15% rate. Herman Cain had wanted them
to be taxed at 9% in his 9-9-9 Plan. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich wants capital
gains taxed at ZERO percent!
I like Obama's tax plan much better. Maybe then we can pay off the national
debt and save Social Security. And the ultra-rich can castigate me all they want
to, I wouldn't care. We would have won a battle in the "class war"
that the uber-rich has waged against us over the past several decades by bribing
lobbying our congress for preferential tax rates.
The millionaires, billionaires, CEOs, bankers, and Republicans have accused
Obama of waging a class war and "dividing" the country. Dividing the
1% and 99%? The Republicans have always divided the county...the rich against
the poor, the middle-class against the working-class, and the whites against the
African-American and Hispanic communities.
In reality, it's always been the millionaires, billionaires, and Republicans
who have been guilty of waging class war and dividing the country...and
castigating the poor, the unemployed, and me.
As of last month, Warren
Buffett was #2 on the Forbes 400 List, second only to Bill Gates. And Bill
O'Reilly's name was nowhere on the list. I mention this because Warren
Buffett (a multi-billionaire) was generously asking to pay more in federal
income taxes, whereas Bill O'Reilly (a multi-millionaire) was constantly
whining about the mere possibility of having to pay more in taxes.
He even threatened to quit his gig at Fox News (as though that
might be a loss to society).
It would be foolish of Warren Buffett to be the only wealthy man to
voluntarily contribute a larger share of his earnings in income taxes to help
finance the needs of our government. As one man, it would make little difference
in revenues to the U.S. Treasury, our national debt, or our annual budget. It
would take a collective effort by all patriots in the top 1% income
bracket in order to really achieve a substantial difference.
But we can't expect most of these people to simply donate more money, as
though it were charity. We would have to make them honor-bound to contribute
more as responsible citizens; but not by simply asking them to, but by
instructing them to do so by law. That's the civilized way. We don't ask, we
don't demand, we don't beg, and we don't threaten. We just simply pass a law.
A wealthy and/or a powerful person rarely relinquishes their wealth or
voluntarily surrenders their power. Despots don't. Dictators don't. Czars don't.
Kings don't. Presidents don't. And neither will the wealthiest 1%. It's usually
the people (the masses) that must take these things from them by force. But I
don't propose that we do this by using violence, but by peaceful means.
Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father (and
part of the wealthiest 1%) once wrote in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy on
November 13, 1789 - "Our new Constitution is now established, and has an
appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be
certain, except death and taxes."
So I say, in order to more fairly redistribute the wealth of this nation (to
stop the hoarding) so that we might restore the heath of the nation's
indebtedness, restore the standard-of-living to the middle class, and restore
our infrastructure, let's not kill the richest 1% of our population, but tax
them into compliance with our collective will. That is the civilized way. We
don't ask, we don't demand, we don't beg, and we don't threaten. We just simply
pass a law.
And the only way we can do that is to elect people to Congress who will sign
a vow to get money out of politics and to vote on taxing the uber-wealthy at a
tax rate that we had previously taxed them at...and that's at any other time
before the George W. Bush tax cuts.
A good many wealthy Americans will whine and complain, because they have no
empathy for the middle-class or poor, and they are not true patriots in regards
to the financial health and national security of this great nation...nor the
well-being of it's most unfortunate citizenry.
Many are just self-serving and greedy (almost narcissistically and
pathologically indifferent), such as rich Republican and Tea Party
millionaires like Bill O'Reilly, Paul Ryan, Sean Hannity, Eric Cantor, Glenn
Beck, Rick Santorum, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch bothers, Michele Bachmann, Paul
Rand, Nikki Haley, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh, Newt
Gingrich, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and the rich Republican members of Congress.
The movie stars, drug lords, professional athletes, rock stars, Hollywood
celebrities, best-selling novelists, celebrity heiresses, organized crimes
bosses, and all the thieves at Goldman Sachs have been conspicuously
silent on this issue.
But I'm sure most corporate CEOs, bankers, hedge fund managers, talk radio
show hosts, and Fox News commentators don't want to see their taxes
raised a dime, no matter what the consequences are to the people or the nation
as a whole.
But there is one group called the Patriotic
Millionaires for Fiscal Strength who are willing to be taxed more. It's
almost reassuring to know that someone of means still has a strong moral sense
of social responsibility. Michael Moore wrote a letter yesterday on this very
subject called Life
Among the 1%.
And another group united under the banner of "We are the 1 percent:
We stand with the 99 percent" who are a band of entrepreneurs, trust
fund babies, professionals and inheritors who have taken to the web to share
their abhorrence of corporate greed and support for tax code changes that would
see them pay a higher share of their considerable wealth.
Among other things, they’re posting their stories on a Tumblr
page created by Wealth for the Common Good and Resource Generation,
two groups dedicated to working for "fair taxation and just wealth
distribution."
A
new poll from the New York Times and CBS has found that Americans not only
view the Occupy Wall Street protests positively, but also supports a more
equal distribution of wealth and higher taxes on top earners -- while also
opposing corporate tax breaks that have been protected by the Republicans.
The poll found that two-thirds object to tax cuts for corporations and a
similar number prefer increasing income taxes on millionaires. It’s no wonder
70% of Americans think Congressional Republicans favor the rich, as the GOP
continues to either ignore the problems of the middle- and lower-classes or
directly assault the programs that help them most.
Yesterday on MSNBC Lawrence O'Donnell, in referring to that poll, said the
majority of the 1% would be willing to pay more in taxes; but then, if this were
so, why are the Republicans so adamant about not raising taxes in their proposal
to the congressional 12-member
Super Committee that's now deciding our country's budget? And especially
when ALL polls show that a majority of voters also favor taxing the rich more to
bring down our national debt, while at the same time meeting our obligations to
the elderly, sick, and poor.
In
a speech yesterday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) claimed
that President Obama created “class resentment” (and promoted
"envy") by calling for slightly higher taxes on the wealthiest
Americans. At the same time, Occupy Wall Street protesters continue to
speak out in favor of an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the
top of the income scale.
Why do we even pay members of Congress like Paul Ryan $174,000 a year (although
he, and almost half are already millionaires) to represent the needs of ALL
the people, when we have 30 million Americans living on sub-standard wages, 21
million who are unemployed, 50 million that are without healthcare, and 45
million who need food stamps. If anyone should be storming the ramparts, these
people should.
Just like with Herman
Cain's 9-9-9 Tax Plan, a new analysis of Rick Perry's "flat-tax
plan" proves that billionaires like the Koch Brothers would get a
mind-boggling tax CUT under the plan. And since Perry eliminates the capital
gains income tax for people such as Warren Buffet , and other billionaires who
make their money off dividends like Paris Hilton, they would pay as little less
than one percent in taxes if Perry were elected.
Meanwhile, the typical hourly wage for the average worker has gone up only
$1.23 in the last 36 years, while the price of everything else – from
healthcare to college to energy – has skyrocketed.
But it's the Republicans who have been doing most of the complaining about
the possibility of being taxed a little more (and more fairly). This disconnect
with the people and the Fox News channel's blatant and hateful propaganda
is one big reason why people began participating in the Occupy Wall Street
protests all across the country.
But the Republicans can only be certain of two things in life...death and
taxes. I'd suggest they be happy with the latter and stop whining while millions
of their fellow countrymen are truly suffering.
The rich won't suffer, manufacturers won't stop making things, and many of the
"job creators" will only send more jobs overseas for cheaper labor
anyway, regardless of what their tax rates are. No matter how much you tax the
wealthy investors, large corporations, or big banks, they are still going to do
everything they can to earn a buck, they won't just roll over and die. They're
like machines in perpetual motion, they just keep going no matter what.
With regards to the "millionaire tax plan", Paul
Ryan said Obama was preying on fear, envy and resentment.
But the poor and middle-class don't feel that way at all towards the rich.
Just the opposite is true. Ordinary working folks admire and aspire to be more
like them. It's
rich people who feels envy towards someone richer than they -- the
uber-rich. Did you every hear of yacht
envy?
We, the middle-class (the 99%), are satisfied with a 3-year-old dependable and
good-running car, a modest 3-bedroom house, and a job that pays a "living
wage" so that we earn enough to save some. It's the rich who are never
satisfied.
Example: Meet Diane Hendricks, who like Warren Buffett, is also part of the top
1%. She has an estimated net worth of $2 to $3 billion. She is ranked #188 on
the Forbes 400 List (far below Warren Buffett).
In
an interview with Forbes she says,"There's a sense that no matter
where you are, you still have further to go. You never really achieve the
success you want and feel you've fully met your potential. Perhaps that's a key
to success, though: always wanting to prove and reach for more, never being
satisfied."
Arthur
Schopenhauer - "Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the
thirstier we become."
It was the rich who created and waged a class war against the 99%, but it's
the 1% who blame us and accuse us of envy and class warfare. The top 1% also
blames the poor for being poor and blames the unemployed for being unemployed.
I was a hard-working American patriot all my life until I was laid off in
2008. I'm still a patriot but now I'm unemployed and rely on food stamps. Yet
people like Bill O'Reilly would rather you think that I'm a lazy communist who
chooses to be on the government dole and just wants to destroy our country. But
it was the caretakers of this nation, the banks and politicians, that are
responsible for destroying our economy. You can't blame me for that.
Now I can no longer work, so I've applied for Social Security Disability;
but guys like O'Reilly thinks guys like me are "left-wing loons" if I
hold up a sign to peacefully demonstrate against the Republican's proposed cuts
to Social Security after I paid in to the system for 35 years -- because guys
like O'Reilly don't want to cough up a few bucks more to keep the program
solvent after his buddies borrowed against the Social Security Trust Fund
for the last 35 years to fund wars, crooked government contractors, oil
subsidies, and other pet projects of congress.
I think it's people like Bill
O'Reilly who are the pinheads, and those such as Warren Buffett are the true
patriots.
The result of 40 years of conservative-leaning policies has undermined labor
unions and favored banks and corporations over workers. If he had been alive
today, when Mark
Twain wrote in his autobiography, "It kept us hoping and hoping
during 40 years, and forsook us at last," he could have been referring
to these last 40 years of middle-class decline.
The Gilded
Age is a period roughly defined by the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the beginning of World War
I in 1917 in the United States when the economy transformed itself and grew under the leadership of new
tycoons; and when America's mercantile society had once again transformed itself under the impact of the nouveau
riche -- the opportunistic industry leaders and speculative railroad promoters. They
were once known as tycoons, moguls, magnates or robber barons. Today they call
themselves CEOs.
During the Gilded Age the super-rich industrialists
and financiers such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew W. Mellon, Andrew Carnegie,
Henry Flagler, Henry H. Rogers, J.P. Morgan, and the Vanderbilt & Astor
families were attacked as "robber barons" by critics, who believed
they cheated to get their money -- and lorded it over the common people.
John D. Rockefeller used his wartime profits from the Civil
War to finance his investment in Samuel Andrews' oil refinery, which led to the creation of
Standard Oil and his huge fortune. But Rockefeller was also an astute businessman who
knew how to borrow money to finance promising projects. Most (Northern) businesses benefited from the
Civil War's demand, so many considered this "war profiteering".
Philip Danforth Armour more directly profited from the Civil War
by selling pork "short" in New York City and made his first million in the process.
Then he went to Chicago, where he built up a huge meat-packing house in partnership with his brother.
In the 1980s, the Armour brothers brand was split between Pinnacle Foods and
Smithfield Foods. The Armour brand for use in the pharmaceutical industry is owned by
Forest Laboratories Inc.
The Civil War allowed others to profit as well. The Pacific Railroad
Act lay the ground for the first U.S. transcontinental railroad. The subsequent fortunes of the Thomas C. Durant and Ames, as well as the Pacific Quartet (Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, C.P. Huntington and Mark Hopkins), were based on this monumental construction project.
The Civil War caused the disruption of normal labor conditions during the war, in conjunction with the increased demand for food and clothing,
which was directly responsible for the rise of the John McCormick harvester-reaper and the Singer
sewing machines.
Mining fortunes laid the foundation for California and the West Coast's economy and later radiated on the whole nation's economy, as the mining bonanza kings and their descendants invested their silver or copper profits in enterprises of national interest. George Hearst used his mining fortune to buy the San Francisco Examiner and gave it to his son to manage. Using the millions he inherited from his father, William Randolph Hearst later built one of the major tabloid newspaper chains in the Twentieth Century.
After the outbreak of Civil War, Cornelius Vanderbilt left the steamship business, sold most of his ships to the Union Navy and started his career of a railroad tycoon. In a number of short campaigns, he acquired the New York &
Harlem, the Hudson River and the New York Central railroads. In the process he built himself a fortune and became the richest man in the world.
Other railroad tycoons made large fortunes in all regions of the United States, building other transcontinental roads, speculating on their stocks and bonds to eventually consolidate them in ever larger systems, spanning whole regions and driving towards a monopoly, which they never seemed to reach. Men like Jay Gould, Jim Fisk and Russell Sage became known as the archetypes of the robber barons, preying on their fellow citizens to extort their money in devious Wall Street speculations or corporate coups.
J.Pierpont Morgan was another monument of the Gilded Age. This son of a wealthy merchant banker joined forces with the Drexels of Philadelphia in 1873 and Morgan became the peacemaker in the railroad wars of the 1880's, having gained the Vanderbilts' confidence.
Drexel, Morgan & Company became J.P.Morgan & Company in 1893, the nation's premier investment bank. When John Pierpont Morgan created United States Steel in 1901,
and became the first American corporation with a capitalization exceeding $1 billion, he wielded more power than any other American capitalist,
or any other man in the World. His creations also included General Electric, International Harvester and the reorganization of American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T). The Titanic was a ship of the International Mercantile Maritime trust, a corporation J.P. Morgan sponsored in 1902.
The Gilded Age was also the age of the banker and
J.P. Morgan was the greatest and most charismatic of the great investment bankers of his time, but he was in no means the only one, and he was also not the richest.
The superlative among the bankers in terms of wealth fell to the Mellon brothers of Pittsburgh: Andrew William Mellon and Richard Beatty Mellon. They were major stockholders in the fabulously successful Gulf Oil corporation and the Aluminum Company of
America (to become Alcoa). Their aggregate wealth exceeded $1 billion before the stock market crash of 1929.
The Gilded Age also saw the rise of the great commercial banks, most of them located in New York. Moses Taylor built the City Bank. This, and the First National Bank of New York, merged to form the First National City Bank of New York, nowadays known as Citicorp.
The Gilded Age also saw the establishment of Jewish banking houses in
America. August Belmont was the agent of the Rothschilds in New York and in this position, one of the most influential Jewish bankers in America. But the largest and most influential American Jewish banking house was Kuhn, Loeb & Co of New York.
Merchants evolved to superlatives in these times of rapid growth. The first of the great merchant princes was Alexander Turney Stewart, whose
department store became a monument in New York City. In 1875, A.T. Stewart was the third richest man in America. Unlike Vanderbilt and Astor, Stewart had no children and therefore failed to found a dynasty. The A.T. Stewart department store was acquired by the
Wanamakers of Philadelphia. Marshall Field built the largest department store in Chicago and became
one of the richest Americans at the turn of the 20th century. Department stores rose in all major American cities
such as Macy's in New York, controlled by the Straus family (not to be confused with
Levi
Strauss, the German-Jewish immigrant who founded the first company to manufacture blue
jeans in 1953); Strawbridge & Clothier in Philadelphia; and many smaller ones.
Frank Winfield Woolworth was the king of chain merchandising with his 5 & 10 cent stores. George Huntington Hartfort also built a very successful specialized chain with his Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea
Company (A&P and Pathmark
supermarkets). Another new retailing concept was mail order, the direct ancestor of nowadays e-commerce. Richard Warren Sears
(Sears, Roebuck and Company) and Aaron Montgomery Ward were the successful pioneers in this field.
But the Gilded Age was first of all the age of industry. During the second wave of industrial revolution, the small family manufacturers and mercantile partnerships gave way of ever larger industrial plants, financed and promoted by a new breed of capitalists. It was the age of the trusts, these nebulous legal creations, predecessors of the modern corporations, which so much scandalized the public by their strive to monopoly.
The first and largest trust, sometimes called the "mother of trusts", was the Standard Oil company, whose main promoter, John Davison Rockefeller, later became the richest American ever -- and also one of the foremost philanthropists. The basis of the Standard Oil Trust was the secret association of the major oil refiners in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York, to bring order to the anarchy, that prevailed in the Western Pennsylvania oil regions. Under the umbrella of Standard Oil, John Davison and William Rockefeller gathered the leading oil industrialists of their times.
(By 1911, with public outcry at a climax, the Supreme Court of the United States
ruled that Standard Oil must be dissolved under the Sherman
Antitrust Act and split into 34 companies.) Standard Oil was so fabulously profitable after the trust agreement of 1882, that the major partners had millions to invest in other enterprises, which they eagerly did,
such as in mining and the production of steel.
The Gilded Age was also the age of steel, which was the pillar of the U.S. industrialization during the second part of the 19th century. The champions were Andrew Carnegie and his handpicked team of partners and managers, including Henry Phipps, Alexander Holley, Captain Bill Jones, and later
Charles Schwab and William Corey. One of the main Carnegie partners was Henry Clay Frick, who also dominated the coke industry at Connellsville, Pennsylvania. (Alexander Berkman plotted to murder Henery Clay Frick in revenge for the seven steelworkers killed when they were attacked by the Pinkerton detectives hired by Frick to disperse the locked-out workers and allow in strikebreakers.)
A profitable business and essential component of the industrial revolution, steel soon became the coveted turf of some of the major corporate consolidators. J. Pierpont Morgan and the Moore brothers created several steel product trusts. Both the Moores and J.D. Rockefeller made attempts to takeover Carnegie Steel toward the end of the 1890's, but is was Morgan, who finally clinched the deal with Carnegie and managed to organize the giant United States Steel corporation in 1901. U.S. Steel was apotheosis of the trust movement. Charles Schwab was made the first president of U. S. Steel, but he resigned after just three years, took over
Bethlehem Steel and built it into a major rival.
(The U.S. steel industry operated with little foreign competition. But
eventually foreign firms were rebuilt with modern techniques such as continuous
casting, while profitable U.S. companies resisted modernization.)
Soon a new sector of services known as "public utilities" emerged. Public utilities roughly comprised telecommunications, street railways, and gas or electricity suppliers. Telecommunications started with the telegraph lines. The Western Union Telegraph company soon had the reputation of a stable investment held by many of the richest capitalists, including the Astors and the Vanderbilts. Through a series of merger transactions, Jay Gould and Russell Sage gained control during the 1880's. These robber barons were already among the leading railroad tycoons. During the 1890's this group of capitalists consolidated the street railways in NYC and
Philadelphia and reaped huge profits. With the profits from their transactions, these men took large positions in gas and electricity companies, mining enterprises, the nascent automobile industry and the American Tobacco
trust (a monopoly that controlled the cigarette market. (Aside: The game
of Monopoly can be traced back to 1904.)
The huge fortunes they derived from their mining, railroad, banking, merchandising or industrial activities, brought the American capitalists a status, second to none, including royalty. And like the kings and earls of Europe or the somewhat more modest colonial manor lords and plantation owners, the kings of fortune left their landmarks to posterity, mainly in the form of their castles and mansions. Superlative architectural expressions of great wealth were built in many places, but they tended to favor certain spots, such as Newport R.I.
or Long Island (where Bill O'Reilly of Fox News lives. See
his mansion here.)
The Vanderbilt family easily outdid all other wealthy families of the Gilded Age in their architectural aspirations, although the Du Ponts of Delaware later made it to a close second. Their favorite architect, Richard Morris Hunt, built the Vanderbilts no less than five castle-like mansions, including 660 Fifth Avenue, Idle Hour, Marble House, the Breakers
(pictured below) and Biltmore, the largest of them all. A dozen other mansions rounded the set of Vanderbilt family seats, which had reputedly cost an aggregate of more than $100 million. Like the
Livingstons
(signers of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution)
did a hundred years earlier, the Vanderbilts built their social prominence on the stones of their lofty country estates.
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) established the family fortune in steamships and later in the New York Central Railroad, which was a pivotal development in the
industrial growth of the nation during the late 19th century. Below is his
grandson's Rhode Island mansion The
Breakers. Estate taxes eventually slowed the perpetuation of wealth in the hands of these founding
families...but not very much today.
The Du Pont family's mansions were all built in the countryside of Delaware and nearby Pennsylvania in an area which is known as the "American chateau country", nestled in the quiet Brandywine valley. Like the Vanderbilts and the Duponts, other wealthy families built their mansions preferably in the countryside close to their hometowns, in Newport or in Florida.
But the great capitalists of the Gilded Age also left more public minded legacies. Many of them ended a lifelong passion of art collectors by leaving their collections to a museum. Some of the greatest magnates just left a sizeable part of their fortune to philanthropic foundations. Andrew Carnegie devoted the last two decades of his life spending the money he had made before. John Davison Rockefeller did likewise in what some would later term as an attempt to restore his image and shed the cloak of the villain.
(Rockefeller
Center in NYC was named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr.)
The Gilded Age ended sometimes in the first third of the 20th century, Some cite the 15th of April 1912, the night when the ocean liner Titanic sank. Others mention World War I or the stock market crash of October 24, 1929. All these events certainly had an impact on the factors which put an end to the
Age of Moguls in America. The Titanic disaster taught mankind that there were still limits to where it could go. World War I started a process in which the power of the federal government was increased against the power of the tycoons, a process which would be furthered by the depression which followed the stock market crash of 1929.
America's 99 percent are not just imagining it. The gap between the incomes
of the rich and poor in this new Gilded Age is strikingly broad and deep,
according to an October report from Congress' data crunchers. The study
by the Congressional Budget Office, released this week, found that income
has become dramatically concentrated, shifting heavily toward the top earners
between 1979 and 2007. And although incomes at all levels have risen some,
they've skyrocketed for the very wealthiest of earners. The top 1 percent is
where the growth was breathtaking. That contingent saw their incomes spike by
275 percent.
"It is really stunning the degree to which rewards have been
concentrated at the top," said Josh Bivens, an economist at the
Economic Policy Institute. "We have now returned to Gilded
Age levels of inequality."
The hoarding at the top was so great that even after accounting for taxes,
the "income received by the 20 percent of the population with the highest
income exceeded the after-tax income of the remaining 80 percent," the CBO
found. This week's report is far from the first to point out rising income
equality in the United States. Numerous studies have shown that America's very
highest earners have been steadily pulling away from the rest of the population
for a generation.
Today, the 400 richest people in the country control more wealth than the
bottom 50 percent of households, and the U.S. ranks roughly alongside
countries like Uganda
in terms of the gap between its richest and poorest citizens.
The CBO report noted that salaries for "superstars" -- top earners
in sports, entertainment and the corporate world -- have jumped out of
proportion to other workers' income. The report also noted that capital
gains income has spiked much more than cash coming from interest,
dividends or pensions.
A big culprit is the deregulation of the finance industry. The CBO identified
finance (banks) as a sector that saw some of the largest jumps in income.
The year 2007 has a lot in common with another notable year: 1929. Besides
the similar spikes in glaring income inequality, both years marked the beginning
of one of the worst economic downturns in United States history. According to
the International Monetary Fund, the pronounced degree of inequality
today is likely holding back the economic recovery -- thereby prolonging the
misery for millions of Americans who are out of work and the record 46.2
million who are currently living in poverty.
The gap separating the richest 1 percent from the rest of the country has
emerged as arguably the single most prominent rallying cry of the Occupy Wall
Street movement, which began last month on September 17th in New York City's
Zuccotti Park and has since expanded to hundreds of protests around the
country and
sister demonstrations across six continents.
And there's another coincidence that Occupy Wall Street and the 99
percenters might point out: It was the collapse of the Gilded Age that
preceded many of the successes of the labor movement and the Progressive
Movement.
What really put an end to the original Gilded Age (The Age of the Moguls), was the introduction of income and estate taxes during the Wilson administration. Corporate and income taxes rendered wealth accumulation slower and more difficult, whereas the estate taxes prevented the perpetuation of wealth in the hands of the founding families.
It allowed for an American middle-class in the 1940's, 50's and 60's, but which
has steadfastly eroded over the last 40 years -- about the same time taxes for
the wealthy declined as labor unions came under attack as wages stagnated.
Now we're trying to fix this disparity in wealth by fairly taxing the
wealthy; but because of the Republican
Party (widely known to favor the wealthy and large corporations), and
because of money
and corruption in politics, it's proven to be very difficult to do.
Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner wrote a novel in 1873 called "The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today",
which satirizes greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America. Its title very quickly became synonymous with graft, materialism, and corruption in public life.
In one preface to the novel Mark Twain writes, "We have also touched
upon one sad feature...that is the shameful corruption which lately crept into
our politics, and in a handful of years has spread until the pollution has
affected some portion of every State and every Territory in the Union."
There is currently a
petition to end unlimited money going to SuperPacs to bribe elected
politicians, those who only represent the interests of very wealthy people (like
the Koch brothers), banks (like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America), and corporations
(like Exxon Mobil), instead of the interests on THE PEOPLE. Only when
corporations and banks can be reigned in and properly taxed and regulated, can
THE PEOPLE (here, and around the world) take back their country and restore (or
create) a middle-class.
Just like the during Roaring Twenties before the stock market crash of
1929 and the subsequent Great Depression of the 1930's, the deregulation
of banks made possible by Republican sponsored legislation, allowed the banks to sell derivatives that caused the housing
collapse in 2008. The banks, who made easy money spawned by greed and excess, and
the low taxes on large corporations and the uber-wealthy (during the Bush tax
cuts years), fueled the Second Gilded Age, and caused the budget crisis, unemployment, and the
Second Great Depression.
What ended the Gilded Age was better taxation of income, corporations,
and wealthy estates. It once allowed for an American middle-class, which has
steadfastly eroded, as did taxes on the rich, over the last 40 years. I suspect
the same thing is needed again to end this Second Gilded Age...taxing the
rich more and more fairly redistributing the wealth. But we'll never have that
with the Republicans.
You don't need to afford a mansion or limo to be wealthy. According to the Department
of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, you'd just have to earn more
than almost everybody else. And $250,000 a year is over 5 times the median
income. But don't worry, Obama and the American people don't want to tax you.
But a vast majority of Americans don't even come close to earning $250,000 a
year, let alone, $1 million (and let's not forget the millions of unemployed and
those who are earning sub-standard wages).
Yet Fox News and the Republicans have been on a propaganda campaign to
scare small business owners, and even those who do earn $250,000 a year, that
Obama wants to raise their taxes, when in his Jobs
Bill, he only wanted to raise taxes on those whose personal incomes were over
$1 million a year.
The
U.S. had a record 3.1 million millionaires in 2010 with a combined wealth of
$11.6 trillion. The rich depend on financial markets (which have rebounded)
while the rest of America depends on jobs and homes for wealth -- both of which
remain in a slump. 30 million Americans work for sub-standard wages and another
21 remain unemployed (10 million didn't even have one paid day of work last
year.)
Income inequality has been steadily widening, but the Republicans have
accused the poor and middle-class of waging a class war against the rich, when
all the while, the opposite has been true. Warren Buffett says his class has
already won. Yet the Republicans want to tax the poor more and tax the rich less
with their "999" and "flat tax" proposals. The Republicans
also want to cut programs that the inner city poor and newly suburban
poor need for their very survival.
All employees (those still working) who normally pay 6.2% on their first
$106,800 of wages into Social Security, are now paying only 4.2%. That break is
set to expire at the end of December, and Obama wanted to cut the tax in half to
3.1% (which is a whole different debate).
The
original bill would have charged a mere 0.7 percent surtax on personal
incomes in excess of $1 million. The Senate version of the bill differs from the
president's original version only in that it replaced his proposals to pay for
it with a 5.6% surtax on modified adjusted gross PERSONAL income over $1
million.
Many people in New York City, San Francisco, and Boston might disagree with
the number of $250,000-a-year as being "rich", where the cost
of living is higher than anywhere else in middle-America. But even then, you'd
still be doing very well. If you lived in one of the most expensive places, like
in Manhattan, the
average rent for a one-bedroom apartment would average you just under $3,100
a month -- or $37,200 a year from your $250,000 annual salary (a fifth of your
wages). After your highest expense, that would still leave you with a balance of
$213,000 for bread and bus fare.
And a home mortgage of $3,100 a month would buy you a beautiful
4-bedroom house in the suburbs of middle-America on a half acre of property.
I was a casino bartender in Las Vegas and I last earned $33,000 a year before
being laid of in 2008. My rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $850 a month (a
third of my wages). According to the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, a
bartender's median wage in the U.S. was $21,310 a year.
Secretaries and administrative assistants held about 4.3 million jobs in
2008, ranking it among the largest occupations in the U.S. economy, and whose median
annual wages were just $40,030.
Median
annual earnings of all post-secondary teachers were $58,830. The middle 50
percent earned between $41,600 and $83,960. The lowest 10 percent earned less
than $28,870, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $121,850.
From the Small
Business Administration - There were 27.5 million businesses in the
United States, but only 6 million firms had employees and 21.4 million did not
(being self-employed could include huge hedge fund managers or local
landscapers).
Small firms with fewer than 500 employees represent 99.9 percent of total
businesses (whether they are actual employers or self-employed "non-employers");
and the most recent data showed there were about 18,311 large businesses. Most
are corporations, usually multi-nationals, whose CEOs
and company executives averaged $11 million a year in total compensation last
year, and paid a 15% capital gains taxes on stock options (a lower tax rate
than their secretaries.)
Of the 15.5 million individuals whose primary occupation was self-employment
(incorporated and unincorporated), the median personal marginal federal tax rate
was just 10 percent. Only 4.1 percent of the self-employed were in the
marginal tax bracket of 33 percent or more. (People like Karl Rove are
self-employed.)
According to compensation survey administrator PayScale
in 2010, the average income of small business owners varies widely depending
upon their level of experience. For example, small business owners with less
than one year of experience in running an organization earn an annual salary
ranging from $34,392 to $75,076. Those with more than 10 years experience, on
the other hand, earn upwards of $105,757 per year.
According to the
Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, not one category is
showing an average income of over $250,000 a year. Doctors,
lawyers, engineers, and sales managers show an average in range of
$100,000-$150,000, but not near $250,000.
Why? Because, with the exception of brain surgeons, the vast majority of Americans
don't earn even $250,000 a year, let alone $1 million. Small business owners may
GROSS more than that in sales, but the owners don't pay themselves that as a
salary. Even Rupert Murdoch's Wall
Street Journal
reported: "The average small business owner or a chief executive brings
home an annual salary of $233,600, according to Salary.com's Small
Business Compensation Survey (of course, the CEOs of large corporations are compensated
much more in the form of stock options in addition to their base salaries).
Large corporate CEOs, hedge fund managers, and bankers earn the really BIG
money. Exceptions would be Fox News commentators, a few professional athletes,
a few movies stars, a few rock bands, and a few best-selling authors....like Bill
O'Reilly and Glenn Beck.
Since the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, how many more jobs did rich Republican
and Tea Party millionaires like Bill O'Reilly, Paul Ryan, Sean Hannity,
Eric Cantor, Glenn Beck, Rick Santorum, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch bothers,
Michele Bachmann, Paul Rand, Nikki Haley, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Grover
Norquist, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, and Mitt Romney create?
Not enough when 40,000 factories and millions of jobs left our shores in the
last ten years.
So then, why are the Republicans so adamant about NOT raising the taxes on a very
few just a mere ½ of 1% over $1 million to help pay down our deficit and
national debt? Didn't they say we have a debt problem?
Why does the GOP instead want to close this gap with cuts to Medicare, Social
Security, and government services...programs that even those earning
$250,000-year benefit from?
Why have the Republicans been attacking the middle-class, lower-middle-class,
and the poor for the benefit of the uber-wealthy? Why doesn't the GOP want to
tax millionaires and billionaires, or make the largest corporations pay their
fair share of taxes?
Why do the Republicans try so hard to have us all believe that many people,
including small business owners and the self-employed, earn over $1 million a
year in salaries, when the vast majority don't even earn $250,000. And it's just
those earning over $1 million a year in PERSONAL income (like CEOs, hedge fund
managers, and bankers) that Obama wants to tax.
So if you do earn $250,000-a-year, you have just as much to fear from
the Republicans as I do...who now earns ZERO dollars a year. If Obama caves in
or compromises on this (like I heard he has already done for corporate
government contractors), I'll vote for Bernie Sanders next year...whether
Bernie runs or not.
When the Republicans say they want "government" out of the way,
they're saying they want "us" out of the way (i.g. Medicare, Social Security,
etc.)
Small businesses in the U.S. create most of our jobs. Are we in agreement so far? This is the one thing that the Democrats AND the
Republicans can rarely agree on these days.
According to the Census Bureau
the vast majority of small businesses have 9 employees or less. In 2008 there were 27,757,676 total firms.
Of these only 21.8% have any employees at all.
Of the firms that have employees 78.8% have 9 employees or less.
Of the 6,049,655 employer firms in 2007 61.2% had sales receipts of $999,999 or less, so the owner can't pay
themselves a million-dollar salary.
Fox News and the Republicans are always saying that Obama wants to tax small businesses, hurting "job creators", when it's only a proposed tax on
those earning over $1 million a year. But those are usually CEOs of BIG businesses, not small businesses. And they usually earn
much more than $1 million (Unless you were like Karl Rove, incorporated yourself, and ran a supper PAC, and paid yourself a million dollars or
more.)
Millionaires (large corporate CEOS, etc.) get paid from profits in the corporate treasury. If there's some cash left over after operating
costs, the board of directors can vote themselves a bonus. It has nothing to do with creating jobs. And like Warren Buffett says, these
large corporate CEOs are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries.
Corporate taxes on the corporate treasury after profits is an entirely different matter. Example:
Exxon-Mobil had the greatest profits ever in the history of mankind, paid no corporate
taxes and even received a taxpayer subsidy....and they employee 83,600 people worldwide out of a U.S. labor force of 150 million. Exxon's CEO Rex W. Tillerson earned $29 million in total compensation in 2010.
Obama only wants tax Mister Tillerson the same effective tax rate that's currently
being taxed on the owner and sole proprietor of Sally's Lemonade Stand
and Mister Tillerson's secretary. Obama wants to tax him, not you.
John McCain once claimed that 23 million small-business owners would pay higher tax rates under Obama.
He was wrong. The vast majority would see no change, and many would even get a cut.
The U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy estimates the total number of "small" firms with fewer than 500 workers
reached 26.8 million in 2006. That’s the most recent estimate. But even that
number is inflated.
It turns out, SBA’s estimate includes more than 20 million "non-employer" firms, an unknown number of them sideline or hobby
businesses run by persons who actually make their living some other way. Census and
SBA count as a "small business" anyone who reported as little as $1,000 of business receipts.
By that very broad definition, Barack Obama would also be a small-business owner, by virtue of his book income. As would President
Bush, Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, and maybe even myself (if
you left me a modest donation with Paypal)
Of the 26.8 million that SBA counts as "small businesses," fewer than 6 million are actually "employer firms" with any
payroll (I don't hire people either).
From this, we must conclude that to arrive at McCain's previous 23 million figure,
he and the Republicans are counting mostly "business owners" with no workers, including those who simply report small amounts of income from sideline or freelance work. The
Republicans are arguing that Obama’s tax increase would "destroy jobs," but he’s counting mostly firms that don’t produce any.
That in itself is seriously misleading. If the Republicans want to focus on the effects of Obama’s plan on employment, they would do
better to confine their count to employers – the just under 6 million firms that actually have workers.
And even that figure wouldn’t be applicable because Obama’s tax increase wouldn’t fall on all employers, only on those
with PERSONAL INCOMES over $1 million. Taxes will go up only if small-business owners
have capital gains or dividends, but Obama’s proposal would not increase rates on capital gains or dividends for couples making under $250,000, or singles making under about $200,000, regardless
of whether they are classified as small-business owners or not.
Recently on Fox NewsEric
Bolling had said that 96% of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's members
are small businesses. But what he also deliberately failed to mention was
that only 11% of all small American businesses actually belongs to the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce.
The actual number of business owners who would be affected by Obama's
"millionaire tax" turns out to be well under a million, and the number of employers would
be even less.
However, not even all of those can properly be called "small-business owners" (or
"JOB CREATORS"). Some are farmers. Many are lawyers, accountants or other professionals who get some of their income in the form of partnership distributions. Others may be
passive investors in real-estate partnerships or similar investment arrangements and not really persons who own and manage a
business....OR HIRE PEOPLE.
For all these reasons it was judged that the actual number of small-business employers who would face higher tax rates under Obama is
probably far below what the Republicans claim. and certainly a far cry from the Republican's ridiculously inflated 23 million figure.
So what have we learned? Let's recap: Most jobs are created by small business
owners and most small business owners don't have personal incomes over $1
million a year in personal earnings (maybe GROSS revenues, but not PERSONAL SALARIES).
"Job creators" wouldn't be hurt, just our economy and the
government's ability to conduct it's business would be hurt -- by NOT
taxing millionaires (like Exxon's CEO Rex W. Tillerson).
But as always, the Republicans use false statistics and outright lies to get
their own way. That's why
I hate Republicans and the Fox News channel...because so many are
millionaires and are just too greedy to pay their fair share.
UPDATE to the UPDATE - Again, all my videos from 2021 were also deleted by another account I started at the same company in late December 2020, this time because I used the phrase "election fraud" in my video descriptions of a congressional hearing with the FBI director Chris Wray from March 2, 2021. All that hard work, gone, with the click of a mouse. "Do no evil". UPDATE All my videos prior to 2020 in this blog were deleted by Youtube because of a copyright claim by Herring Networks Inc — Robert and Charles Herring, owner of One America News Network.
In 2016 I transitioned from Bernie Sanders (who was running as a Democrat) to Donald Trump (who ran as a Republican), so many of my previous posts will contradict my opinions now. I've evolved as I've enlightened myself. I'm anti-Marxist and pro-America First.
In 2016 I transitioned from Bernie Sanders (who was running as a Democrat) to Donald Trump (who ran as a Republican), so many of my previous posts will contradict my opinions now. I've evolved as I've enlightened myself. I'm anti-Marxist and pro-America First.
