Occupy Wall Street - and Make Them Pay

Tax Wall Street - Jobs Not Cuts!

As the Occupy Wall Street movement builds, overcoming threats of eviction from NYC's Liberty Plaza and inspiring occupations across the country, there are several concrete things we can do as steps towards breaking the power of Wall Street and change our national priorities.

One that is gaining momentum is the movement to establish a Financial Speculation Tax (FST, also known as a Transactions Tax or Tobin Tax) -- a small fee on speculative trading that can generate hundreds of billions of dollars while discouraging flash trading.

Dozens of groups around the country are collecting petitions calling on the Congressional "Super Committee" to Tax Wall Street as part of the deficit reduction plan.

Add your name to the petition here.

More than 1,000 prominent economists signed an open letter in support of a speculation tax, and Germany and France are proposing such a tax internationally.

Tax the Rich

For decades, Millionaires have been lobbying and buying their way to lower tax rates.

As Warren Buffet has pointed out, there are thousands of very wealthy people that actually pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries. This is partly because much of the 'capital gains' investment income goes to the very rich and is taxed at only 15%. The so-called "Buffett Rule" is intended to address this discrepancy.

But Millionaires have also had their federal income tax rates cut drastically since the times of Ronald Reagan or Dwight Eisenhower.

In fact, if income tax rates today were the same as they were during the Eisenhower administration would bring about a balanced budget.

There is finally recognition that we need to restore some basic fairness and sanity to our economy and tax code. Two examples of proposals include:

* a millionaire surtax, along the lines proposed by US Rep. Jan Schakowsky

* a Financial Speculation Tax, which is like a tiny sales tax on buying and selling speculative investments like derivatives, futures, stocks, etc.

Of course, closing loopholes or simply enforcing existing tax law would be a plus, as well.

PS: People, including most news reporters,often seem to be confused about how tax rates work --including what 'marginal rates' mean. If George's income is $30,000, LaDonna's is $300,000 and Beth's is $3 million, all three pay the same tax rate on the first $30,000 of income. LaDonna and Beth pay the same rate on their income from $30,001-$300,000. If there is a surtax on oncomes over $1 million, only Beth would pay the surtax, and only on the portion of income over $1 million (i.e. it does not apply to her first $30,000 or $300,000, or even $999,999 in income).

Tax Dodging CEOs Rake It In

The CEOs of profitable tax-dodging corporations are raking in the cash, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies.

In fact, 25 major profitable corporations -- like Verizon and General Electric -- actually paid more to their CEO than they did in total federal income taxes.

Many of these same highly paid CEOs are responsible for eliminating jobs through layoffs and outsourcing.

Corporations are not people -- no matter what the Supreme Court says. It is the people that run them that decide to squeeze employees, outsource jobs and dodge taxes.

Media sugar coat jobs crisis

Corporate-controlled media outlets have a long history of subtle (and not-so-subtle) slanting of the news, favoring conservative and corporate viewpoints. Problems experienced primarily by low and moderate income people are portrayed as temporary or even necessary 'belt-tightening,' requiring no action, while problems for banks and the wealthy demand urgent action from government.
Reporting on the continuing jobs deficit continues that trend, with the Washington Post spinning a Pew report as "Men Getting Jobs Faster Than Women".

Contrary to the headline that emphasizes people 'getting jobs', as economist Dean Baker notes, the employment to population ratio (the percent of people over age 20 who are employed) has fallen for both men and women since the recession ended in June of 2009.

That's right, the percent of people with jobs has dropped, not only during the crisis for Wall Street, but since the recession was declared over. Another "jobless recovery" anyone?

Two headlines, one crisis

the Chicago Tribune's highlighted web business section this morning featured the two headlines below:

No rebound this year in housing prices

Wall Street set to extend gains

Leaving aside that the term "rebound" falsely implies the exact opposite of what is happening and continues the delusion that housing prices can or should 'rebound' back to bubble-inflated prices, those of us paying attention realize these are actually the same story: Wall Street recklessness and corporate greed fueled the housing bubble, crashed the economy and these CEOs extended their gains going up and down.

Clarence Thomas: Come Clean

Once again, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is in the news, and once again, it’s for all the wrong reasons. The Ethics in Government Act, passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, requires thousands of federal officials – including Supreme Court justices – to file financial disclosures every year, so the public can know who’s influencing our government’s leaders. But Clarence Thomas has developed a pattern of failing to follow this law, choosing to pal around with right-wing financiers and not bothering to report private plane trips, yacht rides, and his wife’s $120,000-a-year paycheck from the conservative Heritage Foundation. Has Clarence Thomas broken the law by wilfully failing to disclose these trips? We just don’t know, because he flatly refuses to answer basic questions about his relationships with some of the wealthiest and most powerful right-wing figures in America. That’s why we’re calling on the Judicial Conference – the independent agency tasked with investigating ethical wrongdoing in the federal judiciary – to look into Clarence Thomas’ incomplete financial disclosures. The New York Times recently reported on Justice Thomas’s ethically questionable relationship with Harlan Crow, a wealthy Texas real estate developer and financier of Republican politics and conservative causes. At Justice Thomas’s request, Crow spent millions of dollars on a restoration project that included a tribute to Clarence Thomas. Mr. Crow also apparently provided Justice Thomas with use of his yacht and private jets on several occasions. Although these trips would qualify as gifts or reimbursements under the Ethics Act, and be subject to disclosure, Justice Thomas has not reported receiving a gift since 2004 and does not appear to have listed the trips as reimbursements. If the Judicial Conference fails to investigate these apparent lapses and omissions, we may never know if one of this country’s top jurists has broken the law. For every day that Clarence Thomas sits on the bench under a cloud of suspicion, Americans’ faith in our judicial system is weakened. The public has the right to know whether the judges on its highest court are flaunting decades-old ethics laws. We need you to help us make sure the Judicial Conference does its job, and pursues an investigation into Justice Thomas. Clarence Thomas has famously not spoken in court for over five years, but he can’t remain silent about his ethical lapses. He needs to come clean, and live up to the high standards we expect of our Supreme Court. Thank you, Alliance for Justice PS. For the more on Clarence Thomas' ethical problems, check out AFJ President Nan Aron's column in the Huffington Post.

Wall Street Drives Up Gas Prices

As is we didn't have enough reasons to demand a tax on Wall Street Speculation and the break-up of the big banks ...
A new report finds that Wall Street speculation adds 83 cents to the cost of every gallon of gasoline. This, of course, part of the record corporate profits at the big oil companies and the record political influence those profits buy.

Maybe that's why some have started objecting to the "Wall Street tax on the rest of us."