Win Ben Stein's money...but only if you're already rich

An Op-ed piece today by conservative Ben Stein...

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

More proof that the tax burden rests on the middle class of this country.

Oh, and that myth about how cutting taxes increases revenue?

...the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry rule. It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Only by the end of fiscal 2006 did income tax revenue surpass the $1 trillion level again.

The graph is separate from the article. It just shows how the wage gap has exploded since the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994. It ends at the beginning of the Bush administration, so those red and blue lines go much, much higher, while the bottom two lines remain unchanged.

Because the US economy rox

Dim outlook for dollar pushes euro to 18-month high

Like an earthquake, a small tremor reminding us of what could happen...

Oh, but protectionist measures that would help with the excessive trade imbalance with China are soooooooo bad!

Thought of the day

1% of Americans own 16% of the country's wealth and rising.

The not 12 step program for GOPs

I opened this page to write a post on how conservatives were in denial about the fact that they are too far to the right for most of America, that conservatives like George Will, who wrote that conservatives "were punished not for pursuing but for forgetting conservatism," are wrong. I was going to attempt and probably fail to be witty by writing a 12 step program for conservative GOPs to get over it, so I looked up Alcoholics Anonymous' 12 step program for reference. What I had not known was that the criticism of this 12 step program is that it is religious, like some guy on a cloud is suddenly going to reach down and take away all of the things that drive a person to drink, all of the stress and heartache and despair. Instead of helping a person change the situation that is causing the drinking, magic will make it all better, like taking a pill (I'm sure Pfeizer is well on its way to developing the alcoholic pill if it hasn't already.)

That being said, I don't want to put the conservative GOPs through a 12 step program. I don't believe in mind control. I want to help them change the situation that put them into their minority status. I want to help them overcome their denial that America is simply not as far right as they envision it to be. Sure, it may lean to the right, and yeah, we all acknowledge that Democrats were not elected because they were Democrats but were elected because they were not Republicans, but this country is not as far right as the losers deluded. I mean, South Dakota voted against the anti-choice law, and if a state who voted 60+% for Bush turns down a chance to make abortion illegal, that should tell the cons something.

So, conservative GOPs, listen up. The people of this great nation are not full of the hatred you preach. We liked Will and Grace and we like skin on television. We aren't afraid of nude statues, and we believe that without science, our nation will fall into decline. We believe that life matters in between birth and death, that war must be fought as a last resort, that we must do all in our power to cure people of horrible diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and that includes doing research on embryonic stem cells. We believe that the middle class is the backbone of this country and don't want to be indentured servants of the wealthy, who will do whatever it takes for profits, regardless of the cost to the quality of life. We believe that all people deserve equal opportunity and that students shouldn't enter the workforce with the chains of a lifetime of debt around their ankles. We believe in globalization, yes, we do, but we believe that unbridled corporatism is ruining our country and leaving us with an unskilled workforce left with jobs at Walmart because the skilled jobs went elsewhere.

GOPs, welcome to the real America. You pushed your moderates out instead of embracing the center, where most of America resides, and you lost. So quit denying that conservatives lost for not being conservative enough. You lost for being too conservative, if anything. Your tent was too small, and you've paid the price.

Oh, and there was the twin killing of Iraq and corruption, but that's a whole other fish...

Now, THIS is how you govern a nation

From WaPo:

Pelosi said that Democratic leaders want to demonstrate their effectiveness, and build up some trust with the White House, by tackling legislation that will have bipartisan support. Bush's "innovation agenda," laid out last year in his State of the Union address, has largely lain dormant. Democrats would like to take up Bush's proposals to expand funding for basic research and alternative energy sources such as ethanol, she said.

Democrats would also work with Bush to resurrect his proposed overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, which would pair tough border security measures with new paths to legal work and citizenship for the country's 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants, Pelosi said. And she is convinced Bush will back a higher minimum wage.

Compromise. It's how this country has lasted as long as it has, how we've kept the same system of government, the same Constitution, for longer than any government in modern history. There are 300 million people in this country - you can't make everyone happy. You can't forget about one half of the country, ignore them like the gops did to us for six years. There is no such thing as utopia, so we can't get everything we want. And compromise - bipartisanship - is what can give us a majority for years to come and the White House in 2008.

Dear Dems, please don't screw this up.

Virginia is for Democrats?

It was a dark and stormy night. No, it really was - it isn't a cliche this time. I could hardly see on the drive to Tysons Corner, where Jim Webb, Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, and their staff set up shop in a hotel room, anxiously awaiting election returns as if the fate of the world depended on them. And it did, didn't it?

I had MSNBC on the radio while driving, and I had not yet left the confines of the District when they called it for Bob Menendez. Whew, that one had been worrisome not long ago. In the rain and fog, I had trouble finding the hotel until I got behind a car with a Webb for Senate bumper sticker. While I followed it, MSNBC called it for Sherrod Brown. One down, five to go.

I parked in a car lot next to the hotel and headed out into the warm November rain. Democrats could have taken the weather as an ominous sign, but it turns out the rain was actually for Republicans. HA HA HA! You get what you give! Inside, the air swirled with nervous excitement, and an occasional cheer arose from the large crowd as results came in. Three seats in Indiana? I was sure the people in those little pink houses were preparing for the apocalypse. At that point in the night, Webb and Allen were tied with about half the votes counted, which gave reason to cheer, especially considering that Northern Virginia and most of Richmond had yet to be counted.

The hotel erupted into ecstatic applause when it was called Bob Casey, Jr. Man-on-dog Santorum had gone down to an expected but thrilling defeat, as if the bad guy in a horror film had been hacked to pieces. Next, Whitehouse was called. Three down. And then we were stuck.

Webb came down from the hotel room with Mark Warner and Tim Kaine to give us a little pick me up speech, a welcome relief from our anxiety and panic. He'd been down 50% - 49% for quite some time, and with no new Senate races called in awhile, people had begun to lose hope. Many left the hotel, deciding to sleep through what they anticipated would be depression. After all, it was approaching midnight, and it was only a Tuesday.

The House numbers kept looking better, and when CNN called the House for us, the chandeliers began to shake from the thunder below them. It was a high that began to dissipate in the worry that followed. We were there for Webb, and Allen had been up for quite awhile - at one point by about 20K votes with 90% of the votes counted. And then it was 96%, 97%, 98%...The energy had evaporated from the room. Depression was worn by every face, some near the point of tears. Political campaigns are emotional storms. When you've devoted a few weeks or months of your life to a candidate, it is a heavy emotional investment, and a loss can be devastating. We smelled defeat. People left in droves. This loss would be far worse than usual, for the whole Senate was riding on this campaign, and not only would our candidate lose, but we'd have to put up with at least two more years of this disrespectable Republican led Senate. Somewhere in there, Maryland was called for Cardin, but we still needed Missouri, Montana, and Virginia.

And then, a miracle happened. Suddenly, with 99% of the votes counted, we were up by 3000 votes with one Democratic precinct left to count. It felt like we had won a war. The cheering continued for a solid five minutes as people hugged, jumped up and down, and pumped their fists with joy. What a glorious feeling, like we had just hit a home run in the top of the ninth in Game 7 of the World Series to take the lead and only needed three outs to win the thing. Just like that, everything was different. There was hope again.

McCaskill was called for Missouri. That left just Montana and Virginia. Tester was barely up, so everything was looking good for us. It must have been about 1:30 when Webb and crew came down again to give a short victory speech. We won.

I left the place after 2am in ecstasy, rain still pouring down, streets deserted. I rolled down the window at one point just to scream "We won!" There was an element of disbelief, of surrealism, surrounding the whole night. When I woke around noon the next day, I checked the news to make sure it was true, to make sure something hadn't happened in the night. Well, something had happened. Rumsfeld resigned, giving a very good end to a very good time.

America is for Democrats.

Counting Chickens

I can hardly contain my excitement for tomorrow - it really is all I can think about at the moment.

Webb rally tonight with President Bill Clinton and Governors Tim Kaine and Mark Warner - Alexandria, Market Square, 5pm. I'm leaving work early today to attend.

Should I buy some champaign?

A fairytale

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there existed a place called Babylon. Well, it hadn't been called Babylon in many, many years, but it was Babylon all the same. And it was falling.

Conquerers had come from afar to expand the global market under the guise of "freedom." Yeah, freedom for companies. The people of the conquering nation were clueless peasants who were given somewhat of a say in what their country did, although some of them weren't given a say, and others said things but those things were interpreted differently than what they had said, so a man much stupider than Napolean was crowned Emperor by the Supreme Court. The Emperor was on course to not be Emperor for long, but then a curious thing happened - men from another faraway land attacked the country. But instead of attacking the faraway country, the Emperor decided he would attack Babylon. The other faraway country had no markets and no oil.

Under the Emperors rule, hundreds of thousands of people died. This number included the genocide in a very dark poor country that was ignored by the Emperor, again because there were no markets to go after. So his claim of "spreading freedom and human rights" was an obvious lie.

One day, the god of war had enough, so he descended from Olympus intent on putting a stop to it. He did this by getting out a paintbrush and painting the conquering nation blue. There was hope across the world that things would change and OH MY GOD, HELP ME! THE TERRORISTS ARE EATING ME BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS ARE IN POWER!1! I HAVE TO HIDE MY WALLET!! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!1

The End.