TAX PLAN OF THE 99%

While most of America was either feasting or shopping over the late November weekend, middle class people continued to occupy strategic parks in major cities across the country. The 99%, who represent all households making less than $300K/year, have finally manifested a tax plan for public consumption. 

   This is a simple concept of tax fairness. Just the idea makes certain media moguls quiver. Its central component is that it is based on current US income distribution. These are the figures from 2011 as of September.  
  
This plan will increase U.S. Federal Government annual revenue from $3.4 trillion to $4.7 trillion for a net gain of $1.3 trillion per year. Depending on what our leadership decides to do with this additional revenue, it could be used for deficit reduction or economic stimulus. Either way, it would help jump start this country's economy. But then you'd have to want that to happen.
  
Anyone making less than $125K/year as an individual or $250K as a couple would see a tax rate drop from the current 36% cap to 33% but no lower than 1%. This may strike anyone paying attention as odd since all we hear about from the advocates for the wealthy is that they pay more than their share of taxes. That rate shown here has them shifting from as high as 51% to about 33% with us 99% paying 66% of the tax burden. 
  
If you study the graphic above you'll see the tax plan is designed to run the Fed on one-third of all American income to include income made from estates and personal investment. It would also be useful in enforcing social responsibility upon multinational corporations whom would then be forced to compete with smaller firms. As the new tax structure matured, you'd see increased hiring in the American small business world. Our small business community provides most of the jobs in this country. 
  

In one WaPo article they mention that the bottom tax rate for the Top 1% of all earners is 42%. Taxation does not approach 50% until individual AGI is $500,000 and remains at 51% until $312M Individual AGI. 
  

Another issue that would be addressed is that the Federal government offers well over $1 Trillion every year in tax breaks, subsidies for individuals and companies that are often substitutes for direct government spending. The bank bailouts fostered by the previous administration because they were "Too Big To Fail" is a prime example. They got their assets saved through public funds while the middle class saw drastic cuts to vital services and those in most need are left to the curb. The little graph on the right shows green for current rates, blue for what would be added if those subsidies were to go away.

Again, the graphic at the top shows how income distribution consists of exactly the middle-third of current American income distribution and provides a wide and deep tax net. It was pointed out in the NYTimes how the lower-third of the Tax Revenue Diamond consists of the lower middle class and the poor. Persons living in poverty, or less than $22K/year are exempt from taxation in this model. Essentially leaving them to offer government revenue in the form of sales and property taxes.
 
For a nomadic herd of individuals seeking economic justice, they have come up with a fair and sustainable tax structure that may actually address what ails this country. Income and wealth disparity in this country has never been this extreme and the fact that so many people in position of power are shifting the tax burden even further to the middle class has prompted this public outcry. Not that you'd hear this on the GOP channel, but it's grown none the less. 
Lets see this tax plan implemented and get our country going again. Lets live up to the American Exceptionalism we hear about in all those speeches, shall we?

BLACK FRIDAY MADNESS & OWS

Once we were done giving thanks for all that we had and the feeding frenzy came to a close, our families across America parted, drove home and got much needed sleep. Well, most of them did.
 

People actually camped out last night in front of big box stores and malls for the annual midnight opening of their Black Friday sales bonanza. Walmart, the most egregious of foreign goods proliferation, actually started their holiday sales Thursday evening at 9pm. One incident in California around 10:30 struck me. A woman used pepper-spray on a group of women around an electronics table where she wanted a few items. The security guard called it combat shopping. The women continued shopping refusing to let their impaired sight slow them down.
 

Meanwhile, the Target located in Ulster, had people camped out for the midnight opening. 
I had friends there texting the whole evening while I was feasting with family. (Priorities my friend)
Anyway, she texted me this picture of OWS protesters in the parking lot. They were chanting "Read The Labels, Buy American, Save American Jobs"
I guess they could have added "Shop at locally owned stores" too. 
   
Those of us who harp on the bleeding of manufacturing jobs here in the US usually feel comfort in knowing the big anti-American companies that ship those jobs to third world countries, can't do the same when it comes to municipal repairs throughout the country. Well, guess again.
 
There are examples cropping up where County Executives are awarding bids to repair bridges and roads to private companies with imported employees. Imported from... China. 
That's right, Chinese firms winning bids, bringing in their own workforce while locals are holding their asses trying to keep their homes. 
Who here thinks, (with Chinese steel already prohibited because it's below standard quality) that the bridges will meet DOT standards when completed?
 

The protesters at Target are right. You've seen my rants here about American Made products, American manufacturing jobs and the tax incentives given to large firms who send jobs to Indonesia. There's something very wrong here. Did the folks going into Target look at one label? Sure, the one with the lowest price. What no one realizes is the high cost at home for the low prices on the shelf.

I AM NOT MOVING: OWS

GRAYSON EXPLAINS OWS

While on Real Time with Bill Maher former and future congressman Alan Grayson explained to the panel what Occupy Wall Street is all about in less than a minute. 

 
Some people will no doubt still have a problem understanding. Feel free to play the clip over again.

OWS

In the last few weeks, what started out as a small group of frustrated protesters who've taken the task of highlighting the injustice of the financial system, has become the talk of the Internet, Facebook and especially Twitter. I leave out our TV news stations because until there was disruptive interaction between the docile protesters and authorities, they refused to mention the occupation on Wall Street at the request of their corporate owners. 

The lack of a clear message has never bothered me, any more than the lack of a clear message in the early days of the tea party bothered conservatives. But now that the original gathering and the copycat protests in other cities has grown to uncomfortable numbers, the press and those in DC are taking note. Likewise the message is being shaped to appeal to what's called The Other 99%.

Mainstream issues like repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, stricter financial regulations, more stimulus spending and so on. Changing our trade & tariff deals with China, closing loopholes in corporate tax structure coupled with investing in our nation's infrastructure and lowering the cost of higher education all provide the drive to journey to lower Manhattan and sit in a park. 

You'll remember that Initially, the Tea Party started out as a grass roots effort, but was absconded very quickly by Fox News, the Koch Brothers and Dick Armey who provided funding and message to beat down anything remotely progressive coming out of the White House. They even wanted to repeal the 17th amendment. Lower taxes and reduced spending are noble ideas when you have a prosperous economy, but when you've been given a sluggish economy that's saddled with the abominable "Bush Tax Cuts", it's going to take almost the same 10 years it took to get us here to get us out. 

Thankfully, Keith on Current, Dan on RT and Rachel on MSNBC have brought us the earliest reports on Occupy Wall Street and America is starting to listen. As you'd expect, Fox News is painting the middleclass outcry against the corruption in the financial sector as childish hippies, communists and tantrum prone bed-wetters. Projection is what Freud would call that.

Watch this movement as the numbers grow, message shapes and our elected leaders take notice. You may find that more of us have harbored just as much frustration with the same institutions as those sitting in Liberty Park.