Federal Budget is Increasingly Balanced on Backs of Working People
We are hearing more and more about the supposed 47% percent of Americans who pay no federal taxes. Well, look who’s paying more and more of the federal budget overall: Working people! and, if you’re self-employed its double! Did you know that after you make $106,000 per year, they stop taking payroll taxes out of your check above that amount? How is that fair? Bernie Sanders has a bill to eliminate the payroll tax cap. Hardly any working people even know it exists since the average income is only $40,000!
What Directions for Public Health under the Affordable Care Act?
November, 2011; Urban Institute Health Policy Center
1. Public health is getting increased attention due to ACA, but specific interventions that make a big difference in public health are still elusive. Historical successes are inoculation and sanitation. However, today’s challenges of lifestyle issues are more complex to address.
2. Funding for public health initiatives has been made available through ARRA and ACA. However, it is subject to annual appropriations and therefore needs public support to survive budget battles.
3. The best way to address complex challenges is through partnerships.
4. Public health experts named the following population health issues as top priorities: obesity and inactivity; alcohol and substance abuse; mental health, especially depression; violence; and tobacco use.
5. “New Public Health” focuses on the need to improve how health departments operate: How can they develop new tools for today’s lifestyle-related problems, from developing “nudges” and making it easier to do the right thing to stronger interventions such as taxation or regulation; build new partnerships; assess performance; and build support to fund effective activities?
And, useful quote for State and Local Health Improvement Coalitions:
Public health practitioners and promoters are good at making long lists of their activities and goals. Each item often seems distinct from others. Unfortunately, each is also often seen as a priority, or a worthy goal, with groupings of them deemed “essential.”
Moving from such lists of priorities to actual prioritization seems likely to improve the effectiveness of public health’s interventions and promote accountability for performance. Better accountability is a key strategy, if not a prerequisite, to increasing and stabilizing funding flows.
Increasingly, public health thought leaders are developing a theme that unifies those lengthy fragmented listings: All of public health has the single overarching goal of increasing the overall health of the population. Each public health intervention, from contact tracing to tobacco cessation, contributes in its own way.
Indeed, clinical care and many other, non-health public programs also affect health, which is the message of Health in All Policies. Seeing all interventions as interrelated efforts greatly enhances the potential reach, and value, of overall public intervention.
I didn’t feel the earthquake today. I was in Berkeley Springs, WV. But, I was on the phone with a friend who heard the shaking and yelled out to her family - “Hey, what’s that?” I could hear loud rattling all around her. She said, “I’ll call you back.”
I thought it might be an earthquake, but I dimissed the thought. Why did I not say anything? That is what I call a “Cheap Lesson.” No one got hurt (which would make it an expensive lesson), but I didn’t do the right thing.
What I should have done is said to her: “It might be an earthquake - hang up and make sure you are safe!” Or even more to the point, “hang up and get out of the house!”
I guess I didn’t say anything because, I didn’t have enough confidence in that little voice in my head saying “it might be an eartquake.” I self-sensor more and more of my thoughts. I’ve learned to regret saying things at times - telling myself I have to learn to keep my mouth shut. I still say a lot, don’t get me wrong - its not like I’m shy or anything. But, I didn’t say anything at that moment. Why? Maybe its about trying to maintain that everything is normal; to re-assure, to not think the worst. For me to make the full leap in that moment to say outloud - “that noise you are hearing could be an earthquake” - just didn’t happen.
Now that the earthquake evacuated people from buildings in Washington DC and Baltmore and disrupted traffic in the whole area, the idea that a serious earthquake can and did strike our area is starting to sink in. But, the next safety hazard might not be so obvious. So, I am telling myself, and memorializing it in this blog, to always speak out in situations where there might be danger involved. I will not worry about sounding crazy or alarmist - I’ll remember that it could save someone’s life! I learned that lesson today.
The Tea Party won on the debt ceiling debate, and John Boener said he got 98% of what he wanted in the debt deal. So, they admit that they compromised all of 2%, and brought the economy to the brink of disaster to show that they were unwilling to negotiate.
The Tea Party and Republicans have argued that we cannot raise taxes on “job creators” - i.e. wealthy people. Yet, they argue in the next sentence that the “job creators” have large amounts of capital sitting “on the sidelines” because they don’t know what President Obama is going to do with taxes and don’t know how much health insurance will cost. So, they ADMIT that the “job creators” aren’t doing anything to create jobs.
And, the argument is spurious. It is not hard to estimate how much health insurance will cost - just do the math. Second, its not hard to figure out how much Obama wants to raise taxes - he wants the Bush tax cuts to expire, and has put that on the table. So, these are pretty easy to estimate. I don’t see why these drastic “unknowns” are keeping businesses from hiring.
What is keeping businesses from hiring is weak demand in the economy. What is keeping customers from buying?
Unemployment: Its not just the jobless, but also employed members of their families who stop buying new clothes or taking trips.
Flat wages: Wages have been stagnant and even declining for some groups for more than a decade. Our economic model (i.e. capitalism) requires constant growth. How is that possible when incomes are flat?
Housing values and household debt: Unrelenting foreclosures and tightened credit have made our biggest asset (our home) into a liability for many of us.
Income inequality: this means people who want to spend money don’t have enough of it, and people who have plenty of money have all the gadgets they need and can only eat one meal a day, even if an expensive one. So, more money for rich people, and more rich people, really doesn’t do much for the economy overall. Moving people from an income of $50,000 to an income of $100,000 can make a huge impact on the economy overall - they can buy cars, houses, clothes, eat out at restaurants etc.
Not to mention weak infrastructure, traffic, health problems and many other things that are working against consumers spending money. Tax cuts are not the solution to any of the above problems, and neither are spending cuts that erode job training, mental health services, basic income for elderly, disabled and unemployed.
When Eric Cantor opposed the tax increases on corporate jets and hedge fund managers, he said “I won’t do anything that will hurt the economy”. News to Eric Cantor and his Tea Party colleagues: YOU ALREADY HAVE HURT THE ECONOMY in more ways that you can imagine.
Freshman Democratic Congressman Joe Goodman introduced a bill today that concedes to nearly all of the Republican demands for spending reductions in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. It calls for a one cent tax increase on millionaries. Medicaid, the health care program for poor and disabled people would be eliminated over the next ten years.Medicare will be administered through private insurance companies.
Democrats believe these cuts to programs for the poor will be offset by increased gifts to charities (which, incidentally, would no longer be tax deductible under an Obama proposal).Nevertheless, the Democrats have staked their bets on the good will of the American people, estimating that public giving to charity will increase by 30% if the bill is adopted.
The only concession the Democrats are asking the Republicans to make is to increase the tax rate by $0.01 (one cent) on those with net assets of $5 million or more.Democrats estimate the tax will yield $5,000 in tax revenue in the first year. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that, due to tax loopholes, only 13% of the millionaires will actually pay the tax, yielding only $650 in total tax revenue.It is estimated the tax will cost millionaires more than $176m in legal and accounting fees to avoid these new taxes.
Republicans were quick to dismiss the bill as mere partisanship.
“Democrats know that we have all signed the pledge,” said Eric Cantbor, House Majority Leader [referring to the Reformers of the American Tax System pledge not to raise taxes of any kind]. “We cannot agree to raising one penny of taxes on job creators.”
“This proposal is intended to make us look silly,” said Michelle Balkman, as she looked slightly to the right.“We will not be made to look silly,” she insisted.
“It makes me feel insecure about the future because of this tax,”said Haliburton executive, Phil Reaper. ”I don’t know if I am going to open that new factory.In fact, I am going to have to lay some people off because I am worried about the economy.With these new taxes, I wonder who’s next – it’s a slippery slope!”
“Any Republican politician who votes for even one penny increase in taxes will be thrown out by their own voters in recall campaigns next year,” warned Grover Norcrust, Chairman of Reformers of the American Tax System (RATS).
Multi-millionaire Rapper, Foty-Nine Cent, was quoted in News of the World as saying “I’m really not down with a one-cent increase!”
The debt ceiling negotiations have been painful to watch. The real-world implications of a failure are already materializing. I know this because I am currently applying for a mortgage, and I must take into consideration that interest rates may rise as a result of a US debt default in August. I am such a micro actor, but there are thousands of people like me, plus the other larger players like the banks. The August 2 deadline is preceded by lots of little deadlines that can each make a difference in our economy.
Zero Sum Game is a negotiation in which one side wins (+1) and one side loses (-1). You add together those two outcomes, and the sum is zero. Yet, the outcomes of the current negotiations on the debt ceiling are already showing high likelihood of all sides losing - Democrats fail to get the revenue measures (-1) and Republicans fail to get the spending cuts (minus 1). So, that outcome is already a sum of -2. Then, on top of that, you get the entire US economy and then world economy going downhill as a result of US default on the debt (let’s call that a -100).
What makes this even more risky is it seems some Republicans are not afraid of forcing a US default on its debt. That could get blamed on Obama, and the higher costs of debt would force the government to get smaller just to pay for its debt. Its the old “drown the government in the bathtub” concept. So, they feel like even if both sides lose, and the American economy loses (-102 game), the Republicans still win their long-term aim: reducing the size of government (+100). And, they also win from immediate economic decline - a poor economy will get blamed on Obama, and pave the way for Republicans to take back the White House. For many Republicans, that’s the +1000 they are looking for, and winning the White House is worth any cost to the world economy and the American people!
The Washington Post has a great article on what both sides did wrong in the negotiations. They failed to even TRY to see each other’s points of view.
Instead of working the Zero-Sum Game negotiations, both sides could have had a 400% gain for the American people, according to research on negotations, cited by the Washington Post article:
“Additional studies , such as one by George Washington University’s Charles B. Craver, have found that when parties collaborate, the size of the pie can increase by 400 percent—that is, the end value of the deal can be four times better than it would have been otherwise. Partisan attacks do not create this value; brainstorming does. There is no “us v. them” when all of us are facing a common crisis.”
This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. Decisions are being made about the national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American for decades to come. As we address the issue of deficit reduction we must not ignore the painful economic reality of today - which is that the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well while the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing. In fact, the United States today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth.
Everyone understands that over the long-term we have got to reduce the deficit - a deficit that was caused mainly by Wall Street greed, tax breaks for the rich, two wars, and a prescription drug program written by the drug and insurance companies. It is absolutely imperative, however, that as we go forward with deficit reduction we completely reject the Republican approach that demands savage cuts in desperately-needed programs for working families, the elderly, the sick, our children and the poor, while not asking the wealthiest among us to contribute one penny.
Mr. President, please listen to the overwhelming majority of the American people who believe that deficit reduction must be about shared sacrifice. The wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations in this country must pay their fair share. At least 50 percent of any deficit reduction package must come from revenue raised by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes that benefit large, profitable corporations and Wall Street financial institutions. A sensible deficit reduction package must also include significant cuts to unnecessary and wasteful Pentagon spending.
Please do not yield to outrageous Republican demands that would greatly increase suffering for the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society. Now is the time to stand with the tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to survive economically, not with the millionaires and billionaires who have never had it so good.
If American workers are being denied their right to organize when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States.
Barack Obama (the candidate) on union organizing and collective bargaining.
Writes a report by the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute. The report writes:
The state of working families in Maryland has deteriorated, and the prospects for the future are shaky, unless state and national governments take strong action to promote a broadly-shared recovery.
The danger Maryland faces is that most of the gains of the economic recovery will flow to the wealthiest Marylanders. New jobs will be few, and those that emerge will have lower wages and fewer benefits than before the recession…
Public policy has a crucial role to play in addressing this danger. National and state governments must promote the development of jobs that can support families. They must support initiatives in training and education to prepare workers for 21st century job demands. They must vigorously implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. They must reinforce investments in transportation, child care and housing affordability that make it possible for people to work. They must make public benefits accessible and efficient, by implementing “no wrong door” processes for obtaining benefits and by outlawing discrimination on the basis of source of income. They must support the ability of working people to organize and bargain collectively for improved and benefits.
The economy remains fragile and is performing well below its potential. Major deficit reduction should not be on the table until the recovery is firmly on track, that is, until unemployment has dropped and is on a downward trajectory. The public structures that support a strong economy must be financed by revenue measures that are adequate to the state’s needs and that reflect individuals’ and businesses’ ability to pay.
