Romney-Ryan: A ticket for the rich, a disaster for America

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ha ha ha... no taxes... ha ha ha... it's good to be stinking rich...

The game having been changed, it will be difficult enough for Romney now that he'll have to campaign not just against a popular incumbent but for his running mate's unpopular budget plan. He wanted this to be a referendum on Obama but instead it could turn out to be just as much a referendum on Ryan's, and the Republican Party's, far-right agenda.

What makes it worse for Romney, increasingly seen as a privileged rich douchebag with a plutocratic sense of entitlement (which is what he is, perception meeting reality), is that he'd benefit enormously were Ryan's plan -- a plan to undo the social compact and American democratic self-governance and to enrich and empower the rich, like Romney himself -- ever to be implemented:

Under Paul Ryan's plan, Mitt Romney wouldn't pay any taxes for the next ten years -- or any of the years after that. Now, do I know that that's true. Yes, I'm certain.

Well, maybe not quite nothing. In 2010 -- the only year we have seen a full return from him -- Romney would have paid an effective tax rate of around 0.82 percent under the Ryan plan, rather than the 13.9 percent he actually did. How would someone with more than $21 million in taxable income pay so little? Well, the vast majority of Romney's income came from capital gains, interest, and dividends. And Ryan wants to eliminate all taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends.

Romney already has enough problems on that front. He's refusing to release his tax returns and seems to be hiding something, something very bad, the suspicion fully justifiable given that we already know he has put some of his wealth in offshore tax shelters.

And now the questions will come in earnest: Do you support a plan that would reduce your own tax rate to almost zero? If not, how do you and Ryan intend to resolve your differences? And why is he your running mate? If so, how do you intend to pay for those tax cuts for the rich? And do you not think there's a problem with a budget plan that would shift even more of the tax burden downwards while also destroying essential entitlement programs (e.g., Medicare privatization) and other supports for the non-rich?

 

As The Atlantic's Matthew O'Brien continues:

 

It might seem impossible to fund the government when the super-rich pay no taxes. That is accurate. Ryan would actually raise taxes on the bottom 30 percent of earners, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, but that hardly fills the revenue hole he would create. The solution? All but eliminate all government outside of Social Security and defense -- a point my colleague Derek Thompson has made in incredible chart form.

 

Maybe Harry Reid's mysterious source that Romney didn't pay taxes for a decade was really a time-traveler from the future. If Romney wins, it could very well be true.

 

In selecting Ryan, Romney may have excited conservatives, but he also made his image problem, as well as his efforts to distance himself from the ugly details of right-wing Republican orthodoxy, even worse. As The New Republic's Alec MacGillis writes:

It is the favorable treatment of capital gains that has helped drive income inequality to its current levels and that results in the 400 households with the highest income in the country paying such jarringly low tax rates. And Ryan wants to now eliminate the tax on this income entirely? Just seven months ago, Romney argued convincingly in his exchange with Newt that this was taking a good thing a bit too far. Now he's tied at the hip to the leading champion of this approach -- and has turned himself into the poster boy for why it's a terrible idea. In that sense, Ryan and Romney could hardly be more ill-suited to each other's needs: Romney puts an inconvenient face on the extremity of Ryan's plan, while Ryan's plan sheds even more light on Romney's taxes -- or the glaring lack thereof.

 

Thanks for a great pick, Mitt. Much appreciated.

Defending Romney's offshore tax shelters: The Republican Party's anti-tax anti-Amerianism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So what's the Republican Party all about these days? Well, the imposition of theocracy, sure, but really it's about plutocracy -- the rule of the rich, the rich being entitled to rule by virtue of their wealth, with policies that allow the rich to get richer. Romney may talk about helping average Americans even as he embodies plutocracy to the core, but for the most part Republicans aren't even denying it anymore:

Republicans aren't just in favor of lowering taxes; now they're applauding wildly complex efforts by the wealthiest Americans to avoid paying billions in taxes by shipping capital to other countries.

"It's really American to avoid paying taxes, legally," said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, on Tuesday. He was defending Mitt Romney, who, as [yesterday] morning's editorial in The Times notes, appears to have the most elaborate history of tax avoidance – offshore tax havens, disputed sheltering mechanisms, complex trusts – of any major presidential candidate in history.

Invest in the Cayman Islands, Mr. Graham seems to be saying. It's the patriotic thing to do.

That peculiar vision of the American way doesn't go back very far. Mr. Romney's financial practices aren't unusual just because he is one of the wealthiest candidates ever to run; it's because previous well-to-do candidates would have been embarrassed to admit they had gone so far to enrich themselves at the public treasury's expense.

For Republicans, it's perfectly okay, it seems, to avoid paying taxes -- and for the rich to take advantage of whatever is at their privileged disposal. This is beyond merely advocated for a flat tax. This is defending a system, and those who take advantage of it, that allows the rich above all to get away with putting their vast wealth in offshore tax shelters, that allows them to avoid paying taxes altogether, that allows them to avoid contributing not just their fair share but anything at all, or not very much at all, to a revenue system (developed through democratic self-governance, effectively the people willingly taxing themselves) that supports and sustains the public good -- that funds things like Social Security, national parks, and the military.

We can argue about whether or not it's "really American" to prefer generally low tax rates and generally limited government, but it's certainly not "really American," except in the wild fantasies of Ron Paul-loving libertarians and increasingly most Republicans, to want to get out of paying taxes altogether. That may be how Mitt Romney and his privileged rich ilk handle their finances, but the American people, Republican extremists excepted, would rather not have the American way of life undone so that the rich can hide their money from the taxman.

George Will calls out Romney for campaigning with "bloviating ignoramus" Donald Trump

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ABC News reports on a funny thing that happened on ABC this morning:

This morning on "This Week," ABC News' George Will called Donald Trump a "bloviating ignoramus," questioning why presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is associating with the real estate mogul, who once again falsely questioned President Obama's birthplace this week.

"I do not understand the cost benefit here," Will said on the "This Week" roundtable. "The costs are clear. The benefit — what voter is gonna vote for him (Romney) because he is seen with Donald Trump? The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious it seems to me."

"Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low and you can still intrude into American politics," Will added. "Again, I don't understand the benefit. What is Romney seeking?"

I don't know... approval from the powerful so as to fill some gaping hole in his soul?

(UPDATE: Trump has fired back, tweeting: "George Will may be the dumbest (and most overrated) political commentator of all time. If the Republicans listen to him, they will lose." I don't much care for Will, but I'd defend him here. There are many who are dumber. Has Trump ever watched Fox News?)

Look, I take (and for the most part agree with) Will's point, but there's the usual bloviating arrogance here:

First, while birtherism is a refuge for the ignorant, and worse, Republicans (that is, members of Will's own party) have for the most part spent the past four years, and more, questioning Obama's loyalty to America.

This more line of attack on first the candidate and then the president has taken a number of forms, but Romney himself has engaged in it repeatedly, accusing Obama of going around the world apologizing for America, a blatant lie. Yes, birtherism has been one of the ugliest forms of it, what with its more explicit racist component, and Trump has been one of the most visible of the birthers, and one of the loudest, but Will is just trying to distance himself and his beloved party from a movement, if you can call it that, that has been very much a part of the vicious Republican assault on Obama, one that's still going strong today.

Will often takes this smarter-than-thou approach in his punditry, and to his credit he has criticized the more extreme elements in his party on occasion, but you can't really have it both ways. Birtherism and similar lines of attack on the president (e.g., playing the affirmative action card, which Trump has also done) are a huge part of what the Republican Party has been about the past several years. If you count yourself a Republican, this is what your party is about. You can try to pretend otherwise, or wave off these elements as too silly to bother with, and you can try to make yourself look good by comparison in doing so, but that would be a gross misrepresentation of your party.

Second, Donald Trump is a popular Republican -- among Republicans -- as his high poll numbers last year indicated. Will may not like that, but it's true. And why is he so popular? It's his birtherism, sure, to a point, but perhaps more so his bullying views on foreign policy (advocating the America be a sort of global bully, pushing everyone around, including China, to get whatever it wants) -- indeed, this has become Romney's main foreign policy view as well: Russia's still Enemy #1 and America ought just to go around swining its supposedly massive dick. It's not exactly an enlightened position to take, but it's not like Romney is terribly enlightened on foreign policy.

Furthermore -- and this is really why Trump is so widely esteemed -- Republicans worship successful businessmen and the super-wealthy, and Trump is both (even if his record as a businessman has been full of massive failure*). Put another way, Republicans love rapacious greed, and Trump is nothing if not rapaciously greedy.

(*As I wrote back in February, if you want failure, you need look no further than Trump's own career -- for example, the USFL, the Trump Shuttle, Trump Vodka, Trump Mortgage, massive debt, bailouts by banks, bankrupties... really, one could go on and on. See here and here for the details of these and other failures.)

Far more than birtherism, and even more than bullying American foreign policy and militarism, this is the core of today's Republican Party, with the chief policy goal being the significant lowering of those tax rates affecting the wealthy. The Republican Party is the party of plutocracy, not democracy, and it advocates a laissez-faire system in which the rich can acquire more and more wealth -- and of course more and more power. Will's views, admittedly, are more nuanced and complex than that, and he may not approve in full of this plutocratic agenda, or even acknowledge it, but basically both he and his party are fundamentally pro-Trump.

Third, while I agree that the benefits of appearing with Trump aren't clear, if indeed there are any, Romney has proven himself throughout this campaign to be a shameless panderer and suck-up who will do and say anything for votes. Given that, it makes sense he'd want to appear with a popular Republican celebrity like Trump. Furthermore, for someone lacking in charisma and broad public appeal like Romney, being at Trump's side is an opportunity to bask in a desirable glow of someone very much unlike himself. Romney and his campaign no doubt think he'll be able to benefit just from being in the presence of that glow.

But, really, Romney may simply want to be in the presence of another super-rich businessman. Look at who Romney is: a one-term governor and otherwise political failure who has made a fortune in the business world as a vulture capitalist. Trump has been critical of Romney in this regard -- "He'd buy companies. He'd close companies. He'd get rid of jobs." -- but that may not matter much to Romney. Or, rather, it may, but perhaps Romney sees in Trump what other Republicans do, business success, and perhaps that's all that really matters here.

Simply put, Trump is someone to whom Romney can relate on a deep personal level (more personal than political), someone even more successful (in a way), and even richer, than he is. If you view the world through a lens of plutocratic entitlement, as Romney seems to, Trump's a superstar. And who doesn't want to hang out with superstars?

So while there may be no obvious benefit to it, in terms of votes, is it really any wonder Romney will be appearing with The Donald -- and with Gingrich as well, making up what I've termed "the un-holy Republican triumvirate of 2012"?

The fact that George Will doesn't see this, or doesn't want to, is evidence that he doesn't understand, or doesn't want to, today's Republican Party, including its 2012 presidential flag-bearer.

Massive military spending is bringing America down

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ThinkProgress cites a remarkable report showing the enormous cost of the U.S. military:

A new report released today by SIPRI, a Swedish-based think tank, reveals that U.S. military spending has almost doubled since 2001. The U.S. spent an astounding $698 billion on the military last year, an 81% increase over the last decade.

U.S. spending on the military last year far exceeded any other country. We spent six times more than China -- the second largest spender. Overall, the world expended $1.6 trillion on the military, with the United States accounting for the lion's share:



As a percentage of GDP, U.S. military spending has increased from 3.1% in 2001 to 4.8% last year. 

For all the bluster from so-called deficit hawks like Paul Ryan, who isn't really a deficit hawk (let alone a "courageous" one) but rather a media-hyped anti-government Ayn Rand disciple, the real burden on the U.S. budget isn't Social Security or Medicare, nor spending on public broadcasting, nor "waste," but rather the military, which has grown to meet the hegemonic demands of two terrible wars and the maintenance of an empire that is declining and falling.

This just isn't sustainable. As Matthew Yglesias writes, "given that the US share of global economic output is extremely likely to shrink over the next 15 years, we're not going to be able to sustain this kind of hegemonic posture without really crippling the domestic economy."

But of course you can't cut the military, can you? If you do, you're apparently not tough enough on America's enemies, and you may even want the terrorists to win. So instead we get Republicans, who claim to be fiscally conservative deficit hawks but who are really just plutocrats seeking to make life even cushier for the wealthy. And so Paul Ryan's much-ballyhooed and media-applauded "The Path to Prosperity" includes regressive tax cuts and attacks on programs for the poor. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

As for military spending, yes, sure, the argument can be made that the U.S. bears the burden of policing the world in a way no other country does. (And, yes, I support the intervention in Libya, too.) But choices have to be made, and if the U.S. is to recover a sense of fiscal sanity it will need to reduce its military spending and to make do with less. And, of course, to decide what sort of global military power it wishes to be -- and can afford to be. Americans may wish to cling to a sense of unchallenged superiority, with a military able to wield enormous power, but the reality is that, considerations of the dubious justice of overwhelming military might notwithstanding, their country's future requires significantly more constrained objectives.

It's tough to be a billionaire

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Glenn Greenwald looks at the self-pity of the Koch brothers et al.:

Since the financial crisis of 2008, one of the most revealing spectacles has been the parade of financial elites who petulantly insist that they are the victims of societal hostility: political officials heap too much blame on them, public policy burdens them so unfairly, the public resents them, and -- most amazingly of all -- President Obama is a radical egalitarian who is unprecedentedly hostile to business interests...

I'm not someone who sees the Koch Brothers as some sort of unique threat. I mostly regard them as little more than a symbol of the death of democratic values in the U.S. -- the way in which the possession of vast financial resources is an absolute prerequisite to making any impact on the national political process, and conversely, how those without such resources are politically inconsequential and impotent (short of their fomenting serious social unrest)...

For billionaires to see themselves as the True Victims, to complain that the President and the Government are waging some sort of war against them in the name of radical egalitarianism, is so removed from reality -- universes away -- that's it's hard to put into words. And the fiscal recklessness that the Kochs and their comrades tirelessly point to was a direct by-product of the last decade's rule by the Republican Party which they fund: from unfunded, endless wars to a never-ending expansion of the privatized National Security and Surveillance States to the financial crisis that exploded during the Bush presidency. But whatever else is true, there are many victims of fiscal policy in America: the wealthiest business interests and billionaires like the Koch Brothers are the few who are not among them.

Much of this self-pitying anger is directed at Obama, which is pretty hilarious given that, as Greenwald points out, Obama has been very much a part of the problem, allowing the corporate control of America that was so much a part of the Bush II presidency (and so much a part of America -- see the excellent Inside Job, if you haven't already -- regardless of who's in the White House and which party controls Congress) to continue. In that regard, he hasn't really changed anything, even if Republicans keep trying to portray him as a socialist. He is nothing of the kind. He has been very good to Wall Street and very good to Corporate America generally.

And as for the billionaires:

This is exactly the psychological affliction that leads Wall Street plunderers and tycoons and billionaires to see themselves as the victims of the resentful lower-classes and the "radical egalitarians" who run the U.S. Government. Even as they get richer and everyone else gets poorer, even as the very few remaining restraints on their political power are abolished, even as the disparities in wealth and power grow ever-larger, they become increasingly convinced that everything is stacked against them, that there is a grand conspiracy to deprive them of what is rightfully theirs. All of this could be confined to a fascinating, abstract psychological study if not for the fact that the people who think this way exercise the most political power and continue to exercise more and more.

And for the fact that, as American democracy collapses in on itself and becomes a sham, and as American wealth is concentrated more and more in the hands of the plutocracy, the vast majority of the American people, many of whom are sinking further and further into debt and further and further into abject hopelessness and utter despair, have little to no power at all.

I'm not sure that's quite what the Founders envisioned.

More! More! More!

By Carl

Oh lord, this can't help but seal the deal for Barack Obama:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate.

"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.

"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.

I added that last bit of the story to present a reasonable condition to the headline, but also to rebut it, slightly.

It's true that many corporations are so-called "individual corporations", LLCs and S-Corporations where the income is essentially passed thru to the shareholders for tax purposes.

The problem, one the Cato Institute fails to note, is the compliance with this when filing tax forms.

The IRS estimates that roughly $300 billion in undeclared income just vanishes somewhere between the corporations' books and the shareholders' tax returns each year.

At a 35% tax bracket, that ain't small potatoes, taxwise!

Too, where Cato makes it appear that this problem is almost solely a function of the tax liabilty shifted to the individual business owner, in truth, the GAO report shows that "about 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts."

That's each, not collectively. When you are talking about trillions in revenues, $50 million is a small piece, so this is not an insignificant number of tax evaders.

In plain English, what does this mean?

It means that the entities -- people and corporations -- that beneift most from the bounty of resources of this great nation, its people, land, and other natural resources, are not giving back in a commensurate fashion as payment for these resources.

In other words, they are stealing our country out from under us, and either refusing to pony up reparations or are off-shoring your tax dollars in their Cayman Island bank accounts!

John McCain would encourage this by extending Bush's tax cuts and specifically, his capital gains, estate and dividend tax breaks that benefit the richest one percent of this nation far more than Barack Obama's middle class tax cut would benefit the middle classes of America.

And the middle class outnumbers the wealthy, but make that case and you're declaring class warfare.

I think it's about time we did just that. After all, class warfare has already been declared on the middle class!


(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)