Clem needs a lesson in coherence.

He says there's an undeclared war between haves and have nots. He goes on to say that the have nots are losing, (Not saying that the haves want it that way).

WTF? Be an unrepentant class warrior Brian. You were envious of the doctors and their families up on Telegraph Hill in Coos Bay when you lived down in the flats. Be a man and admit it since you declared on the floor casting a revenge vote against everyone who voted for Measure 5.

Tool.

I'm actually a Rich Republican Senator mad about my taxes going up and who broke Senate rules and defamed a House member on the Senate floor.

Love, Boats

Great data from Steve. Too bad legislators didn't hear more of this while they listened to the business community complain about the $264 million in increases they enacted.

The success of class warfare against middle and working class families has dramatically shifted the tax responsibilities off corporations over recent decades.

But folks too busy working to complain didn’t call it out for what it was…class warfare: when industrial and commercial property taxes dropped, when the single sales factor went into effect, when tax break after tax break was enacted and when the defination of taxable income was changes over and over to the benefit of business after business.

Only now is it called class warfare. Luckily, voters know they’ve been given a bum deal. They know it was wealthy banks and businesses that brought our economy down. They know it’s time for change and they are ready to increase taxes. Too bad the legislature isn’t giving them much to vote for. However, it’s a step in the right direction. Corporate taxes will rise about 30% next year. In addition, really wealthy families and individuals will pay more. Our school kids, vulnerable citizens, public safety programs, and court system will benefit.

Its time for the reversal of class warfare which is at hand.

Progressives need to begin to educate Oregonians on the success of western European democracies like Sweden and Denmark. Bold progressive public policy has worked. We have progressive societal models which are clear proof that our ideas will provide security for America.

The more progressives win, the wider the divide between rich and poor becomes. This is not so much a slam on progressive politics as to whom their politics empowers. Take a close look at the Obama administration and you may begin to understand. If you really want equity, you have to empower the people and the only way you can do that is to disempower the government. Oh sure, you can point to little countries in europe that have security protection from foreigners and which are monoethnic and monocultural and a few of which have a strong national resource base relative to population...but those are straw men.

It doesn't matter though. It's all just polishing the brass on the Titanic now. What is actually going on is a deliberate reduction in the US standard of living because the future profit potential is abroad. The best Oregon can do to ride it out is to stay solvent and shrink government in ways that doesn't increase short term poverty. I know, pearls before swine, but someone's gotta say it.

Economists are already saying that Obama’s “soak the rich” strategy to pay for health care, bailouts, foreign wars, entitlements, new government programs, etc., won’t collect nearly enough revenue because there simply aren’t enough “rich” to pay for it all.

He will eventually have to begin soaking the middle class with tax increases as well.

Watch for a huge backlash when the middle class, accustomed to “the rich” paying the way for everyone else, is asked to start poneying up their fair share.

[Impersonation deleted. -editor.]

I love these Republicans coming in and saying that the recent growth in "Government" began under Obama.

Where was your criticism of Bush's tax payer paid for subsidies of the military industrial complex after 9/11?

I find it so funny that you Republicans will not blink an eye when 200+ billion tax payer dollars is spent on improving government sanctioned murder in other countries AKA war, but you scream welfare when a 1/100th of that amount is proposed to subsidize an underprivileged youth's after school activities.

I know where your priorities and denials are; and thanks to none of you having the nuts to own up to your own and your party's mistakes, I will never be voting Republican again.

Like the philandering Catholic father who has the nerve to tell his ex-wife that she should be going to church more often after his affairs led to their divorce.

Get the eff out of here.

Assume that a working-class (whatever that means to you) employee works from 9-5, five days a week, for an annual salary of $50k. This employee has weeknights and weekends off every week and can schedule and take regular vacations.

Further assume that a lawyer/doctor works from 7am to whenever (8pm? midnight? overnight?), often 7 days a week, for an annual salary of $150k. The lawyer/doctor is on call 365 days/year and hasn't taken more time off than a long weekend--in years.

Given these assumptions, can someone provide a compelling argument why the lawyer/doctor who has made a significant investment in her education (easily over $180k - which she likely is still paying off at a rate of $2k per month) and traded such things as family and leisure time and predictability of schedule in exchange for cash should be penalized in the form of an obligation to pay even MORE taxes than she already does?

What's fair about raising taxes on the working-class "wealthy"?

Air Shox

Wholesale cigarettes

Sam:

1. All the Dr's wealth comes from the rest of us. In great amounts. Therefore, it is not inequitable to ask you, whoops, the "Dr" to contribute in great amounts.

2. Professionals choose their careers. Hopefully Drs are smart enough to know it is a more than 9 to 5 job. Otherwise, they probably shouldn't be practicing. Hard to feel sorry on that end.

3. The Dr. most likely received some public education at one point in their life. Why not help others in a commensurate way so that they can become Drs too?

4. No one uses the term working class wealthy. It doesn't make sense. Hopefully we can use it someday when regular people who do regular jobs can be comfortably wealthy as a result of their labor.

5. Progressive taxation is a pretty straight forward concept: You earn a lot , you can pay more. It doesn't consider how you earned it. A discussion of the capital gains tax rates would probably be more appropriate.

6. Of all the Drs I am close with, their employers and the insurance industry are more likely to cause them to lose $$ versus the tax code due to pay cuts, reimbursement rate cuts etc. Not sure the increase in the flat Oregon income tax (capped at 9% for just about everyone with a significant earning power) cuts into their disposable income that much.

7. I believe the increase is for people making more than $125,000.00. Come on. You can afford it.

8. And finally, to paraphrase RFK who answered a med student's question about who was going to pay for all his new social welfare spending: "you are."

Todd Foster

Joshua said,

"Progressives need to begin to educate Oregonians on the success of western European democracies like Sweden and Denmark."

yes, it is easy to declare success when the US and others provide for your military security. You can save a lot of money and direct it to other places when you get to spend it all on yourselves.

How about if the US just abandons its military and relies on the French and the Dutch to come to the rescue if someone attacks us.

That is a truly hilarious thought.

Scott J:

The success of Denmark, Sweden, etc is only due to America's military protection?

With completely absurd ideas like these, I would suggest refraining from making any more negative inferences about others.

"Progressives need to begin to educate Oregonians on the success of western European democracies like Sweden and Denmark."

Somebody -- unfortunately I can't remember who -- on NPR said a while back that if every resident of the red states could spend two weeks in Europe it would transform the politics of America. He was absolutely right. Americans -- especially working-class and middle-class conservatives -- have a false perception (fed by Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, Faux News et al.) that residents of the "socialist" European countries are groaning under the heel of "oppressive" governments, taxed to the point of impoverishment, living in cardboard boxes and eating road kill.

"yes, it is easy to declare success when the US and others provide for your military security. ... How about if the US just abandons its military and relies on the French and the Dutch to come to the rescue if someone attacks us."

Who is going to attack us? Are the Islamic hordes going to invade from Canada?

And if you're talking about terrorism, conventional weapons and tactics are useless against it.

An adequate military is necessary, but there is absolutely no reason for the US to spend more on "defense" than all the other countries of the world COMBINED except the blind, piggish GREED of the "defense" contractors. (How many billions did Halliburton and KBR drain out of the Treasury for the phony Iraq war that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld cooked up?)

Working class "wealthy" ha! What kind of term is that?

If you are making over $50,000/year as an individual or over $75,000/year as a family, you are not working class. And don't blame the 2 cars and your toys out in your drive way as the reason you are paying too much in taxes to consider yourself "wealthy." Those were your purchases, if you did not purchase them, you would have more discretionary income and less taxes to pay.

If you are going to make the argument that an investment in education should equal a commensurate paying job when you get out then that is a shaky one at least.

I know plenty of peers who spent 8+ years from their Bachelor's through their PhDs racking up 75k+ in loans.

Does that mean every PhD in Philosophy should be getting an annual pay commensurate with what their student debt is?

Or does that only apply to doctors, vampires...excuse me, lawyers, engineers and a few select other disciplines whose skills are highly sought after and highly paid?

Most would argue the latter, I would find it hard to disagree with them.

"Further assume that a lawyer/doctor works from 7am to whenever often 7 days a week (8pm? midnight? overnight?) ..."

Absolute rubbish. I know of no doctors who work such hours. If a lawyer does it's by choice, not necessity -- and you can be damn sure the hours will be billed.

" ... for an annual salary of $150k."

That's a pretty pathetic income for a doctor. "The American Medical Association' annual physician income survey shows that, an average, doctors are making close to $200,000 a year." (And that was in 1998!) Also note that "salary" does not equal "income." Physicians who are owners or part-owners of their practice can earn much more -- not to mention in many cases holding an interest in the labs, testing facilities and surgery facilities to which they refer patients.

"The lawyer/doctor is on call 365 days/year"

Absolute rubbish again. When was the last time you tried to get a doctor to see you at 11 p.m. or on a weekend? You make an appointment to see one; if it's an emergency you go to the emergency room or an urgent care clinic (and even the latter are generally not open 24/7). Why do you make statements like this? Do you think we're all idiots, or do you think it's still 1955?

Or maybe you're one of those elitists who's rich enough to pay for concierge medicine.

If businesses get such a good deal in Oregon and we have such smart economic policies then why do we have the second highest unemployment rate in the nation?

I'm not saying it's necessarily the tax structure, but something is very, very wrong here.

"Where was your criticism of Bush's tax payer paid for subsidies of the military industrial complex after 9/11?"

Republicans don't mind spending tax dollars as long as it's for killing people and not for helping people.

If businesses get such a good deal in Oregon and we have such smart economic policies then why do we have the second highest unemployment rate in the nation?

Exactly. For all the folks who believe lowering taxes = more jobs and raising taxes = less jobs, look at Oregon. We have a much lower corporate tax than WA and than the national average. Even that bastion of far-left radicals at The Tax Foundation places OR on the more favorable corporate tax end of the spectrum. http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/22661.html

So, does one argue: 1. there is no causal relationship between corporate taxes and jobs creation/loss 2. more taxes = fewer jobs and less taxes = more jobs...except for now; this is a freak accident 3. question the data 4. the opposite is true: higher corporate taxes lead to more jobs creation

The argument that people making more should pay more because they "can afford it" misses the point entirely that making more is a function of both over charging for personal economic activity and externalizing dependency upon social infrastructure. Those making more should sequester less comparative wealth and also pay more for their comparative overuse of the systems of social infrastructure. In other words, accumulated wealth is a form of parasitic economic behaviour and is not healthy for the whole or, without amelioration, ultimately, for the parasite.

The argument that people making more should pay more because they "can afford it" misses the point entirely that making more is a function of both over charging for personal economic activity and externalizing dependency upon social infrastructure. Those making more should sequester less comparative wealth and also pay more for their comparative overuse of the systems of social infrastructure. In other words, accumulated wealth is a form of parasitic economic behaviour and is not healthy for the whole or, without amelioration, ultimately, for the parasite.

You could have saved everyone some valuable time and said, "Each according to his ability, each according to his need."

It's not just the conservative republicans. Just look at Wyden's rejection of the public option, let alone single payer. These politicians have forgotten where they came from, if they were ever truly liberal in the first place.

A tax on one is a tax on all.

Anytime you raise taxes on the 'rich', what you cause is one or more of the following:

increased prices of goods and services loss of existing jobs loss of new jobs wage stagnation

That is because 'the rich' are the engine of employment and wages in this country (have you ever been employed by a poor person?) and are the primary providers of goods and services (the poor usually don't own the businesses that produce goods that consumers buy).

Let's quit pretending that we can tax 'someone else'.

torridjoe,

I know you dearly loved the reign of Hilly & Billy, but Clinton only signed a balanced federal budget when forced to do so by the Republican congress that took over in '94.

Tell the truth, if you were a business owner (a plumber for instance) and your personal taxes were increased , would you simply pay the extra and cut back on what you wanted for your family?

No, likely you would treat it like the 'cost of doing business' that it is, and you would increase your service fees.

So who would pay the tax increase? Your customers. (Which is why you avoided discussing 'increased prices of goods and services).

Actually, Joe White, in Clinton's first year, 1993, the national debt increased at the lowest rate since 1979. In his second year, 1994, it increased at the lowest rate since 1974.

Since 1953, the years with the highest rate of increase in national debt all occurred with Republican Presidents:

1. 1984, 17.9% (Reagan)
2. 1983, 17.8% (Reagan)
3. 1985, 17.0% (Reagan) (tie)
4. 1975, 17.0% (Ford) (tie)
5. 1982, 16.4% (Reagan)
6. 1991, 13.4% (G.H.W. Bush)
7. 1976, 13.3% (Ford)
8. 1990, 13.2% (G.H.W. Bush)
9. 1986, 12.3% (Reagan)
10. 1992, 10.9% (G.H.W. Bush)
11. 1988, 10.7% (Reagan)
12. 1987, 10.6% (Reagan) (tie)
13. 1981, 10.6% (Reagan) (tie)

You don't get to a Democrat until #s 14 & 15, with 1980 at 10.1% and 1977 at 10.0% under Jimmy Carter. #s 16 - 19 are all Republican years, too.

torridjoe wrote:

Boats loves an opportunity to float irrelevant Marxist theory in discussions of a capitalist economy, but the simple fact is that people who make more in this country do so based on the rest of us providing them that opportunity. National security, stable economic and financial policy, education and medical care cost money, and form the foundation that makes economic success possible.

But then, "giving back to the community that made you" as a societal ideal is anathema to conservatives, whose world view generally boils down to "let me get mine, and fuck you."

You curiously speak of "fuck you" like it's a one way deal. Another simple fact about people who "make more," particularly professionals and successful business owners, is that they have seized opportunity and showed the personal initiative to get where they are. A certain subset of people who have not seem to think that yoking their labors to the ever increasing weight of their poorly built wagon is not a form of "fuck you."

Giving back is not anathema to most conservatives. In many communities, the "conservative" wealthy are the ones who founded colleges, who built the local libraries, who supported the arts, who fueled the need for labor by putting up capital. I revile class warfare from both sides but I simply don't believe "progressives" when they say "we're all in this together" when everything is asked of the few and next to nothing is asked of the many. Progressives, like Brian Clem tried to ineffectually do in his speech linked to this post, want to pretend that what they do is not class warfare just because he is talking out of both sides of his mouth.

If the stereotype of the evil conservative is the guy who owns the town, the housing, the job market and the company store, the evil liberal is the nanny state supporter treating the taxpayers like so many sheep to be endlessly and creatively fleeced for his ever growing list of "enlightened" policies, (most of which do dick but waste money), that everyone will support or else.

"Giving" coerced money to fuckwitted politicians, many of whom have never worked an honest day in their lives, (ahem, Barack Obama, ahem), is what is detested.

Kari: But for decades, all the political momentum has been behind raising taxes on middle-class families and working people.

Huh?

In 1986, the average federal income tax rate paid by the bottom 50% was 5.63%. By 1992, the average federal income tax rate paid by the bottom 50% had dropped to 4.39%. Under the Clinton administration, the average rate increased to 4.60% in 2000. The Bush tax cuts reduced the average income tax rate paid by the bottom 50% in 2006 to 3.01%.

If you look at those federal income taxpayers between the fiftieth percentile and the seventy-fifth percentile, the average income tax rate paid declined from 10.5% in 1986 to 9.4% in 1992, to 9.3% in 2000, and to 7.0% in 2006.

So how exactly have taxes been raised on the middle class and working families? Your premise in demonstrably false. Or as Steve Novick likes to say "You can look it up."

Boats, I can tell you as someone who has been poor recently, that sure, there are shirkers in every system, but many of us just lose that initiative when the crushing psychological impact of poverty overwhelms us. There's a strong sense of desperation and hopelessness among many of the poor because they don't see opportunities to make it out. I know because I've been there. And every vote that weakens public education (and decreases access to college), and every vote that weakens public transportation, just to name a couple areas, makes opportunities to move out of poverty harder to come by and add to that problem in a big way.

This was a great statement by Brian Clem.

Liberals are suckers for an emotional speech like that of Clem. It's too bad that he and his progressive friends in Salem have no idea that their votes to soak the rich will ultimately come back to bite the working class as it has in other states that have taken this route:

• from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day moved from the nine highest income-tax states to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax
• over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts
• Conn, NJ and NY each enacted a "soak the rich" tax hike in the 2003/04 period. Each then experienced a significant reduction in the number of rich people paying taxes relative to the national average - and they ranked 46th, 49th and 50th among all states in the percentage increase in wealthy tax filers in the years after they tried to soak the rich (and during years when the stock market boomed and Wall Street gains were in the trillions of dollars!)
• the NJ "soak the rich" tax hike resulted in 4,000 fewer half-millionaires after that tax took effect and NJ now has one of the largest budget deficits in the nation.
• rich business owners who depart (or avoid) high income tax states take their jobs with them, the reason high income tax states create few net new jobs for the working class

dartagan,

"Republicans don't mind spending tax dollars as long as it's for killing people and not for helping people."

Oh, please! What a sophomoric and insidious comment. While we're at it, democrats like to use taxpayers money to suck innocent babies down sinks.

Sounds stupid, doesn't it?

Let's get off the junior high remarks and have a REAL debate about the issues, rather than coming up 'smart' comments just to ridicule people you don't agree with.

Torridjoe writes,

"Boats loves an opportunity to float irrelevant Marxist theory in discussions of a capitalist economy, but the simple fact is that people who make more in this country do so based on the rest of us providing them that opportunity. National security, stable economic and financial policy, education and medical care cost money, and form the foundation that makes economic success possible."

Sure, and in the beginning, god said, "Let there be national security, education and medical care. Now go and create wealth.."

What a crock. The phrase, "everything you know is wrong" doesn't even begin to comprehend this gibberish.

From DJ's WSJ story

Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.

"That is because 'the rich' are the engine of employment and wages in this country (have you ever been employed by a poor person?)"

Same old right-wing drool we've been hearing for decades.

I have not been employed by a poor person, but I have been employed by thousands of poor, and middle-class, people -- the people who bought my employer's product and thus enabled him to pay me, in addition to paying himself.

Why is it impossible for conservatives to understand that workers are also CUSTOMERS and that without CUSTOMERS the rich would not have money to pay anybody? Do you believe money simply drops from heaven upon the rich and they then dole it out to their employees out of pure generosity?

"Republicans don't mind spending tax dollars as long as it's for killing people and not for helping people."

"Oh, please! What a sophomoric and insidious comment."

Nevertheless, it is true. Republicans never object to spending money on another war, or on fattening the already obscenely bloated "defense" budget, but whenever anybody proposes something that might actually help ordinary Americans have better lives they claim the country can't afford it.

"Progressives, like Brian Clem tried to ineffectually do in his speech linked to this post, want to pretend that what they do is not class warfare"

It only becomes "class warfare" when the working class starts shooting back, eh?

Are you suggesting that the rich shoot the poor already?

I guess I'd have to go along with that. People who have something worth taking these days have become the nouveau riche, and they routinely shoot some poor disadvantaged souls who were just trying "to get paid."

If all the taxes on the wealthy simply get passed through - then what's the problem?

Answer, from the link in my post above: Barry W. Poulson of the University of Colorado last year examined many factors that explain why some states grew richer than others from 1964 to 2004 and found "a significant negative impact of higher marginal tax rates on state economic growth." In other words, soaking the rich doesn't work. To the contrary, middle-class workers end up taking the hit.

Kari wrote:

"If all the taxes on the wealthy simply get passed through - then what's the problem?"

Finally an honest liberal who seems to be willing to admit that the real goal is to tax the poor and middle class while only appearing to tax the wealthy.

Hey, Joe,

Why don't you address the horrendous deficits during the Reagan and Bush I years?

fbear,

As I'm sure you are aware, Reagan did spend a lot of money rebuilding the military that Jimmy Carter had allowed to languish.

It was the Reagan buildup which precipitated the Soviet collapse a few years later.

Why does this have to be explained to you?

The Right won't be satisfied until our children are working 20 hour days in dirty factories and our elderly are dragging their half-dead starving carcasses to the soup kitchens for a shot at some bone soup. Then they'll tell us what they tell us now which is that "no one is starving in America." They'd love to see us clawing each others eyes out, licking our chops just for the chance to work for rotten scraps. The proponents of social Darwinism will never give up until they've made their sick capitalist utopia a reality. Therefore we, the People, can never give up. Get off the couch and fight against them today or be prepared to fight for your very life come 20 years from now.

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