Not exactly a fiscally responsible move, is it?
Democrats want to pay for their bill by closing a tax break loophole for millionaires and billionaires, which the GOP opposes. Instead, the GOP wants to take money out of a preventative health care fund. 7.4 million people will have to pay an additional $1,000 a year in interest starting in July if the Senate GOP continues to block Democratic efforts on the matter.
Republican Bruce Bartlett on why Romney has been praising Clinton while refusing to even utter George W. Bush’s name. Bartlett points out that Clinton’s policies — unlike Bush’s and the GOP’s — actually worked and are still popular with Americans. Unfortunately, Romney is only praising Clinton, not embracing his policies. Instead, it’s Bush’s policies that Romney would use to govern.
The issues are difficult to address with Congress largely on the side of the wealthy. At the very least:
(1) Eliminate the tax break on unearned income (capital gains). The richest Americans, who own most of the stocks, should not pay a smaller tax than everyone else.
(2) Implement a small financial transactions tax. It would be easy to administer on computer trades, it would generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, and it would help guard against the reckless speculation that devastated the financial markets and our country.
On Thursday, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) used the anticipation surrounding Facebook’s big day to talk again about why Congress needs to close loopholes in corporate tax law. Levin objected to Facebook’s decision to issue its employees options to buy company stock in the future at its original issuing price. If the stock goes up in value by the time employees use the option, the company can deduct the difference. In Facebook’s case, that deduction is estimated to be around $16 billion.
The company’s filings also say that the deduction could entitle Facebook to a refund of up to $500 million in corporate taxes during the first six months of 2013.
The senator said the fact that this is legal “shocks the conscience.” Facebook’s “ability to use a stock option loophole to zero out its U.S. tax bill, despite ample profits, makes no sense,” Levin said.
It’s revealing that Romney made his pro-Clinton comments the same day that — speaking to reporters as elevator doors were closing on him — former president George W. Bush announced, “I’m for Mitt Romney.” Funny that Romney made a bigger deal about Clinton than about that Bush endorsement. Yet Republicans, including Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), categorically reject the lessons that Clinton taught.
When Clinton raised the top tax rate, without a single Republican vote, supply-side conservatives howled that asking a little more from the wealthy would tank the economy. It did nothing of the sort. After Clinton’s tax increase, the economy roared, deficits turned into surpluses and the empathetic guy from Arkansas, despite certain well-known difficulties, earned the long-term affection of the American people. On the other hand, polls show that Bush, who pursued policies Republicans are proposing more of now, is remembered less fondly. Romney would prefer to leave Bush behind the elevator doors.
For the rest of this campaign, count on Republicans to tout Clinton as more pro-business than Obama and to do all they can to separate our current president from the best parts of Clinton’s legacy. Yes, many business folks who initially resented Clinton’s tax increases came to appreciate the economic boom that followed. But whose approach to government, budgets and taxes more closely resembles Clinton’s? Here’s a hint: It’s not the guy who went out of his way to vote against Clinton in 1992.
Romney’s air kiss to Bill Clinton
You’d think one of his advisers would have told Mittens that endorsing and praising Clinton — who in turn is endorsing and praising Obama — isn’t very smart. It’s basically like Romney endorsing and praising Obama.
Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Likely Barred From Re-Entering U.S.
Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship just in time to avoid a large tax payment essentially means he will not be able to re-enter the United States again, immigration experts tell TPM.
“There’s a specific provision of immigration law that says that a former citizen who officially renounces citizenship, and is determined to have renounced it for the purpose of avoiding taxation, is excludable,” said Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “So he would not be able to return to the United States if he’s found to have renounced for tax purposes.”
The provision of law isn’t usually enforced, added Williams, “however, this guy is so high profile that this is probably going to be the test case.”
Eduardo Saverin exemplifies the spoiled 1 percenter who erodes the fabric of the country that afforded such opportunity by not paying back the investment America made in him. His decisions are a slap in the face of every person who recognizes that, to be a place that can facilitate the birth of new innovations like Facebook, the United States needs resources.
—Ilyse Hogue on the Facebook co-founder’s decision to renounce his US citizenship to avoid paying taxes on his Facebook windfall—a move that could cost the US Treasury as much as $600 million. (via thenationmagazine)
(Source: thenation.com, via thenationmagazine)
Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook Inc. (FB), renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill…
Saverin, 30, joins a growing number of people giving up U.S. citizenship ahead of a possible increase in tax rates for top earners. The Brazilian-born resident of Singapore is one of several people who helped Mark Zuckerberg start Facebook in a Harvard University dormitory and stand to reap billions of dollars after the world’s largest social network holds its IPO…
Besides helping cut tax bills stemming from the Facebook, the move may also help him avoid capital gains taxes on future investments since Singapore doesn’t have a capital gains tax.
Facebook Co-Founder Saverin Gives Up U.S. Citizenship Before IPO
So after becoming a billionaire thanks to America’s publicly-funded infrastructure (which provided for his business ready-made roads, water and sewage treatment plants, a power grid, and an educated workforce) Saverin is going to skip away from his duty to pay back a little of what he made to the society that helped him make it. What a skull-fucking douchebag.
The House voted Thursday to override steep cuts to the Pentagon’s budget mandated by last summer’s debt deal and replace them with spending reductions to food stamps and other mandatory social programs.
While doomed in the Senate and opposed by the White House, the legislation, which would reduce the deficit by $243 billion, is a Republican marker for post-election budget talks with the White House.
While doomed in the Senate and opposed by the White House, the legislation, which would reduce the deficit by $243 billion, is a Republican marker for post-election budget talks with the White House.
House votes to replace Pentagon cuts mandated by debt deal
So after all that drama last summer which saw the Democratic Party making concession after concession after concession in a desperate attempt to reach a deal, the Republican Party reneges. That whole fiasco last year also cost America its perfect credit rating. Keep in mind, too, why the GOP is going back on its word: It wants to raise taxes on the middle class, cut them for the wealthy, and prevent spending cuts to the American defense budget, the world’s largest.
Student Loan Effort Faces Showdown, Likely Stall on Capitol Hill
Democrats propose paying for the bill by raising the Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes on high-earning stock holders of some privately owned companies. Republicans oppose the measure…
Republicans propose to pay for the bill by getting rid of a preventative health fund that was created in the health care bill.
In other words: Republicans refuse to raise taxes on the wealthy so that 7.4 million people won’t get stuck paying an extra $1,000 per year in student loan repayments. Instead, the GOP wants to take preventative health care away from the working poor.
As Mary A. Pittman, president and chief executive officer of the Public Health Institute recently said, “We need more prevention investments, not less. Currently close to half of Americans have at least one chronic disease. Together, these conditions count for 75% of all healthcare spending and are estimated to cost employers $73 billion a year.”
With a polarized Congress already on the defensive, President Obama on Tuesday will outline a five-point “to do” list for lawmakers that packages job creation and mortgage relief ideas he has proposed before, administration officials say.
Mr. Obama will present the election-year list during a visit to a university science complex in Albany. The components of his challenge to Congress — and to the Republican-led House in particular — will be a feature of his appearances throughout the spring, aides said…
Several of the proposals Mr. Obama is demanding are business tax cuts.
Obama Hands Congress Economic ‘To Do’ List
Business tax cuts? You mean, the GOP’s absolute favorite kind of tax cut? Yeah, watch the Republican Party fight against them tooth and nail because Obama is the one proposing them… Just as they fought a scorched earth campaign against health care reform even though it was their own plan Obama was pushing.
Clinton’s Labor Secretary schools Romney on how economics work.
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