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I believe that everyone with income should pay federal income tax. This is a pretty unpopular opinion in liberal circles, and a wildly popular opinion in conservative ones, so I will explain, so as to make both camps unhappy with me.
(Ah, well.)
According to the Tax Policy Center, there are 151 million tax units (singles, couples, families) in the U.S., of which around 48% do not pay individual income tax. About 60% of those people make under $20,000 a year, which is below the poverty level (and also awful and sad). By my calculations — and I am no mathematician — this means there are around 44 million tax units not paying federal income taxes, the majority of whom cannot really afford to.
And here’s where you take away my liberal card.
I call bullshit: fixed income or not, poverty or not, I think every household can save a few cents a month and pay some federal taxes. If every tax unit saved $0.83 per month, which is to say that they paid $10 per year in income tax, that would add at least $440 million to the federal budget (hopefully more; the 40% making above poverty level might be able to contribute $1 per month, say). Sure, when the U.S. budget is projected to be $3.729 trillion in 2012, this is the tiniest fraction (.001 percent, right? again, not a math person) of the budget. But this amount of income does two things:
First of all, it gives everyone ownership of what happens in America. It means if you have income, your tax dollars — or cents, as it may be — aren’t just going to entitlement programs like SS and Medicare; it means they’re going to defense, environmental protection, emergency funding, world aid, etc. So if you didn’t pay taxes before and felt like you had no say in where your dollars were spent because your dollars weren’t spent, now you have no excuse. No longer do you have to feel inadequate when your GOP representative denigrates your income class to the country; now you can stand up and say, “Hey, shut up. I pay taxes too, though I can little afford it. This is my country and I’m giving and taking like everyone else.” Maybe it would even compel some people, who may have felt unworthy of voting before, to get out and vote.
Second, and most important, it would make the right-wingers STFU about how 50 percent of Americans pay no taxes. Hell, even crazy right-wing tea-nut Michele Bachmann has said that a dollar would be good enough for her, so let’s add an order of magnitude and take away a huge Republican talking point.
Best of all, once everyone who produces income is paying taxes, the GOP’s message that it’s okay to increase taxes on the poor but not the rich is severely undermined.
Caveat: Here’s what I don’t know: I don’t know how much it costs the Internal Revenue Service to review each tax statement. Maybe there’s a negative ROI on paying such low taxes, though the liberal in me would love to see the rhetorical knots Republicans twist themselves into explaining why it’s bad for poor people to pay taxes. I also don’t know exactly how to address income vs. capital gains, as well as people receiving Social Security. So this argument is incomplete with parts that I’m not prepared to deal with. (Work in progress, people. Work in progress.)
Yet while I hate to see the working class get nickel-and-dimed more (literally, in my projection), provided that the cost of processing these returns doesn’t make it negative, I think it’s well worth the cost of ownership of the country.
Suck it, Red.
It’s my third day of NaBloPoMo and because I cannot think of how to get voters to understand just how ridiculous the Republican candidates are (EXCEPT HUNTSMAN — WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE — EVEN I WOULD CONSIDER VOTING FOR HIM), I propose the following debate/reality show formats:
Lie Detector Dunk Tank. Is it wrong to admit I just want to see New Gingrich in a Speedo? Anyway, the premise is simple: Whenever you lie, as determined by say Factcheck.org or another independent nonpartisan organization, you get dunked. And/or if you lie three times total, you get dropped off a cliff. Bungee cords are too leftish (social safety net, anyone?), so candidates are left to fashion a parachute out of their American dreams and bootstraps, MacGyver style.
Blind CandiDate. Like the show of yore, you ask a question and hear three candidates’ responses (we might need voice obfuscation software) and get to blindly choose the one according to, goddammit, their answers, not the way they look or whatever intangibles sway people. Bad news to whomever goes home with Rick Santorum — he’s been experiencing a Google problem lasting for a lot longer than four hours, so he may need to see a doctor about that.
Iron Chief. Whomever cooks up the tastiest food wins the metaphor contest. Hint: The secret ingredient is horse shit.
Who Wants to Take on Medicare? This one’s a fundraiser. Explain to seniors exactly what you want to do with their Medicare and see if they’ll give you any money.
I cannot imagine that anyone would find my idea unacceptable — I mean, if people are willing to take Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain seriously, and if Rick Santorum really thinks gay marriage is the hill he’s willing to die on, then this is equally serious — and would perhaps lead to bipartisan entertainment and agreement. Maybe it could even heal America.
As of yesterday I let myself be sucked into a debate over government standards for lightbulbs that begin to go into effect in 2012 (a.k.a. THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT) and effectively — though not technically — ban common types of incandescent lightbulbs. Here is the initial claim being made, as well as a link to an article from FOX News:
Awesome! We get to step back in time 200 years and go back to dim, lights or oil lamps, all because some environmentalist wacko decided that Thomas Edison sucks! How long will it be before we’re talking about the evil LED lighting companies who are making gross profits off of us? Just watch, when the tax revenue from utility taxes goes in the toilet, they’ll either raise the tax on electricity, or they’ll tax LED lig*
*Facebook truncated this post; I did not
Claim: Environmentalists think Thomas Edison sucks. This article says that the government will make you pay $50 for lightbulbs.
Me: No, and only for really expensive LED lightbulbs. Read the damn article, not just the headline.
Rebuttal: Okay, fine, but I hate the arbitrary date that someone decided on. And my lighting options are no light, bad fluorescent light, or $50 bulbs.
Me: You will have had five years to make the transition from when this was passed by Congress in 2007 to 2012. And CFLs come in m any different sizes and colors, and they’re cheap.
Rebuttal: Well, something is being forced on me that doesn’t work as well as the original thing. I don’t like the government telling me what to do.
Me: The government exists to do things the people cannot; ensuring clean air, for example.
Rebuttal: China pollutes more than we do; why should we care?
Me: BANGS HEAD ON FUCKING WALL.
Let’s say there are two political parties whose symbols are, for example, skunks and porcupines — both indigenous to North America, both with few predators save the occasional lost mama grizzly bear wandering down from Alaska. Now say you used to think the Skunk party was the one that was True and Good and Right and that Porcupines were gnawing apart the Fabric of Society, but evidence and experience and, well, logic led you, in the end, to actually prefer the spiny side. Say you marry and your husband — who dabbled in Red Fox philosophy for a bit in college — has had a similar experience: Both of you come from families of hardcore Skunks, and both families don’t quite understand why you prefer the herbivorous rodent philosophy to its odiferous counterpart.
You have nothing against Skunks, per se; you think some of their ideas are okay, although they seem a bit too black and white for your taste (you believe the quill is mightier than the anal gland, for example), but the Skunks you grew up with were wonderful people and you bear none of them any personal ill will. In the end, both are trying to coexist in the same general habitat even though they have quite different ways of expressing themselves.
So would you be at all suspicious when your families keep giving your child textiles with skunks on them? Bath towels, blankets, and shirts? Is this some sneaky rhetorical persuasion they’re attempting? Or do porcupines simply not have the same childish appeal and family values as their symbolic counterparts?
That as a political group who believes in individual responsibility, right-wingers blame the government for an awful lot of stuff (not that they’re necessarily wrong; it’s just hypocritical), and I am cynically amused. For example: This week, Someone messed up something important at a government institution. As I understand it, it was very much Someone’s fault — no one/nothing else’s. Yet because it was a gov’t institution, my very right-wing friend blames the government. And somehow dragged the census into it. (Um, okay?) So I guess this righ-winger wants both personal responsibility and a convenient punching bag.
…Ugh. That’s it. I am starting my own country and it will be totally anarchist and I will be the only person there, so I will have total freedom. Total freedom and total control. I’ll have it both ways, too.
Thank you, thank you, to whomever signed me up for RNC mailings — I just love filling out those surveys and fucking with RNC voter statistics. My opinion, the letter from Michael Steele says, will “represent literally thousands of Republicans in [my] Congressional District.” Well, I must do my patriotic duty, mustn’t I.
I know, I know, it’s been AGES since I’ve said anything (and longer since I’ve said anything worth reading). Rest assured, oh three-point-two-five readers, I am still alive, and I still have Opinions on Things that Need to be Addressed.
For today’s Opinion, I’ll start with Doug Batchelor‘s recent sermon on women in not in the ministry. This was fucking appalling, and I’m ashamed that people weren’t walking out of his sermon in droves. There is no excuse for misogyny. None. Doug Batchelor needs a restraining order to keep him away from pulpits, and his ovis-audience needs to check their cud before they chew it. (Although I suppose these people seem like the type who blindly swallow, but that may not be the best metaphor….)
Chiefly amongst my uncharitable toughts toward the mallustrous preacher man is that I hope purgatory is real, or that hell is temporary, but I also hope that purgatory/hell is individualized per a person’s sins. My hell, for example, would be full of engineers who dam rivers and that abomination of imitation chocolate, carob. And from that experience, I expect I would learn to respect others’ work and not be so quick to stuff what appears to be chocolate in my mouth. Doug Batchelor’s hell, I hope, would be full of women who are more intelligent than he is, and not only preach but are fucking preachERS. I also believe, in this imaginary purgatory/hell, that close-minded people will take longer to learn their lessons, and in doing so, be there longer. Batchelor’s going to steam for awhile, I think. Though I prefer not to conjecture on the length of my interment.
I think every person sees their field of study in current events; for my part, I see rhetoric. I see Sarah Palin drawing rifle scopes over lawmakers’ districts; I see John Boehner calling the healthcare bill passage “Armageddon” and people calling Obama the “anti-christ”. I see spitting and name-hurling and an utter misunderstanding of basic philosophical tenets; utter lies distorted beyond logic; there are people advocating harm and destruction, asking others to pick up guns and fight; people calling for anarchy and equating Barack Obama with Richard Reid.
In the end, these distortions, lies, and visual and verbal rhetoric are all inciting violence and revolution — all in the name of what? Giving healthcare to people who need it? Is this really the hill Republicans picked to die on?
The Spokane corridor just got $35m in federal gov’t money to fund a transportation initiative. According to her press release, my House representative, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, calls the project “precisely the type of project the government should be funding.” She goes on to say she voted against the stimulus package because “it didn’t include enough measures to truly stimulate our economy” — yet the $35m grant for this project comes from the stimulus, which she does not mention. (She says the TIGER grant is from the Dept. of Transportation, but fails to acknowledge that that is part of the stimulus package and instead reaffirms her lack of support for the stimulus package.) So essentially, she says she is in favor of and has been a champion of this project…how? By voting against the money for it? Finally, at the bottom of her post, she says, “To date Washington State has provided $555 Million in funding for this project compared to only $18 Million by the federal government.” That new $35m is … where, exactly? Escrow?
Politicians are flat-out lying. If we don’t call them on it, they’re going to keep doing it, and the Big Lie will keep growing.
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On a related note, see also JD.
My descent into post-football depression has been momentarily waylaid: Far be it from me to praise the Huffington Post, which I despise for its muckraking and sensationalism and the way it commits every logical fallacy it accuses Fox News of perpetrating, but I was perusing it this morning (as I do most mornings for my cynicism fix — nearly as important as my caffeine fix) and came across this story with Meghan McCain’s comments on the Tea Party. Apparently she is guest hosting on The View, which I enjoy about as much as Huffington Post. Well, most clouds have a silver lining, and this was theirs:
In a scripted segue that requires Ms. McCain to refer to her notes (thankfully, they were not written on her hand — the horror! [/sarcasm]), she says:
McCain: Congressman Tancredo went on TV and he was the first opening speaker and he said, ‘People who could not even spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House whose name is Barack Hussein Obama.’ And then he went on to say that people at the convention should have to pass literacy tests in order to be able to vote in this country, which is the same thing that happened in the 50′s to prevent African Americans from voting. It’s innate racism and I think it’s why young people are turned off by this movement. And I’m sorry, but revolutions start with young people, not with 65-year-old people talking about literacy tests and people who can’t say the word ‘vote’ in English.
Granted, in his speech, Tancredo took some potshots at John McCain, so Meghan was probably pissed off about that. Still, I’m glad to finally see someone within the conservative ranks calling out the Tea Party for what it is: a seclusionist, isolationist, xenophobic, racist, nationalistic movement motivated by fear — not pride or patriotism — and the desire for status quo. Frankly, I hope the producers of The View hire her and jettison that other blond host whose only contributions are talking points from O’Reilly’s show that aired the night before.
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(I fear that my post-football depression is going to manifest itself in more political rants. Great.)
I wonder if there is any truth in my current perception that George Orwell is the last unifier of American politics: it seems conservatives fear America becoming that which was depicted in 1984, whereas liberals believe the Bush administration turned the country into Animal Farm. Perhaps I am wrong. Either way, from him comes the following passage. Both sides should take note:
The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.
From “Politics and the English Language,” 1946 — but really timeless.
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