President Obama described the midterm elections as a “shellacking.” Since that’s a word we now understand to mean getting your butt kicked, working people in this country are about to get shellacked to the tenth power.
Coming at us is the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of the year, if our Congress does nothing. That’s not going over too well with the folks who’ve been getting a free or nearly free ride for a long time.
Obama wants to permanently extend tax cuts for couples earning a maximum of $250,000 and singles earning a maximum of $200,000, but he would let the tax cuts for wealthier Americans expire. Obama’s proposal would increase the national debt by $2 trillion through 2020, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Extending all the Bush tax cuts would add $2.7 trillion.
And if all the tax cuts were permanently extended, the debt would balloon by $4.9 trillion, according to CBO. So much for trying to cut the deficit!
For most of us, we’re just catching up to the fact that those tax cuts were put in place back in 2001 and 2003 to mostly benefit the wealthy. On top of endless tax loopholes, corporations continue to enjoy big profits with no accountability as responsible citizens.
More than 15 million people in the U.S. are unemployed and searching for work, with eight million more just getting by with a part-time job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over two million more people were working prior to the recession but have now dropped out of the labor force. About 40 million citizens are considered chronically poor. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is concerned about escalating hunger statistics in the belly of the richest counry on earth.
Over half of the Congress are millionaires-261 out of 531. The Center for Responsive Politics further reports that 55 of the lawmakers have an average wealth of $10 million. The medium wealth in the House is about $765k while the Senators boast an average wealth of $12.4 million. These folks will be looking out for their own interests when the time comes to deal with the Bush tax cuts.
I’m talking about both Democrats and Republicans. These so-called public servants are investors in the corporations who are whining about losing money should those tax cuts expire.
It is imperative that we who have corporate footprints on our backside interject ourselves into the big debate over the next few weeks. Call or write your congressperson to tell them to support President Obama’s original proposal: letting the tax cuts expire for the wealthy.
