by Michael del Castillo
Posted on Porfolio.com, 10/24/11
The Occupy Wall Street protests that spread across the United States and the world have been polarizing. But a group of self-proclaimed one percenters, has reached out to bridge the gap via Tumblr, aligning themselves with the 99 percent.
Some rich Americans show support for the Occupy Wall Street protestors on a new blog on Tumblr.
The Tax Justice Organizing Team doesn’t wear capes. They’re not superheroes, they don’t have a secret lair, and they’re certainly not hiding behind masks. But they are extraordinary, or at lease unusual.
The Team, jointly organized by the nonprofit organizations Resource Generation and Wealth for the Common Good, is comprised of self-proclaimed members of the 1 percent of the U.S. population who control over 40 percent of the wealth, and they are taking a public stand with the other 99 percent.
Although the organizations have been around for years, they are quick to acknowledge the platform the Occupy Wall Street protests have given them. Jessie Spector, program director at Resource Generation said their organizations have always been internally focused, but that the protests have “galvanized” their community. And with this new sense of solidarity, they are moving forward with heightened confidence, and a public face.
Their new blog on Tumblr, We Stand with the 99 Percent, is really quite simple. Supporters who identify as members of the 1 percent, write a sign explaining how they have more than they need and why they believe this has to change, and then send a photo of themselves holding the sign to the blog. The Team encourages supporters to show their face, or at least some of it.
Spector believes the wealthy seek anonymity because they sense that at some level the disparity between classes is unjust, and she encourages them to be proud of their fight. “If you believe this is unjust, you should stand up for this by showing your face. If I am going to work for a more equitable society, then that is something to be proud of.”
But not everyone agrees. “Most humans are built to better themselves, not throw their talents into a collective kitty usually run by corrupt killers,” wrote Bill O’Reilly in last Friday’s edition of the New York Post. O’Reilly argues that the United States is a meritocracy, and that “if you work hard and do a good job, you usually prosper, providing you practice patience.” O’Reilly wrote that the protestors are just out to get his “stuff,” and that providing success and education at any cost is “impossible.”
Spector responded, telling Portfolio.com, “The self-interest of the wealthy is also about making a more just, equitable society. It’s not healthy for anybody to live in a society where wealth is so unjustly distributed.”
Going forward, Resource Generation will continue to organize philanthropy, policy, and institutions and to help them leverage the collective power of the wealthy.
Wealth for the Common Good is taking a different tact. They want to be taxed. And they’re fighting to repeal tax cuts passed during the George W. Bush’s time as president. Although the organizations fight for different causes, one thing is clear. In their joint project, they have become powerful friends of the 99 percent.
by Rebecca Rothbaum
Originally posted on the Wall Street Journal blog, October 20, 2011
It might not be all that surprising to learn the granddaughter of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt has been spending a lot of time on Wall Street. But the heiress hasn’t been going there to manage her fortune.
Leah Hunt-Hendrix, 28 years old, is one of a small number of super-rich protesters who have come out in support of Occupy Wall Street. They are following Warren Buffet’s lead and highlighting their own status as evidence of the country’s widening wealth gap. Some have turned up at marches and rallies with cardboard signs that tell of outsized trust funds, lifetime health insurance and debt-free university degrees.
These self-proclaimed “one percenters” even have their own blog that collects personal stories penned by wealthy supporters of Occupy Wall Street. The website was inspired by “We are the 99 percent,” a blog that helped kick-start the protests last month.
The “one percent” blog was created by Resource Generation, a nonprofit that organizes well-heeled young people to work for social change, and Wealth for the Common Good, a network of wealthy individuals that pushes for progressive tax reform.
“The message to the wealthy has always been not to advertise,” said Michael Gast, co-director of Resource Generation.
Gast, who has shared his own story on the website, admitted that doing so raised a “new level of fears and insecurities.” But he said he drew strength from the support of his friends and peers, as well as his conviction that it is important for the wealthy to speak out.
Farhad Ebrahimi, 33, is among the dozens who have posted photos to the site. He has also been participating in the Occupy Boston protest since it began more than two weeks ago.
He often wears a t-shirt emblazoned in with a hand-written slogan outing himself as part of the one percent: “Tax me. I’m good for it,” Ebrahimi’s t-shirt declares.
“That started a lot of different conversations,” said Ebrahimi, who created a philanthropic foundation with assets he inherited as a teenager. Although some fellow protesters have been incredulous, he said reactions have been overwhelmingly positive.
“In this thing that can feel very us versus them, this is a way to be inclusive,” Ebrahimi said.
Hunt-Hendrix, a doctoral student at Princeton writing her dissertation on the history solidarity, framed her involvement in Occupy Wall Street in moral terms. “We should acknowledge our privilege and claim the responsibilities that come with it,” she said. “Nothing will change without individuals taking action.”
Originally posted on 10/12/11 on The Huffington Post
by Zach Carter and Sam Stein
WASHINGTON — Joseph Rotella is president and owner of the Spencer Organ Co., a small business with 10 employees that specializes in rehabilitating pipe organs from churches and communities around the country. The operation does quite well, with roughly $2 million in revenue a year and enough profit to land Rotella squarely in the top tax bracket that benefits most from the Bush tax cuts.
That makes Rotella Exhibit A in a new effort from Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, to convince voters that in little more than a year, President Barack Obama will oversee a job-killing crush of tax hikes. Over the past week, the Wisconsin Republican has raised the frightening specter that under Obama’s tax policies, small-business owners will soon be turning over half of their annual paycheck to the government.
“In 15 months’ time, the top tax rate on small businesses goes to 44.8 percent. Now they are going to throw another tax increase on it,” Ryan said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this past Sunday. “We are going to be taxing small businesses at about 50 percent. According to the Treasury Department, 80 percent of businesses file as individuals. Sixty percent of [small] businesses in this country file their tax rates as individuals and will get hit by this new tax that goes to 50 percent in 15 months. Why would we do that?”
Broadly speaking, we wouldn’t. And even if we did, it turns out that many small-business owners, including Rotella, say it wouldn’t make a bit of difference in their hiring decisions.
“If we have work and things are rolling along, then we’re rolling along,” said Rotella. “I’m not basing business decisions on whether our tax rate shifts a little bit one way or another.”
He added, “My big concern is actually infrastructure within my community, because if my employees are happy, if there’s good schools, roads that work, public transportation and public services that are good, then my employees are happy and they’re more productive. If public transportation gets cut, one of my employees may have a much more difficult time getting to work. That’s really hard. We’ve invested all this time into this employee, and then they have to think about doing something else for a living.”
Despite testimonials like these, Ryan’s argument that 60 percent of small businesses will face a tax rate of 50 percent –
stated most recently in a CNBC interview on Wednesday morning — seems poised to become the GOP’s top talking point in the weeks, if not months, ahead, as lawmakers look to stigmatize the president’s job creation proposals and grease the wheels for a further extension of the Bush tax cuts.
But the argument is largely misleading, according to both small-business owners and analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Ryan’s office told HuffPost that his claim about the 50 percent rate is based on an agglomeration of several tax policies affecting wealthy individuals. By adding up the effects of multiple perks that will expire with the Bush tax cuts, and then lumping in individual Medicare taxes, Ryan created a total top rate for high earners of 44.8 percent. This combination of several different taxes is not how individual income tax rates are usually stated. Ryan could just as easily add in the average sales tax that individuals pay and cite that higher figure as the total tax rate.
On “Meet the Press,” the congressman nevertheless made another addition to his already arbitrary figure, tacking on the 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires that Democrats have proposed to pay for the president’s job creation proposals. From there, he arrived at the menacing 50 percent figure.
From a narrow, technical perspective, Ryan’s claim about the total tax rate is true. Congressional Democrats acknowledge that the millionaires tax — if it ever passed — would remain in place even if the Bush tax cuts expired and the rates on the wealthy, as a result, rose.
The more problematic portion of Ryan’s claim is his argument that, because many small businesses file as individuals rather than as corporations, higher taxes for rich individuals can be considered higher taxes on small businesses. In fact, the overwhelming majority of small businesses do not earn anywhere near enough profit to land them in the brackets that currently benefit from the Bush tax cuts.
According to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, just 2.2 percent of the 36 million taxpayers who report small-business income on their tax returns would land in the highest tax bracket if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire. And only 1 percent would make enough to be subject to the millionaires surtax.
But even within this tiny slice, many of the operations that would be subject to higher taxes are not the mom-and-pop stores that the public generally pictures when it hears “small business.”
“These are not all people running what we think of as small businesses,” said Roberton Williams, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. “They may be giving speeches, writing books, we don’t know. This includes lots and lots of different kinds of people. This could be a hedge fund manager. This could be a law partnership. This could be a doctor running his own office. Or it could be a guy operating a store with three employees.”
Added a White House official: “[T]he Republican definition of ‘small business’ includes many investment managers, lawyers and extremely wealthy people who are not, by any common-sense definition, small-business owners. In fact, more than half of the top 400 earners –- whose average income was $271 million –- would qualify as small-business owners under the Republican definition.”
If Ryan’s numbers are debatable, so too is the premise of his argument. A trio of progressive-minded small-business organizations — the American Sustainable Business Council, Business for Shared Prosperity, and Wealth for the Common Good — have collected thousands of signatures for a petition seeking to repeal the Bush tax cuts and use the resulting revenue for sustained government investment in public infrastructure, renewable energy and education.
Rotella shares the sentiment. He isn’t in the millionaire bracket, but he would qualify for Ryan’s almost-as-dreaded 44.8 percent rate. He doesn’t care.
“I’m actually in the tax bracket where the Bush tax cuts have been beneficial for me,” Rotella said. “But my business is better off if that money goes to infrastructure.”
