Senate and House Switchboard:  (202) 224-3121  

Then let the White House know you made the calls: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Are you bombarded with articles about our current fiscal dilemmas and wondering just what is the bottom line? The key message we want Congress to hear is this:

It is time for the wealthy and for powerful corporations to pay their fair share. End the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%, adopt revenue POSITIVE corporate tax reform, including closing offshore tax loopholes, and protect programs serving the poor and seniors. 

A tax on Wall Street, the Financial Transactions Tax (aka Robin Hood Tax) is another important way to raise needed revenue and slow down speculation that puts all of us at risk.

Our colleagues at Institute for Policy Studies have issued new reports with fascinating information on the CEOs and others who are advocating that we “Fix the Debt” through cuts to programs for the 99% and only minor tweaks to their tax bills. Their calls to cut Social Security and Medicare, while having on average $9M in retirement accounts, is rightly called a “Pension Deficit Disorder.”

“We’re Not Broke” (2nd Edition) is must reading; the best guide we know of that explains how to reduce the deficits AND reinvent/reinvest in America without burdening the already burdened–the poor, the elderly and the middle class.

Lastly, a state by state report issued by the AFL-CIO tells you the potential impact of changes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in your state.

One of the most important things you can do is help your friends and families get educated as well.

• Forward this information to others
• Engage people in conversation
• Ask them to call Congress

Join us on Facebook. There is more great information to be found there.

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Time to Call Congress! is an article on Wealth For Common Good.

Both of these messages combine our concern for the common good with human fears of threat.

Maybe it is time for “We’re all in this together” to escape the corridors of subway stations and Amtrak terminals, and makes its way to….say the Presidential election.

Here lately we’ve been hearing about the 47 percent of Americans who are different from the other 53 percent. The 47 percent who paid no federal income taxes last year were described as moochers who refuse to take personal responsibility. We’re all in this together, has given way to a debate between makers and takers.

There are risks around us, to be sure, and if we see something that threatens the body whole, we should say something.

One thing we can say is to paint pictures of those 47 percent…..the retired schoolteacher living on a modest pension and social security; the aide who works in a nursing home bathing our elders; the college student working their way through school; the cross guard who braves all kinds of weather to help our kids safely cross the street, the waiter and the cooks who prepare and serve our food when we enjoy a night out.

Are we not in this together with them too?

Last Sunday New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof shared the compelling story of his college roommate Scott Androes, who in the midst of a midlife crisis quit his job and gave up health insurance as something he couldn’t afford. He ignored signs that something was wrong with his health until one day blood turned up in his urine.  A trip to emergency quickly confirmed Stage four prostate cancer. Soon his college buddy had racked up more than half a million dollars of health care bills.

Kristof’s point wasn’t to excuse his friend’s terrible mistake, but to suggest instead if we had a universal health system, his old roommate might have made a different choice, saving costly care and changing Scott’s future prospects.

A follow-up Kristof column continued the story, reporting, sadly that his friend left this life, on Monday, the day after the first column ran. Kristof reported that what surprised him most was the “savagely unsympathetic” response to Scott Androes’s story. One reader from Oregon wrote, “I take care of myself and mine, and I am not responsible for anyone else.”

Kristof counters: “First, a civilized society compensates for the human propensity to screw up. That’s why we have single-payer firefighters and police offices…When someone who has been speeding gets in a car accident, the 911 operator doesn’t sneer: ‘You were irresponsible, so figure out your own way to the hospital’– and hang up”

“My second argument is that if you object to Obamacare because you don’t want to pay Scott’s bills, you’re a sucker,“ Kristof continues. Because the hospital that treated his friend considered the care provided a charity case, Kristof reminds his readers that, “We’re all paying for that.”

In this world becoming obsessed with 47%ers and 53%ers, makers and takers, Kristof offers a final thought worth carrying with us:

“To err is human, but so is to forgive. Living in community means being interconnected in myriad ways – including by empathy. To feel undiminished by the deaths of those around us isn’t heroic Ayn Rand individualism. It’s sociopathic. Compassion isn’t a sign of weakness, but of civilization.”

For wealthy people, it is becoming increasingly urgent to tell our stories in a way that truly values every individual. That knits back together compassion with the ideal of financial success. That elevates shared prosperity. That makes a strong commitment to work towards ensuring an economic future for the 100%.

It is no longer enough to tell these stories to our friends. We need to shout them from the rooftops. We’re all in this together!

Author: Scott Klinger, Policy Director of Wealth for the Common Good

Let’s Shout It, “We’re All in This Together” is an article on Wealth For Common Good.

Over the last fifty years, we’ve seen the day’s celebration change dramatically as Native Americans have told their stories about what happened in their communities in the half millennia after Columbus sailed the blue in 1492. But still the myth that Columbus was the first European to encounter the Indigenous Peoples of North America has lingered on.

The reality is that Columbus wasn’t the first European to set foot in the “New World.” Leif Erikson and his Viking comrades landed in northwest Newfoundland at a place now known at L’Anse aux Meadows (“Land of First Contact”) in the year 1003. After three years, conflicts with the Peoples there before the Vikings arrived, led them to retreat to Greenland, rather than fight and expand their territories.

Myths are powerful things in our politics as well. Take the “Tax cuts create jobs” myth. In most voters own lifetimes they can remember the robust economic and job growth that followed the Clinton tax hike of 1993, and the surplus-turned-deficit and economic collapse that followed the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, and yet the myth that tax cuts creates jobs continues to animate even voters who didn’t wind up with many of those tax cuts.

Add to this last month’s powerful report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) that concluded that over the last 65 years, tax rates played no discernable role in job creation or job loss, but the myth continues to be repeated unchallenged in Presidential debates and mainstream news.

Job growth won’t follow another round of tax cuts, but increased social conflict will. For cuts in taxes will surely heighten the calls to even more aggressively reduce government investment in everything from social support programs, to infrastructure, education and basic research. Tax cuts, especially those which reward the wealthiest at the expense of all other members of society, seek to take the wealth created by all those who have worked to create it, and ship it back to the Kings and Queens who have financed the tax cutting voyages of Members of Congress supporting these plundering policies.

It’s time to bury both the Columbus myth and the “tax cuts create jobs” myth, and to tell a new story about taxes fostering investment in shared opportunity and a fairer economy.

Author: Scott Klinger, Policy Director of Wealth for the Common Good

Myths That Just Won’t Die is an article on Wealth For Common Good.

Congress – more than any other institution – writes the rules that determine how our economy operates. Lawmakers – in other words – have the power to make sure all Americans, not just a privileged few, share in the wealth we all create together.

The Institute for Policy Studies decided to look at Congress’s role in adopting rules that either increase or reduce economic inequality in America. Their newly published Congressional Report Card for the 99% examines 40 Congressional actions over the last two years and grades Members of Congress on their votes and bill sponsorship activity. [See link below]

Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas took up their places in inequality detention hall for their chamber-leading low scores reflecting their tireless work on behalf of America’s most privileged. They were among the 48 members of the House of Representatives and 11 senators who earned an “F” on their Inequality final exam. The Arkansas delegation nailed a collective D-.

In contrast, Vermont’s lawmakers earned straight A’s, yielding the Green Mountain State a perfect 4.0 average. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island joined House colleagues Barbara Lee of California, Yvette Clarke of New York and Jim McDermott of Washington in taking home the biggest gold stars on their report cards, each having earned the highest marks for support of the 99 percent.

One key finding was that Republican Members of Congress were more unified around an agenda favoring the 1%, than Democrats were around an agenda for the 99%.

To see how your elected officials scored and learn more about the results of the study, visit the Report Card’s webpage. Send your Senators and Representatives a note of congratulations or a wish that they raise their grades next year.

Author: Scott Klinger, Policy Director of Wealth for the Common Good and Co-Author of the Congressional Report Card for the 99%.

A Congressional Report Card on Inequality is an article on Wealth For Common Good.

The report, the 19^th annual Executive Excess report by the Institute for Policy Studies, also found that:

• 25 of the highest paid CEOs received more in compensation last year than the firms they led paid in federal corporate income taxes, and
• 57 CEOs personally saved at least a $1 million thanks to the Bush tax cuts on their 2011 income above $250,000.

In 1993, Congress sought to define “reasonable business expense” as it pertains to executive pay by setting a $1 million per employee cap. That seems like a really reasonable thing to do. However, they also embedded into the law a giant loophole: something called performance based pay. That loophole resulted in the huge shift toward stock options and other performance based pay that sent overall pay levels soaring.

While businesses can no longer deduct the full cost of a three martini lunch, and none of the cost of skyboxes or premium priced tickets to concerts or sporting events – the IRS deems each of these unreasonable business expenses – CEO pay packages in the tens, or even hundreds of million dollar range remain not only “reasonable” in the eyes of the tax code, but fully deductible.

We see a similar fight happening over extending the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000. While some suggest that singling out the highest income taxpayers violates the fairness principle of treating all taxpayers equally, they seem to be missing the point that under the President’s proposal ALL taxpayers get a continued tax break on their first $250,000 of income. In fact, the family earning $250,000 gets a tax break of $5,808, nearly seven times more than the family earning $60,000 which would receive a tax break of $865 under the White House plan.

In contrast, according to a tax calculator developed by Citizens for Tax Justice, a House-passed plan would extend the Bush tax cuts at all income levels and would result in a family with $10 million in income garnering a tax break of more than $450,000, versus the same $865 in tax savings received by the family with $60,000 in annual income. Put this way, many voters would see this as unreasonable and unfair.

It’s time to shift the debate away from unlimited tax breaks based on percentages and toward more reasonable absolute dollar amounts of tax savings. Granting all taxpayers a break on their first $250,000 (or another amount of your choosing), passes the fairness sniff test for most people. Explaining it this way opens the door to raising up to $40 billion a year that can be used to reinvest in our country, in all the things we need in order to thrive.

Author: Scott Klinger, Policy Director of Wealth for the Common Good

Want to Rein In Unlimited Tax Breaks? Define What’s Reasonable is an article on Wealth For Common Good.

The Senate started last week when it passed a one-year extension of the Bush tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income. Families whose income exceeds that level would see their tax rates on income over $250,000 rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent starting in January. Unlike President Obama’s proposal which would have allowed dividends to be taxed as ordinary income, as they were before the Bush tax cuts, the Senate instead capped the dividend tax rate at 20%, resulting in an average $166,500 tax break for families with more than $20 million in income, according to a report by Citizens for Tax Justice.

The House followed the Senate, but had a very different tax proposal in mind. They extended the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers, paying for the extra cuts by reducing the tax benefits related to the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and the college tuition tax credit, received by working families. These cuts mean that 13 million families, with 26 million children, will lose an average of more than $800 per year as a result of the reduced benefits, so that 2.7 million high-earners can continue their full tax cuts. .

Yesterday, the bouncing tax cut ball returned to the Senate court, where the Senate Finance Committee voted in bi-partisan fashion to support $205 billion in corporate and alternative minimum tax relief, in the tax extenders bill. Included in the bill were a $135 billion two-year “fix” for the alternative minimum tax. Among the other $70 billion in tax breaks are the popular R&D tax credit and the often mocked credit for NASCAR track owners to improve their tracks. Of greatest concern in the bill were two provisions that reward and incentivize corporations for shifting their profits and investments offshore. The “Active Financing Exception” and “CFC Look-Through Rule” enable large companies like General Electric, Apple and Google to legally avoid paying significant amounts of taxes on their US profits. These two provisions will cost the US Treasury $12.7 billion over the two years.

Though he won’t win any gold medals for tax cutting as a competitive sport, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who introduced legislation to make the payments athletes receive when they win medals tax-free, certainly gets the summer’s ‘fiddling while Rome burns’ award. (Gold medalists are awarded $25,000; silver medalists, $15,000; and bronze medalist, $10,000.) Senator Rubio’s idea was first floated by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist.

Most observers do not expect the Bush tax cuts and corporate tax extenders legislation to be resolved before the lame duck session following the November election. Both houses of Congress are expected to vote on the Rubio bill perhaps as early as today.

Author: Scott Klinger, Policy Director of Wealth for the Common Good

Gold Medals of Tax Cutting is an article on Wealth For Common Good.

Coalition Praises Senate for Passing Bill to End Bush Tax Cuts for Top 2%

Blasts Failed GOP Alternative Bill That Would Raise Taxes on 25 Million Families

(Washington, D.C. – July 25, 2012) Americans for Tax Fairness praised Senate Democrats for passing a bill to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans who make less than $250,000 in household income and end the Bush tax breaks above that income level, which disproportionately benefit the richest 2 percent.  The Senate voted to pass the bill, the Middle Class Tax Cuts Act (S. 3412), by a 51 to 48 vote.

“Senate Democrats took a giant step today to start restoring fairness in our tax system that every American knows is rigged in favor of the wealthy few,” said Frank Clemente, campaign manager for Americans for Tax Fairness. “There is no better example of how unfair our tax system is than the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent.  They give someone who makes more than $1 million a year an average tax break of about $150,000 more than the Middle Class Tax Cut Act does. Tax cuts should not go to those who need them the least.”

Americans for Tax Fairness blasted the GOP alternative bill (S. 3413), which the Senate rejected by a 54 to 45 vote.  It would have extended all the Bush tax cuts, but would raise taxes on 25 million middle- and lower-income Americans by ending a tax credit that helps make college affordable (the American Opportunity Tax Credit), the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.  Yet, 44 of 47 GOP members voted for the GOP alternative bill.

“This vote proves that Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, signed by 41 GOP senators and 238 House members, is a fraud to protect the rich. Pledge signers promise they will never vote to make the wealthy pay a penny more in taxes, but they’re willing to raise taxes on 25 million lower- and middle-income Americans who can’t afford it,” said Frank Clemente, campaign manager for Americans for Tax Fairness. “It’s mind-boggling that these senators would vote to raise taxes on 25 million middle- and lower-income taxpayers to help pay for huge tax cuts for wealthy people who already enjoy the biggest tax breaks.”

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Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) is a diverse campaign of 140 national, state and local organizations united in support of a tax system that works for all Americans. It has come together based on the belief that the country needs comprehensive, progressive tax reform that results in greater revenue to meet our growing needs. This starts by ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the richest 2 percent and by making critical investments that create and sustain jobs while taking a balanced approach to addressing America’s fiscal challenges.

51 Senators Vote to End Bush-Era Tax Cuts on Top 2%! is an article on Wealth For Common Good.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (photo by gageskidmore / flickr)

As early as next week the U.S. Senate will debate and vote on proposals to extend the Bush tax cuts. The House is expected to vote on the measures the following week.

At present there appear to be four proposals for extending the Bush tax cuts, which expire at the end of this year. If no agreement is reached, taxes on income, dividends and capital gains will rise to levels in place during the Clinton Administration. Each of the proposals seek a one-year time frame, ensuring that the longer-term debate is far from finished.

President Obama’s proposal

The President proposes to maintain tax cuts for families earning less than $250,000 a year, and allowing taxes on dividends to once again be taxed as ordinary income. The $250,000 threshold encompasses about the top 2% of taxpayers. He proposes returning the capital gains tax rate to 20% from the current 15% level. The cost of the President’s one-year plan would be $243 billion according to Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ).

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s proposal

Leader Pelosi calls for setting the threshold not at $250,000, but at $1 million. This would cost $28 billion more than the President’s plan, with most of the tax savings going to families with more than $1 million in income.

Senate Democrats Plan

Senate Democratic leaders have outlined a plan that embraces the President’s $250,000 threshold for ordinary income, but extends a 20% tax rate to dividend income. This plan greatly advantages the wealthiest Americans. For instance, the Obama proposal provides an $11,454 tax break for families with more than $20 million in income, versus a $166,490 tax break under the Senate Democrats plan, according to CTJ. Families with $1 million in income would get more than $6,000 more in tax breaks under the Senate Democrats plan than the President’s.

House Republicans Plan

House leadership continues to favor a plan that extends the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers. This would have a one-year cost of $311 billion, $68 billion more than the President’s plan.

Summary

The American public continues to overwhelmingly be concerned by the lack of fairness in the current tax code and supports allowing income tax rates to rise to former levels for the top 2% of taxpayers. In the polarized debate over raising taxes on some and not others, it is important to remember that even under the President’s plan, the wealthiest 2% retain more than $8,000 of their Bush tax cuts on their first $250,000 in income, a tax cut which is more than six times the $1,200 received by an average family earning $50,000 a year.

Scott Klinger, WFCG policy director authored this blog.

Tell Congress (Again!) to Raise Your Taxes is an article on Wealth For Common Good.