Newsweek: This is the reporter heckler who yelled at President Obama during his Rose Garden address on immigration and the Dream Act. His name is Neil Monro, and he works at The Daily Caller. That was not journalism, kids. Here’s video.
TPM: The reporter who interrupted the president was the Daily Caller’s Neil Munro, who, according to TPM’s Brian Beutler (who was also in attendance) identified himself as an immigrant and then walked off.
But listen to Mitt Romney: blame government workers with their “salaries” and “benefits.”
“The continuing growth of the wage gap between high and middle earners is the result of various laissez-faire policies (acts of omission as well as commission) including globalization, deregulation, privatization, eroded unionization, and weakened labor standards…The gap between the very highest earners — the top 1 percent — and all other earners, including other high earners, reflects the escalation of CEO and other managers’ compensation and the growth of compensation in the financial sector.”
— Larry Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Institute, speaking about the institute’s forthcoming study, “The State of Working America.”
TPM’s Brian Beutler looks the EPI’s new reflections on the status of the U.S. worker over the last several decades.
Click for larger image:
NOTE: purple area shows payroll taxes and green area shows corporate taxes. See how that’s worked out really, really well for the 1% and not so much for the rest of us?
CHART OF THE DAY: The ‘47 Percent’ Pay Their Fair Share
Conservatives are continuing their counter-protest against the so-called “47 percent.” Specifically, that’s the share of recession-era households that pay no federal income taxes. Most of them pay payroll taxes and other federal taxes (not to mention state taxes), but Republicans have chosen to depict them as the free-riding half of the country.
The fact of the matter, though, is that those other taxes constitute a huge chunk of federal revenues. Check out the charts below. Over the 58 years preceding the Lesser Depression, the share of federal revenues that came from individual income taxes has remained fairly stable, fluctuating between 40 and 50 percent, and peaking just before George W. Bush slashed rates in 2001.
The rest has come from corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, and various other taxes. To a surprising extent, the story of the last six decades is one of a shrinking burden on big business, and a growing burden on workers — the bulk of the “47 percent”. Since 1950, regressive payroll taxes have grown to comprise over one-third of federal revenues — they used to comprise about one-tenth. For corporate income taxes, it’s just the opposite — what used to provide the Treasury over a quarter of its revenue now provides just over 10 percent.
Another lesson on how tax laws redistribute the wealth from the bottom to the top — AND how the GOP / rightwing / Fox “News” propaganda machine lies to its self-hating base for their support. If we only had a real media reporting these facts to the their audience.
And if we’re talking about individual income tax, then let’s also discuss how income tax on labor is much higher than income tax on capital gains. Another way the rich get richer…
@joshtpm: Okay, flash contest > Gimme a caption for this photo!
My caption is the title.
“The president and I do not agree on his view that the government needs more revenues through taxes on job creators.” —- John Boehner, July 11, 2011
Smacking Into the Debt Ceiling: the Day-by-Day Consequences
“Remember when the United States was so politically paralyzed that it risked its credit rating and international credibility by refusing to hike the debt ceiling?”
So how do the Republicans and John Boehner want to save money? Brian Beutler reports on a secret memo left behind at the White House on Monday:
Though the memo lacks key details about many of the cuts, it contains enough to show where, exactly, Republicans hope to achieve savings. Its largest single source of savings — $100 billion worth — comes from what the memo terms “Medicaid FMAP Reform,” or matching funds to state governments for providing Medicaid services.
It calls for up to $53 billion in savings from instituting new cost-sharing protocols for so-called Medigap policies — supplemental insurance sold to Medicare beneficiaries to cover the cost of services not covered, or partially covered by Medicare. Specifically, it would institute a $530 out-of-pocket premium for certain Medigap plans. It also calls for over $80 billion in additional cost-shifting for home health coverage, and for medical and prescription drug coverage.
More information when we get it, but for now, read the memo here.
Of course it would be silly to let the tax cuts expire for the wealthy. There are just too many services that can be cut before we have to resort to such cruelty.
