A message former Veep Walter F. Mondale

[CountDeMoney]

As in 1984, we need the courage to raise taxes
By Walter Mondale, Friday, April 15, 4:42 PM

We will not be able to control our budget deficits without raising taxes. That simple reality has brought us to a moment of truth in American politics. President Obama's speech Wednesday lived up to that moment, and now Democrats and Republicans in Congress must take a similar stand.

Many have described my 1984 presidential campaign promise to raise taxes as exemplifying the folly of proposing tax hikes during an election. Although the rebounding economy and improving job picture that year probably had more to do with President Ronald Reagan's reelection than my pledge did, there are certainly political lessons for anyone considering tax increases today. In particular, avoid generalities, and clearly link taxes to addressing concrete national needs.

Taxes reveal who we are as a people and what we value. Polls consistently show that majorities of Americans are willing to pay taxes and even have them increased when the revenues are devoted to their priorities, such as education, health care and deficit reduction. The public's support is greatest for raising taxes on the affluent, but it extends to hikes tied to popular programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Moreover, Americans are not fans of tax cuts when pitted against other priorities. Republicans know this: During the battle over President George W. Bush's 2001 tax cuts, the talking points for then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill leaked out. Revealingly, they warned him to "make clear that there are no trade-offs" because "the public prefers spending on things like health care and education over cutting taxes." If you watch carefully, you will see some Republicans today practicing the same dance steps, weaving and ducking in the face of unavoidable and cruel trade-offs.

I told the truth in 1984. "The American people will have to pay Mr. Reagan's bills," I said in my acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. "The budget will be squeezed. Taxes will go up. . . . It must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."

I lost the election, but I won the debate. Reagan ended up increasing taxes in 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987 to mend the budget and tax systems.

Elections since 1984 have demonstrated that favoring higher taxes to pay for specific priorities can be a winning political formula. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both prevailed with well-executed and honest proposals to raise taxes for concrete purposes that Americans favored.

It makes sense to seize today's bipartisan support for cutting tax exemptions as a way to increase revenue. I also believe that we must eliminate Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Where is the decency in cutting taxes for those making tens of millions while middle America struggles? This is a fight over fairness that Americans can understand.

Republicans are not risk-free in the tax debate. GOP politicians promise to reduce the deficit, but the indisputable record of Bush shows that his first priority was cutting taxes for the super-rich, even when that brought higher deficits. This record has bred distrust among the conservative base, including tea party sympathizers. One of Reagan's domestic policy advisers, Bruce Bartlett, wrote a book in 2006 titled "Impostor," decrying Bush's phoniness on deficits and spending. Talking about shrinking deficits while cutting taxes for the the wealthiest does not attract conservative populists or swing voters.

I am worried about claims by some Republicans — such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) and the many who echo their words — that taxes are too high. Here are the facts: Tax rates are at their lowest in decades, and revenue has fallen to a 40-year low as a percentage of our gross domestic product, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Calls to cut taxes further, in the belief that doing so will spur revenue and close deficits, brings me back to 1984. How many times will we fall for the same disproved proposition? Cutting taxes inescapably contributed to the deficits that America saw under Reagan and George W. Bush. Ryan's budget road map preaches fiscal probity, but the $4 trillion it pours into cutting taxes for the most affluent will increase the deficit. The CBO recently reported that the Ryan proposal will increase debt as a proportion of GDP by 2022.

The record of Republican and Democratic presidents alike shows that the only way to bring down deficits is to include tax increases in the mix. President Carter and I, as well as George H.W. Bush and Clinton, all used some version of that recipe. Today, efforts to restore tax revenue will need to be spread out over several years, as Obama proposes, to avoid cutting short the recovery.

I come from a tradition of progressive realism — I accept the need to live within our means while believing that we can build a fairer America that opens doors. I worry that the human cost of failing to shore up our revenue has been lost in the haze of budget numbers and spin. Avoiding savage tradeoffs and reversing a disturbing trend of economic decline requires us to restore taxes on the affluent and perhaps increase revenue in other ways, such as reducing the deductibility of mortgage interest for wealthy homeowners, cutting subsidies for large, corporate absentee-owned farm operations, reducing tax preferences for oil companies and closing loopholes that prevent huge corporations from paying taxes.

I am troubled by cuts in infrastructure investments, which enjoy support from business and labor as a source of jobs and future economic prosperity. I am ashamed that America leads affluent democracies in the number of people (including children) who live in poverty. I am perplexed by the shortsightedness of reducing support for smart, hard-working college students. And where is our decency when we cut back on medical care for the ill?

These are neither humane nor necessary choices. We are better than that. We can and must restore fiscal discipline while showing mercy and justice for the most vulnerable.

As a senator from Minnesota and then as vice president, I fought hard to ensure civil rights, expand opportunity and hold presidential power accountable. But, more than a few times, I surprised friends and colleagues with my insistence on fiscal honesty and realism. I believed then — and firmly believe now — that holding down deficits is key to the credibility of Democrats and to protecting against inflation, a disease that hurts the poor most. I worked with congressional Republicans to improve fiscal discipline and to create the CBO as an honest scorekeeper. I worked hard with Carter to cut spending and nearly balance the budget, even of it may have hurt us electorally.

Today, we need Republicans and Democrats to return to that tradition of putting country ahead of politics — to agree to tax increases as part of a package that would also cut spending and reform entitlements in ways that control long-term costs and protect those who depend on them. This is what we have done in the past, and it is what we must do to secure America's future.

Walter F. Mondale served as senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976 and U.S. vice president from 1977 to 1981. He was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984.

[Ed Anger]

I wouldn't get all hot and bothered if they pop the top rate back up to 39%.

[jimmy olsen]

I wouldn't get all hot and bothered if they pop the top rate back up to 39%.

Same here, although I will dispute the notion that we needed to raise taxes in '84.

[Ed Anger]

Stop agreeing with me, you tainting fuck.

[Admiral Yi]

Wally writes a splendid article, makes a beautiful case for the importance of raising taxes, then he slips in that it only should apply above the Schumer line.  Have the courage of your own convictions you dickless wonder. 

It's a free country, if the Count de Kucinches of this country are indiferent to the deficit and want to tax the rich because they are teh evol, they free to hold that opinion.  But if you publicly profess, as Wally does here, that what you really care about is deficit reduction, then it's totally dishonest to stop at the Schumer line.  Returning to the Clinton rates on the evol rich only raises 1/3 as much revenue as returning to the Clinton rates on the middle bracket.

[Martinus]

Wally writes a splendid article, makes a beautiful case for the importance of raising taxes, then he slips in that it only should apply above the Schumer line.  Have the courage of your own convictions you dickless wonder. 

It's a free country, if the Count de Kucinches of this country are indiferent to the deficit and want to tax the rich because they are teh evol, they free to hold that opinion.  But if you publicly profess, as Wally does here, that what you really care about is deficit reduction, then it's totally dishonest to stop at the Schumer line.  Returning to the Clinton rates on the evol rich only raises 1/3 as much revenue as returning to the Clinton rates on the middle bracket.

Yeah. While you need to raise the taxes for the rich *too* because otherwise people would revolt, the real income comes from the taxes on the middle class, sad as it may be.

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah. While you need to raise the taxes for the rich *too* because otherwise people would revolt, the real income comes from the taxes on the middle class, sad as it may be.

Admiral Yi Bagger seems to think it's an either-or proposition.  That's not the case.  The middle class is getting appropiately taxed;  it's the evol rich that aren't.  For some reason. the Yi Baggers seem to think the Dems want to swap them out.

[sbr]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110417/ap_on_bi_ge/us_no_taxes

Super rich see federal taxes drop dramatically

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press – 1 hr 4 mins ago

WASHINGTON – As millions of procrastinators scramble to meet Monday's tax filing deadline, ponder this: The super rich pay a lot less taxes than they did a couple of decades ago, and nearly half of U.S. households pay no income taxes at all.

The Internal Revenue Service tracks the tax returns with the 400 highest adjusted gross incomes each year. The average income on those returns in 2007, the latest year for IRS data, was nearly $345 million. Their average federal income tax rate was 17 percent, down from 26 percent in 1992.

Over the same period, the average federal income tax rate for all taxpayers declined to 9.3 percent from 9.9 percent.

The top income tax rate is 35 percent, so how can people who make so much pay so little in taxes? The nation's tax laws are packed with breaks for people at every income level. There are breaks for having children, paying a mortgage, going to college, and even for paying other taxes. Plus, the top rate on capital gains is only 15 percent.

There are so many breaks that 45 percent of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax for 2010, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

"It's the fact that we are using the tax code both to collect revenue, which is its primary purpose, and to deliver these spending benefits that we run into the situation where so many people are paying no taxes," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the center, which generated the estimate of people who pay no income taxes.

The sheer volume of credits, deductions and exemptions has both Democrats and Republicans calling for tax laws to be overhauled. House Republicans want to eliminate breaks to pay for lower overall rates, reducing the top tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Republicans oppose raising taxes, but they argue that a more efficient tax code would increase economic activity, generating additional tax revenue.

President Barack Obama said last week he wants to do away with tax breaks to lower the rates and to reduce government borrowing. Obama's proposal would result in $1 trillion in tax increases over the next 12 years. Neither proposal included many details, putting off hard choices about which tax breaks to eliminate.

In all, the tax code is filled with a total of $1.1 trillion in credits, deductions and exemptions, an average of about $8,000 per taxpayer, according to an analysis by the National Taxpayer Advocate, an independent watchdog within the IRS.

More than half of the nation's tax revenue came from the top 10 percent of earners in 2007. More than 44 percent came from the top 5 percent. Still, the wealthy have access to much more lucrative tax breaks than people with lower incomes.

Obama wants the wealthy to pay so "the amount of taxes you pay isn't determined by what kind of accountant you can afford."

Eric Schoenberg says to sign him up for paying higher taxes. Schoenberg, who inherited money and has a healthy portfolio from his days as an investment banker, has joined a group of other wealthy Americans called United for a Fair Economy. Their goal: Raise taxes on rich people like themselves.

Shoenberg, who now teaches a business class at Columbia University, said his income is usually "north of half a million a year." But 2009 was a bad year for investments, so his income dropped to a little over $200,000. His federal income tax bill was a little more than $2,000.

"I simply point out to people, `Do you think this is reasonable, that somebody in my circumstances should only be paying 1 percent of their income in tax?'" Schoenberg said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said he has a solution for rich people who want to pay more in taxes: Write a check to the IRS. There's nothing stopping you.

"There's still time before the filing deadline for them to give Uncle Sam some more money," Hatch said.

Schoenberg said Hatch's suggestion misses the point.

"This voluntary idea clearly represents a mindset that basically pretends there's no such things as collective goods that we produce," Schoenberg said. "Are you going to let people volunteer to build the road system? Are you going to let them volunteer to pay for education?"

The law is packed with tax breaks that help narrow special interests. But many of the biggest tax breaks benefit millions of American families at just about every income level, making them difficult for politicians to touch.

The vast majority of those who escape federal income taxes have low and medium incomes, and most of them pay other taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes, property taxes and retail sales taxes.

The share of people paying no federal income tax has dropped slightly the past two years. It was 47 percent for 2009. The main difference for 2010 was the expiration of a tax break that exempted the first $2,400 of unemployment benefits from taxation, Williams said.

In 2009, nearly 35 million taxpayers got a tax break for paying interest on their home mortgages, and nearly 36 million taxpayers took the $1,000-per-child tax credit. About 41 million households reduced their federal income taxes by deducting state and local income and sales taxes from their taxable income.

About 36 million families cut their taxes by nearly $35 billion by deducting charitable donations, and 28 million taxpayers saved a total of $24 billion because their income from Social Security and railroad pensions was untaxed.

"As a matter of policy, there would be a lot of ways to save money and actually make these things work better," said Leonard Burman, a public affairs professor at Syracuse University. "As a matter of politics, it's really, really difficult."

[CountDeMoney]

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said he has a solution for rich people who want to pay more in taxes: Write a check to the IRS. There's nothing stopping you.

"There's still time before the filing deadline for them to give Uncle Sam some more money," Hatch said.

Orrin's always good for a laugh.

[Admiral Yi]

The middle class is getting appropiately taxed;  it's the evol rich that aren't.

It's funny how now the Clinton tax rate on the Schumer class was inappropriate and the Bush rate was just right.

[Neil]

The middle class is getting appropiately taxed;

Wrong.

[CountDeMoney]

The middle class is getting appropiately taxed;

Wrong.

What the fuck do you know, you filthy foreigner?  Don't you have a Royal Wedding to prepare for?

[Neil]

The middle class is getting appropiately taxed;

Wrong.

What the fuck do you know, you filthy foreigner?  Don't you have a Royal Wedding to prepare for?

No.  I only go to weddings of Dukes.

At any rate, I'm much better suited to make these decisions than you are.  The Republican victory in the midterms, combined with your country's rejection of your beloved black president, seems to have unhinged you.

[Razgovory]

I didn't know Walter Mondale was still alive.

[Berkut]

I hate to agree with Neil on GP, but Seedy does seem to have gone right around the bend lately.