The Soul of America By Senator Bernie Sanders January 9, 2013

[grahamhgreen]

Last edited Wed Jan 9, 2013, 07:27 PM - Edit history (1)

"Despite such terminology as "fiscal cliff" and "debt ceiling," the great debate taking place in Washington now has relatively little to do with financial issues. It is all about ideology. It is all about economic winners and losers in American society. It is all about the power of Big Money. It is all about the soul of America.

In America today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth, and more inequality than at any time period since 1928. The top 1 percent owns 42 percent of the financial wealth of the nation, while, incredibly, the bottom 60 percent own only 2.3 percent. One family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans. In terms of income distribution in 2010, the last study done on this issue, the top 1 percent earned 93 percent of all new income while the bottom 99 percent shared the remaining 7 percent.


.....

My Republican colleagues say that the deficits are a spending problem, not a revenue problem. .........

Republicans like Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who say the revenue debate is over don't want you to consider these facts:

Federal revenue today, at 15.8 percent of GDP, is lower today than it was 60 years ago. During the last year of the Clinton administration, when we had a significant federal surplus, federal revenue was 20.6 percent of GDP.
Today corporate profits are at an all-time high, while corporate income tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is near a record low.
In 2011, corporate revenue as a percentage of GDP was just 1.2 percent -- lower than any other major country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Norway, Australia, South Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Ireland, Poland, and Iceland.
In 2011, corporations paid just 12 percent of their profits in taxes (note: you and I are paying much more), the lowest since 1972.
In 2005, one out of four large corporations paid no income taxes at all while they collected $1.1 trillion in revenue over that one-year period.

We know where the Republicans are coming from. What about the Democrats? Will President Obama fulfill his campaign pledge to "protect the middle class" or will he surrender to right-wing blackmail? Will Democrats in the House and Senate stand with the vast majority of our citizens and such organizations as AARP, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the AFL-CIO, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and every other veterans' organization in the fight against cuts to Social Security and veterans' programs, or will they agree to a disastrous corporate-backed "chained CPI" concept which makes major benefit cuts to those programs and raises taxes on low-income workers?

The simple truth is there are relatively easy ways to deal with the deficit crisis -- without attacking the elderly, the children the sick or the poor.

For example, we have got to eliminate loopholes in the tax code that allow large corporations and the wealthy to avoid more than $100 billion in taxes every year by setting up offshore tax shelters......

Further, we must also end tax breaks for companies shipping American jobs overseas. .......

We must also recognize that Wall Street recklessness caused the economic crisis, and it has a responsibility to reduce the deficit. Establishing a 0.03 percent Wall Street speculation fee, similar to what we had from 1914-1966.........

We are entering a pivotal moment in the modern history of our country. Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans -- working families, children, the elderly, the poor -- or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail?..."

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9693CE78-957B-4C68-96E0-D18960943C73



Obama MUST be pushed - he lacks the will to do this on his own. Call, write, cajole the white house and your reps:

Call the White House 202-456-1111, and your rep [phone]!

Cut defense only & increase revenues.

[rainy]

1. Link please:) nt

[grahamhgreen]

4. Oops - http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9693CE78-957B-4C68-96E0-D18960943C73

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9693CE78-957B-4C68-96E0-D18960943C73

[ProSense]

2. "The simple truth is there are relatively easy ways to deal with the deficit crisis"

Frankly, we should just allow sequestration to happen.

Senator Sanders' piece is posted at Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/09/1177539/-The-Soul-of-America

The Left's Sequester Leverage
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022129660

At the very least keep the parameters and the defense cuts, and build on those by ending subsidies to oil companies and adding some of the other proposals Senator Sanders mentioned.

[grahamhgreen]

5. There is no reason not to cut Big War by a minimum of 10% (sequestor)

The rest of the programs should be spared, IMHO.

[indepat]

3. The soul of America has been hi-jacked by those who preach austerity and mouth

lies that the U.S. does not have a revenue problem, but rather a spending problem (on entitlements but not the MIC).