Today is tax day, since public workers in Washington, D.C., got April 15, our usual tax day, off to celebrate Emancipation Day. That holiday honors April 16, the day that President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 signed the law emancipating enslaved Black Americans in the nation’s capital.
On tax day, my wife and I have paid our taxes. Our percentage of taxes paid was higher than what has been recorded for a majority of American billionaires. At 88 my taxes have never undergone a Federal audit.
If the very wealthy and the major corporations matched my tax record, we would have been able to finance Build Back Better without a budgetary deficit.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have deliberately reduced the funding of the IRS since 2010. As Paul Krugman has discussed, the majority continue to subsidize the Republican plutocrats.
This is a powerful "gut punch" Heather. Have you ever sent any of your "letters" to the NYT or the Washington Post, etc., for their oped pages? If you haven't, may I urge you to do so. Your writing is so clearly grounded and expressed.
We should take up Professor Lawrence Tribe's idea:
An obvious solution is staring us in the face: President Biden could liquidate the tens of billions of dollars the Russian central bank has parked in the United States as part of its foreign exchange reserves; by some estimates, those funds may total as much as $100 billion. These assets are already frozen at the Federal Reserve and other banks thanks to Treasury sanctions banning transactions with the Russian central bank.
Mr. Biden already has ample statutory authority to liquidate Russian assets under a section of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, enacted in 1977 to clarify the previously overbroad and tangled mess of presidential emergency economic powers. As the Supreme Court affirmed in a landmark case about the Iran hostage crisis, the act gives the president “broad authority” to act in times of national emergency and the power to “nullify, void, prevent or prohibit” any foreign country from “holding” or “exercising any right, power, or privilege” over property in which it has “any interest.” It also authorizes the president to “direct and compel” the “transfer, withdrawal” or “exportation” of such property.
Since the reserves in question are Russian state property — unlike the assets of oligarchs — they are not shielded by the usual protections our legal system affords private property. The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against government seizure of property “without due process of law” applies only to “persons” — not foreign governments — as the Supreme Court suggested in 1992 and multiple federal courts have since held. Protections against the “taking” of property without “just compensation” likewise apply only to “private property,” a category that clearly excludes Russia’s sovereign reserves, even if they are conveniently parked within the United States and in dollars.
Congressional Republicans might push back, claiming that any such seizure would constitute a grand expansion of presidential power at Mr. Biden’s behest. But the act’s clear grant of authority should alleviate any genuine concerns. So too should the clear precedent of similar moves by presidents of both parties who have seized the central bank assets of human rights violators like Venezuela, Iran and Iraq.
Mr. Putin’s genocidal regime belongs in that dastardly category — and by treating Russia as such, Mr. Biden can do a lot to smoke out the Trump wing of the Republican Party, which, like its leader, has been reluctant to acknowledge the extent of Mr. Putin’s atrocities and the threat he poses to the United States.
On this tax day I would like everyone to write a letter to your members of Congress telling them to fund the IRS properly. I'm one of the twenty million or so taxpayers whose 2020 tax return has NOT been processed. Two years ago the US Post Office under DT's Postmaster General DeJoy lost my tax return and it took a lot to get that straightened out. DeJoy is still Postmaster General which gives me no joy. Last year I tried to use the IRS's online tax filing. There was a error in the software where one number that was to be entered by the IRS on line 7 of the Self Employment Schedule was omitted meaning no one who was self employed could file online. So I mailed it -- on time. Three days later they cashed my check. Now eleven months later they have not processed the return! This prevented me from refinancing my mortgage to a lower rate, the lowest rate we're going to see in a long long time, last summer since the bank by Texas law needed to see my tax return from the IRS. So it has cost me money! Now eleven months later there are still some twenty million tax returns unprocessed. This is the fault of the Congress for not adequately funding the IRS to do its job! I have always been impressed by the IRS when I needed to call them about something. The IRS is not the problem. But now you can't even get anyone on the phone. It seems this is another way the rich avoid paying taxes by not funding the personnel to review the tax returns of the rich. I believe it is estimated that if the tax returns of the rich were being scrutinized the US Treasury would have another Trillion (with a T) in taxes collected each year! This is the fault of a Congress that isn't doing its job! My motto for that is ReElect NoOne! Throw them all out if they can't do the job or can't work with others. We, the People, all of us this time!
Thanks for the history of federal taxation. Much of it was new for me.
Speaking of taxes, Jane Mayer of The New Yorker told Rachel Maddow tonight about a group that is financing the despicable disparagements of Biden nominees.
Donations to the group are tax free. So, in essence
All this Manichean nonsense straight out of John Wayne westerns -- and look! Look how little time is left in which to purge America of its very own Kremlin party... that rampant banditry who understood how to use the all-American name of the party of Abraham Lincoln as respectable cover for a Nazism without shirts brown or black, without swastika armbands... just red baseball caps, the Stars and Stripes -- with a few Confederate battle flags thrown in for good effect...
Your Munich beer hall putschists are still strutting around, still telling what they hold in store for the ordinary Americans they so despise that they don't even bother to hide their plans from them.
Their plans for vengeance. Beginning in November.
And now we're seeing in Ukraine what this vengeance really means, not only for today's Ukrainian victims, but for tomorrow's earmarked victims, in America, worldwide.
"We Russians are innocent, we are innocent by definition, we are defending our innocence, our victimhood at the hands of evil Western degenerates..."
Now, where did they get that spiel from? Haven't we heard this kind of crap before...? In revered American mouths... the mouth of President Reagan, the mouth of President George W. Bush...
"Exceptionalism".
That of the Third Reich, that of America's inspired NeoCons, that of Serb and Croat nationalist thugs, that of Islamist terrorism, that of Hindutva in Modi's India...
Add to that the pseudo-innocence of the Democratic Party's corroded machine politics.
For heaven's sake, we all know how divorcing couples share responsibility for their failed marriage, even where the prime responsibility rests with one partner.
Likewise, we should know the ongoing damage that stems from the punitive Versailles and Trianon Treaties...
The harm that empires impose on others they end up inflicting on themselves. Yet, regardless of whether men behave like angels, like devils escaped from the depths of hell or like us ordinary, well- intentioned mediocrities, we are all members of one mankind. One.
This means that, just as the children and grandchildren of those who conducted Hitler's massed assault on the world have formed a new Germany, we are all called upon to heal our own hearts and, in so doing, to heal the world.
This demands regeneration, in body, in spirit, everywhere. And no nation can be excluded, not one. Least of all those which have been responsible for the greatest abuses of wealth and power.
We have seen how the disasters of peace degenerate into the disasters of war -- can we not wake up and look beyond today's shambles, the waste of smashed buildings, smashed machinery and smashed lives, look beyond the demands of mass surgery, to envision at last the absolute demands of true peace?
I am starting to find Putin's statements quite informative and reassuring since he always, always says the direct opposite of the truth. Just reverse what he says...and you know what he actually thinks. His upside down talk seems consistent and compulsive. Thus it is strangely reliable.
If the Republican plan is instituted, I see we will end up in a depression, the healthcare system will collapse, the nursing home system will collapse and there will be soup lines. Persons relying on Medicare and Social Security have been paying in their investments in these programs, whether they wanted to or not, for decades. They are simply receiving their return on investment. Apparently, the people who call themselves republicans don't understand return on investment anymore. The affordable healthcare act provides insurance for those with pre-existing conditions and under President Biden has been adjusted so it is affordable for most everyone. If taxes on the working class are significantly increased, spendable cash, the cash that is allowing our economy to recover from the effects of Covid right now, will be gone to the government and not leaving enough cash available for everyone to be able to afford health insurance. This is while the Republican plan makes certain that the richest 2-5% can still buy their 2nd or 3rd home, yacht build somewhere not in the USA, private plane, put monies in Republican PACS so they still have control of the government, etc.
The majority of people using the healthcare industry are heavily relying on Medicare (~44% of revenue) and Medicaid (~13%) and, realistically, most persons will be unable to pay for insurance, since their source of spendable cash is removed via taxes. Remove ~57% of revenue from any industry and see how it does, especially when that is added to loss of the affordable healthcare act insurance and reduction of spendable monies by the majority of the working people in the US resulting in their not carrying health insurance because they have to eat and taxes will be killing them. I like Ike, can't we please get another real republican like Ike? That would be a good race against a democrat. Right now, the Republican Party platform will kill the USA.
The Daily Beast reports that former U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer & former MSNBC Commentator, Malcolm Nance, has joined an international brigade in Ukraine to defend the Country.
# BOFADEEZ. Recalls the international brigades that fought fascism in the 1930's.
The accomplishments described here of the Lincoln Administration are wonderful and only possible because the Southern States, a blight on this nation since inception, were not in Congress. Dixie has been trying to undo the Civil War since 1865.
Sure, I guess Russia might be a state sponsor of terrorism... but I can't help wondering what that means about a country which carpet bombed North Korea killing around 20% of its population, supported regimes in Latin America which wantonly killed and "disappeared" civilians, tortured prisoners, invaded a far-away country on false pretenses, seized the central bank assets of Afghanistan resulting in a hunger crisis, supports the Saudi bombing of civilians in Yemen, etc.
I find the fact sheet from the White House regarding the Tax Act should be required reading for every citizen of this Country. I'm sure those enamored with the 11 Point self destruction program that the GOP are pushing, will not see the irony that their plan is the stark opposite what the Biden Administration is offering. It's the epitome of good verses evil.
I am perplexed, after reading Anne Applebaum’s UNLESS DEMOCRACIES DEFEND THEMSELVES, THE FORCES OF AUTOCRACY WILL DESTROY THEM, that the governments of about 75% of the world’s population do not support the forceful riposte (including sanctions) to Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
Is this the result of hypocrisy, ‘realpolitik,’ or something else? China, the most populated country, has a strong geopolitical link with Russia. India, with over a billion people, has a volatile border with China and a tradition of endeavoring to be ‘nonaligned.’
The West, including much of Eastern Europe, is committed to assisting Zelensky’s Ukraine and punishing the aggressor—Putin. Some Asian countries concur. However, few countries in the Middle East and Africa are supportive. In some of these countries, economic and/or military links may provide a partial explanation. Also, remembrance of Western colonialism and of Cold War machinations may affect some thinking.
A European diplomat observed: “Two elephants are fighting, and the little guys get hurt.”
Sanctions as well as food and energy shortages will have a massive short-term global impact with which the ‘little guys’ will have great difficulty coping. Germany and some other countries seem far more willing to endure such sacrifices to support sovereign independence against Putin’s ‘Greater Russia’ megalomania.
Perhaps there is considerable validity to Huntington’s CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS. What is occurring is a reiteration of Western principles (forget about centuries of Western colonialism and recent American imperialism) with a preponderance of the non-Western world choosing to sit on the fence watching the elephants battle.
Moreover, a number of these non-Western countries have authoritarian governments. At the same time, they are closely linked to a Western economy and expect financial aid from former colonizers.
We may be entering a new era in global relationships, perhaps reminiscent of the Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War. Then the attitude of much of the West often was ‘if you are not with us, you are against us.’
I hope that not such a harsh delineation becomes the practice in 2022.
No comments on here about Malcolm Nance joining an international brigade to aid the Ukrainian military! Americans did this in 1938 in Spain's Civil War (that effort failed) and in Poland's 1920 war to stop Bolshevik westward expansion in Europe (that succeeded and has parallels in Ukraine). He has put his life on the line where his mouth is, an act not too many Americans are willing to do today. He deserves praise.
On tax day, my wife and I have paid our taxes. Our percentage of taxes paid was higher than what has been recorded for a majority of American billionaires. At 88 my taxes have never undergone a Federal audit.
If the very wealthy and the major corporations matched my tax record, we would have been able to finance Build Back Better without a budgetary deficit.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have deliberately reduced the funding of the IRS since 2010. As Paul Krugman has discussed, the majority continue to subsidize the Republican plutocrats.
This is a powerful "gut punch" Heather. Have you ever sent any of your "letters" to the NYT or the Washington Post, etc., for their oped pages? If you haven't, may I urge you to do so. Your writing is so clearly grounded and expressed.
We should take up Professor Lawrence Tribe's idea:
An obvious solution is staring us in the face: President Biden could liquidate the tens of billions of dollars the Russian central bank has parked in the United States as part of its foreign exchange reserves; by some estimates, those funds may total as much as $100 billion. These assets are already frozen at the Federal Reserve and other banks thanks to Treasury sanctions banning transactions with the Russian central bank.
Mr. Biden already has ample statutory authority to liquidate Russian assets under a section of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, enacted in 1977 to clarify the previously overbroad and tangled mess of presidential emergency economic powers. As the Supreme Court affirmed in a landmark case about the Iran hostage crisis, the act gives the president “broad authority” to act in times of national emergency and the power to “nullify, void, prevent or prohibit” any foreign country from “holding” or “exercising any right, power, or privilege” over property in which it has “any interest.” It also authorizes the president to “direct and compel” the “transfer, withdrawal” or “exportation” of such property.
Since the reserves in question are Russian state property — unlike the assets of oligarchs — they are not shielded by the usual protections our legal system affords private property. The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against government seizure of property “without due process of law” applies only to “persons” — not foreign governments — as the Supreme Court suggested in 1992 and multiple federal courts have since held. Protections against the “taking” of property without “just compensation” likewise apply only to “private property,” a category that clearly excludes Russia’s sovereign reserves, even if they are conveniently parked within the United States and in dollars.
Congressional Republicans might push back, claiming that any such seizure would constitute a grand expansion of presidential power at Mr. Biden’s behest. But the act’s clear grant of authority should alleviate any genuine concerns. So too should the clear precedent of similar moves by presidents of both parties who have seized the central bank assets of human rights violators like Venezuela, Iran and Iraq.
Mr. Putin’s genocidal regime belongs in that dastardly category — and by treating Russia as such, Mr. Biden can do a lot to smoke out the Trump wing of the Republican Party, which, like its leader, has been reluctant to acknowledge the extent of Mr. Putin’s atrocities and the threat he poses to the United States.
On this tax day I would like everyone to write a letter to your members of Congress telling them to fund the IRS properly. I'm one of the twenty million or so taxpayers whose 2020 tax return has NOT been processed. Two years ago the US Post Office under DT's Postmaster General DeJoy lost my tax return and it took a lot to get that straightened out. DeJoy is still Postmaster General which gives me no joy. Last year I tried to use the IRS's online tax filing. There was a error in the software where one number that was to be entered by the IRS on line 7 of the Self Employment Schedule was omitted meaning no one who was self employed could file online. So I mailed it -- on time. Three days later they cashed my check. Now eleven months later they have not processed the return! This prevented me from refinancing my mortgage to a lower rate, the lowest rate we're going to see in a long long time, last summer since the bank by Texas law needed to see my tax return from the IRS. So it has cost me money! Now eleven months later there are still some twenty million tax returns unprocessed. This is the fault of the Congress for not adequately funding the IRS to do its job! I have always been impressed by the IRS when I needed to call them about something. The IRS is not the problem. But now you can't even get anyone on the phone. It seems this is another way the rich avoid paying taxes by not funding the personnel to review the tax returns of the rich. I believe it is estimated that if the tax returns of the rich were being scrutinized the US Treasury would have another Trillion (with a T) in taxes collected each year! This is the fault of a Congress that isn't doing its job! My motto for that is ReElect NoOne! Throw them all out if they can't do the job or can't work with others. We, the People, all of us this time!
Thanks for the history of federal taxation. Much of it was new for me.
Speaking of taxes, Jane Mayer of The New Yorker told Rachel Maddow tonight about a group that is financing the despicable disparagements of Biden nominees.
Donations to the group are tax free. So, in essence
Why not a day off on Election Day?? In Australia we vote by mail or in person on a Saturday. Why should voting be so hard??
Yes, yes, yes... BUT
All this Manichean nonsense straight out of John Wayne westerns -- and look! Look how little time is left in which to purge America of its very own Kremlin party... that rampant banditry who understood how to use the all-American name of the party of Abraham Lincoln as respectable cover for a Nazism without shirts brown or black, without swastika armbands... just red baseball caps, the Stars and Stripes -- with a few Confederate battle flags thrown in for good effect...
Your Munich beer hall putschists are still strutting around, still telling what they hold in store for the ordinary Americans they so despise that they don't even bother to hide their plans from them.
Their plans for vengeance. Beginning in November.
And now we're seeing in Ukraine what this vengeance really means, not only for today's Ukrainian victims, but for tomorrow's earmarked victims, in America, worldwide.
"We Russians are innocent, we are innocent by definition, we are defending our innocence, our victimhood at the hands of evil Western degenerates..."
Now, where did they get that spiel from? Haven't we heard this kind of crap before...? In revered American mouths... the mouth of President Reagan, the mouth of President George W. Bush...
"Exceptionalism".
That of the Third Reich, that of America's inspired NeoCons, that of Serb and Croat nationalist thugs, that of Islamist terrorism, that of Hindutva in Modi's India...
Add to that the pseudo-innocence of the Democratic Party's corroded machine politics.
For heaven's sake, we all know how divorcing couples share responsibility for their failed marriage, even where the prime responsibility rests with one partner.
Likewise, we should know the ongoing damage that stems from the punitive Versailles and Trianon Treaties...
The harm that empires impose on others they end up inflicting on themselves. Yet, regardless of whether men behave like angels, like devils escaped from the depths of hell or like us ordinary, well- intentioned mediocrities, we are all members of one mankind. One.
This means that, just as the children and grandchildren of those who conducted Hitler's massed assault on the world have formed a new Germany, we are all called upon to heal our own hearts and, in so doing, to heal the world.
This demands regeneration, in body, in spirit, everywhere. And no nation can be excluded, not one. Least of all those which have been responsible for the greatest abuses of wealth and power.
We have seen how the disasters of peace degenerate into the disasters of war -- can we not wake up and look beyond today's shambles, the waste of smashed buildings, smashed machinery and smashed lives, look beyond the demands of mass surgery, to envision at last the absolute demands of true peace?
For Ukrainians. For Russians. For America...
I am starting to find Putin's statements quite informative and reassuring since he always, always says the direct opposite of the truth. Just reverse what he says...and you know what he actually thinks. His upside down talk seems consistent and compulsive. Thus it is strangely reliable.
If the Republican plan is instituted, I see we will end up in a depression, the healthcare system will collapse, the nursing home system will collapse and there will be soup lines. Persons relying on Medicare and Social Security have been paying in their investments in these programs, whether they wanted to or not, for decades. They are simply receiving their return on investment. Apparently, the people who call themselves republicans don't understand return on investment anymore. The affordable healthcare act provides insurance for those with pre-existing conditions and under President Biden has been adjusted so it is affordable for most everyone. If taxes on the working class are significantly increased, spendable cash, the cash that is allowing our economy to recover from the effects of Covid right now, will be gone to the government and not leaving enough cash available for everyone to be able to afford health insurance. This is while the Republican plan makes certain that the richest 2-5% can still buy their 2nd or 3rd home, yacht build somewhere not in the USA, private plane, put monies in Republican PACS so they still have control of the government, etc.
The majority of people using the healthcare industry are heavily relying on Medicare (~44% of revenue) and Medicaid (~13%) and, realistically, most persons will be unable to pay for insurance, since their source of spendable cash is removed via taxes. Remove ~57% of revenue from any industry and see how it does, especially when that is added to loss of the affordable healthcare act insurance and reduction of spendable monies by the majority of the working people in the US resulting in their not carrying health insurance because they have to eat and taxes will be killing them. I like Ike, can't we please get another real republican like Ike? That would be a good race against a democrat. Right now, the Republican Party platform will kill the USA.
The Daily Beast reports that former U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer & former MSNBC Commentator, Malcolm Nance, has joined an international brigade in Ukraine to defend the Country.
# BOFADEEZ. Recalls the international brigades that fought fascism in the 1930's.
The accomplishments described here of the Lincoln Administration are wonderful and only possible because the Southern States, a blight on this nation since inception, were not in Congress. Dixie has been trying to undo the Civil War since 1865.
Sure, I guess Russia might be a state sponsor of terrorism... but I can't help wondering what that means about a country which carpet bombed North Korea killing around 20% of its population, supported regimes in Latin America which wantonly killed and "disappeared" civilians, tortured prisoners, invaded a far-away country on false pretenses, seized the central bank assets of Afghanistan resulting in a hunger crisis, supports the Saudi bombing of civilians in Yemen, etc.
Thank you Heather.
I find the fact sheet from the White House regarding the Tax Act should be required reading for every citizen of this Country. I'm sure those enamored with the 11 Point self destruction program that the GOP are pushing, will not see the irony that their plan is the stark opposite what the Biden Administration is offering. It's the epitome of good verses evil.
But then, that has been the GOP plan all along.
Be safe. Be well.
Thank you - I hope that President Biden can get his taxation message out as well as other Democrats so the American voter understands this.
TWO ELEPHANTS AND THE ‘LITTLE GUYS’
I am perplexed, after reading Anne Applebaum’s UNLESS DEMOCRACIES DEFEND THEMSELVES, THE FORCES OF AUTOCRACY WILL DESTROY THEM, that the governments of about 75% of the world’s population do not support the forceful riposte (including sanctions) to Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
Is this the result of hypocrisy, ‘realpolitik,’ or something else? China, the most populated country, has a strong geopolitical link with Russia. India, with over a billion people, has a volatile border with China and a tradition of endeavoring to be ‘nonaligned.’
The West, including much of Eastern Europe, is committed to assisting Zelensky’s Ukraine and punishing the aggressor—Putin. Some Asian countries concur. However, few countries in the Middle East and Africa are supportive. In some of these countries, economic and/or military links may provide a partial explanation. Also, remembrance of Western colonialism and of Cold War machinations may affect some thinking.
A European diplomat observed: “Two elephants are fighting, and the little guys get hurt.”
Sanctions as well as food and energy shortages will have a massive short-term global impact with which the ‘little guys’ will have great difficulty coping. Germany and some other countries seem far more willing to endure such sacrifices to support sovereign independence against Putin’s ‘Greater Russia’ megalomania.
Perhaps there is considerable validity to Huntington’s CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS. What is occurring is a reiteration of Western principles (forget about centuries of Western colonialism and recent American imperialism) with a preponderance of the non-Western world choosing to sit on the fence watching the elephants battle.
Moreover, a number of these non-Western countries have authoritarian governments. At the same time, they are closely linked to a Western economy and expect financial aid from former colonizers.
We may be entering a new era in global relationships, perhaps reminiscent of the Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War. Then the attitude of much of the West often was ‘if you are not with us, you are against us.’
I hope that not such a harsh delineation becomes the practice in 2022.
No comments on here about Malcolm Nance joining an international brigade to aid the Ukrainian military! Americans did this in 1938 in Spain's Civil War (that effort failed) and in Poland's 1920 war to stop Bolshevik westward expansion in Europe (that succeeded and has parallels in Ukraine). He has put his life on the line where his mouth is, an act not too many Americans are willing to do today. He deserves praise.