Embedded Files
Conservatives are ALWAYS against abortion until their daughters get pregnant by rape or when they have a year left to college, then they rush her 3 towns over to the Planned Parenthood.
Conservatives are ALWAYS against STEM CELL RESEARCH until they or their loved one is diagnosed with a rare illness (Like Nancy Reagan)
Conservatives are ALWAYS against GAY RIGHTS until their honor student and church raised good son comes out of the closet, they then are rushing to join PFLAG.
Conservatives are ALWAYS against WELFARE, DISABILITY AND FOOD STAMPS until they lose their job or get hurt or sick they then scream "DONT TAKE AWAY MY WELFARE OR SOCIAL SECURITY!!!!!!"
Conservatives are ALWAYS against ILLEGALS until they start a business, then they hire everyone in the datgum Barrio so they can buy a boat with the saved cash.
Conservatives are hypocrites
Facts about Conservatives...
Conservative states use the most welfare, food stamps and medicare, but pay into the system the least.
By contrast Liberal states use the lowest amount of these things , but pay into the system the most.
TaxProf Blog: Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed
Interactive: WHITE Republicans More Likely to Have Constituents Who Use Food Stamps
Red States In Debt More Debt In Red States
A New Report Proves Republican Governed Red States Are Economic Parasites
A New Report Proves Republican Governed Red States Are Economic Parasites
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/03/26/report-proves-stupid-red-states-parasites.html
Conservative states have the highest rate of DIVORCE and TEEN PREGNANCY, and THEY want to speak of FAMILY VALUES?
Northeast, Not Bible Belt, Has Lowest Divorce Rate In America
RED STATES HAVE THE HIGHEST TEEN PREGNANCY RATES
Conservative states have the lowest rates of college education, Probably why they use the most welfare and pay into it the least.
Conservatives were studied by the US Govt and found to have a mental illness
Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve | World news | The Guardian
Looks Like Conservatives Are Just Big Scaredy Cats! | Crooks and Liars
And also they ARE LOW EFFORT THINKERS
Conservative Politics, 'Low-Effort' Thinking Linked In New Study
Conservatives are part of the DARK TRIAD PERSONALITY DISORDER triangle
RED STATES ARE FATTER then blue states
Bad Health Habits Are on the Rise [Interactive]: Scientific American
Rural America Fatter Than Urban America - ABC News
More Liberals Are CHRISTIANS THEN Conservatives
Christianity Is Not Conservative, You can not be BOTH
http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/20/christianity-is-not-conservative/
Eight of the last nine recessions have been under Republican presidents
Conservative policies DO NOT WORK (pretty much another fully sourced version of what I said above)
Here is Proof Republicans Are Incompetent at Running Government, Expanded & Updated (The PCTC Blog )
DATABASE of Republican perverts and molesters
Republican Values Create Child Molesters
How Food Preferences Vary by Political Ideology
How Food Preferences Vary by Political Ideology
BUT THEY LOOOOOVE to project their insecurities on US
The fact is, that Conservatives brains have been studied and they have been found to have a BIGGER fear center in the amygdala than Liberals
Sources (among many)
Conservatives were studied by the US Govt and found to have a mental illness
Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve | World news | The Guardian
Looks Like Conservatives Are Just Big Scaredy Cats! | Crooks and Liars
The Elites and Big Corporations and people like the KOCH Bros have figured this out and that's why FOXNEWS was created, to con the conservatives and miss-inform them
Which is backed up in this study:
The Fox News Effect | The Nation
AND why the Tea Party was hijacked by the KOCH bros into spreading fear (like death panels, Obamas a Socialist Muslim, from Kenya etc) and it worked and they voted a lot of these crazies into office and thats why we have GRIDLOCK!
Foxnews had to admit in a court of law years ago that IT WAS NOT A NEWS ORGANIZATION AT ALL BUT AN ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK!
So FOXNEWS is the rightwing equivalent of THE ONION.
Fox News Boycott | Fox-Can-Lie Lawsuit
How Conservatives and the GOP Destroyed the "Traditional Family" They Claim to Treasure
Mass Shooting Tracker
Study Finds States With Strongest Gun Laws Have Fewest Gun Deaths
WALMART Has Created A welfare State
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lauraheller/2014/03/28/walmart-just-revealed-how-poor-u-s-shoppers-are/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/01/AR2006120101509.html
http://hnn.us/articles/48916.html
GEORGE W BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/religious-compassion-atheists-agnostics_n_1468006.html
Religious People Less Driven By Compassion Than Are Atheists And Agnostics, Study Says
Religious People Less Driven By Compassion Than Are Atheists And Agnostics, Study Says
http://liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/abortionteaching.html
The Roman Catholic Church's
"traditional teaching"
on Abortion :
The Washington Child Sex Ring Coverup
The Franklin Child Sex Ring Implicating the Bush Whitehouse
http://www.voxfux.com/features/bush_child_sex_coverup/franklin.htm
Are Republicans More Likely to Molest Children Than Democrats?
Are Republicans More Likely to Molest Children Than Democrats?
Posted by Good German on February 23, 2011
And if so, why?
Armchair Subversive posts a long list of Republicans who have been charged, arrested, or even pleaded guilty to molesting children or teenagers and related crimes:
- Republican aide, Alan David Berlin, was arrested on charges that he wanted to engage in sex acts with a 15 year old boy while dressed in a panda costume.
- Fox News producer Aaron Bruns pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years for possessing child pornography.
- Republican activist and former presidential campaign chairman Jeffrey Claude Bartleson was arrested on charges of sexually molesting a 5-year old boy.
- Republican activist and former chairman of the Christian County Republicans Royce Fessenden pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree child molestation and one count of second-degree statutory sodomy.
- Republican parole board officer and former legislator George Christian (Chris) Ortloff pleaded guilty to attempting to lure 11- and 12-year-old girls to have sex with him.
Read the rest of the list here. Meanwhile, TripMarz555 posts a much shorter list of Democrats charged with sex crimes at SodaHead:
Sen. Daniel Inouye. The 82-year-old Hawaii Democrat was accused in the 1990s by numerous women of sexual harassment.
Former Rep. Gus Savage. The Illinois Democrat was accused of fondling a Peace Corps volunteer in 1989 while on a trip to Africa.
Rep. Barney Frank. The outspoken Massachusetts Democrat hired a male prostitute who ran a prostitution service from Frank’s residence in the 1980s.
Former Sen. Brock Adams. The late Washington Democrat was forced to stop campaigning after numerous accusations of drugging, assault and rape, the first surfacing in 1988.
Former Rep. Fred Richmond. This New York Democrat was arrested in 1978 for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old. He remained in Congress and won re-election—before eventually resigning in 1982 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and drug possession.
Former Rep. John Young. The late Texas Democrat increased the salary of a staffer after she gave in to his sexual advances. The congressman won re-election in 1976 but lost two years later.
Former Rep. Wayne Hays. The late Ohio Democrat hired an unqualified secretary reportedly for sexual acts. Although he resigned from Congress.
Former Rep. Mel Reynolds. The Illinois Democrat was convicted of 12 counts of sexual assault with a 16-year-old.
Sen. Teddy Kennedy. The liberal Massachusetts senator testified in defense of nephew accused of rape, invoking his family history to win over the jury in 1991.
Read the rest of the list here. I’m sure there are more, but notice most of those crimes don’t involve underage people. (If there’s a longer list somewhere, I haven’t been able to find it.)
Armchair Subversive claims “Republican Values Create Child Molesters.” If Republicans are indeed more likely to molest children, that’s still a cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy–for instance, child molesters may simply tend to be more attracted to the Republican party for some reason.
But if Republicans are indeed more likely to molest children, is there something about the idolization of money that mixes well with the desire to literally fuck the innocent and less powerful?
About this post...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/fox-news-credibility-low-poll_n_2632084.html
Several years ago (probably when you were in senior high school) someone sued FoxNews about something they had said and during the courtroom proceedings FOXNEWS admitted that, "We are not a NEWS ORGANIZATION. We are an OPINION AND ENTERTAINMENT CHANNEL!"
So, they are essentially the Conservative Version of "THE ONION"...
So, they NEVER had credibility!
Furthermore, the US Govt did a study on Conservatives brains and found that their AMYGDALAS, which are responsible for FEAR, are larger then normal people...
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/looks-conservatives-are-just-big-scar
Meaning they are scared and more fearful of things than normal people. IE Gays, Muslims, Terrorists, Black People you name it.
Additionally another study recently came out, called, "The Fox News Effect" which shows that FoxNews watchers become less informed about news and current events when they watch FoxNews...
http://www.thenation.com/article/166668/fox-news-effect#
They are also LOW EFFORT thinkers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/07/conservative-politics-low-effort-thinking_n_1410448.html
So, in conclusion, I believe that the people who started FoxNews know that their audience is more fearful and lack the capacity of critical thinking to do any sort of deep thinking and introspection and they play to this fact and keep them fearful and uninformed cause Look, They are all a buncha white old men who know they are being outnumbered and they wanna keep their "base" dumbed down so they can hang on to their last thread of power before the minorities step in....
New research shows that Conservatives tend to prefer the brand-name products of Walmart
New research shows that Conservatives tend to prefer the brand-name products of Walmart
By Tom Jacobs
This piece originally appeared on Pacific Standard.
The cliché that liberals shop at Trader Joe’s, while conservatives prefer Walmart, is no doubt overstated. But where would the perception come from?Newly published research provides a compelling answer: brand-name products. Conservatives gravitate toward them, and Walmart, unlike Trader Joe’s, is packed with them.
That provocative conclusion can be drawn from a study in the journal Psychological Science. A research team led by Vishal Singh of New York University’s Stern School of Business has discovered a relationship between voting behavior, high levels of religiosity, and “seemingly inconsequential product choices.”
They argue that your decision to vote for a certain candidate, and purchase a particular brand of detergent, springs from the same basic impulse:
“Our empirical results, based on extensive field data, provide strong evidence that more conservative ideology is associated with higher reliance on established national brands (as opposed to generics) and a slower uptake of new products.”
“These tendencies are consistent with traits typically associated with conservatism, such as aversion to risk, skepticism about new experiences, and a general preference for tradition, convention, and the status quo.”
The researchers used a comprehensive database that tracks weekly store sales of thousands of products. Focusing on 416 counties which collectively represent 47 percent of the U.S. population, they calculated the market share of generics in 26 categories, including coffee, deodorant, and peanut butter.
Making similar county-to-county comparisons, they also calculated the market share of new products in the first year after their launch.
Using data from the Association of Religion Data Archives, the researchers determined the percentage of residents of each county who adhered to a particular faith. This was “strictly defined as the number of full members of a religious denomination, and the number of nonmembers who attend services regularly.”
Finally, to assess political affiliation, the researchers used the average percentage of Republican votes cast in the eight presidential elections between 1980 and 2008.
The results: In 19 of the 26 categories, greater religiosity was strongly associated with a lower market share for generic products. (The association was also found in another six categories, but at a level below statistical significance.) “We found essentially the same pattern in the associations between Republican voting and generics,” they write.
“Similarly,” they add, “the market share of new products was significantly lower in counties with higher levels of religiosity and Republican voting. Taken together, our results provide strong evidence that more conservative markets are associated with a higher reliance on established national brands and a lower penetration of new products.”
These findings are in line with recent research suggesting our ideological fault lines extend to surprising territory, including patterns of charitable giving. A study published last year provided evidence of literal differences between the brains of liberals and conservatives.
To follow up, Singh and his colleagues hope to explore differences in purchasing choices between individualistic, Western cultures and more collectivist, Eastern societies. While that will be interesting, they have already found a fascinating pattern within the U.S.
It seems ideological attitudes reveal themselves not only in the voting booth and the church pew, but also in the supermarket check-out lane.
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/07/ever_wondered_why_conservatives_dont_like_trader_joes_partner/
Republican Brains Differ From Democrats' In New FMRI Study
Republican Brains Differ From Democrats' In New FMRI Study
Posted: 02/20/2013 8:14 am EST | Updated: 02/22/2013 12:35 am EST
By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Published: 02/19/2013 11:08 AM EST on LiveScience
Whether you pulled the lever for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney may reflect how your brain copes with risk, new research finds.
The study, which examined the brain activity of 35 men and 47 women registered as either Democrat or Republican, found no difference in the amount of risk people of each political persuasion were willing to take on during a gambling game. But the way the brain processed risk worked differently between the groups, with Republicans showing more activity in an area linked with reward, fear and risky decisions and Democrats showing more activity in a spot related to processing emotion and internal body cues.
The findings hint at basic differences between people with different values, said study researcher Darren Schreiber of the University of Exeter.
"The ability to accurately predict party politics using only brain activity while gambling suggests that investigating basic neural differences between voters may provide us with more powerful insights than the traditional tools of political science," Schreiber said in a statement. [The 10 Greatest Mysteries of the Mind]
The politics of risk
Recent investigations into the psychology of liberals and conservatives have found a number of subtle differences, from conservatives exhibiting more squeamishness to liberals paying less attention to negative stimuli or threats.
A 2011 study published in the journal Current Biology found differences in some brain structures between politically liberal and political conservative young adults. Many of these areas were linked to risk-assessment and decision-making, prompting Schreiber and his colleagues to wonder if they could find differences in how these areas function during risky tasks.
The researchers had previously conducted a study in which people underwent brain scans while playing a gambling game. In each round, the participants saw three numbers, 20, 40 and 80, flash on a screen. If they hit a button while 20 was up, they were guaranteed 20 cents. If they waited for the 40 or 80, they might get a payout of either 40 or 80 cents — but they might also lose that amount of money. Thus, they were choosing between a safe bet and two higher-paying but riskier options.
Using voting records, the researchers found out political party affiliation for 35 of the men and 47 of the women in that study. Political parties aren't a perfect match with ideology, but they come very close, the researchers wrote Feb. 13 in the journal PLOS ONE. Most Democrats hold liberal values, while most Republicans hold conservative values.
Political brains
Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward.
Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking.
While their brain activity differed, the two groups' behaviors were identical, the study found.
Schreiber and his colleagues can't say whether the functional brain differences nudge people toward a particular ideology or not. The brain changes based on how it is used, so it is possible that acting in a partisan way prompts the differences.
The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs, however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents' political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the researchers wrote.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
- 10 Historically Significant Political Protests
- The 5 Strangest Presidential Elections in US History
- 5 Reasons Your Vote Will Be Irrational
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Meet America's Sadness Belt
Meet America's Sadness Belt
The country's unhappiest states are all in one cluster in the South and Midwest.
Anna North BuzzFeed Staff
America's Unhappiest States
America's Unhappiest States
Unhappiest states are in red; happiest ones are in green.
Source: Gallup Well-Being Index / via: well-beingindex.com
America has a sadness belt stretching contiguously from Ohio to Louisiana, according to data on national well-being released today. The ten states in this belt — Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma — trail the rest of the country when it comes to emotional health, physical health, and general quality of life.
These states perform poorly on lots of different measures of well-being, according to the annual well-being report issued by research firms Gallup and Healthways on Wednesday. Residents in the belt generally score poorly on emotional health, meaning they're less likely than others to report "learning or doing something interesting" or "being treated with respect" and more likely to feel angry or stressed. They're even less likely to smile.
The report doesn't investigate what might cause the sadness belt, but there's evidence it may not be the Great Recession — job satisfaction in those states was not as dismal as other indicators. But comparing this year's numbers to last year's in some states, it looks like even that may be getting worse.
Update: Healthways researcher Lindsay Sears told BuzzFeed that much of the belt's poor showing might come from unhealthy behaviors, like smoking and lack of exercise. Those behaviors in turn may be caused by access problems — people in the unhappiest states were more likely than others to say they had trouble buying fruits and vegetables or finding a safe place to exercise.
Misinformed USA: Why average Americans vote for Republicans
Misinformed USA: Why average Americans vote for Republicans
- elections12
- March 23, 2012
- By: Robert Sobel
- Subscribe
Recent Tea Party Rally
Credits:
One can only wonder why average working class Americans would vote for a party that is so obvious in their bias towards the wealthy. It would make sense that someone in the top 1% of the income bracket would vote for the Republican party since they have the wealthiest American's best interest at heart. You could even make the case that highly religious Christians would vote for Republicans even though, at times, they vote against their own best economic interests. So the question remains, while scratching your head, why do working class Americans vote for Republican candidates?
I recently sat down and spoke with an acquaintance of mine, trying to get a grip on what people are thinking about the future of our country. He said he will vote for Mitt Romney because, "we need a business person to get our debt down." I asked where he got his news, and after trying to deflect from the question, the answer finally came. "I don't pay attention too much, but when I do, I watch Fox." Fox News is the primary source for information for millions of Americans across the country and that's where the problem starts.
Whether it's Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or other right wing ideologues, Fox News is a tunnel vision information outlet with only one particular agenda that is being pushed through. Millions of Americans watch Fox News, listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz, Michael Savage and others while getting information from right wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. With big businesses and billionaire allies, the truth and facts in American have gone from a clear right and wrong, black and white situation to muffled shades of gray. It's not to say that Fox News, the Cato Institute and others like them totally lie because that would be too difficult to pull off. What these think tanks do, is take a fact and twist it to fit their own personal agenda, leaving out key information that would contradict with the platform they're trying to create.
A perfect example in describing the way groups like the Cato Institute operate is a report that came out by alternet.org. In the early 2000s, the Cato Institute released a report that suggested that families receiving welfare were making between $17,000 and $25,000 a year, but the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities countered that claim. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities showed that the average income for welfare recipients was below $9,000 a year, which is nearly $3,000 a year below the poverty line.
The misinformation also comes from another right wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation. In 2011, when Paul Ryan released the "Ryan" Republican budget, the Heritage Foundation claimed that unemployment would drop to 6.4% in 2012 and to 2.8% in 2022. A report released by the Washington Monthly pointed out that these claims were extremely exaggerated. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, showed the errors of the Heritage Foundation's report and the director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis, William Beach, was forced to walk backed the claims.
In 2009, the Heritage Foundation released ads attacking the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that was brought to congress that would give all employees the right to form a union without fear of being fired from their current job. Since the Heritage Foundation is bought and paid for by million and billionaire conservatives, the idea of having workers unite with more power and freedom threatens their control at the top. The ads released painted a false picture about the Employee Free Choice Act, claiming that unions will bully workers into joining them with an attempt to take money from the employee. According to the Huffington Post, the Heritage Foundation "frame(s) the EFCA issue based on bald-faced lies. Business-financed 'think tanks' like Heritage propagandize workers against their own interests in psychologically sophisticated ways, often pulling on their heartstrings and framing their anti-union stance as 'common sense.'"
Average Americans need to be more informed about what is going in the country, but also where to get their information. The argument isn't about holding a liberal or conservative ideology, it's about facts that are based on truth or information that is based on twisted logic. Americans need to learn to dig a little deeper to find honest reporting, not just believe something that falls in their lap at the expense of a billionaire funded think tank or news organization.
The Biggest "Takers" and Societal Parasites Are the Rich, Not the Working Class and Poor
The Biggest "Takers" and Societal Parasites Are the Rich, Not the Working Class and Poor
- font size
PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUTAyn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" fantasizes a world in which anti-government citizens reject taxes and regulations, and "stop the motor" by withdrawing themselves from the system of production. In a perverse twist on the writer's theme the prediction is coming true. But instead of productive people rejecting taxes, rejected taxes are shutting down productive people.Perhaps Ayn Rand never anticipated the impact of unregulated greed on a productive middle class. Perhaps she never understood the fairness of tax money for public research and infrastructure and security, all of which have contributed to the success of big business. She must have known about the inequality of the pre-Depression years. But she couldn't have foreseen the concurrent rise in technology and globalization that allowed inequality to surge again, more quickly, in a manner that threatens to put the greediest offenders out of our reach.Ayn Rand's philosophy suggests that average working people are 'takers.' In reality, those in the best position to make money take all they can get, with no scruples about their working class victims, because taking, in the minds of the rich, serves as a model for success. The strategy involves tax avoidance, in numerous forms.
Corporations Stopped Paying
In the past twenty years, corporate profits have quadrupled while the corporate tax percent has dropped by half. The payroll tax, paid by workers, has doubled.
In effect, corporations have decided to let middle-class workers pay for national investments that have largely benefited businesses over the years. The greater part of basic research, especially for technology and health care, has been conducted with government money. Even today 60% of university research is government-supported. Corporations use highways and shipping lanes and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business.
Yet as corporate profits surge and taxes plummet, our infrastructure is deteriorating. TheAmerican Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $3.63 trillion is needed over the next seven years to make the necessary repairs.
Turning Taxes Into Thin Air
Corporations have used numerous and creative means to avoid their tax responsibilities. They have about a year's worth of profits stashed untaxed overseas. According to the Wall Street Journal, about 60% of their cash is offshore. Yet these corporate 'persons' enjoy a foreign earned income exclusion that real U.S. persons don't get.
Corporate tax haven ploys are legendary, with almost 19,000 companies claiming home office space in one building in the low-tax Cayman Islands. But they don't want to give up their U.S. benefits. Tech companies in 19 tax haven jurisdictions received $18.7 billion in 2011 federal contracts. A lot of smaller companies are legally exempt from taxes. As of 2008, according to IRS data, fully 69% of U.S. corporations were organized as nontaxablebusinesses.
There's much more. Companies call their CEO bonuses "performance pay" to get a lower rate. Private equity firms call fees "capital gains" to get a lower rate. Fast food companies call their lunch menus "intellectual property" to get a lower rate.
Prisons and casinos have stooped to the level of calling themselves "real estate investment trusts" (REITs) to gain tax exemptions. Stooping lower yet, Disney and others have added cows and sheep to their greenspace to get a farmland exemption.
The Richest Individuals Stopped Paying
The IRS estimated that 17 percent of taxes owed were not paid in 2006, leaving an underpayment of $450 billion. The revenue loss from tax havens approaches $450 billion. Subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes are estimated at over $1 trillion. Expenditures overwhelmingly benefit the richesttaxpayers.
In keeping with Ayn Rand's assurance that "Money is the barometer of a society's virtue," the super-rich are relentless in their quest to make more money by eliminating taxes. Instead of calling their income 'income,' they call it "carried interest" or "performance-based earnings" or"deferred pay." And when they cash in their stock options, they might look up last year's lowest price, write that in as a purchase date, cash in the concocted profits, and take advantage of the lower capital gains tax rate.
So Who Has To Pay?
Middle-class families. The $2 trillion in tax losses from underpayments, expenditures, and tax havens costs every middle-class family about $20,000 in community benefits, including health care and education and food and housing.
Schoolkids, too. A study of 265 large companies by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) determined that about $14 billion per year in state income taxes was unpaid over three years. That's approximately equal to the loss of 2012-13 education funding due to budget cuts.
And the lowest-income taxpayers make up the difference, based on new data that shows that the Earned Income Tax Credit is the single biggest compliance problem cited by the IRS. The average sentence for cheating with secret offshore financial accounts, according to theWall Street Journal, is about half as long as in some other types of tax cases.
Atlas Can't Be Found Among the Rich
Only 3 percent of the CEOs, upper management, and financial professionals wereentrepreneurs in 2005, even though they made up about 60 percent of the richest .1% of Americans. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. Job creators come from the middle class.
So if the super-rich are not holding the world on their shoulders, what do they do with their money? According to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate.
Ayn Rand's hero John Galt said, "We are on strike against those who believe that one man must exist for the sake of another." In his world, Atlas has it easy, with only himself to think about.
(Photo: 401(K) 2013 / flickr)
Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, a writer for progressive publications, and the founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org).
(Photo: 401(K) 2013 / flickr)
MSNBC/The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur speaks with John Cook of Gawker about a Nixon era document that involved current Fox News president Roger Ailes laying out how to create a Republican propaganda TV network.
Google Sites
Report abuse