June 7, 2011 — Maz
Ten years ago, the great con known as the Bush tax cuts was signed into law.
We were told that the budget surplus left by the Clinton administration would be better off in the hands of the taxpayers. Those tax breaks were to stimulate the economy, create jobs and lead us all to the American Dream.
Of course, the story of the past decade has been much different:
The lion's share of the tax breaks were stuffed into the pockets of a small percentage of taxpayers. The top 10 percent of earners received 55 percent of the tax benefits; the top 1 percent alone grabbed 38 percent. And, at the tip top of the income scale, the top .01 percent of households snatched an average cut of $520,000, or 450 times the average break for a middle-income family.
The current unemployment rate of 9.1 percent is more than double the rate in the same month a decade ago. In more human terms, 13.7 million people are currently looking for work but can't find a job. But those figures are upwards of 76 percent higher if we include the under-employed and folks discouraged by a still-thin job market.
As for the American dream of white picket fences and a home to call your own, overall home foreclosures were two-and-a-half times above the 2001 rate by the end of 2010. Today, roughly 3.7 million homes are in danger of foreclosure.
June 7, 2011 — Lee Farris
June 7, 2011 marks the tenth anniversary of the disastrous 2001 Bush tax cuts. Those irresponsible tax cuts added $2.6 trillion to our national debt and went primarily to the wealthiest households in the country.
But a nationwide tax justice revolution is gaining steam. All over the country, people are demanding to know: If we can pay our taxes, why can't America's wealthy individuals and richest corporations pay their fair share?
Join United for a Fair Economy, Responsible Wealth, and our partners during the week of June 7 to demand that millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share. Here's how you can get involved.
May 7, 2011 — Brian Miller
In Friday's Wall Street Journal, columnist Stephen Moore does his best to marginalize and discredit the the growing chorus of high-wealth individuals, including members of UFE's Responsible Wealth project, who support raising taxes on wealthy people like themselves. But his best is little more than a collection of weak arguments and name-calling.
April 25, 2011 — Maz
Two very different federal budgets were considered this month by the U.S. House of Representatives: Rep. Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity," which was approved by the House, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus' (CPC) "People's Budget." While both have their ideological streaks, only the latter assumes a firm and rational position on deficit reduction without economic gimmicks claiming that lower taxes will miraculously produce additional revenue.
April 21, 2011 — Maz
UFE's Mazher Ali shares news of Responsible Wealth's "Tax Wealth Like Work" campaign on Workers Independent News' Labor Radio, emphasizing progressive tax policy as a common sense measure to help avoid slash and burn budget measures that exacerbate the economic crisis and hurt the most vulnerable citizens. Taxing investment income the same as wages and salaries would raise more than $80 billion annually.
Click here to download the interview.
The federal government collects taxes from various sources to finance public services and infrastructure. Our tax policies—that is, the mechanics of how revenue is collected—are one of the driving factors for our growing economic divide in the U.S.
