Mother Jones - Comments for "Chart of the Day"

Für Übergrößen gibt es

Für Übergrößen gibt es viele Online Shops.
Die neueseten Automarken sind hier zu ersehen.

the chart is fine because

the chart is fine because all the discussion is about adjusting the tax rate by a few percentage points. if you start at zero, that would look almost insignificant, when actually it's very significant in terms of the money paid by taxpayers and received by the government. and it wouldn't particularly benefit either side of the argument -- you could either say, "look, the amount they're paying hasn't gone down very much," or, "look, the proposed increases are tiny!"

How To Read A Chart

I don't think it's chart abuse because I know how to read a chart. I look at it and see that the effective tax rate has dropped from a high of 36% to about 31%. I've seen enough "chopped off" charts to know to look at the numbers on the vertical axis.

And there may be good reasons for chopping it off other than to mislead. It would be far harder to see the year-to-year changes if the vertical scale were compressed by a factor of five. Or one could have a much longer chart, which would be annoying.

and when it reached the

and when it reached the lowest point we had the biggest econmic collaps in 75 years.

Charts where the Y axis does not start at Zero bug me

Charts like this make it look like the tax is about half of what it was at the peak, rather than 86% of what is was at the peak.

A Bit OT: Call Finance Committee Members to Demand Public Option

The Senate Finance Committee is deciding their version of the health care bill in the next two weeks. Even though it is "Dem" controlled it is leaning against the public option -- among other things Max Baucus has former staffers lobbying him from Big Health. We should be calling/emailing everyone on that committee every day until August. If you call they just ask for your zip code and presumably count the yays/nays, it's very quick. If you email, you could write something like this:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Senator,

Please include a FULL public option in the Finance Committee health care bill, and get it out before the August recess.

Americans demand this out of basic fairness - they can see that 3/4 of medical bankruptcies involve people who already HAD private insurance when they got sick; they saw the report this month that private insurers systematically lied to inflate out of network pricing; and they know the public option would reduce prices and cost less for the taxpayer.

Please tell your colleagues that this ONE issue is MAKE OR BREAK for the voters for this Senate session--if they oppose the public option they will be under a huge spotlight at the next election for it. Tell them there is plenty of soft money to be had from lobbyists on other issues, on this one they had better vote for what is right, and what their constituents want and deserve.

Thank You!
PRIORITY: Blanche Lincoln (on the fence about public option)
Baucus, Conrad, Bingaman, Dodd (all willing to kill public option)
Wyden (actually against public option)

DEM Members (at least in name):

Please do at least these, if not all:
====================================================================
Blanche Lincoln AR (202) 224-4843
http://lincoln.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

Max Baucus MT (202) 224-2651
http://baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=issue

Kent Conrad ND (202) 224-2043
https://conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

Jeff Bingaman NM (202) 224-5521
http://bingaman.senate.gov/contact/types/email-issue.cfm

Chris Dodd CT (202) 224-2823
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/3128

Ron Wyden OR (202) 224-5244
http://wyden.senate.gov/contact/
====================================================================

Jay Rockefeller WV (202) 224-6472
http://rockefeller.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

John Kerry MA (202) 224-2742
http://kerry.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

Charles Schumer NY (202) 224-6542
http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/contact.cfm

Debbie Stabenow MI (202) 224-4822
http://stabenow.senate.gov/email.cfm

Maria Cantwell WA (202) 224-3441
http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Robert Menendez NJ (202) 224-4744
http://menendez.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm

Thomas Carper DE (202) 224-2441
http://carper.senate.gov/contact/

Bill Nelson FL (202) 224-5274
http://billnelson.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm
NOTE: Not to be confused with fascist "Dem" Ben Nelson NB

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
GOP MEMBERS - I only list one, others are so far right it's
probably useless to call:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Olympia Snowe ME (202) 224-5344
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Committee on Finance (202) 224-4515 (they don't always answer phone though)

You could also call Reid and Durbin, the Senate leadership, to ask
them to pressure Baucus to stop compromising and include a public
option:

Harry Reid (202) 224-3542 PRESS 1
Dick Durbin (202) 224-2152

A Bit OT: Call Finance Committee Members to Demand Public Option

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Senator,

Please include a FULL public option in the Finance Committee health care bill, and get it out before the August recess.

Thank You!
PRIORITY: Blanche Lincoln (on the fence about public option)
Baucus, Conrad, Bingaman, Dodd (all willing to kill public option)
Wyden (actually against public option)

DEM Members (at least in name):

Please do at least these, if not all:
====================================================================
Blanche Lincoln AR (202) 224-4843
http://lincoln.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

Max Baucus MT (202) 224-2651
http://baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=issue

Kent Conrad ND (202) 224-2043
https://conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

Jeff Bingaman NM (202) 224-5521
http://bingaman.senate.gov/contact/types/email-issue.cfm

Chris Dodd CT (202) 224-2823
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/3128

Ron Wyden OR (202) 224-5244
http://wyden.senate.gov/contact/
====================================================================

Jay Rockefeller WV (202) 224-6472
http://rockefeller.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

John Kerry MA (202) 224-2742
http://kerry.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

Charles Schumer NY (202) 224-6542
http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/contact.cfm

Debbie Stabenow MI (202) 224-4822
http://stabenow.senate.gov/email.cfm

Maria Cantwell WA (202) 224-3441
http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Robert Menendez NJ (202) 224-4744
http://menendez.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm

Thomas Carper DE (202) 224-2441
http://carper.senate.gov/contact/

Bill Nelson FL (202) 224-5274
http://billnelson.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm
NOTE: Not to be confused with fascist "Dem" Ben Nelson NB

Olympia Snowe ME (202) 224-5344
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Committee on Finance (202) 224-4515 (they don't always answer phone though)

You could also call Reid and Durbin, the Senate leadership, to ask
them to pressure Baucus to stop compromising and include a public
option:

Harry Reid (202) 224-3542 PRESS 1
Dick Durbin (202) 224-2152

How would you finance it?

And why differently? Sure, we could argue about specifics, but the Bush years shifted the tax burden from the wealthiest onto the rest of us even as income disparity increased and median incomes stagnated. I'd like to see that balance shifted back, regardless of what program it pays for. They simply aren't paying their fair share anymore.

Lies!

How can you possibly say the early 90s wasn't a horrible, hellish dystopia?????

I would argue that taxes do

I would argue that taxes do help create wealth. No taxes means no government, therefore no police, courts, roads, public education, etc. No economy. A sound fiscal policy is also probably helpful to investor confidence.

Of course die-hard libertarians would disagree, but they're crackpots.

And if government confiscated all earnings, wealth would be destroyed, but no one is arguing for that kind of Pol Pot regime.

"I have urged conservatives

"I have urged conservatives to think about ways of raising new net revenue for the government. My fear has always been that sooner or later, pressure to raise taxes will become overwhelming. If there wasn't a conservative option available, then the default policy would be to sharply raise tax rates on the wealthy. "

This knee-jerk reaction on the part of conservatives against taxes on the rich has always amused me. There is no better way to signal that their main purpose in life is to support the plutocracy at all costs. If you're going to have taxes, better to lay them on people who can afford it.

Taxes neither create nor

Taxes neither create nor destroy wealth. They simply change who gets that wealth.

Except that all the growth

Except that all the growth since 2000 is now gone. So after a decade of tax cuts, we're right back where we were at the end of the Clinton administration, except now we have a trillion dollar deficit instead of a surplus. Great job, tax cuts.

pusillanimous

Where they were in the nineties, hell.

Let's return the marginal rate on the top brackets to where they were in the seventies, before Reagan took office and hypnotized the nation with supply-side snake oil.

Atlas doesn't shrug

I'm sure we'll get lots of right and left-wing opinions posted here, all ignoring the evidence.

Joel Slemrod at the U of M is the expert when it comes to the economic impact of taxes, and he finds it to be surprisingly small. The guy's no ideologue, he just looks at the data.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/ProgressiveTaxes.html