Health care costs and prescription drug prices almost always go up. Rents have gone up. Food prices have also gone up, even though the price of oil has gone down. But the federal government is saying those on Social Security do not need a cost-of-living increase in 2016.
That's more or less how Jeb Bush defended his tax plan to Fox News Sunday after he was slammed for giving lopsided tax breaks to the wealthy. He told Chris Wallace: “The simple fact is 1 percent of people pay 40 percent of all the taxes. So of course, tax cuts for everybody is going to generate more for people that are paying a lot more. I mean that’s just the way it is.”
What would less government mean for you? Will you earn higher wages, be more safe, live a healthier life, have more financial security and be more free? The Republican mantra is: Less Taxes + Less Regulation = Less Government and more Freedom
We've been told that lower taxes and more "growth" equates to higher wages and more jobs (known as "trickle-down economics"). But since the depth of the Great Recession, even though stock prices and corporate profits are much higher, a lot more people are "not in the labor force" (and just aren't being counted in the official unemployment rate) — and wages are still down (not to mention, more people are also working part-time and temp jobs).
The latest jobs report shows that, once again, over a quarter of a million people have dropped out of the labor force. So should we celebrate Labor Day for just being lucky enough to have a job — any job at all?
The prominent economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz (and a Fellow of the progressive Roosevelt Institute) says: “An economy that doesn’t deliver for most of its citizens is a failed economy.”
According to Pew Research, this year the Millennial generation (ages 18 to 34 in 2015) is projected to surpass the Baby Boom generation (ages 51 to 69) as the nation’s largest living generation — with 75.3 million Millennials vs. 74.9 million Boomers. The Gen X population (ages 35 to 50 in 2015) is also projected to outnumber the Boomers by 2028. Where will Social Security be for them when they retire?
For the past 40 years, our political leaders have not only allowed, but have deliberately effectuated economic polices that have crammed most of the profits generated by ordinary working people into the pockets of those at the very tippy-top of the income ladder — by conspiring against organized labor, giving preferential tax breaks to the very wealthy, and by allowing bad trade deals to offshore our best jobs.
Not everything Donald Trump has to say should be swept under the rug; some things deserve to be heard. Many people might think he's a "bad guy", but he does know how politics work.
Rand Paul and Ron Paul — comparing apples and oranges? I don't think so, because, as usual, the apple doesn't seem to fall very far from the tree.
Ron Paul supported the elimination of all income tax and the IRS. While his son's tax plan isn't quite as radical, it's still disingenuous — because they're both selling snake oil to us.
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