I’m no accountant, but I know that the IRS code is filthy with loopholes to enable the uber-rich to evade their fair share of taxes.  What I did not know is that they are the ones who benefit most from tax relief that is ostensibly for the poor and middle classes.  That stinks!

IF YOU WERE spending $400 billion a year on social programs, would you give half of that to the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans? We didn’t think so. But that is the perverse result of the stealthy spending conducted through the federal tax code. The code is salted with "tax expenditures" — programs, many worthy, designed to promote policies from homeownership to education to retirement savings. There are two problems with this approach.

First, it lacks transparency and accountability. While direct spending programs are subjected to continual review, the spending that takes place through the tax system operates on silent autopilot. Once embedded in the code, the preference tends to be in place until dislodged.

Second, accomplishing social policy through tax expenditures tends to award the most help to those who need it least. As a new report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development and the Annie E. Casey Foundation [PDF] demonstrates, the $400 billion federal asset-building budget — subsidies to buy homes, save for education or plan for retirement — is upside down. Rather than ameliorate rising income inequality, it reinforces it. Low-income households who do not earn enough to itemize deductions don’t get the benefit. A middle-class household earning $50,000 a year "receives less than $500 in benefits" from tax breaks for mortgages, property taxes and investment income, the report found. "By contrast, taxpayers bringing in more than $1 million enjoy $95,820 in annual support through mortgage and property tax deductions and investment tax breaks," it said.

Something is wrong with this picture… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Washington Post>

Fixing such problems would not be that difficult.  Simply rewrite the code with income caps, above which the deductions do not apply or set a maximum deduction.  Surely republicans will fight tooth and nail to protect their only true constituents.  Let them.  Is putting Republicans on Front Street for representing Easy Street and screwing Main Street a bad thing?

During the GOP Gusher in the Gulf, Republicans repeatedly sided with BP against the American people.  They blocked legislation to lift the liability cap.  They even apologized to BP for the audacity of the evil Obama administration to insist that they pay for the damage they did to our environment and to people’s health and livelihood.  That raised this question.  Why would one of two de facto political parties in America side with a foreign corporation?  The only answer that makes sense to me is that BP has lots of money and is willing to spend it on behalf of anyone willing to screw Americans for their benefit.  When money counts as speech, those with lots of it can speak loudly enough to drown out your voice.

The White House intensified its attacks Sunday on the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its alleged ties to foreign donors, part of an escalating Democratic effort to link Republican allies with corporate and overseas interests ahead of the November midterm elections.

The chamber adamantly denies that foreign funds are used in its U.S. election efforts, accusing Democrats of orchestrating a speculative smear campaign during a desperate political year.

President Obama, speaking at a rally in Philadelphia, said "the American people deserve to know who is trying to sway their elections" and raised the possibility that foreigners could be funding his opponents.

"You don’t know," Obama said at the rally for Senate candidate Joe Sestak and other Democrats. "It could be the oil industry. It could even be foreign-owned corporations. You don’t know because they don’t have to disclose."

The remarks are part of a volley of recent attacks by Obama and other Democrats on alleged foreign influence within the Republican caucus, whether through support for outsourcing jobs by major U.S. corporations or through overseas money making its way into the coffers of GOP-leaning interest groups.

The comments also come as Democrats attempt to cope with an onslaught of independent political advertising aimed at bolstering Republicans, much of it fueled by donations that do not have to be revealed to the public. The spending has added to a political environment in which Democrats are in danger of losing control of both the House and Senate.

David Axelrod, a top Obama adviser, said on CBS’s "Face the Nation" that secret political donations to the chamber and other groups pose "a threat to our democracy."

Axelrod also took the unusual step of calling on the chamber to release internal documents backing up its contention that foreign money is not being used to pay for U.S. political activities. Democrats have seized on a report by a liberal blog alleging that dues from chamber-affiliated business councils could be used in that way.

"If the chamber opens up its books and says, ‘Here’s where our political money’s coming from,’ then we’ll know," Axelrod said. "But until they do that, all we have is their assertion."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Washington Post>

Isn’t it ironic that on the very day Republicans unveiled their pledge of lies, in which they promised more openness and transparency, the filibustered the DISCLOSE Act?  That legislation would have required these Republican money fronts to list their sources of revenue for these ads.

And, if the Chamber is not using foreign money illegally, why are they advertising to foreign governments and corporations for donations to help influence American elections?  Can we trust the word of the same Chamber that financed Death Panel ads?

To answer my own original question, BP does not have more free speech than you do.  But thanks to the rabid reactionary Republican ideologues at SCOTUS, their free speech is an ear shattering scream, while yours is a muted whisper.

VOTE!

I keep hearing progressives vent their disenchantment with Obama and the Democratic party.  I will not claim that their feelings have no merit.  I share their disappointment over several of Obama’s policies and appointments.  But when they speak of abandoning the Democratic Party, instead of working to change it from within, I must respectfully disagree.  I have made the same mistake myself.  I was an Independent.  I almost voted for Ralph Nader in 2000.  I planned to do so.  I even donated to his campaign.  At the last minute, I changed my mind and voted for Gore, because I correctly foresaw the influence Cheney and Rove would have in a Bush Regime.  If only a few dozen Floridians had done so too, GW Bush would never have gotten close enough to steal the election.  The day after Bush v. Gore was handed down, I changed my voter registration to Democrat.

Sherrod Brown wrote this editorial:

Progressives are an impatient bunch. We fight for people who have waited too long already — for health care, for educational opportunity, for jobs to keep them in the middle class.

But for generations, conservatives have appealed to fear to protect the privileged and preserve the status quo — fear of immigrants, fear of diversity, fear of big government. For conservatives in 2010, it’s easy:

 

"Stop."

"No."

"Repeal."

Meanwhile, for more than a century — in churches and temples, in union halls and neighborhood centers, in the streets and at the ballot box — progressives have moved the country forward. Progressives brought us minimum wage and Social Security in the 1930s, civil rights and Medicare in the 1960s, and health care and Wall Street reform in 2010.

Opponents of these accomplishments — some of society’s most privileged and well-entrenched interest groups — have not changed much. The John Birch Society of 1965 has bequeathed its fervor and extremism to the Tea Party of 2010.

History tells us that rage on the right should not be confused with populism. The far right attacks government regulation as it feeds Wall Street and the insurance companies. It rails against government spending for the least privileged as it lavishes tax cuts favoring the most privileged.

No one should be surprised over what has happened in the last 18 months:

•We passed health care reform, so the insurance companies are coming after us at election time.

•We enacted consumer protections for homeowners and credit card users, so Wall Street is spending millions to defeat us.

•We worked to end tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas, and now large multinational corporations are doing everything possible to beat us.

We already know the damage that comes from the right’s rage. During President Clinton’s eight years, our country added more than 22 million private sector jobs, incomes went up, and we enjoyed the largest budget surplus in U.S. history.

In the following eight years of the Bush administration, only 1 million jobs were added, incomes stagnated or plummeted for most Americans, and we were left with record budget deficits.

Yet Republican candidates in 2010 are offering the same faux populism and "solutions" of the Bush years: more tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of special interests, and trade agreements that cost us millions of manufacturing jobs. And in places like my state of Ohio, they are even offering up as candidates the same people who got us into this mess.

To fight back, progressives must talk about the historic accomplishments of the last 18 months in specific, understandable terms… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <USA Today>

Brown continues to discuss some of those accomplishments, so I won’t go into them here, except to state that they are progressive accomplishments, they are worth having, and there would be far more of them, were it not for unprecedented obstruction from Republicans.

I’m asking you to hang in there.  Hold your nose if you have to, but don’t throw away your vote by not using it or wasting it on someone with zero chance to win.  Please stop and think about how much better things could have been under President Gore, avoiding eight tragic years of Crawford Caligula and his partners in crime.  Hasn’t this nation suffered enough because a few well meaning folks did not consider that elections have consequences?