The most arrogant entitlement attitude is from that of the wealthy person that somehow believes and promotes the theory, that they are entitled to reap and to keep, the vast majority of the harvest from this our great Nation. The belief that after hundreds of years of blood, sweat, tears, lives, and untold sacrifice, from millions of souls that carved this great society out of the wilderness. With zero consideration to the Natives that walked it before the great European on slot. With all the systems that have been built by the many; roads for their goods to be delivered on, schools to educate themselves and the workforce they rely upon, laws that protect the contract and conduct of commerce, utilities that power their endeavors, a monetary system that quantifies their gains, a research and development protocol funded by We the People for generations of ideas, The list is more than can be mentioned. And as our great infrastructure crumbles, These most arrogant of persons declares, "I created this wealth" "I created these jobs", I am entitled to keep the fruits of my labors". REALLY, Your Labors, I ask, I think not!
Changing Our National Priorities
There are three major trends in American society that must be addressed when the Senate next week debates the federal budget. First, the United States has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major nation in the industrialized world, and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider. Second, it is a national disgrace that we have, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on earth. More than 18 percent of our kids live in poverty. Third, year after year, we have had record-breaking deficits and our national debt will soon be $10 trillion. That is a grossly unfair burden to leave to our kids and grandchildren. It also is economically unsustainable.
I plan to offer an amendment that addresses these issues, to change our national priorities, and to move this country in a very different direction than where we have been going in the last seven years.
According to the latest available statistics from the Internal Revenue Service, the top 1 percent of Americans earned significantly more income in 2005 than the bottom 50 percent. In addition, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently reported that the wealthiest 1 percent saw total income rise by $180,000 in 2005. That is more than the average middle-class family makes in three years. The CBO also found that the total share of after-tax income going to the top 1 percent hit the highest level on record, while the middle class and working families received the smallest share of after-tax income on record.
Meanwhile, while the rich have become much richer, nearly 5 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty over the past seven years, including over 1 million of our children.
We have a moral responsibility to put children ahead of millionaires and billionaires. That is why, during the Senate's consideration of the budget resolution, I will offer an amendment to restore the top income tax bracket to 39.6 percent for households earning more than $1 million a year.
Restoring the top income tax bracket for people making more than $1 million to what it was in 2000 would increase revenue by $32.5 billion over the next three years, according to the Joint Tax Committee, including $10.8 billion next year alone.
I would devote that revenue the needs of our children; job creation; and deficit reduction.
Instead of giving $32.5 billion in tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, my amendment would, over the next three years, provide:
• $10 billion for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to help about 7 million children with disabilities and, in the process, relieve pressure on local property taxpayers.
• $5 billion for Head Start -- a program which has been cut by more than 11 percent since 2002. Today, less than half of all eligible children are enrolled in Head Start. Only about 3 percent of all eligible children are enrolled in Early Head Start. My amendment would begin to correct this situation.
• $4 billion for the Child Care Development Block Grant. Today, due to inadequate funding, only about one in seven eligible children are able to receive federal child care assistance. Already, 250,000 fewer children receive child care assistance today than in 2000.
• $3 billion for school construction. According to the most recent estimates, schools across the country have a $100 billion backlog in badly-needed school repairs. Investing $3 billion is a small, but important step to help repair crumbling schools across the country and in the process create tens of thousands of jobs for painters, carpenters, electricians, and construction workers.
• $4 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program so that low-income families with children, seniors on fixed incomes, and persons with disabilities will be able to stay warm in the winter. After adjusting for energy prices and inflation, the heating assistance program has been cut by 34.5 percent or $1.3 billion compared to 2002. My amendment would begin to reverse this trend.
• $3 billion for food stamps, so that we can begin to reduce the growing number of children and adults living with food insecurity.
• $3 billion to reduce the deficit.
This amendment is a fiscally responsible way to reduce childhood poverty, address an income gap greater than at any time since the Roaring Twenties, and lower our deficit.
Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, is a member of the Senate Budget Committee.
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Bravo, Pierre. Please do not forget the brave defenders in uniform nor the survivors and descendants of heroes. They often need to beg for help and come home to find that what they were promised is not ever delivered.
This could be one of the dumbest moves I have heard of and this Democratic congress has been exceedingly dumb.You have no chance of raising taxes under a bush presidency. the only thing you do is provide a tax and spend democrat photo-op for Mcbush and his minions. The idea may be fantastic but once again you have no strategy for winning.
radmul,
democrats get nothing done because they are always afraid of what the Republicans will say and do. by your critique of action as dumbness, you outline the reaganomics perspective but offer no solution to the very real problems facing us today. "no strategy for winning?" what have you won if you won't fight for "fantastic" ideas?
Sen. Sanders,
You should be applauded for your enlightened direction.
While most of us accept the fact that the future of any nation lies in the hands of its children, why is there so much reticence to fund their education? ALL their education.
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/02/stanford-revolution-in-education.html
With the burden of the onerous loans they now carry, America's children have become members of a new indentured class.
Unequal distribution of wealth is a result of abuse, which is a result on NO ONE PAYING ATTENTION......
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/executive-compensation-common-sense.html
Fixing the problem starts with understanding the problem, paying attention, stopping the abuse. That will minimize the chances of a complete "breakdown.
Sen. Sanders, sir
I've been studying this problem for nigh on half a century, still have more questions than answers. Some years back, the tax scale was 91% for over $200,000 income. I doubt anyone ever paid that, but no matter. That was at the point I thought, "It's steal from the rich time." And sure enough, time passes and suddenly it is 'steal from the middle class', eeeek!
Back then, the Wall St. Journal used to publish a list of millionaires who paid NO tax. Loopholes everywhere, eh? Recently perusing Treasury data, I note a median income now pays 6.3% tax and over $200,000 is 22.8%. Well. I guess progressive scales are not progressive enough. So, I'm working on a really progressive curve: it start at 99% on top income and stops at the poverty line. Big hump in the middle, way big. If I get the curve right, no loopholes, no exemptions, we'll have equality, by God.
Alternatively, and seriously, I'm wondering about the top fractional percent, can't find any Gumby statistics (government rubbery figures!) as to how much, if anything, they pay. IF I'm right, and everyone paid say 9% of income, no loopholes, no deductions, no lurks, we'd solve most economic problems in no time at all.
flat tax is a great idea.
Only problem is, you have to be elected to enact it. Huckabee talked about it for a while, but I havent heard much of it lately.
Ok these are good ideas. I would add, cut military spending way back, so that it is more proportionate to the rest of the world (all of them combined? And we have a deficit?) And raise the minimum wage to at least $15/hr.
can you say inflation?
Bernie, you're what all of our Senators/Representatives should be.
Hmm...nothing about the invasion of our privacy by the feds? Nothing about abuse of power? Nothing about the drug war? Nothing about making it easier for small business to hire people..
I don't care if people are richer than I am as long as I can work a bit. I'd like the dollar to be strong so I don't have to work to hard and I can focus on art...is that anywhere on the radar? Why do we have hearings about baseball players and drugs? No body really cares once you stop clammoring for attention.
I do want universal health care but I'm not expecting that heroic efforts be taken to save my life...perhaps if the government would abolish the IRS and tax exemptions people would have enough money to support the organizations that specialize in lending assistance. I don't like having to report to the government every year, but I do believe in a strong government, just not a big one...especially one that doesn't blink when confronted with the percentage of its citizens it has incarcerated in an expensive and ineffective prison system...bring back the lash for political corruption.
Thanks for this smart column! Of course this is where we need to go and some good suggestions to go about it. That said, the power in this country is totally but totally in the hands of the military industrial disaster war banking complex. We can probably name right off the top a number of the international corporations that own us and our elected representatives. (Boeing, GE, Bechtel, Halliburton, JP Morgan Chase, Exxon, The Carlyle Group, Lockheed-Martin and a few more oil companies and banks for starters) These corporations depend on eternal war to continue making the rich richer. They will not just give up their power. So until we have serious campaign finance reform, and probably a Constitutional Convention to perhaps even switch to a parliamentary form of government..I don't hold out much hope for your ideas. Yours are great ideas but the people who run this country own the government so these fine steps you propose are unlikely to be allowed to pass.
I love you, Bernie.
That is a very good start.
If you want to live in a banana republic why don't you just move to one? You don't have to go through all the trouble of destroying America.
Thank you Bernie, for your "Restore economic justice act."
Anyone who make more than $5 mil a year should be taxed at a 50% rate.
And the estate tax needs to be reinstated.
And more than suggesting legislation, the Dems have to sell it, like the GOP knows how to sell it. About 20% of the US population thinks they will be affected by the estate tax that would affect about 1% of the poputlaion.
Now that is something closer to real world... non of this 99% tax rates...
I have a problem with the way wee have beenacting. It concerns spending more on our military than the entire rest of the world. That makes no sense, and it isn't about "defense."
But somebody seems to have decided that wee are to rule the world. The United States has onlt 4.6% of the world's population. I may have missed it, but when did that other 95.4% vote us Boss over them?
I have been getting along well with all my neighbors for a long long time. But then I never try to tell them how they must behave and they don't try to tell me how I should.
I wonder if that policy wouldn't scale up.
Look at what we could do if we spent only half as much as the whole rest of the world. We could improve education, support more rersearch, and build up our infrastructure so that we would be more productive in the future.
Or, of course, we can continue our present policy and grow impoverish ourselves slowly.
At more than 50% of the world's defense budget, it seems that the state of the US military is not a fiscal problem. It is a managerial problem. And look who's in charge of THAT.... Why its our beloved Commander-in-Chief!
Thanks Bernie. You are my hero. I have been saying for a long time: TAX THE RICH. I urge everybody to break the taboo. Just shout it out: TAX THE RICH. Feels good doesn't it. One more time for effect: TAX THE RICH!!!
Hospital administration and doctor greed needs to be curtailed.
Most people go under from huge medical bills that no-one can seem to justify in the medical profession.
This is one instance where government intervention is a necessity.
The medical profession and drug companies have been pandered to by the republicans for way too long.
Mandatory medical insurance would have to be accompanied by federal control of overpricing and greed.
Someone has to stand up to them and stop their destruction of our economy.
Revision of the bankruptcy act would be a help as well.
Medical care for profit will always lead to the least care at the cheapest price.
Senator, while I appreciate your sentiment and see that this idea might raise some much needed immediate cash, as so many here have pointed out, it doesn't go far enough. We need to completely rewrite our tax code. This is one thing I think Mike Huckabee was headed in the right direction on (and no, I was not one of his supporters.) Why not a VAT (value added tax on consumption)? Is anyone looking at that or anything like it seriously?
I'd like to see a series of national town meetings to talk about ways to solve the problem of financial inequity. Senator Obama has shown that people WILL participate in government if someone gives them a chance. A series of town meetings would bring people in, get them talking and could educate them about the possibilities. It would give them a direct connection to the issue, rather than hearing distant politicians yammering away and getting nowhere. We ALL need to be talking about how to prevent this country from sliding into bankruptcy right after the millions of its citizens who are already on their way.
Getting out of, or reducing our involvement in, Iraq, would be a good start. If any of us were doing something similar with our family budget and facing hard times--say supporting a family in the next town who'd been hit with a major illness and lost their home--the first thing any financial advisor would say is, "You have to stop doing that!"
The fact that we caused many of the problems in Iraq is a subject for another time.
Senator -- place daycare center next to senior center. The elderly can make some extra money baby sitting.
Oversight, oversight, oversight of the military contracts and contractors.
We need a 99% income tax on the top 1% of wage earners since they receive almost 100% of the benefits of living in this country. The top 1% get the best educations, best health care, receive trillions of dollars in government contracts and get the best jobs right out of Yale. We also need a 100% inheritance tax on any amount over $2,000,000. That would eliminate any future Paris Hilton stories.
That is not the answer. Incentives for ALL workers need to be in place, regardless of income. Perhaps no inheritance tax on estates over $10~15 millon, then a graduated tax. This need to be adjusted annually for inflation. Your example of $2 million is very very low. Two Million isn't what it once was, and when you consider how many non-profits get large sums of donation from estates, you take them out of the picture, as well as families with more then 2 children. Not to mention grandchildren, great great grandchildren, etc.
Why do you want to penalize beneficiaries?
That has been tried before and failed. The experiment was called Soviet Union.
Why would anyone work if you take 995 of their income?
Wh ypeople would not move their money over 2mm outside of country?
Why shouldn't 2 kids who came up with idea of Google and created tens of thousands jobs be paid billions?
Many of the Ivy schools have eliminated any tuitions for people whose income is under 60K, so what prevents you from going there?
LOL!!!!
You don't know anything about the Soviet Union. The guys who got everything taken a way were the aristocrats who did not do anything for their money. Sort of like you want to treat Paris Hilton. The top 1% of wage earners were the party bosses, and they did not get taxed anything. Sort of like Dick Cheney.
And people usually innovatre because they think it is cool to do so, not to make billions of dollars, because most of them won't.
And if I a $10 mil, and I would move it off shore to avoid 90% tax rate, why would I not move it off shore to avoid a 20% tax rate?
Proud Neo-con, you must be proud of living in just a secure information bubble as the POTUS.
LOL - I lived in USSR for first half of my life!!! And tell me that I do not know anything about it? Talk about puting foot in the mouth... LOL
Mr. NeoCon, quit "conning" yourself. There are two other examples of the social Darwininsm America is doing under Bush that have been tried and failed before as well:
1) The Robber Baron era of the 19th Century in U.S.
2) Nazi Germany during Hitler.
I might add slavery, but wouldn't know which era of history would best qualify.
Nazi Germany was based on Racial supremacy, not social Darwinism
Now Robber Baron erra is much closer to it. But I would not call it a failure... Yet I do not advocate social darwinism. However, socialism is not an answer either...
Very few top 1%ers actually work, they just sit back and let the interest, dividends, royalties, inheritances roll in. When did you ever see paris hilton work?
I am not sure if I am in top 1%, but I am pretty sure that I am in the top 5%. Yet I started with zero. I did not even speak English. I still work 90 hours a week. So why shoudl I not be paid for my hard work
This isn't about Paris Hilton. And that someone would make a policy statement based on her is as short-sighted as one can be.
The bottom line is, what right does the government have to tax, let alone LARGLY tax, people who die? They have paid taxes all their lives.
I have a friend whose grandfather passed away with about a $10 million estate. The government took half of that. HALF. Charitable donations and 4 children, then grandchildren and a few great great grandchildren. Not to mention sisters, brothers. There's nothing left to give by the time all these heirs are brought into the mix. The Government was the largest benefactor of his estate.
And that is a load of crap. Why penalize people (over and above) for doing well?
Senator Sanders, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your service to our country, and for standing up for We The People. You make me want to move to Vertmont.
OBAMA/SANDERS '08?
Our nation needs very strong medicine to stave off an impending economic collapse and to address the wasteful and destructive policies that have allowed Americans to live far beyind their means.
What we need to save our nation are:
*$25 minimum hourly wage= 52K a year to keep American workers and families afloat
*$1 million maximum yearly wage. This salary cap allows more than enough for any person or family.
*We need to move to a system that taxes wealth not wages. Since the presence of wealth indicates excessive salaries/bonuses/dividents/inheritence etc beyond what is healthy, taxes on wealth would cure this imbalance and redistribute it to spur new businesses, pay down our war debt, shore up social security and help provide jobs with a fair wage.
*What are ceo's earning on average?
http://www.changetowin.org/why-organize/ceo-pay-calculator.html
*Cancelling of NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO and other undemocratic unsovereign trade agreements
*Deportation of illegal immigrants who are undermining wages and wiring money our of our nation.
*Immediate withdrawl and halting of all military spending for imperial adventurism in Iraq, Afghanistan and any other nation unless that nation has given specific public permission and requested our temporary presense. We must always make sure our military presence does not create the very problems it identifies and seeks to solve.
http://VoteNader.org
Posted March 7, 2008 | 02:48 PM (EST)