The wealthy think they are entitled to a free ride. First they got the politicians to lower the tax rate on investments to 15%, now they want that rate lowered to zero. If your only "capital" is your arms and hands, you are subject to double taxation - first from the payroll tax, then from the income tax. Individuals who live off their investments get as much benefit, or more, from government services and should pay taxes at the rate of ordinary workers.

"....they believe they are self-made people."
1st, Most of the wealthiest people did Not make their own fortunes!! Most INHERITED it!!
2nd, until we get rid of the Federal Reserve, everything else is a band aid on a gushing wound.

The wealthy should be taxed at a higher rate because they get most of the benefits from OPT, Other Peoples Taxes, most notably the protection of their investment worldwide by the Pentagon/spy agencies which accounts for at least half the budget. It is the proceeds from the Treasury bonds, the Federal deficit, which funds the Pentagon/spy agencies and is the enforcer for the NSA/NSC which mission statements are to secure and protect the world's resources for the PREDATORY CAPITALIST WELFARE KINGS which are really the only entitlement recipients.

Ellen Dannin wrote:
 
"Income taxes paid by the top 400 taxpayers have been cut in half since 1995. As a result, in 2007, the most recent year for which we have information, every one of these super-rich received a tax cut of $46 million. Had just these 400 people paid taxes at the rates in effect before those tax cuts, the federal budget would have an additional $18,400,000,000 each year and not be worrying about debt. And that's just 400 of the super-rich."
 
Ms. Dannin’s position is false.
From 2000 till the 2003 Iraq invasion, the US budget enjoyed a surplus (despite the tax cuts the filthy rich enjoyed). But in 2003 (after the Iraq invasion), the budget began suffering a growing deficit, which is now about $6 trillion.
 

The deficit’s far-greatest cause has been the ongoing invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan — not any tax cuts. And, an $18,400,000,000 annual tax increase (or tax-cut decrease) would not wipe out that $6 trillion deficit. The 2003 through 2010 period is an eight-year spread; and $18,400,000,000 x 8 = $147.2 billion — not even $1 trillion. If the accounting includes the years 1995 through 2002, then the spread is 16 years; and the sum is $294.4 billion, still not even $1 trillion, while the 2003-2010 total deficit is $6 trillion.
 
Surely, tax increases would have reduced the deficit. But Ms. Dannin’s article puts the issue of whether tax cuts explain the deficit. They do NOT. The deficit has resulted near-wholly from the ILLEGAL Afghan, Iraq, and Pakistan invasions.
 
ILLEGAL invasions?
 
The UN Charter says all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means; no state can use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the Council passed Resolutions 1368 & 1373, which condemned the 9/11 attacks; but neither authorized use of military force in Afghanistan.
 
Our Afghanistan invasion was not self-defense per article 51 of the Charter. The 9/11 attacks were criminal attacks, not "armed attacks" wrought by another nation, national government, or national military. Afghanistan did not attack the US. The Montreal protocol provides that terrorist attacks are criminal acts to be treated by domestic law-enforcement, not by military action.
 
Our Iraq invasion did not relate to any UN Resolution and clearly was not an act of self-defense. So, it, too, was and is ILLEGAL. About 50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq, INDEFINITELY. They will "defend themselves" if "attacked" or "targeted" and take offensive action if the US puppet Iraq government requests. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/201081818840122963.html
 
Oh, this week's putative "complete" Iraq war "drawdown" is far from complete. About 50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq, INDEFINITELY. They will "defend themselves" if "attacked" or "targeted" and take offensive action if the US puppet Iraq government requests. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/201081818840122963.html
 
So, our Iraq invasion may never end: "attacked" and "targeted" are highly ambiguous (and could "justify" ILLEGAL re-invasion); the US can muscle Iraq to request US troop offensive action; we have permanent Iraq bases, and if our government conceives they are "threatened," it might use that conception to "justify" further US military action, even a troop redeployment back to Iraq.
 
Since our Pakistan invasions are tangents of our ILLEGAL Afghan invasion and since our Pakistan invasions are not acts of defense of our nation or invited by Pakistan, they are ILLEGAL. The Pakistan invasions may seek to protect our Afghan invasion, but since our Afghan invasion is ILLEGAL, it cannot be an object of self-defense, and surely not defense of our nation.
 
If asked, I will supply more legal and factual proofs of the FACT that the Afghan. Iraq, and Pakistan invasions are ILLEGAL.
 
WHAT HAS BEEN THE COST OF THE WARS — the TRUE, TOTAL, DIRECT AND INDIRECT COST?
 
The cost is far greater than $6.5 trillion — NOT the $1 trillion the government claims. And THAT SQUANDERING explains the deficit.
 
Greater than $6.5 trillion?
 
At the end of February 2008, Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist, tendered some estimates of the costs of the Iraq war. http://guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/28/iraq.afghanistan
 
First just two of Stiglitz’s very conservative estimates of the true DIRECT costs of ONLY the Iraq war:
 
"$3 trillion
 
A conservative estimate of the true [DIRECT] cost [other than interest] — to America alone — of Bush's Iraq adventure."
 
"$1 trillion
 
The interest America will have paid by 2017 on the money borrowed to finance the war."
 
Adjust the interest figure to find interest paid till end of 2010:
2003 to 2017 = 14 years
2003 THROUGH 2010 = 8 years
8/14 = 57%
57% x $1 trillion = $0.57 trillion
 
Adjust the $3 trillion Direct cost other than interest to account for time from 2008 THROUGH 2010:
2003 THROUGH 2010 = 8 years
2003 THROUGH February 2008 (time of Stiglitz estimate) = 5.125 years
8/5.125 x $3 trillion = $4.683 trillion
$0.57 trillion interest + $4.683 trillion other DIRECT cost other than interest = $5.253 trillion.
 
I acknowledge that the 2008 through 2010 direct cost other than interest might need adjustment that accounts for spending’s deviating from what it was from 2003 through 2008. But, the adjustment would push the cost figure up, because the US had ADDED troops in 2007 and the troop addition did not cut violence appreciably and even increased it eventually. So, I shall not bother to render an adjustment.
 
So, per Stiglitz’s accounting, had we not invaded Iraq, we would have saved $5.253 trillion by 2011. Subtract $5.253 trillion from the $6 trillion 2003-2010 deficit the government asserts and find a deficit of just $0.74 trillion ($740 billion). Use my war-cost figure of $6.5 trillion, and find a SURPLUS of $0.5 trillion ($500 billion).
 
[Side note:
Compare http://nationalpriorities.org/auxiliary/costofwar/cost_of_war_afghanistan.pdf (apparently published or completed in April 2009) again respecting the Iraq war’s cost. In that piece, Stiglitz calculates that as of April 2009, the past, current, and projected DIRECT costs totaled $3.1831 trillion.
"• The Iraq War has cost $656.1 billion in budgetary costs so far, with another $52.7 billion pending as part of the FY 2009 war supplemental
"• At least $2 trillion in future budgetary costs (including Veterans’ benefits) will be spent"
 
See also
http://threetrilliondollarwar.org/2010/08/06/iraq-troops-go-home-on-schedule-but-costs-of-iraq-war-continue/
(estimates $3+ trillion Iraq-war DIRECT costs if troops leave before 2012)
End of side note]
 
But the preceding calculations account only DIRECT costs — NO INDIRECT costs, just ONE being nonmilitary domestic costs of US military petroleum-use associated with the wars.
 
Since 2001, the US military has been the world’s greatest petroleum-user — using petroleum at a per capita rate greater than that of China and even all of Africa.
http://energybulletin.net/node/13199
http://newlaunches.com/archives/top_5_facts_on_us_military_oil_consumption.php
http://peak-oil-news.info/military-oil-usage-statistics/
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/planet-biggest-gas-guzzler.html
 
The INDIRECT effects are not just gasoline-price-hikes, but, E.G., (a) lost opportunities, (b) activity-choice-limitations, (c) supply-cuts/price-increases of products that must be truck/plane/train/boat transported for marketing/use, (d) unemployment increases and business failures/cuts caused by oil-product supply-cuts/price-hikes. Many other costs occur. All reduce tax revenues.
 
If just the US military petroleum use’s indirect costs were merely halved, social welfare and the economy would heighten markedly, and, thence, tax revenues would increase dramatically. So, too, the deficit would decrease by many billions.
 
My figure — $6.5 trillion — assumes an additional total cost of only a bit more than $1.247 trillion.
 
But the preceding calculations accounted just DIRECT costs of just the IRAQ war.
 
Add JUST deduction of the SPURIOUS Congressional Research Service ["CRS"] accounting of DIRECT OUTLAYS of the AFGHAN war, and find greater SURPLUS. See, E.G.,http://costofwar.com/  — which, using CRS accounting to calculate Afghan war DIRECT OUTLAY (excluding even interest & other non-outlay DIRECT costs), states a figure of $325+ billion.
 
Another analysis observes:
"The War in Afghanistan has cost U.S. Tax payers $185.1 billion through FY 2009, and the projected costs are likely to total MORE THAN HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS when future occupation and veteran’s benefits are taken into account. This DOES NOT INCLUDE INTEREST ON THAT MONEY."
http://gobnf.org/i/ra/economic_costs.pdf [My emphases.]
 
Assume the $0.5 trillion that source estimates. Assume the 33.3% interest Stiglitz applies to the Iraq war debt. Then, as of 2009, the Afghan invasion debt interest was $0.5 trillion x 0.333 = $0.1665 trillion. Forget 2010 and 2011 interest, just to simplify. Then, as of 2009, the Afghan war’s DIRECT and DIRECT PROJECTED cost was $0.6665 trillion.
 
Add that $0.6665 trillion Afghan war cost to the $5.253 trillion Iraq war cost I calculated on the premises Stiglitz supplied. The total is $5.9195 trillion, IF the calculation accounts the Iraq war’s DIRECT costs through 2010 but accounts the Afghan war’s cost only as of the end of fiscal year 2009.
 
The $5.9195 figure does NOT account the cost of our illegal Pakistan invasions. But surely the cost is billions of dollars. I have not been able to find an accounting. But we know that the total 2004-2010 drone attack number was 146 early in 2010 and that the projected additional 2010 attack number is 77, so that the grand total 2004-2010 drone attack number will be 223.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan
 
We do know that Obama wants to spend more than $2 billion to purchase drones, which the Obama administration has used increasingly over the past year in Pakistan.
 
Drones deliver many, many expensive rockets and bombs that are spent, irretrievably, when delivered. In the summer of 2001 some Predators were equipped with two of Lockheed's Hellfire AGM-114 laser-guided anti-tank missiles, each costing $45,000. http://cursor.org/stories/dronesyndrome.htm Drones are shot down (14 shot down just in the 2001-2002 Afghan "theater," which saw drone use frequency dwarfed by drone-use-frequency of 2010,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan , and each frone costs about 4.5 million,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator .
 
Add the cost of delivering drones to the "Afghanistan theater" and the cost of operating drones attacking Pakistan and the cost of fueling and maintaining the drones, and many other drone-use-associated DIRECT costs.
 
The total DIRECT cost must be some multiple of the $2 billion Obama asked.
 
Already, Congress has appropriated $60 billion to be spent mostly in 2011.
 
http://bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-27/congress-appoves-60-billion-u-s-war-funds-amid-afghan-policy-complaints.html
But that $60 billion figure is very misleading (and does not account all the pertinent Congressional appropriations)
Obama has asked also a supplemental $33 billion. http://predatordronewatch.blogspot.com/2010/02/obamas-budget-calls-for-billions-in-new.html
The 2011 Department of Defense budget provides $721.3 billion for "base budget and overseas contingency operations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_Breakdown_for_2011
One source puts the 2011 Defense Department budget at $741 billion — an accounting that includes the supplemental $33 billion Obama has asked.
http://predatordronewatch.blogspot.com/2010/02/obamas-budget-calls-for-billions-in-new.html
But I shall use the $721.3 figure, because it does not suffer muddying by the matters of whether Obama will get what he requests or how much will be not be allocated to our continuing illegal Iraq invasion.
Of that $721.3 billion, the "overseas contingency operations" amount is about $170 billion.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/U.S._Defense_Spending_Trends.png
The term "overseas contingency operatons" is a euphemism meaning "war" (now, the Afghan and Iraq wars and Pakistan invasions, and some drone invasions of Yemen).
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/U.S._Defense_Spending_Trends.png
 
We cannot know quite how much the Defense Department’s $170 billion war budget ("overseas contingency" budget) will be spent just on continuation of our Iraq invasion (which will continue despite the "drawdown") and on our Afghan war and Pakistan invasions — rather than on the US military’s other foreign adventures (like those occurring in Yemen). But we can expect that only a rather small portion will be spent on wars or invasions other than those we level, illegally, on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.
 
So, we can assume that, of the $170 billion war budget, at least 95% will be blown on our Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan illegal invasions. 95% x $170 billion = $161.5 billion, or 0.1615 trillion. Add that amount to the $5.9195 trillion calculated above. The subtotal is $6.081 trillion.
 
Beyond all doubt, one must expect that merely the war-related US military petroleum use’s INDIRECT costs will approach, match, or perhaps even exceed the DIRECT costs of the wars. And those petroleum-use related indirect costs are far from the only great INDIRECT costs of the wars.
 
Then, too, my DIRECT cost "subtotal" figure — $6.081 trillion — did not account DIRECT costs like destruction of drones attacking Pakistan or the Pakistan drone attack related portion of Obama’s $2 billion drone warfare appropriation request or many other DIRECT cost items that do not find expression in literature available online. Also, the published DIRECT cost figures do not account much of the long-term costs of injuries of troops deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq.
 
So, my $6.5 trillion cost figure is very, very conservative.
 
You ought see, then, that the 1995-2010 tax cut is not the deficit culprit. Our ILLEGAL wars explain the deficit; for, if we had not waged them, our nation would be enjoying a HUGE SURPLUS — DESPITE those tax cuts.

Ken Hall
Mon, 08/23/2010 - 06:53

Lovely words. Sweet sentiments. But no facts or figures.

NO facts? Right, just unsupported opinion. Macroeconomics is a science, not politics. The FACT is that while a tax increase would reduce the deficit (if all other matters remain constant), the wars explain the current $6 trillion deficit, and the tax rate you or Ms. Dannin urge would not create a surplus.

Why the americans are so blind. Nobody talks about military expenses. Why the americans are so proud and arrogant about their sherif busines all over the world.
The author is right about the wars. It cost americans a lot more that you think. And what for?
Irak is devastated, no political leaders, no houses, nothing. Think on that. That's what war produces. Death, destruction, and the american empire decline too!