Except those who are well off!! These people invariably, vote for the "R" guy to keep money flowing for the wealthiest and then so arrogantly call this flow, TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS. If you ask me, any phrase with the word TRICK in it, should make you outright suspicious! thinkingblue
PS: Please watch the video below. Which will tell you that some "D" guys are "R" guys in disguise. Also, read the articles below and judge for yourself.
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Deal for economic rescue package closer By ANDREW TAYLOR,
WASHINGTON - House Democratic and Republican leaders are looking for imminent
agreement with the White House on an emergency package to jolt the economy out
of its slump after negotiators on all sides made significant concessions at a
late-night bargaining session.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to drop increases in food stamp and
unemployment benefits during the Wednesday meeting in exchange for gaining a
rebates of at least $300 for each person earning a paycheck, including
low-income earners who make too little to pay income taxes.
Families with children would receive an additional $300 per child, subject to an
overall cap of perhaps $1,200, according to a senior House aide who outlined the
deal on condition of anonymity in advance of formal adoption of the whole
package.
Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, had yet to
reach agreement on a package of tax breaks for businesses after estimates showed
a tentative business tax agreement could exceed $70 billion, far more than had
been expected, the aide and a Democratic lobbyist said.
Pelosi and Boehner appeared optimistic as they left their third extended
negotiating session of the day with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. "We'll
have more to say tomorrow," Boehner said. "We're hopeful."
However, Pelosi's spokesman said another negotiating session tentatively
scheduled for Thursday morning was postponed because the speaker first needed to
brief fellow Democrats on the emerging but plan.
Democratic aides said greater GOP flexibility over giving relief to poor
families with children — who would not have been eligible under President Bush's
original tax rebate proposal — was the catalyst that moved the talks forward.
Asked whether agreement was near, Pelosi said, "We're moving toward that, but
all the issues are not resolved."
The business tax portion still being negotiated would give businesses incentives
to invest in plants and equipment, give small businesses more generous expensing
rules and allow businesses suffering losses now to reclaim taxes previously
paid. The last item on spreading operating losses was proving to be unexpectedly
expensive.
Pelosi pressed to make sure tax relief would find its way into the hands of
lower-income earners while Boehner pushed to include upper middle-class couples
with incomes of up to $130,000 or so, according to congressional aides.Bush
backs larger rebates of $800-$1,600, but his plan would have left out 30 million
working households who earn paychecks but don't make enough to pay income tax,
according to calculations by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax
Policy Center. An additional 19 million households would have received only
partial rebates under Bush's initial proposal.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said negotiators also were near an agreement on an
overhaul of the Federal Housing Administration that would make it easier for
thousands of homeowners with ballooning interest rates to refinance into
federally insured loans. That measure might advance separately of the tax relief
package, however.
Both sides agreed to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — government-sponsored
companies that are the two biggest U.S. financers and guarantors of home loans —
to buy loans much larger than the current $417,000 limit, aides and lobbyists
said. Frank said that lending cap might reach as high as $700,000 in areas with
the highest home prices.
Pelosi's decision to drop expanding unemployment payments and more money for
food stamps — which many lawmakers had assumed would be included in the package
— could prove very controversial with Democratic constituencies such as unions,
who were already stung by a decision to deny states more money for their
Medicaid programs.
Many Democrats had pressed to extend unemployment benefits for people whose 26
weeks of benefits have run out, but Republicans resisted.
---
David Stockman
In the 1980’s Ronald Reagan ushered in a new era in American economics as he
cut the top tax bracket from 70% down to 50% and then down again to 28%. In
order to get support for doing this from the people, and also from politicians,
a very crafty set of lies were produced. As David Stockman, then Reagan’s budget
director, put it: giving small tax cuts across the board to all brackets was
simply a “Trojan Horse” that was used to get approval for the huge top
tax bracket cuts. “Trickle-Down” was a term used by Republicans that meant
giving tax cuts to the rich. Stockman explains that:
"It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was
the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side
is 'trickle-down' theory."
"Yes, Stockman conceded, when one stripped away the new rhetoric
emphasizing across-the-board cuts, the supply-side theory was really new
clothes for the unpopular doctrine of the old Republican orthodoxy."
"…the Reagan coalition prevailed again in the House and Congress passed the
tax-cut legislation with a final frenzy of trading and bargaining. Again,
Stockman was not exhilarated by the victory. On the contrary, it seemed to
leave a bad taste in his mouth, as though the democratic process had finally
succeeded in shocking him by its intensity and its greed. Once again, Stockman
participated in the trading -- special tax concessions for oil -- lease
holders and real-estate tax shelters, and generous loopholes that virtually
eliminated the corporate income tax. Stockman sat in the room and saw it
happen."
"'Do you realize the greed that came to the forefront?' Stockman asked with
wonder. 'The hogs were really feeding. The greed level, the level of
opportunism, just got out of control.'"
Reagan's policies did more than simply cut income taxes. A large number of
tax loopholes were written into the tax code that catered to special corporate
interests. In fact many of the current scandals involving companies such as
Enron are rooted in laws that were passed during the Reagan administration that
gave these companies more legal legroom to work with and less oversight.
In addition, the small “income-tax cuts” that were given to the middle and
lower income tax brackets were countered with new taxes that were directed at
middle and low income individuals, as former House Speaker Jim Wright said:
Reagan's tax increases fell mainly on consumers, low- and middle-income
people. Sales and excise levies. Reagan didn't call these taxes. They were, in
his euphemistic lexicon, "user fees" and "revenue-enhancers."
The most important issue though is that even if you take the Reagan
“Trickle-Down” policy at face value it’s still horribly flawed as a policy that
will provide economic growth that benefits all Americans.
There is no realistic way for "Trickle-Down" economics to work to increase
the income of the working classes of America. In fact I am certain that the
developers of the theory of "Trickle-Down" economics were fully aware of this
and that "Trickle-Down" has in fact worked as intended. This means that the
intent behind implementing "Trickle-Down" was to benefit the wealthiest
Americans at the expense of working class Americans. "Trickle-Down" hasn't
failed, as many modern economists have suggested, it has succeeded in its goals,
which is the increase of economic inequality and the shift of a greater portion
of America's wealth into the hands of the wealthiest Americans.
I'll show you exactly why "Trickle-Down" can never really trickle down, and
I'll expose the logic that was used to trick Americans into supporting the idea
that freeing up money for the wealthy could somehow benefit the poor and middle class.
I'm going to use a very simplistic example to demonstrate the principles of
"Trickle-Down" economics. No, this is not a 100% accurate model of our economic
system, and it assumes that "all other aspects of the economy are equal," but
the major principles are represented. I will give "Trickle-Down" the benefit of
the doubt and assume that it actually does create jobs in my example.
We have a room with 5 people in it. The total value of all the money in the
room is $10. 00. The money is apportioned as in the table below.
Sam enters the room and says that he has $10. 00 that he wants to give to
Jim. This makes everyone else unhappy of course and everyone says that they will
beat Jim up if he takes the money. Sam then proposes a solution. He says that if
everyone allows him to give Jim $6. 00 he will give $1. 00 to everyone else in
the room. This sounds pretty good to everyone so they agree to let Jim receive
the money. So, after Jim gets the money and everyone gets a dollar this is what
the monetary breakdown of the room looks like:
As you can see, due to inflation most of the other people in the room either
lost value or saw no real gain. As you can also see the size of the "economy"
did in fact grow as the theory of "Trickle-Down" proposes, but the growth only
benefited one person, Jim, and arguably Bill. Even though the economy grew
overall most of the people in the room saw a loss of value. This is because the
value of money is relative. It's relative to many factors, but one is how much
money is in the system. If you have 1 dollar out of 10 then its worth more than
1 dollar out of 1,000. How wealthy you are in terms of dollars is not measured
by the number of dollars you have, it is measured by the share of
dollars that you have out of the total number of dollars in the system.
Now, your opinion of Sam and Jim can be one of only two options.
1) Jim and Sam were naive and actually thought that they were going to be
helping everyone with their actions; the fact that the actions had a negative
effect on everyone else was an accident.
2) Jim and Sam knew that taking the $10. 00, keeping $6. 00 of it, and giving
$1. 00 to everyone else wasn't going to help anyone but Jim, and they tricked
everyone for the purpose of self gain using the $1. 00 "gift" to the
under-classes as a "Trojan Horse" to support the action.
As in the example above there are three basic possibilities for economic
growth (and many variations in between): Either the growth of the economy can be
spread equally among everyone, the growth of the economy can be shifted towards
the bottom of the population in which case the poor see a rise in relative
value, becoming "less poor," or the growth can be shifted toward the top in
which case the rich see a rise in relative value, becoming "more rich. "
The general economic policy of "Trickle-Down" that was put in place by Reagan
has gone fundamentally unchanged since it was adopted by the country in the
1980s. The claim of Reagan was that "all boats would rise" by giving huge tax
cuts for the wealthy. This did not happen. The majority of boats stayed the same
or sank, while only between 5% and 1% of the boats actually rose.
The effects of "Trickle-Down" policy are evident. As would be expected from
the policy, the largest beneficiaries of the "Trickle-Down" system have been the
wealthy.
PHONY SOLDIERS by Rush Limbaugh
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New security rules for driver's licenses By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
