In Yemen, thousands of people returned to the steets for a fifth day demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh steps down. At the same time, swelling numbers of government loyalists occupied strategic locations in the capital, chanting slogans and saying they won’t allow pro-democracy protesters to drive the country towards instability and chaos. Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra reports.
Continue reading …President Obama came out this morning defending his budget. The entire presser was 60 minutes long, but I didn’t want to be accused of taking anything out of context, so I present the MSNBC version in full. To be honest, there’s been so much conflicting information out there, I’m not really prepared to opine on it. I know there’s been a lot of grumbling on the left, and certainly, putting balancing the budget on the backs of the those who can least afford it seems foolish at best, heartless at worst. I would love to see an analysis of how much money we would save by simply retracting those ridiculously over-priced privatized defense contracts with companies like KBR, Halliburton and Xe/Blackwater. But it’s also important to remember that what we see now will hardly be the final version. And even if we disagree–however vehemently–with the details, the overall thrust of the budget is hard to argue with: bringing back American jobs . President Obama’s proposed fiscal 2012 budget is potentially a massive job-creation engine, with plans to generate millions of them by repairing and expanding highways, bridges and railways. But the spending plan also heralds an outsize political battle as it reignites the type of Republican skepticism over the effectiveness of such outlays that characterized the 2009 economic stimulus. More critically, it’s fuzzy on how the $556 billion in projects over six years will be funded. Experts say that makes it unlikely to pass a deficit-obsessed Congress I’d say that the characterization of Congress being ‘deficit-obsessed’ is both understated and oversimplified. The Republicans in Congress simply do not want the Obama administration to have any kind of success and will take down the country to make it happen. Don’t believe me? Look at Speaker of the House John Boehner, who went from “Where are the jobs” to this : This morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) casually dismissed concerns that the proposed GOP spending cuts would cause many federal employees to lose their jobs. Talking Points Memo reports: At a press conference in the lobby of RNC headquarters Tuesday morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) shrugged this off as collateral damage. “In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs,” Boehner said. ” If some of those jobs are lost so be it. We’re broke.”
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enlarge Matt Yglesias says if there are going to be cuts to Social Security , they should happen right away to everyone, including current recipients. And I have to admit, he has a point. Because the “of course we’ll exempt everyone 55 and older” from getting their promised benefits is just how the politicians on both sides of the aisle are covering their asses as they toil away for the banker class, and maybe it’s time those shiny pink butts should be exposed to the light. Not to mention, this is classic “divide and conquer” strategy. We should stick together. We should present a united front. You want to cut Social Security? Then you need to face the universal wrath of the voters in the next election, instead of putting some of us in a protected class. (Of course, it’s a rather desirable side effect that if we do present a united front, the chances of actual Social Security cuts drop precipitously.) This could be our Egypt moment. Just as Christians surrounded the Muslims at prayer, we should surround the younger generation with our promise that if they try to take their future Social Security, they’ll have to go through us first. You cut one, you cut us all. How about it?
Continue reading …Master interrupter O’Reilly whines that David Gregory was ‘disrespectful’ of John Boehner in MTP interview
February 15, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Bill O’Reilly was in his usual High Umbrage mode last night over the way Meet the Press’ David Gregory grilled House Speaker John Boehner over his manifest failure to provide some real leadership among Republicans by knocking down the continuing belief by so many conservatives that President Obama is Muslim — embodied in that Frank Luntz/Sean Hannity “focus group” from Iowa that was dominated by fools who continue to believe that the president is not a Christian. Of course, O’Reilly didn’t bother to mention that the original media miscreancy that gave rise to the Boehner grilling occurred on Fox — but this was just another classic case of O’Reilly defending his Fox colleagues for their smear-laden propaganda and claiming that it was perfectly legitimate. But the real howler in all this was the segment’s overarching narrative — namely, as O’Reilly put it, that Gregory somehow conducted a “disrespectful” interview. This is pretty funny, really, coming from a guy who just conducted an interview with the President of the United States that was remarkable for the utter lack of respect he exhibited — not just in the nasty tone of his questions (such as how Obama felt about all those people who “hate” him), but even more particularly in the way he relentlessly interrupted the president, refused to let him finish a sentence, and . Indeed, some folks even put together a video detailing all the interruptions: Apparently, O’Reilly would have been fine if it were Obama getting the grilling from Gregory. But when it’s a Republican, and the source of the matter is Fox Propaganda — well hey, that’s a whole nother story, Fox respects Republicans by tossing them softballs and giving them Hannity Jobs — and it respects Democrats by treating them like crap.
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Click here to view this media John King brought in former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and the Peterson Group’s David Walker to discuss the president’s proposed cuts to the budget. Of course King couldn’t pass up the opportunity to allow Washington’s resident fear monger in chief on Social Security and Medicare to have some air time here. Robert Reich has an article at the HuffPo where he reiterated many of the same points he attempted to make here on the president’s budget proposal — The Obama Budget: And Why the Coming Debate Over Spending Cuts Has Nothing to Do With Reviving the Economy : President Obama has chosen to fight fire with gasoline. Republicans want America to believe the economy is still lousy because government is too big, and the way to revive the economy is to cut federal spending. Today (Sunday) Republican Speaker John Boehner even refused to rule out a government shut-down if Republicans don’t get the spending cuts they want. Today (Monday) Obama pours gas on the Republican flame by proposing a 2012 federal budget that cuts the federal deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years. About $400 billion of this will come from a five-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending — including all sorts of programs for poor and working-class Americans, such as heating assistance to low-income people and community-service block grants. Most of the rest from additional spending cuts, such as grants to states for water treatment plants and other environmental projects and higher interest charges on federal loans to graduate students. That means the Great Debate starting this week will be set by Republicans: Does Obama cut enough spending? How much more will he have cut in order to appease Republicans? If they don’t get the spending cuts they want, will Tea Party Republicans demand a shut-down? Framed this way, the debate invites deficit hawks on both sides of the aisle to criticize Democrats and Republicans alike for failing to take on Social Security and Medicare entitlements. Expect Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of Obama’s deficit commission, to say the President needs to do more. Expect Alice Rivlin and Paul Ryan, respectively former Clinton hawk and current Republican budget hawk, to tout their plan for chopping Medicare. It’s the wrong debate about the wrong thing at the wrong time. Go read the rest and thank you Robert Reich. I’m sick and tired of seeing our government officials ask us to balance our budget off of the backs of the poor and the middle class instead of the rich being asked to pay more when they can more than afford it. Transcript via CNN below the fold. KING: Gentlemen, I want to try to do something very rare in television and get a yes or no answer to this will question first, then we’ll move on. Can we have a serious conversation about Washington’s spending problems without dealing with Medicare and Social Security? Mr. Secretary, to you first. ROBERT REICH, FMR. LABOR SECRETARY: No. Medicare especially, we have to deal with rising health care costs and that combined with the baby boomers is probably the most serious underlying issue in the budget over the long-term. KING: David Walker? DAVID WALKER, FMR. U.S. COMPTROLLER GENERAL, COME BACK AMERICA INITIATIVE: No. KING: OK, that was good, a one-word answer. That is very rare in television. I appreciate it. (LAUGHTER) And so, then why are we playing this silly game in Washington? And I’ll call it, who goes first. The president refuses, in his budget, to say let’s deal, here’s my proposal on Medicare and Social Security. Because he wants to see what the House Republicans do. The House Republicans, of course, are waiting and they say no, the president has to lead and go first. Why does Washington have to get lost every time in that same game? WALKER: John, the president is the chief executive officer of the United States government. He is also the political quarterback. He has a responsibility to lead, but unfortunately as it relates to our escalating deficits and debt, he punted. KING: Mr. Secretary, did the president punt? REICH: I wouldn’t go so far as to say he punted, John, but I think it is very difficult in this political climate for either the president or for the Republicans to take the lead on dealing with programs, Social Security and Medicare, that are so popular. They are the third rails of American politics, the president did deal with Medicare substantially in the health care bill, that became law, and he paid for it in terms of Republicans accusing him of cutting Medicare. KING: But he’s the president now, Mr. Secretary. I want to stay with you as the Democrat in the conversation. Should he have put forward something? Even if he took his own deficit and debt commission and put that plan forward, and said to the Congress, there are things in this I don’t like, but I’m going to start the conversation by introducing this plan before the United States Congress, so that I can at least force the conversation? REICH: Not on Social Security, but I think, on Medicare, particularly with regard to containing health care costs over the long term. The president could have gone further than he did under his health care law. And he could have continued that conversation, yes, indeed. KING: David Walker, how do you get the conversation out of this, literally, it’s a who goes first game? WALKER: Frankly, neither the president nor the leadership in Congress is dealing with 85 percent of the problem. Which are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the debt, et cetera. What we need to do is have a civic education engagement program over the next couple of years to educate the American people on the facts and truth and tough choices. And we need to bring back tough statutory controls as part of the debt ceiling increase that will force these type of choices, starting in about 2013. Because right now there’s no consequence for doing nothing, and doing nothing is driving us over a cliff. KING: Let’s focus now on what is before us. The president budget, Mr. Secretary, puts forward what he calls a cut and invest plan. He says he’s making some tough choices, Republicans clearly, they argue he’s not making many tough choices any way, if any tough choices. But you’ve raised some concerns that you think the president’s proposal, because he has to find some cuts would hurt those who need it most. REICH: Indeed, if he’s just dealing with-as the president is, as are the Republicans-just the nondefense discretionary spending, which is a relatively small portion of the entire federal budget, then we are cutting into home heating oil. We’re cutting into community service block grants. We’re cutting into things that poor people, particularly the most vulnerable members of our society, now at a time in our economy when many of these people are more vulnerable than ever, are going to be hurt, and it’s just not necessary. You don’t want to hurt these people. We’re still coming out of the worst economy, the worst recession we have had since the Great Depression. And we shouldn’t even be putting these things on the table right now. KING: So, David Walker, how do you then, if you accept the Secretary’s argument, how do you cut spending and it has to be some spending in Washington you can cut, without hurting those who at this moment maybe do need that help? WALKER: They really need to focus on the disease, not the symptoms. The symptoms are short-term spending, we need to be able to deal with the deficits that are going to be here after economy recovers, after unemployment gets down. Bring back the tough budget controls, force decisions starting about 2013, that deal with the 85 percent plus of the budget that’s the real problem. KING: And Mr. Secretary, do you see anything on the horizon in terms of your outlook on the economy? A strong economic growth would make these conversations a lot easier to have if the government was taking it a lot more in revenue, number one, it would put the line down on the deficit a little bit. But it would make the other conversations easier. Is that going to happen over the next three or four years, or do they have to deal with this tough environment right now? REICH: My own concern, quite frankly, is that all of this focus on the budget deficit at a time when we are still deep in the throws in the gravitational pull of the great recession-is going to distract us from the job of getting jobs back, getting the economy rapidly growing. It’s not going to grow rapidly, jobs are not going to come back, if we simply cut public spending and also cut taxes. That’s not the way to get jobs back. KING: That a fair point, David? WALKER: Yes, I think we have to separate between the short-term challenge and the structural one. We can actually have more tolerance for deficits and debt in the short-term, if it’s combined with a means forward to deal with the 85 percent plus spending problem, and frankly, to reform our tax system in ways that will make it simpler, fairer, more equitable and generate more revenues. KING: David Walker, Bob Reich, appreciate your time today. WALKER: Good to be with you. Thank you, John.
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The government of Afghanistan says they are going to take control of women’s shelters. But human rights’ groups fear this could be disastrous for hundreds of abused women who seek refuge at the safe houses. They say the government’s conservative attitude towards the shelters will put women’s lives in danger. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reports from Kabul.
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With Hosni Mubarak gone and the army now running the country, will the 30-year peace between Egypt and Israel still hold? And how should Israel view the main opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, if it was to get a decisive say over Egypt’s future? We assess the impact on Israel of revolution in the region. Taking a short break from rehearsals, Ryan Craig discusses his new play, The Holy Rosenbergs, which premieres at the National Theatre next month. The play depicts a British Jewish family riven by disparate allegiances and attitudes to the Middle East. Is it ever possible to depict Anglo-Jewish life and Israel without facing a storm from all sides? And why does Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians seem to fascinate – and, some might say, obsess – British dramatists and documentary makers? We discuss Channel 4′s new series, The Promise . And finally, another Jewish family on the small screen – in comedy writer Robert Popper’s new show, Friday Night Dinner . But why do they not mention the J-word? Sounds Jewish is produced by the Jewish Community Centre for London Jason Solomons
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Italy declares a humanitarian crisis as thousands of Tunisians land on the tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, already home to 6000 people. Viewed as aa threat by parts of the country’s centre-right government, the new arrivals thank the islanders for giving them refuge. Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee reports from Lampedusa on how the European Union intends to deal with the influx of migrants.
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Military ruling council begins to roll out reform plans while civilian groups struggle to form united front Egypt’s revolution is in danger of being hijacked by the army, key political activists have warned, as concrete details of the country’s democratic transition period were revealed for the first time. Judge Tarek al-Beshry, a moderate Islamic thinker, announced that he had been selected by the military to head a constitutional reform panel. Its proposals will be put to a national referendum in two months’ time. The formation of the panel comes after high-ranking army officers met with selected youth activists on Sunday and promised them that the process of transferring power to a civilian government is now under way. But the Guardian has learned that despite public pronouncements of faith in the military’s intentions, elements of Egypt’s fractured political opposition are deeply concerned about the army’s unilateral declarations of reform and the apparent unwillingness of senior officers to open up sustained and transparent negotiations with those who helped organise the revolution. “We need the army to recognise that this is a revolution, and they can’t implement all these changes on their own,” said Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent youth activist. “The military are the custodians of this particular stage in the process, and we’re fine with that, but it has to be temporary. “To work out what comes next there has to be a real civilian cabinet, of our own choosing, one that has some sort of public consensus behind it – not just unilateral communiques from army officers.” There is consternation that the army is taking such a hard line on the country’s burgeoning wave of strikes, which has seen workers seeking not just to improve their economic conditions, but also to purge institutions of bosses they accuse of being corrupt and closely aligned to the old regime. “These protests aren’t just wage-specific,” said Abd El Fattah. “They’re also about people at ground level wanting to continue the work of the revolution, pushing out regime cronies and reclaiming institutions like the professional syndicates and university departments that have long been commandeered by the state.” The ruling military council has called on “noble Egyptians” to end all strikes immediately. Egypt’s post-Mubarak political landscape has grown increasingly confused in the past few days, as the largely discredited formal opposition parties of the old era seek to reposition themselves as populist movements. Meanwhile younger, online-based groups are trying to capitalise on their momentum by forming their own political vehicles, and the previously outlawed Muslim Brotherhood has announced that it will form a legal political party. After decades of stagnation, the country’s political spectrum is desperately trying to catch up with the largely leaderless events of the past few weeks and accommodate the millions of Egyptians politicised by Mubarak’s fall. “The current ‘opposition’ does not represent a fraction of those who participated in this revolution and engaged with Tahrir and other protest sites,” said Abd El Fattah. But with a myriad of short-lived alliances and counter-alliances developing among opposition forces in recent days, uncertainty about the country’s political future still prevails. “Despite various attempts to form a united front, there’s nothing of the kind at this point – just a lot of division,” said Shadi Hamid, an Egypt expert at the Brookings Doha Centre. “You’ve got numerous groups, numerous coalitions, and everyone is meeting with everyone else. There’s a sense of organisational chaos. Everyone wants a piece of the revolution.” This week a number of formal opposition parties, including the liberal Wafd party and the leftist Tagammu party, came together with members of the Muslim Brotherhood and a wide range of youth movements to try and elect a steering committee that could speak with a unified voice to the army commanders and negotiate the formation of a transitional government and presidential council. Yet those plans have been overtaken by the speed of the military’s own independent proclamations on reform, raising fears that civilian voices are being shut out of the transitional process. Some senior figures inside the coalition believe the army is deliberately holding high-profile meetings with individuals such as Google executive Wael Ghonim and the 6 April youth movement founder Ahmed Maher in an effort to appear receptive to alternative views, but without developing any sustainable mechanism through which non-military forces can play a genuine role in political reform. “The military are talking to one or two ‘faces of the revolution’ that have no actual negotiating experience and have not been mandated by anyone to speak on the people’s behalf,” claimed one person involved with the new coalition. “It’s all very well for them to be apparently implementing our demands, but why are we being given no say in the process? “They are talking about constitutional amendments, but most people here want a completely new constitution that limits the power of the presidency. They are talking about elections in a few months, and yet our political culture is still full of division and corruption. “Many of us are now realising that a very well thought-out plan is unfolding step by step from the military, who of course have done very well out of the political and economic status quo. These guys are expert strategic planners after all, and with the help of some elements of the old regime and some small elements of the co-opted opposition, they’re trying to develop a system that looks vaguely democratic but in reality just entrenches their own privileges.” Egypt Middle East Protest Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk
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enlarge George W. Bush was the first modern president to cut taxes during wartime . Now, the unpaid $2 trillion bill for the wars he fought – and chose to fight – is long overdue. While President Obama and the Republican leadership in Congress jockey to position their budget cutting plans , it’s time for both parties – and all Americans – to pay the price we claim liberty demands. Here, then, is the Bipartisan War Tax Act of 2013 . 2013, that is, because now isn’t the time to raise income and other taxes. (Nor, for that matter, to reign in critical infrastructure spending and needed relief for the states.) While clearly gaining steam, the recovery from the Bush recession is still in its early stages. And, lamentably, President Obama and Congress just weeks ago inked a compromise two-year extension to the Bush tax cuts which will add another $800 billion in red ink to the U.S. national debt, much of it in new windfalls for the wealthiest Americans needing them least. While there are countless scenarios for a war tax designed to pay off the costs of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, here are some suggested guidelines Bipartisan War Tax Act of 2013: Everyone pays . From the moment President Bush told us to go shopping and to “get down to Disney World” in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Americans haven’t been asked to fight, pay for or otherwise sacrifice to defeat Al Qaeda. As FDR put it two days after Pearl Harbor , “We are now in this war. We are all in it-all the way. Every single man, woman, and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history.” That must as true of our wars (and deficits) now as it was then . The rich pay more . This proud American tradition was met by the well-to-do of the Greatest Generation , who paid a top income tax rate of 94%. (Those stratospheric rates stayed in place until 1963, and remained as high as 77% throughout the sixties.) The war taxes are temporary . Just as the Bush tax cuts theoretically were supposed to sunset after a decade, so it should be for the War Tax Act. (Future deficit hawks can argue about their extension.) They must raise at least $3 trillion over ten years . That price tag needs some elaboration. In September 2010, the Congressional Research Service put the total cost of the wars at $1.12 trillion, including $751 billion for Iraq and $336 billion for Afghanistan. For the 2012 fiscal year which begins on October 1, President Obama will ask for $117 billion more. (That war-fighting funding is over and above Secretary Gates’ $553 billion Pentagon budget request for next year.) But in addition to the roughly $1.5 trillion tally for both conflicts through the theoretical 2014 American draw down date in Afghanistan, the U.S. faces staggering bills for veterans’ health care and disability benefits. Last May, an analysis by the Center for American Progress estimated the total projected total cost of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans’ health care and disability could reach between $422 billion to $717 billion. Reconstruction aid and other development assistance represent tens of billions more, as does the additional interest on the national debt. And none of the above counts the expanded funding for the new Department of Homeland Security. But that two-plus trillion dollar tab doesn’t account for the expansion of the United States military since the start of the “global war on terror.” While ThinkProgress explained that the Pentagon’s FY 2012 ask is “the largest request ever since World War II,” McClatchy explained : Such a boost would mark the 14th year in a row that Pentagon spending has increased, despite the waning U.S. presence in Iraq. In dollars, Pentagon spending has more than doubled in 10 years. Even adjusted for inflation, the Defense Department budget has risen 65% in the past decade. Even with the proposed $78 billion in cuts and troop reductions advocated by Gates and Obama over the next five years, “the bottom-line figure would still go up during that time, with projected spending totaling $643 billion in 2015 and $735 billion in 2020.” Even with the reduction in staffing forecast for 2015, the Army and Marine Corps would be larger than they were when the Iraq and Afghanistan wars began. Despite the grumbling of some Tea Party members , Congressional Republicans have made clear they want no cuts to defense as part of their $100 billion reduction in discretionary spending. Which raises the question: why would perpetually tax-cutting Republicans agree to tax increases to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Because the Republicans believe the global terrorism poses as an existential threat to the United States. And we know this, because they repeatedly told us so. For his part, President Bush routinely compared his wars to World War II. The enemy, after all, was “an Axis of Evil.” On Pearl Harbor Day 2005, Bush declared: On September the 11th, 2001, our nation awoke to another sudden attack. In the space of just 102 minutes, more Americans were killed than we lost at Pearl Harbor. Like generations before us, we accepted new responsibilities, and we confronted new dangers with firm resolve. Like generations before us, we’re taking the fight to those who attacked us — and those who share their murderous vision for future attacks. Like generations before us, we’ve faced setbacks on the path to victory — yet we will fight this war without wavering. And like the generations before us, we will prevail. Bush wasn’t alone in proclaiming, “another date will forever stand alongside December 7.” After he introduced the ” Islamic fascists ” analog to Nazi Germany in 2006 , Republican White House hopefuls Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani echoed the talking point. Giuliani was joined in his effort by right-wing propagandist Norman Podhoretz, who argued in his 2007 book, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism , that with the conflict against Al Qaeda, Iraq and Iran, Sunni and Shiite, and other Islamic foes real or imagined, the next world war is already underway. As David Frum and Richard Perle put it: “There is no middle way for Americans. It is victory or holocaust.” Disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich summed it up this way: In the 20th Century, America fought and defeated Nazism, Fascism, Imperialism and Communism — four existential threats to our survival. In this century, America is facing two different kinds of threats, though no less grave. This time, the threat does not come from nation-state superpowers, but from non-state networks, each pursuing an agenda based upon radical ideologies. The first motivates non-state terrorist networks to kill Americans both here and abroad. (Newt’s other, of course, is “Obama’s secular-socialist machine.) Like the Bush administration, John McCain argued that the American presence in Iraq would be no different than in South Korea. “We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea 50 years or so,” McCain said n 2008, adding, “That would be fine with me.” So paying the $3 trillion bill should be no problem for McCain and his Republican colleagues. Here’s how it could work. For ten years starting in 2013, income tax rates could be rolled back to something like their pre-2001 levels , but with some important exceptions. First, given the record income inequality and declining average household income now plaguing the United States, rates for the lowest brackets should not return to their Clinton-era levels, but instead rise by only 1% to 2%. The current top two family of brackets starting at $212,300 and $379,100 would go back to 36% and 39.6%, respectively. Importantly, in keeping with the wartime tradition that the rich pay substantially more , new brackets at $1,000,000 (42%), $2,500,000 (44%) and $5,000,000 (47%) should be introduced. (As this New York Times graphic shows, those levels would still be half of their World War II peaks.) In keeping with the “everyone pays” principle, the capital gains tax rate would return to its 1990′s boom-era level of 20%. These proposals should produce the needed revenue to offset the $3 trillion in past and future costs surrounding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (By way of comparison, letting all of the Bush tax cuts expire would have added in $3.8 trillion in new revenue to the Treasury over ten years.) Other steps, like reigning in Medicare and Medicaid costs, raising the threshold for annual income exempted from Social Security taxes to $250,000 would more than meet the Obama Deficit Commission’s goal of trimming the $14 trillion national debt by $4 trillion over the next decade. To boost revenue further, the War Tax could also include a 2% national sale tax. Call it a “Liberty Levy.” Many observers – and doubtless all Republicans – will object that the United States can’t absorb tax increases of this magnitude. But economic history and the American notion of shared sacrifice say otherwise. After all, the last time the top tax rate was 39.6% during the Clinton administration , the United States enjoyed rising incomes, 23 million jobs and budget surpluses. More important, the American tax burden hasn’t been this low in generations . Thanks to the combination of the Bush Recession and the Obama tax cuts, the AP reported , “as a share of the nation’s economy, Uncle Sam’s take this year will be the lowest since 1950, when the Korean War was just getting under way.” In January, the Congressional Budget Office ( CBO ) explained that “revenues would be just under 15 percent of GDP; levels that low have not been seen since 1950.” That finding echoed an earlier analysis from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Last April, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded, “Middle-income Americans are now paying federal taxes at or near historically low levels, according to the latest available data.” As USA Today reported last May, the BEA data debunked yet another right-wing myth: Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010. “The idea that taxes are high right now is pretty much nuts,” says Michael Ettlinger, head of economic policy at the liberal Center for American Progress. Even nuttier is the Republican myth that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 had nothing to do with the record-setting deficits. CBPP found that Bush tax cuts accounted for almost half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure; increased defense, DHS and international aid spending represented only 35% of the additional red ink. And as another CBPP analysis revealed that over the next 10 years, the Bush tax cuts if made permanent will contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession – combined . As the New York Times’ David Leonhardt explained: “The economic growth under George W. Bush did not generate nearly enough tax revenue to pay for his agenda, which included tax cuts, the Iraq war, and Medicare prescription drug coverage.” House Speaker John Boehner voted for all of it. Of course, as Utah Senator Orrin Hatch admitted in 2009, for Republicans during the Bush years: “It was standard practice not to pay for things.” Well, that was then, this is now. And the first thing we need to pay for is American national security. And for Republicans, for whom the Iraq conflict and the global war on terror were necessary to protect the United States from an existential threat on a par with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the first step is to support the Bipartisan War Tax of 2013. After all, as Franklin Roosevelt put it as Pearl Harbor was still smoldering on December 9, 1941 “It is not a sacrifice for the industrialist or the wage earner, the farmer or the shopkeeper, the trainman or the doctor, to pay more taxes, to buy more bonds, to forego extra profits, to work longer or harder at the task for which he is best fitted. Rather is it a privilege.” UPDATE: Almost on cue, Republican Senator Jim Demint (R-SC) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) proposed new budget-busting legisation to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)
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