taxes

DGA Chair Martin O'Malley joins Ed to talk about the 2012 Republican primaries and Mitt Romney's lack of a job creation record.

Mitt Romney believes millionaires like him are entitled to pay taxes at a lower rate than teachers, cops or construction workers.

Romney is worth as much as $250 million, but only paid about 14% in federal taxes last year - less than what many middle class American families pay.

^{By Lloyd Criss—Galveston County Democratic Party Chairman}

There is one word that terrifies the current tea party dominated Republican Party: Taxes.

Republicans at every level are so afraid of this word they would rather watch our nation and state deteriorate than support the modest tax adjustments needed to fund public education, meet society’s basic needs and balance state and federal budgets.

The causal story off that graph is something like “in the ’90s, bringing down the deficit through a balanced mix of tax increases and spending cuts was a net positive for growth.” The correlation story off that graph is “the ’90s were a good time for the global economy, and Clinton’s economic management was, at best, a small part of the decade’s successes.” The obviously wrong stories are “tax increases are incompatible with growth” and “Bush’s management of the economy was successful.”

Beneath all of the Republican and Tea Party grumbling about taxes, one key fact continues to be ignored. Federal taxes are lower than at any time since 1955. Obama has now reduced taxes by more than any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

…“For the past two years, a family of four earning the median income has paid less in federal income taxes than at any time since at least 1955… All federal, state and local taxes combined are a lower percentage of per-capita income than at any time since the 1960s… The highest income-tax bracket is its lowest since 1992. At 35 percent, it’s well below the 50 percent mark of much of the 1980s and the 70 percent bracket of the 1970s.”

If you agree that we can't allow American taxpayers to be robbed by 16 international corporations who pay to manipulate our government so that we pay more, and they pay less to operate it, please use the tools you have at your disposal — your social network — to share this video and make the truth go viral.

House leaders are unfortunately restricting their proposed budget cuts for the remainder of fiscal year 2011 to nonsecurity discretionary spending in an attempt to tame a $1.3 trillion deficit. This approach is especially shortsighted since the Federal Treasury loses twice as much revenue due to tax breaks than Congress appropriates on all nonsecurity discretionary spending.

Infographic: Tax Breaks vs. Budget Cuts

On October 30, 2010, thousands of people gathered in the National Mall for the "Rally to Restore Sanity" called for by Jon Stewart on his show.

While participants attended for a variety of reasons, many of them raised concerns about the deteriorating state of news media, especially the hyperbolic and hyperpartisan content of 24/7 cable news networks.

Some interview footage that didn't make it in our original film covering Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally, linked here:

On August 28, 2010, Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally was held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The purpose of the rally, which Beck claimed to be "non-political" despite featuring Tea Party-favorite Sarah Palin as a speaker and its being attended entirely by conservatives, was unclear.