Day: August 21, 2008

Candidates Tax Plans–Revisited–McCain First

A close look at their proposals shows that the differences fall neatly along the traditional policy gulf that has long divided Republicans and Democrats: liberating the wealthy with tax cuts to stimulate the nation’s prosperity versus raising their rates to redistribute the tax burden and pay for crucial government programs.

Both candidates have promised to balance their tax relief programs with budget cuts designed to trim soaring deficits. But the Tax Policy Center has warned that both plans — coupled with the candidates’ high-cost healthcare proposals — would balloon the $9.6-trillion national debt. The center’s analysis reported that McCain’s tax proposals would add $5 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, while Obama’s would add $3.6 trillion.

McCain’s plan would cater to wealthy taxpayers and corporations by extending and expanding President Bush’s tax cuts, slashing corporate taxes and weakening the estate tax, but it would also aid taxpayers across the board by making the full Bush cuts permanent.

A deficit hawk and formerly a critic of the massive tax cuts launched in 2001 by the Bush administration, McCain now embraces the tax policies of supply-side economists who contend that lifting the tax yoke on the rich would encourage investment and stimulate the economy. “Wealth creates wealth,” McCain said during a primary debate in Michigan last year.
McCain also has proposed a sharp reduction in corporate taxes. He would pare the two highest corporate tax brackets, 34% and 35%, down to 25%. The top bracket would be immediately eliminated, and the 34% bracket would be phased down to 25% between 2009 and 2014.

He would also maintain the 15% tax rates on dividends and capital gains for the highest-tier taxpayers. And starting in 2010, McCain would substantially reduce the estate tax. He would increase the exemption on inherited funds from $3.5 million to $5 million and sharply lower taxes on remaining wealth from 45% to 15% — moves that would enable affluent families to hold on to more of their wealth.

Democratic-leaning economists say McCain’s plan offers little new aid to squeezed middle-class families. And they question whether corporations and wealthy Americans would convert McCain-era tax savings into new investments that would bolster the economy.

Nader Predicts Clinton As VP

He is such a media whore……his day has come and gone…but he continues to try and get some type of press.

Count Ralph Nader as unimpressed by the crop of supposed finalists to be Barack Obama’s running mate.

The smart pick, according to Nader, is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Nader phoned into Politico on Tuesday afternoon to offer his prediction that a surprise nod to Clinton is actually what Obama has in store — never mind the talk of mistrust between the Clintons and Obama.

According to Nader’s logic, Obama may dislike Hillary, but will conclude he has no choice but to get over it if he hopes to leave next week’s convention in Denver with a unified party and a decent shot against John McCain in the fall: “The polls show 25 percent of her supporters have not gotten on board.”

Nader said his own sources — and, to be blunt, they sound a bit sketchy — lead him to believe that Clinton remains in serious consideration. A friend, he said, recently saw Clinton family intimate Vernon Jordan on Martha’s Vineyard and reported the “usually very effusive” Jordan to be suspiciously “tight-lipped.”

Nader said he does not see how Biden, Bayh or Kaine would help Obama politically, and believes the speculation about them is a “smokescreen.” If it’s a traditional white male politician Obama is after, Nader offered, the better pick would be former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, who brings national security heft and could put his home state in play.

Draft Of Pact To Keep Troops In Iraq

As reported in the NY Times:

Iraqi and American negotiators have agreed to a draft of a long-awaited security agreement to govern the presence of American troops in Iraq, American and Iraqi officials confirmed Wednesday night.

The agreement remains subject to approval by the political leaders in each country.

Negotiating teams have been working on the agreement for five months. The two sides have come close to an agreement before, only for their optimism to prove premature.

The difficulty in reaching a final agreement reflects its importance to Iraq and the United States. Technically, the document will provide the legal basis for American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2008. But it will also amount to a political document, spelling out for the people of each nation the most difficult issues of this war, notably how long American troops will remain.

The main sticking points, in fact, are also the most delicate: setting a timeline for American troops to leave and declaring whether American forces would be granted immunity from Iraqi prosecution.

Workers Real Wages Fall

This is what should be talked about in the media.  But no…instead we get an array of mindless speculation on who the Veep will be.

US prices jumped in July by their highest month-to-month rate since 1981, in one of the sharpest inflation spikes since the Second World War.

The July Producer Prices index, reported Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, rose by 1.2 percent, on top of a 1.8 percent increase in June. “Core” prices, which exclude food and energy, shot up by .7 percent, more than triple economists’ expectations. Producer prices were up 9.8 percent from a year ago.

The consumer price statistics released last Thursday mirrored the producer price statistics. Seasonally-adjusted consumer prices jumped .8 percent last month—more than double earlier predictions—and were up 5.6 percent since July 2007. Even so, inflation has picked up in recent months. While the Consumer Price Index rose at a comparatively low annualized rate of only 2.8 percent in the first quarter, it shot up at an annualized rate of ten percent in the past three months.

The living standards of workers continue to decline as the purchasing power of their wages falls and pay increases fail to keep up with inflation. The most recent Bureau of Labor statistics report found that real average weekly earnings fell by .8 percent from June to July. Over the past year, weekly earnings fell by 3.1 percent. Thus, the average household now earns a staggering $1,500 less than it would if wages had kept pace with inflation over the past twelve months.

Skyrocketing prices, falling wages, rising unemployment, and falling home values are all lining up to create a massive social catastrophe. According to Credit Suisse, the credit analyst, there will be some 6.5 million home foreclosures by 2012, amounting to 12.7 percent of homeowners with mortgages. While arranging multi-billion dollar bailout of big investors involved in the mortgage meltdown, the Democrats and Republicans have offered no relief for working people facing the loss of their homes and unsustainable levels of debt.

Now the question is:  will the worker finally wake up and realize that the two candidates are offering nothing but a continuation of the crap they are facing now?  Or will they just slide into their party politics and screw themselves yet again?

A “Democratic” Georgia?

Yes, Irene, I am still talking about the country and not the state that made Laster Maddox famous.

One of the constant themes in the US government and media presentation of the conflict in the Caucasus is the depiction of Georgia as a bastion of democracy. The Bush administration has increasingly invoked the terminology of the Cold War by referring to “democratic Georgia” as a symbol of the “free world” and its struggle against authoritarian Russia.

The reality of political life in Georgia is far different than the media image.

Only last November, in the midst of mounting protests against his regime, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili employed dictatorial methods against his opponents. On November 2, opposition demonstrations began in Tbilisi, demanding democratic reforms and the ouster of Saakashvili. These protests, while organized by billionaire media tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, gave vent to grievances against government repression and the desperate living conditions of the population. They attracted tens of thousands to the streets of Georgia’s capital city.

Saakashvili declared a state of emergency, suspending democratic rights such as freedom of expression and assembly. Independent broadcasting was halted even before the state of emergency was declared, and only the state-controlled television station was allowed to broadcast for a period of fifteen days. Imeldi was taken off the air indefinitely.

During the crackdown, Saakashivli called for snap elections to be held less than two months later, on January 5. The elections, held under conditions of political intimidation and repression, placed the opposition at an enormous disadvantage.

In fact, the “excesses” of Saakashvili in putting down peaceful protests were not mere aberrations. The US State Department, in its 2008 “Country Reports in Human Rights,” listed the following in relation to the Georgian government: “at least one reported death due to excessive use of force by law enforcement officers, cases of torture and mistreatment of detainees, abuse of prisoners, excessive use of force to disperse demonstrations, poor conditions in prisons and pretrial detention facilities, impunity of police officers, continued overuse of pretrial detention for less serious offenses, lack of access for average citizens to defense attorneys, lack of due process in some cases, and reports of government pressure on the judiciary.”

The country is not the bastion of democracy that McCain and Bush would like us to believe.  This rhetoric is beginning to sound like the rhetoric from the old “Cold War” days.

Boeing, Union Hold Talks

Boeing Co. faces a quandary in final contract talks with union machinists that begin Thursday: It must avoid a strike that would cause delays on an already backed-up production line, yet be tough enough to make inroads against mounting pension and health-insurance costs.

The round-the-clock talks are aimed at averting a strike like the one that shut down the company’s jet production lines for almost a month in 2005. Going into the talks, both Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers are digging in on the same thorny issues — health care, pensions and job security — that led to the walkout three years ago. The union is scheduled to vote on Boeing’s final offer on Sept. 3.

Boeing has sought to limit its pension and health-care liability by paring who is covered by plans or by asking employees to pay part of the costs through payroll deductions and insurance co-payments. In successive contract negotiations, Boeing has pushed for limits to future retiree benefits and sought changes in job-security language that permitted the company to farm out work or bring in contract employees to save costs.

Union officials have already said they are disappointed with Boeing’s initial offers, predicting if things don’t improve, members will strike. “Boeing is negotiating like it’s in bankruptcy court,” said Mark Blondin, lead negotiator for the machinists union’s main offices. “I hope their game plan isn’t to stick with the approach they’ve taken so far. If it is, there will be a work stoppage.”

Obama Tries Populism

Democrat Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to create millions of union jobs in alternative energy and end tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas, using tough new populist language to convince voters that he, not rival John McCain, is best positioned to lift the limping U.S. economy.

Obama stuck mostly to economic themes during his appearance, adopting a pitch that sounded much like Hillary Rodham Clinton in the waning days of her primary campaign. The former first lady defeated Obama in eight of the last 13 primaries using populist language that strongly resonated with rural and working-class voters.

Obama said it was wrong that the Iraqi government has been sitting on billions of dollars in oil revenue while the U.S. spends billions to rebuild the country.

As for tax breaks to companies taking jobs overseas, Obama said: “We sure as heck don’t have to give them incentives to move. … We should give companies tax breaks that are right here.”

Obama made an appeal for votes that sounded much like the closing pitch Clinton would offer in similar settings.