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Look at the Progress We’ve Made
I started thinking about part of a lyric from a song about the progress we have made and looked up the rest of the lyrics. I was struck by how well the words capture aspects of our social condition. Take a look –
The Progress Suite
Editorial (lyrics)
“Look at the progress we’ve made
Get your vitamin quota
In your soup ready-made
Forget that there’s hunger around you
Look at the progress we’ve seen
Perhaps you should cut down
On sugar and cream
You can’t button your jacket around you
Overcrowded world
What happens now
Better pray to your gods
And hope that somehow
Far from the shack you call home
They aren’t burning the grain
That has ripened and grown
‘Cause the prices have fallen again, so
Eat up your rice, Billy dear
They’re starving in India
At least that’s what I hear
Come on, my child, cram it down you
But we are okay
In our shiny new car
Look at us now
You can see we’ve come far
Here I am playing electric guitar
Look at the progress we’ve made”
Now consider that this song was first released in 1967, that’s 46 years ago. Sadly, little has changed that can really be called progress. The artists were Chad and Jeremy. The ablum influenced my early social development and political outlook.
Lobbying Produced a 22,000% Return for Corporations per One Study
Is lobbying Congress a good investment?
This is normally a nearly impossible question to answer, but a unique set of circumstances allowed researchers to conclude that Corporate lobbying for a tax amnesty provision in the 2004 American Jobs Creation Act(AJCA) yielded a 22,000% return. Yea, I would say it was worth it.
One reason why the question can’t normally be answered is that the financial information needed to answer the question can almost only be found on Corporate tax returns. All tax returns are confidential and only the IRS can see them. But a unique opportunity to study this question presented itself through a tax amnesty provision in the AJCA.
The University of Kansas School of Business ceased the opportunity. Researchers found that they were able, in this unique situation, to publicly obtain all the information need to analyze the return on lobbying expenditures. As stated in this study, “This is the first study to provide actual values of the financial savings arising from tax law changes, and the first to use data that has been audited by independent accounting firms.”
Cudos to the authors, Alexander, Mazza and Scholtz, and to the University of Kansas School of Business for this important piece of research.
Measuring Rates of Return for Lobbying Expenditures: An Empirical Analysis under the American Jobs Creation Act
Raquel Meyer Alexander
University of Kansas – School of Business
Stephen W. Mazza
University of Kansas – School of Law
Susan Scholz
University of Kansas – Accounting and Information Systems Area
April 8, 2009
Abstract:
The lobbying industry has experienced exponential growth within the past decade. The general public, the media, and special interest groups perceive lobbying to be a powerful mechanism affecting public policy. However, academic research finds inconclusive results when quantifying the rate of return on political lobbying expenditures. In this paper we use audited corporate tax disclosures relating to a tax holiday on repatriated earnings created by the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 to examine the return on lobbying. We find firms lobbying for this provision have a return in excess of $220 for every $1 spent on lobbying, or 22,000%. Repatriating firms are more profitable overall, but surprisingly, profitability is not a predictor of repatriation amount. Rather, industry and firm size are most predictive of repatriation. Cash on hand, a proxy for ability to repatriate, is not associated with the repatriation decision or the repatriation amount. This paper provides compelling evidence that lobbying expenditures have a positive and significant return on investment.
Working Paper Series
GO TO THE WEBSITE AND DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE http://bit.ly/Abj1Or
From the report:
|
[Top 20] Companies Repatriating $500M or More
(105 companies total1)
|
||||
|
Amount
|
Amount Repatriated/
|
|||
|
Rank
|
Company
|
Repatriated
|
Total Assets2
|
Revenue2
|
|
1
|
PFIZER
|
37,000
|
30%
|
70%
|
|
2
|
MERCK & CO
|
15,900
|
37%
|
68%
|
|
3
|
HEWLETT PACKARD
|
14,500
|
19%
|
18%
|
|
4
|
JOHNSON & JOHNSON
|
10,800
|
20%
|
23%
|
|
5
|
IBM
|
9,500
|
9%
|
10%
|
|
6
|
SCHERING-PLOUGH
|
9,400
|
59%
|
114%
|
|
7
|
DU PONT
|
9,100
|
26%
|
33%
|
|
8
|
BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB
|
9,000
|
30%
|
46%
|
|
9
|
ELI LILLY & CO
|
8,000
|
32%
|
58%
|
|
10
|
PEPSICO
|
7,500
|
27%
|
26%
|
|
11
|
PROCTOR & GAMBLE
|
7,200
|
13%
|
14%
|
|
12
|
INTEL
|
6,200
|
13%
|
18%
|
|
13
|
COCA-COLA
|
6,100
|
19%
|
28%
|
|
14
|
ALTRIA GROUP
|
6,000
|
6%
|
9%
|
|
15
|
MOTOROLA
|
4,600
|
15%
|
15%
|
|
16
|
DELL
|
4,100
|
18%
|
8%
|
|
17
|
MORGAN STANLEY
|
4,000
|
1%
|
10%
|
|
18
|
CITIGROUP
|
3,200
|
0%
|
3%
|
|
19
|
ORACLE
|
3,100
|
15%
|
26%
|
|
19
|
WYETH
|
3,100
|
9%
|
18%
|
GOP Doubles Down with Cynical Student Loan Bill
THE HOUSE HAS PASSED STUDENT LOAN SOLUTIONS, TIME FOR THE SENATE TO ACT
Posted by Nick Marcelli on June 18, 2013
Today, House Republican Leadership held a press conference to discuss the steps the House has taken to avoid the doubling of student loan rates on July 1. The House has already passed a solution to avoid the doubling of student loan rates that echoes the President’s own plan. It is time for the Senate to act.
BUT WAIT!
Take a closer look at what the GOP and Eric Cantor are touting as a positive step to help students pay for college.
Stafford Loan – Current fixed rate for this student loan is 3.4% and it is scheduled to double in July to 6.8%. The House GOP just passed the Smarter Solutions for Students Act (SSSA) which would end the fixed rate and calculate a variable rate at 2.5% points over the 10 year Treasury Bill rates, with a cap of 8.5% on Stafford Loans. The average 10 yr T bill rate so far this month is 2.66%, so the current Stafford Loan rate would be 5.16%.
While the 5.16% today is better than the 6.8% rate beginning in a few weeks, the variable rate cap of 8.5% is 1.7% higher than the fixed rate would be. So Congratulations to the House GOP for passing a plan that would both lower and raise student loan rates at the same time. If this isn’t cynical enough for you, add the SSSA’s current student loan rate of 5.16% today with the cap rate of 8.5% and then divide by two. This gives us the variable rates mid-range of 6.83%, nearly identical to the higher fixed rate as of July. So for bankers this is a revenue neutral proposal over a range of years while current college students get only a 52% rate increase as of July. For future college students the rate can more than double the current 3.4% fixed rate.
A look at the other provisions of the bill reveal similar findings. This could be a bill written by the student loan industry to squeeze more out of students without appearing to be quite as greedy.
Below is an analysis that (also cynically) does not assess the financial impact if the current 3.4% rate is allowed to stay the same.
H.R. 1911, Smarter Solutions for Students Act
cost estimate
may 20, 2013
read complete document (pdf, 28 kb)
As ordered reported by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on May 16, 2013
H.R. 1911 would change the interest rates for all new federal loans to students and parents made on or after July 1, 2013, from a fixed interest rate set in statute to a variable interest rate, adjusted annually. Under the bill, interest rates for all new subsidized and unsubsidized student loans would be based on the interest rate on a 10-year Treasury note plus 2.5 percentage points, with a cap of 8.5 percent. (Borrowers pay no interest on subsidized loans while enrolled in school or during other deferment periods but are responsible for interest at all times on unsubsidized loans.) The interest rate for all new GradPLUS and parent loans would be based on the interest rate on a 10-year Treasury note plus 4.5 percentage points, with a cap of 10.5 percent. The bill also would eliminate the cap on the interest rate on all new consolidation loans (multiple loans for a single borrower combined into one loan) originated on or after July 1, 2013.
Under current law, all subsidized and unsubsidized loans originated on or after July 1, 2013, will have a fixed interest rate of 6.8 percent, and all GradPLUS and parent loans will have a fixed rate of 7.9 percent. In addition, the interest rate on all consolidation loans is capped at 8.25 percent.
CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 1911 would reduce direct spending by about $1.0 billion over the 2013-2018 period and by $3.7 billion over the 2013-2023 period. Enacting the bill would not affect revenues. Pay-as-you-go procedures apply because enacting the legislation would affect direct spending. Implementing the bill would not have a significant impact on spending subject to appropriation.
Taxes and America’s Social Contract
The American social contract is threadbare in certain parts of America. Areas of this great country are falling into disrepair, dissolution as if under a spell . In places like the Camden, New Jersey and now Josephine County, Oregon, public safety has been compromised by the failure of will to raise taxes. Below you will find a very disturbing report on the latter situation from Oregon Public Broadcasting. It dramatically highlights what can go wrong when citizens can’t make the connection between good government and the tax revenue it takes to have it. First, let’s consider the various segments of our population who oppose raising taxes.
There are those who see themselves through the lens of American individualism. They value self-reliance and see this as a patriotic duty. They tend to think less of those who are more collaborative or more dependent or unsuccessful. They tend to discount the contribution of the public commons to their own welfare and don’t often recognize how massively interdependent our advanced society really is. They believe that less government is best for everyone. These folks are less willing to contribute to tax supported government services other than for military defense. They are ideological individualist. They may include libertarians. On the extreme fringe they may include anarchists or survialists.
There are those who are suspicious or uncomfortable with Ameican pluarism. These folks most often live in parts of the country where there is little diversity or only a single other minority group. But folks who hold this belief can also be found everywhere. They believe a disproportionate amount of their taxes go to support other ethnic or cultual groups whose members don’t share their same values or work ethic. They sometimes fear other groups are taking advantage of government largess. As a result, they are more resentful of paying taxes and more critical of wasteful governement spending. They are pluralism-adverse. At the extremes this group may include racists and hate group. A highly nationalistic subset of this pluralism adverse group believes the federal government has already broken faith with the people and threat our liberty. For them, paying taxes is akin to paying tribute to a foreign potentate.
There are some religious fundamentalists who believe all secular government is evil. For them, anything that expands government is evil as well, including raising taxes.
There are those who believe taxes compete or interfere with commerce and the free market. They think that taxes only reduce the capital available for business and contribute to government regulations. They don’t see government spending as stimulating for the economy. For them, the provision of services to those who aren’t successful contributors to the economy is an unfair redistribution of wealth. This group are more likely to have higher incomes and to pride themselves in their ability to avoid paying taxes. In the extreme they tend to see society as made of the have and have nots, the makers and the takers.
I believe all these groups are being aggitated and moulded into an anti-government political movement to reduce the power of government to regulate powerful corporate interests. But regardless of what you or I believe, the truth of who we are becoming is reflected in the hopes and fears of this 911 caller in Josephine County, Oregon.
With No Officers To Respond To 911 Calls, Josephine Co. Considers Tax Levy
OPB | May 14, 2013 3:40 p.m. | Updated: May 15, 2013 10:50 a.m. | Grants Pass, Oregon
http://www.opb.org/news/article/josephine-county-tax-levy-would-add-deputies-fund-the-jail/
Ideological Barriers to High School Graduation For Every Child
Thanks to the efforts of the US Department of Education, high school graduation rates can be compared across state lines for the first time. The results of the 2010-11 Four-Year Regulatory Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rates report is revealing and a bit disturbing. The top high school graduation rate was in Iowa where 88% of all students graduated . The lowest was in Nevada where just 61% graduated. (What’s happening there?) The median of state averages for graduation rates was just 80%.
The nations high school graduation rates are disappointing, but when you break down the numbers they become truly disturbing. In almost every state, White children had the highest graduation rates. In most states the graduation rates for African American and Native American students fell 10 to 20 points below White students. A similar gap can be seen between White students and those who are economically disadvantaged. The largest race based gap was in Minnesota where 84% of White students graduate verses only 49% of Black students. That’s a 35 percentage point gap. The other states with large race based graduation gaps include Nevada (28 pts.), Wisconsin (27 pts.) and Ohio (26 pts.). These are not the states we tend to think of when we talk about the racial divide.
But the biggest and most disturbing graduation gaps are not along racial, ethnic or even economic lines. They occur in two unexpected categories, children with disabilities and children for whom English is their second language.
In Mississippi and Nevada only 23% of disabled students graduated high school. These are children who, through no fault of their own, require every advantage they can get if they are to lead happy, productive lives. In Nevada the graduation gap between students with disabilities and White students was 48 percentage points. Mississippi did a much better job then Nevada overal . White students graduated at a respectable rate of 82%. The graduation gap for Mississippi’s disabled children, however, was 59 points lower. Contrast that with Arkansas where there was only a 9 point gap, or with South Dakota where there was just a 2 point difference between White students and disabled students. What is possible for disabled children in South Dakota should be possible in every state. Over all, the graduation gap between abled and disabled students is greater than ethnic, racial or economic factors. The biggest gaps were mostly in the South, but almost every state needs to do a better job.
The second disturbing category is the graduation gaps for immigrant children whose first language is not English. While states such as West Virginia, Maine, South Dakota and Arkansas were able to graduate English-language learners on par with White students, most other states were less successful. The graduation gaps in Georgia (44 pts.), Nevada, Alabama (both 42 pts.) and New York (40 pts.) were among the biggest. But it is Arizona, by far, that had the largest gap in the graduation rates between White students (85%) and those who needed to learn English (23%). This was a 60 percentage point drop in graduation rates for English-language learners in Arizona, and the reason for this poor performance has a lot to do with ideological politics. Voters in Arizona eliminated bilingual education in a 2000 ballot measure. Proposition 203 was a popular backlash against bilingual education in favor of a more nationalistic “English for the Children Philosophy”. Bilingual education was viewed as a politically correct relic of our liberal past.
It is unconscionable to hold children in the cross-fire of America’s ideological wars. Children are a special class of citizens who rightfully have special protections and certain undeniable rights, including the right to equal educational opportunities. To set different standards based on race, religion, disabilities or place of origin is unacceptable. To eliminate educational opportunities or to choose educational programs based on politics over empirical practice is malfeasance. It harms children and ultimately harms our society. There is no excuse for not duplicating the success many other state already have in educating children of color, children with disabilities and children who speak another language. State sovereignty be damned. Children everywhere are every citizens concern. We must do all we can to remove politics from public schooling and press the case for competent practices that gives every child a fair shot at success. High School Graduation for every child should be our national goal.
(Below are excerpts from an article detailing the struggle to improve educational outcome for English-language learning students in Arizona.)
Bilingual Education vs. English Immersion
http://cqresearcherblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/bilingual-education-vs-english.html
Excerpts:
… Spanish-speaking [families in] Nogales [Arizona]… in 1992 [filed] a federal suit aimed at improving educational opportunities for non-English-speaking students in the overwhelmingly Hispanic town. The class action suit claimed the school district was failing to comply with a federal law – the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 – which requires each state to take “appropriate action” to ensure that English-language learners (ELLs) enjoy “equal participation in its instructional programs.”
… The plaintiffs won a pivotal decision in 2001 requiring Arizona to boost funding for English-language learning in Nogales and the rest of the state. In a narrowly divided decision in June, however, the Supreme Court gave state officials an opportunity to set aside the lower court ruling.
Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the federal district judge had failed to adequately consider changed circumstances since 2001. Among other changes, Alito cited the state’s decision to drop bilingual education in favor of so-called “sheltered English immersion” as the officially prescribed method of instruction for students with limited English proficiency.
Arizona’s voters had decisively rejected bilingual education in a 2000 ballot measure. Along with similar measures passed in California in 1998 and Massachusetts in 2002, Arizona’s Proposition 203 embodied a popular backlash against bilingual education that had grown since the 1980s. Critics of bilingual teaching viewed it as a politically correct relic of the 1960s and ‘70s that had proven academically ineffective and politically divisive. [snip]
… The debate between English-only instruction and bilingual education has been fierce for decades. “People get very hot under the collar,” says Christine Rossell, a professor of political science at Boston University and critic of bilingual education. [snip]
… Those who support a bilingual approach, says Arizona Superintendent of Instruction Thomas Horne, “aren’t interested in teaching the kids English,” but want to maintain “a separatist nationalism that they can take advantage of.” Horne, a Republican, intervened with the state’s GOP legislative leaders to try to undo the federal court injunction. [Snip]
… “It’s a growing challenge,” says Patte Barth, director of the Center for Public Education at the National School Boards Association (NSBA). “We have many more children coming into our schools for whom their first language is not English… Voluminous, statistics-heavy studies are cited by opposing advocacy groups as evidence to support their respective positions on the bilingual versus English-only debate. But Barth says language politics, not research, often determines school districts’ choice of instructional method. “A lot of it is political,” she says. “A lot of decisions about language instruction aren’t really informed by the research about what works for children.”
Taxpayer Subsidized Downsizing in America
The business of quick and dirty layoffs has become a familiar feature in our culture. One recent example involved a journalist who worked at a large news organization. He was new to the company so he gratefully accepted the friendship of a well respected senior reporter. One Friday morning his mentor emailed him about a story idea and ended it by writing, “I’ll see you at the 10 AM meeting.” This prompted the following email exchange:
“What meeting? I didn’t get the email.”
“I’ll forward it do you.”
Then a short time later: “Forget the email. This meeting isn’t for you. Don’t come to this meeting!”
This is how the newsroom learned that day of the layoffs. Many senior journalists were let go along with a few younger reporters to avoid the appearance of age discrimination. As these “redundant” employees filed from the meeting they were handed garbage bags for their personal effects and accompanied to their desks by hired chaperones. It was all over in an hour.
Coolly calculated business decisions and pitiless firings toss employees off company books and onto government unemployment rolls somewhere in this country nearly every week. No notices, no outplacement services, no severance pay and no extended benefits are required. In many cases there is no effort to treat employees with the dignity or respect they deserve.
Apart from union contracts or employment agreements, American companies have no legal obligations to citizens being fired. They need not assume any responsibility for the impact it has on an employee, their family or their community. The only business costs of any significance are the premiums companies pay for government unemployment insurance. This easy, low cost ability to fire workers is called “workforce efficiency” and the U.S. is among the most efficient in the world. We ranks 12th out of 144 nations according to the study on global business competitiveness .
In most other advanced nations there are laws requiring companies to provide loyal employees with advanced layoff notices, severance pay and other benefits. These structural costs for downsizing may make businesses a little less competitive, but it brings significant benefits. It helps maintain a stable workforce and postpones government funded assistance to severed employees while they look for jobs. Requiring larger companies to provide mandatory severance benefits helps the nations absorb minor bumps in the economy without adding to problems by throwing people out of work at the first sigh of trouble. It also happens to be a humane way for citizens to treat one another.
Here in this country we treat our labor force as if it were a commodity to be bought and discarded at will. In the end, big business lets taxpayers foot most of the costs for unemployment benefits and supplemental welfare services for people out of work. At the same time the pro-business lobby pushes Congress for business tax breaks and budget cuts in the programs that help the workers they leave behind. Isn’t it time we stopped bowing to the pro-business lobby and stand up for the American worker?
How Public Schools Came to Be and the Fight to Dismantle Them
Publicly funded local schools are a universally accepted social norm. Abandoning them would be almost unthinkable. When we stop to consider what we value in our communities, local public schools are almost always a top consideration and a source of civic pride.
This isn’t just true in the United States. Publicly funded education has become a global norm in all advanced societies for nearly century. But a hundred years isn’t very long in the sweeping arch of history, is it? Public schooling has fundamentally altered American society, yet few of us can recount how this radical change came about. How did public schools come to be?
The fight to establish public schools is almost lost history. There is very little content or comment about it on the Web or in our public media. What we do hear lately are a great many lively debates about burdensome public school taxes, failing schools, voucher programs, charter schools, and making public funds more available for private schools and colleges. Lost to our comprehension in these debates is how these arguments follow the exact fault lines in what was an incredibly contentious battle, waged over the course of a generation, to establish public schooling. The political struggle for public education has been compared as second only to the fight for the abolition of slavery in its intensity and divisiveness, but who remembers any of that today?
The battle to undo public education is already underway. If we fail to grasp the fact it is because we have no historical context to recognize the attacks for what they are. If we hope to retain and strengthen our system of public education in America, we need to place the current arguments against it in historical context. We need to reclaim our history.
To this purpose I recommend a book copyrighted in 1919 by Ellwood P. Chubberly entitled, “Public Education in the United States, A Study and Interpretation of American Educational History.” It is a text book, long out of print, but the entire book can be downloaded or read on line. Much of the book is obviously dated, but the early chapters on the history of public education provide the valuable context we need to understand the political arguments today.
Of particular interest to our purpose here is Chapter V., “TheThe Battle for Free State Schools”, beginning on page 118. Read this chapter first for some quick insights. Below is the full URL addresses and links to the book and its Table of Contents.
Full URL Addresses:
Book
Table of Content
A Flat Tax Payroll Deduction Might Save Social Security
DATA DRIVEN POINT OF VIEW: Don’t be fooled. Discussions about raising or lowering Federal Income Taxes has little to do with Social Security and Medicare, which are separately funded by payroll deductions. Is there a funding crisis for Social Security and Medicare? A long term problem, yes. A crisis, no. Can America continue to afford these programs given the number of baby boomer retirements? The answer is yes, of course we can. We are the wealthiest county on Earth. Nations with far less wealthier already provide their citizens with much more generous benefits. The reason we feel the funding punch is that the structure we’ve enacted to pay for federal insurance benefits is so regressive.
We could institute a flat tax for Social Security and Medicare. The table below shows what this might generate in premiums at the current 7.65% rate of payroll deductions. This plan would clearly generate more revenue than needed for current benefits. A flat payroll tax of significantly less than the current 7.65% would be all that is needed to fully fund Social Security and Medicare. It would reduce payroll taxes for the majority of Americans.
|
Payroll Taxes for Social Security and Medicare
|
||||
|
Total Income from Wages
|
Amount Currently Deducted
|
Contribution As a % of Income
|
Contribution if deductions were based on a flat tax
|
|
|
$1,000
|
$77
|
7.65%
|
$77
|
This Segment Represents 57 million households
|
|
$10,000
|
$765
|
7.65%
|
$765
|
|
|
$50,000
|
$3,825
|
7.65%
|
$3,825
|
|
|
$100,000
|
$7,650
|
7.65%
|
$7,650
|
|
|
$500,000
|
$8,423
|
1.68%
|
$38,250
|
|
|
$1,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.84%
|
$76,500
|
There are at least 100,000 household in this segment
|
|
$10,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.084%
|
$765,000
|
|
|
$50,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.017%
|
$3,825,000
|
|
|
$100,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.0084%
|
$7,650,000
|
|
|
$500,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.0017%
|
$38,250,000
|
|
|
$1,000,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.00084%
|
$76,500,000
|
|
|
$10,000,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.000084%
|
$765,000,000
|
|
This table assumes that income from wages for the wealthy are at least $110,100, which is the income cap for 2012, and assumes they are not self-employed. Income from investments are not subject to payroll deductions. Employers pay an additional 7.65% in payroll taxes for their employees. The self employed also pay corresponding more in payroll taxes for their Social Security and Medicare benefits. Additional payroll deductions for unemployment and disability insurance may also apply in certain states and with certain individual.
These programs exist for everyone, and everyone should contribute according to their means. Those who are fortunate enough not to need the benefits still have a moral obligation to assure a minimal level of care to those less fortunate, and a social obligation to contributed to those who gave a lifetime of labor creating the fabulous wealth that the wealthy have accumulated.
Outsourcing Our Privatized Voting Process Overseas
Bev Harris, Blackboxvoting.com
NEW CERTIFICATIONS, PLANNED EXPANSION: Black Box Voting has been investigating and reporting on this disconcerting trend for nine years now. Everything we’ve been reporting has not only turned out to be true, but is increasing. A press release today about the planned expansion of Unisyn into more USA locations renews attention on foreign ownership of corporations selling voting systems into the United States. Unisyn is owned by a Malaysian gambling outfit.
Another major elections industry player, Canada’s Dominion, purchased the massive Diebold Election Systems division (which it shares with ES&S); Dominion also owns Smartmatic, which handles electronic vote-counting in the Philippines and Belgium.
Military voting is now handled in several states by Barcelona, Spain-owned Scytl. In January 2012, Scytl acquired the largest election results reporting firm, SOE Software. Accenture, now based in Dublin Ireland (formerly headquartered in tax-haven Bermuda), claims copyright over the massive electronic voter registration/voter history databases used in several states, including Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Colorado, Wisconsin and Arkansas.
Accenture purchased its voter registration unit from Election.com, a Saudi-owned company based in the Cayman Islands. Because a computer will only do what it’s programmers and administrators tell it to do, whoever issues the commands gains ultimate control over how it receives, counts, and reports votes, voter registrations, and voter histories. UNISYN: According to Barry Herron (formerly of Diebold Election Systems), now Director of Sales for Unisyn, “Unisyn and our business partners are actively supporting installations in the States of Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, and Virginia. We intend to expand into other states in late 2012 and early 2013.” Unisyn also recently made inroads into Puerto Rico.
Another Unisyn election product called “Inkavote” is used in 4 million-voter Los Angeles County (Calif) and in Jackson County Missouri. IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH FOREIGN OWNERSHIP OF USA ELECTION SOFTWARE? Not if you don’t mind some unknown guys working offshore controlling whatever they choose to in the software processing votes and voters.
For more on Malaysian, Chinese, Canadian, Spanish, Saudi, Cayman, Irish ownership of USA election software, see full Black Box Voting article with supporting documents and links: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/82176.html * * * * We APPRECIATE the wonderful support many of you have been providing over the years! It is the sole reason we still exist. Permission to reprint or excerpt granted, with link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org
A 99 Year History of U.S. Income Tax Rates
SPECIAL NOTE: Our US progressive tax structure [or whats left of it] will turn 100 years old on October 3rd. We should plan a celebration!
OUR TAX STRUCTURE USE TO BE MUCH MORE PROGRESSIVE THAN IT IS TODAY.
The Progressive Tax Code
Our progressive, or graduated income tax was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson On October 3, 1913. The idea was to create a system where those who did well bore a greater responsibility for funding the government. In fact, the original intent was to only tax the wealthiest citizens. The income tax was never meant to burden the majority of wage earners. The new law taxed individuals making $3,000 or couples making $4,000 per year. $4,000 at that time would be equivalent to about $100,000 per year in today’s dollars. What the law did not take into account was inflation. Much the same as is presently the case with the minimum alternative income tax, the original income tax brackets stayed constant every year while inflation and working class wages slowly rose. Eventually, income taxes became a burden to lower wage earners as well as the rich. [ http://www.buzzle.com/articles/the-controversial-history-of-the-graduate-income-tax.html ]
The progressive nature of the income tax is achieved by creating multiple income tax brackets to for rising levels of income. Each tax bracket has a slightly higher tax rate. Between 1913 and 1918 the number of tax brackets that applied to wealthy incomes rose to 56 brackets. By 1940 that number of brackets fell to 24 and there it more or less remained for the next 40 years.
What did rise over this time period were the marginal tax rates. By the 1950’s the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest earners was 90 percent. The top marginal tax rate was gradually lowered over the next 30 years until it was at 70% in 1980. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan collapsed the top 9 tax brackets to lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 50%. During is second term he eliminated 10 more upper tax brackets dropping the top marginal tax rate from 50% to just 28%. He also raised the tax rates on the lowest income earners, those who were originally not expected to contribute. At the same time, tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans combined with huge jumps in military spending resulted in huge budget deficits and a large national debt that has been with us since.
The top marginal tax rate for wage income was eventually raised back to 35% but not before capital gains income was stripped from the progressive tax code and separately taxed at a rate of just 15%. Capital gains income represents the major source of income for the wealthiest Americans. So the original intent of the progressive tax code, that the tax burden should only fall on the wealthiest American’s, was turned upside down.
For a glimpse of the problem with our current tax structure, see the US states map at the following URL to see how much more the bottom 20% are paying in taxes, as a percentage of income, over the top 1%. http://tiles.mapbox.com/occupy/map/TaxBurden
The graph below shows the 99 year history of tax rates for four incomes levels in the US. The data are adjusted for inflation and reflect the current value of the dollar. Tax rates for those making one-million dollars are in blue, those making $100,000 are in pink, those making $50,000 (approx. median household income) are in brown, and those making $25,000 (half of all American make less than $26,364) are in black. All rates are based on the married, filing jointly category. The tax information begins in 1913 and continue through 2011.
See data source here: http://taxfoundation.org/article/us-federal-individual-income-tax-rates-history-1913-2011-nominal-and-inflation-adjusted-brackets
What the graphic says to me is that for most of the last 100 years the wealthiest Americans have been paying more taxes than they are today, a lot more. Also, there was a period from around 1932 to 1988 when tax rates were lower for the working poor than for middle Americans.
I also noticed that beginning in the early 1980’s the tax brackets for the wealthy began collapsing until 1987 when a person making a million dollars a year was paying the same tax rate as someone making $117,760 per year. This had the effect of adding millions of tax payers into the same federal tax bracket as the ultra-wealth. From a political perspective, they became a single voting block on the issue of taxation. Also note that the tax rates for the two lower incomes jumped significantly in 1942-1946 and has been relatively steady since, decreasing only slightly during the Reagan administration when taxes on the wealthiest Americans began dropping sharply. Remember that mantra in the 80’s, “It’s not what you make, it’s what you keep.” This was never truer than for the wealthiest among us.
See Raw Data Here
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_individual_rate_history_nominal&adjusted-20110909.pdf
The Rise and Fall of the US Progressive Tax Structure
Below is a companion chart to the 99 Year History of Tax Rates in America (Click Here to see chart). This graph charts the number of tax brackets into which income was divided over the years. Looking back, it is apparent that our progressive tax structure had many more tax brackets separating rich and poor for most or hour history. There was a peek of 56 income tax brackets in 1918. In 1924 (the Roaring 20’s) that number was compressed to just 23 tax brackets. The number of tax brackets fluctuated over the next 62 years but maintained an average of 25 brackets until the 1980’s.
In 1981 the first of Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts was passed dropping the top tax rate from 70% to 50%. Five years later his Tax Reform Act of 1986 dropped the top tax rate again to 28% while raising the bottom rate from 11% to 15% where it remains today. The 1986 law also collapsed the number of tax brackets from 15 in 1984 to 5 in 1985. While lowering the top tax rate for the rich from 70% to 28% was a huge boost for the wealthiest Americans, compressing the top 10 tax bracket helped assure that the changes would not be undone. The reduction in tax brackets meant that the number of people in the top earners bracket went from tens of thousands of the riches voters to many millions of voters including those with much more modest incomes. By lumping together people making over $300,000 with those earning many times that amount the change created a large voting block of voters who would oppose future tax hikes.
During these same years the Reagan administration began deregulating the banking and finance industries leading to more and more wealth building opportunities for those already blessed with riches. Ronald Reagan was following the economic path created by the economist, Milton Friedman, who, in turn, was influenced by the Objectivism philosophy of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand believed that altruism and self-sacrifice for others is evil. See more here]
Data Driven Viewpoints 