The Senate will take a step closer to tax justice this week. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell explains in the Rewrite.
Harry Reid tries to rewrite tax code
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Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:40 PM EDT
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About The Last Word
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell airs at 10pm ET, Monday through Thursday on MSNBC. The show channels O'Donnell's extensive background in politics and entertainment.
This is nothing but political year Hype they all want to fool the people into thinking that something will be done after the elections its biz as always when are people going to wake up PLEASE
joe,
i don't think its all hype. just because democrats know that republicans won't vote for this, doesn't mean they should do nothing. at the very least they are showing us where the republicans stand.
if you are a republican and want to vote for no new taxes, this is also important for you to know so you can vote republican and know that they are going to keep taxes off the table.
i agree with thecrazyleft below, that there is corruption in both parties, but there is not an equal amount. repubs are all about the rich and powerful and signing silly pledges, and do not think about the poor and middle class.
I've felt this way for a long time. Yes, there is definitely corruption in both parties. But it would be lying to suggest there's an even amount on both sides. Republicans have shown, time and again, that they will vote against the economic interest of their constituents. Although, it is worth noting that much of that is a huge part of their political platform, it's not all about corruption.
Well said, Mr. O'Donnell.
I'm sharing this video as I type.
-Sam (www.thecrazyleft.com)
At least Reid has a clue.
Consumer demand creates jobs and not tax cuts or wealth.
The economy started to tank in 2007 about 3 months after Bush failed to pass an amnesty bill which occurred at about the same time that China began investing $billions$ in Mexico to build factories. Several million illegal immigrants left the USA seeking jobs in Mexico.
Illegal immigrants took their consumer demand with them when they left, and the USA economy began to tank when they left.
Mexico had a long-term depression until 2007 when the Mexican economy began a boom period.
Every wealthy person in the country knows this teeter-totter pattern and they are using the media and politicians to scare people into making them more wealthy by exploiting the gullibility of the uneducated.
Taxing the wealthy at the same rate is actually healthy for the economy by using excess dividend funds to create consumer demand instead of allowing 90% of dividends to create the kind economic feedback that exploded Wall Street and devalued the dollar.
Mr. O'Donnell is a liar and a fraud. To link the cut in the budget for domestic abuse to to Ron Paul for saying we need less government control is outrageous. That's a big stretch for even you Lawrence. The men who decided to cut the budget should have kept the abuse penalty and cut money on penalizing drug users. this has nothing to do with Ron Paul. What a joke you are Mr. O'Donnell. This is why MSNBC has such low ratings.
You Republicans....... the ones that are writing in against this tax bill.... are you all millionaires? Even if you are, we are talking 5.6% out of your million dollars. You have lost that much on a bet on who will win the Superbowl.
You have taken from the workers since 1980 with the Reagan tax cuts.
You have taken from the workers since 2003 with the added bush tax cuts.
that is 30 years you have taken from us. With the economy the shape it is in, which you and your president put us here... now it is a crime for us to ask for some of that money you took from us to give back???????????
Excellent segment, Lawrence. And thank you for emphasizing what it means to raise the marginal tax rate for those making over $1 million. This higher marginal tax rate ONLY applies to the income over $1 million, not to that below $1 million, which is incrementally taxed at lower marginal tax rates.
I also liked your exposing Grover Norquist's anti-tax budget-busting deficit-exploding influence on the Republican Party, but I'm curious where Norquist stands on the Republicans Fair Tax scheme? Supposedly Republicans are against any tax increase, but one thing about the Fair Tax scheme (which is anything but "fair") is that those Americans (about half) who don't make enough income to pay any federal income tax would, if the Fair Tax ever became law, suddenly see a federal consumption tax (15 to 22 percent) added to the cost of anything they purchase, in addition to state and local consumption taxes they are already paying. This sounds like a major tax increase on all the people poor enough to not pay a federal income tax. So, where does Norquist stand on this huge consumption tax increase on people often struggling to just put food on their table? Oh, right, under a "Fair Tax," a federal Flat Consumption Tax, the wealthiest would make a financial killing, since their consumption would then only be taxed, not their income. Why do I get the feeling that Norquist is all for the specious, unjust "Fair Tax" scam?
I have some serious doubts as well that Ron Paul is the smart kind fellow who can save the USA some people think he is. As for the difference between the parties....
Since the Civil War was not really fought over African American slavery but economics, I can't really blame the gridlock in Washington on racism I guess. I better say that the GOP is defining itself as the Confederate south that doesn't care the color of the skin of any slave to big corporate interests.
One person is not going to save us, we have to save ourselves. We have to shed all these political labels and leave our religions at home and take our country back from the international bankers and corporations who have taken over in a coup that started with the war of 1812. The over 10 trillion dollars in debt we are in is directly related to the resources we have expended in wars of social and economic depression we have been waging over the last 10 years all in the name of the defense of corporate interests in foreign nations. Yet these corporations pay little or no taxes to help pay for the wars fought on their behalf. It's really "class warfare" we are seeing now, the minority upper class is using their race gun again to find yet another way to divide the lower class majority even more. While they are still shooting their fear gun in full auto mode. The real majority will never control their democracy as long as they let the minority keep them afraid and hating each other.
Letting any one of the current polititians in Washington write anything is just asking for us all to fall deeper into thier world of illusion. This is a political stunt to try and capture votes from the protests or they would be talking about removing the existing tax code and replacing it wholesale with something that actually makes sense. This will be just another organized means of our elected lawyers and economist writing a document that we have to pay lawyers and economist to translate for us.
We need a viable third party in this country that will establish some checks and balances in our government. We the 99% need to stop believing that lawyers and businessmen are smarter than we are and economist actually know anything about the real world and daily lives. We need to stop electing people like this to congress. Do they really believe we are stupid enough to believe that they left million dollar jobs to earn $174,000 a year for nobel reasons or they ran for office to influence laws to benefit themselves and thier friends?
bill,
republicans and democrats, yes, even the president has been talking about replacing the existing tax code. but this is not something that one does overnight. history has shown us, and we know, that personal change and change in washington especially comes slowly. lets look at slavery, for example. that change came very slowly, starting in 1854 when the republican party was established in wisconsin to oppose pro-slavery policies by the then democratic party. it wasn't until the 1960's, over a hundred years later, during the civil rights movement, that the democratic party of the south flipped to republican because they didn't like the Civil Rights Act that President Johnson signed into law.
right now, we have to deal in reality. wishing for a third party that may never be is a waste of time, even though that may solve some preoblems. we have to deal with what is, AND START SOMEWHERE. the tea party who ran for office and won on the defict while promising us jobs, won't even consider higher taxes for the rich to help solve our deficit. they continue to stand by grover norquist, even though we are fighting wars, the illegal war in iraq costing us billions. when have we ever gone to war without everyone sacrificing something?
@Suzette
Thanks you are a kind and thoughtful respondent and I appreciate your view but think that we spend too much time working through what may and may not work and then there are always a series of excuses that inevitably follow such as time. I'm not sure that isn't a means us justification (not you but our government and the political machines they represent). Both sides in my opinion are either telling half truths, think we are stupid or just crazy. I may be wrong but the economy seems to be cyclic in nature since the same oil, debt, unemployment and recession have been issues we are debating every eight years or so. Maybe the fundamentals of stimulus spending, increased taxes, lowering taxes or raising taxes are simply not fixes but short term solutions that never have any long term effect. Not like we haven't tried each individually or in combination repeatedly only to find ourselves in the same situation ten years later. I believe we need a new perspective on the same old issues. Forty years ago the professor who instructed me on economics was debating the exact same resolutions that they are discussing now. That tells me a great deal. Some new ideas may be the long term solution. After all doing the exact same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result is ........
I think what we are seeing from the two parties and the career politicians is an equational approach to winning elections with no checks and balances once they get into office. It's funny that at our speed of light society is actually governed by the same politics as our fathers.
Incredible how in a Democracy, one is allowed to make pledges to non-elected individuals who practice the art of "Robbin Hood" in reversal, or, "Hood Robbing"! According to the prophets, who draw a picture of how we can get to Heaven, Grover Norquist is an agent of the devil and so are all republicans that have gone to his side! This year all the banks raised their fees, the price of a bus went up as did tolls on the bridges and highways; and telephone/cable/medications/all consumer goods also went up. To a millionaire it's just a kick in the bucket! To me who made $19,000 last year, it impinges on my way of life. However, incredible as it seems, in order to get to Heaven/help America/put people back to work/show the up the republican Klu, Klux, Klank, it's O.K. for you to take another small bite out of me in TAXES at the percentage you seek to take out of millionaires! QUICO!
What is it about NBC/MSNBC/CNBC news? The same guests, celebrities and so-called experts all day long expressing their bland opinions over and over and ...
I'm tired of it, lets start a Class War and take back the news media.
spo,
i don't see fox news mentioned in your post above. they have the same guests, celebrities, and so called experts expressing their boring opinions all day long.
Another clear line between Dems and Repubs The Consumer Financial Protections Bureau? Looks like it to me http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/07/business/la-fi-obama-cordray-20111007
Excellent segment Mr. O'Donnell!
Keep up the good work.
You make me proud to know there is still hope to this broken country.
Long live the middle class!
This morning on Morning Joe Dr Cornell West and Tavis Smiley talked about their upcoming special on PBS focused on poverty in the US. Hope you have them on.
Joe Scarborough who parades his alleged Christian beliefs across the stage on his program all of the time did not challenge them. Although Joe does not support health care for all , living wages, equity in education etc. Some real hypocrisy permeates his supposed beliefs. So tired of these fake Christians like Palin, Bachman, Scarborough etc wearing their little crosses around their necks and parading their alleged religious beliefs around. But basically they hide behind them as they step over the poor and less fortunate on their way into their churches and stand against levelling the playing field.
They may be pro fetus but they are not pro life. They abandon the less fortunate once they would force women to have children. Pro life means health care for all, equity in education and fair wages...and not killing in unnecessary and immoral wars.
grew up Catholic. 12 years of Catholic schools. Priest lived across the street, Sister of Nortre Dame across the alley. The Nuns were the backbone of the church yet never given any credit. I think I saw too much. Though to much about the hypocrisy that I witnessed. Yet those same nuns made us aware of civil rights issues, common decency, trying to live by "do unto others as you would have done to you" The strongest message I was left with growing up Catholic was "we are all born in the image of likeness of God"
I am not Catholic, left the church as soon as I could at 18. Just too many contradictions, hypocrisy. Yet embraced the deepest truths. Then studied Buddhism, other comparative religions. Many of the same basic truths run through so many religious and spiritual beliefs. Always contradictions.
But in my book all Religions are basically "cults" based on the definition of cult
The issue that is fascinating to me is why working class Americans would stand in the way of raising taxes on those who are not paying their fair share? The other day I was talking with two retired teachers from the Vandalia Ohio (north of Dayton) area in the nursing home that my mother is doing rehabilitation for a knee operation in. One of the teachers was addressing Obama's and the Dem's effort to raise taxes on the "rich" I asked her what is wrong with asking them to pay their fair share?
Republicans have been able to encourage folks to vote against their own self interest
I watched the report that a person making $1,000,000 would pay no more in taxes under Reids plan, but would pay only $5, 600 if he made $1,100,000. How ironic as I write a check right now for $7,700 for 2010 taxes while I was collecting unemployment (with taxes deducted) and SS (with no taxes withheld) and withdrawing a pittance from my IRA (with deductions) to survive.
And the republicans are fighting against this.
Demonstrating clearly who they answer too. Really like that Lawrence pointed out how absurd it is to say that there is no difference between the two parties. Although it has taken the Dems far too long to step up to the plate on this issue.
Better late than never
to
MSNBC is still airing those disgusting commercials with that creepy looking geologist from Exxon trying to play down the pollution of our drinking water and ground water from the fracking process and the waste left behind. Those of us who live near these operations can tell you, first hand, that this geologist is lying. The only "discussion" (aka:doubt) still being raised about the source of the pollution is by paid shills, like this creepy geologist, from Exxon. I cannot watch these commercials. I get so angry. Therefore, I cannot watch Lawrence O'Donnell online since these commercials are forced upon me while watching The Last Word.
Hello,
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Thanks Scary Reid, you have done enough to keep American workers from getting jobs..
Take a phucking time already you moron.
What an idiot.. What happen to the trillion dollars we have spent? The more money we give, the more they spent and the more they want. All that money and nothing to show for. What happen to all the construction jobs that was promised? It's so sad that we have such dumb ass politicians and media personalities that doesn't know crab what they doing?:<