For the last week, I have been listening to commentary from Republicans and media about what must be the most insane proposal of the last century, doing away with the income tax and establishing a 30 percent VAT tax. Since even a fourth-grade child could figure out that the effect of such a scheme would be to free the rich from taxation while, at the same time making taxation unbearably painful for the poor it is obvious that this scheme is not only the full measure of Republican corruption in service of the uber-rich who have rented them, it also reveals clearly to any voter who can do elementary school math that the Republican Party has zero interest in the wellbeing of the people who voted them into office. It also makes plain for all to see the state to which American governance has fallen because of the evil circus going on in the House. I assure you from my own experience in that world, that every world leader has taken the measure of the United States now that the Republicans have made it clear how they intend to proceed, Geopolitically, the one positive counterbalance is what we are doing to support Ukraine
Senator Elizabeth Warren hosts a Senate hearing at the JFK building on T Safety and Leadership Failures on October 14, 2022. Credit: John Tlumacki / The Boston Globe / Getty
Democratic and progressive lawmakers are criticizing the GOP for an extremist tax plan that Republicans are planning to soon put to a vote in the House that would completely overhaul the tax system to blatantly favor the rich.
In what seems to be a concession to the most far right members of the Republican caucus, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) has teed up a vote on the so-called Fair Tax Act. The bill would get rid of all federal taxes, including estate taxes and individual and corporate income taxes, and abolish the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In place of federal taxes, the bill would impose an effective 30 percent national sales tax, a number that could easily balloon in the future.
The result would be a much larger tax bill for the working class and a hefty financial gift to the wealthiest Americans. It is hard to overstate how regressive […]
The American tax system is utterly bogus. It is explicitly designed to favor the rich and milk the poor and serve the tax preparation industry to its profit. Here is what we could have if we voted for people who had the integrity to create such a system.
Credit: The Atlantic / Getty
If one thing unites all Americans, it’s the conviction that paying taxes is a pain. Even those like myself who don’t mind contributing their fair share to keep seniors off the street hate having to fill out all of the paperwork, especially if our taxes are complicated. The Tax Foundation estimates that filling out tax forms eats up 6.5 billion hours of work a year, for an economic cost of something like $313 billion. There’s a better way—but for depressing reasons, the United States probably won’t take it.
I recently traveled to the Faroe Islands, a small, semi-autonomous part of Denmark out in the North Atlantic, for a joint reporting project for The American Prospect and the People’s Policy Project. The idea was to investigate the country’s tax authority, which is called TAKS. I’d heard it is the cleanest and most efficient in the world.
Even with those expectations, what I found impressed me. The Faroes haven’t just set up a centralized system that automatically collects tax revenue and disburses welfare payments; they also continuously monitor all […]
I have been saying this for years, because the objective data so clearly verifies it. The structure of American healthcare, an illness profit system, is a failure in terms of wellbeing, but it is very profitable for a few. It is hampering our entire society To go forward we need fundamental change, and Bernie Sanders is right. Period. We need universal birthright healthcare based on fostering wellbeing.
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during a People’s Action rally against Big Pharma greed on September 21, 2021 in Washington, D.C Credit: Larry French / Getty
“After health insurance companies raised prices 24% last year and made nearly $12 billion in profits last quarter, 38% of Americans now report they or a family member put off needed medical care because it was too expensive,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. “We must end this corporate greed.”
Nearly 40% of people in the United States said they or a family member delayed medical care last year due to the prohibitively high cost of treatment under the nation’s for-profit healthcare model, according to a Gallup survey published Tuesday.
As U.S. residents faced soaring prices for private insurance, the percentage of them forgoing medical services as a result of the costs climbed 12 points in one year, from 26% in 2021 to 38% in 2022. Of those who reported postponing treatment last year, 27% said they or a family member did so “for a very or somewhat […]
Today, as I was going through my usual daily media survey and saw that NBC had confirmed the story of George Santos -- one of the several names he uses -- scamming a disabled homeless veteran out of the $3,000 collected to pay the vet bill for the man's dying dog, and then read that Santos had been appointed by Kevin McCarthy to not one but two Congressional committees, I realized that the Republican Party is no longer a political party interested in good governance to foster wellbeing. It is now an openly christofascist political power operation that has little or nothing to do with wellbeing fostering governance. Apparently, I am not the only person who has recognized this. The question is do American voters recognize this yet? Based on the polling I have seen I don't think so.
The new leaders of the House Republicans. George Santos — the name he uses for politics — and Marjorie Taylor Greene Credit: Win McNamee / Getty
Just over two years ago, on Jan. 6, 2021, thousands of Donald Trump’s followers attacked the U.S. Capitol as part of his coup attempt aimed. not just at nullifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election but ending multiracial democracy in America.
Vastly outnumbered, lacking reinforcements, failed by their leaders and with limited resources overall, the Capitol Police and other law enforcement officers bravely fought back against Trump’s mob. Beyond the physical stress and violence, Black and brown officers were also assaulted by Trump’s followers with racial slurs and symbols and acts of white supremacist hatred.
After hours of hand-to-hand medieval style combat that one police officer said was more intense than what he experienced in Iraq, Trump’s attack force overran the defenders and rampaged throughout the Capitol, eager to hunt, kidnap and kill Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats and Republicans alike who refused to […]
This isn't getting much coverage, but very interesting things are happening in the post-Roe era, and this article describes an example of what I mean. Women from Red states are going to Blue states for abortions, and it is having a significant impact on the healthcare systems of the Blue states, as described in this report. I also see this as part of the growing Great Schism Trend in which the Red states and the Blue states are becoming more and more different. Also, note that as the U.S. Congress becomes less of a legislative body and more of a political grievance circus real governance and power are moving to the states.
A Tennessee-based health care provider announced plans in May — just one week after POLITICO published the draft Supreme Court opinion that foreshadowed the end of federal abortion protections — to open a clinic in Carbondale, Ill.
The provider, Choices, is seeing a steady stream of abortion patients from Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas since it set up space in a shuttered dermatology office last fall, its only location outside Memphis.
For Carbondale, a college town of 22,000 people, geography had a lot to do with Choices’ new site: Illinois is bordered by five states that all have abortion laws more restrictive than its own, turning the Democratic-controlled state into a destination for those seeking the procedure since Roe v. Wade fell in June.
Carbondale is just one of many blue-state towns near red-state borders that some abortion rights supporters didn’t believe could sustain a clinic long-term if Roe were still standing. Now — with Choices and Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services — it has […]
