Forum Post: The U.S. Collects Less In Taxes Than All But Two Industrialized Countries
Posted 11 years ago on April 9, 2013, 3:35 a.m. EST by WSmith
(2698)
from Cornelius, OR
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
By Travis Waldron on Apr 8, 2013 at 1:45 pm
President Obama and Senate Democrats have presented deficit reduction plans that would rely on both spending cuts and increased tax revenues, but Republicans continue to insist that the U.S. has only a “spending problem” and that deficit reduction does not require new revenues.
The premise of the argument from Republicans is that Americans already face an extraordinarily heavy tax burden. Citizens for Tax Justice, however, compared levels of taxation in 2010 in the other industrialized countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and found that the U.S. not only collects far less in tax revenues than the average OECD country, but that it also collects less in taxes as a share of its economy than all but two other OECD nations, as the chart at right shows. (See Link below)
The U.S. share of taxes has likely increased slightly since 2010, the latest year for which OECD data is available, because of tax increases from Obamacare and from the fiscal cliff deal that restored Clinton-era tax rates on all incomes above $450,000. Those increases likely won’t push the U.S. up the chart and would leave it well short of the OECD average. Similar data for corporate taxes shows that the U.S. collects less than all but one other OECD countries.
The U.S. has historically collected less in taxes and spent less than the majority of its OECD counterparts, in part because it operates such a stingy social safety net that doesn’t assist the least fortunate in society as well as programs in other countries do. Still, the chart shows that the U.S. is far from a high-tax country, and Democratic offers to raise modest amounts of revenues in the budget process would hardly send the nation’s level of taxation through the roof.
Chained CPI comes from Bowles Simpson. I didn't know that.
http://www.momentoftruthproject.org/sites/default/files/MeasuringUpCaseForTheChainedCPI5_0.pdf
http://www.momentoftruthproject.org/publications/updated-version-measuring-case-chained-cpi
Doesn't matter, we all know costs go up. Normally SS receipients hope for a small 3% increase. It is nonsense to say we looked at a basket of goods and conclude there is no Inflation or there is actually less Inflation that the old way. You ask people in the country or the city, Rural or Urban, they all have seen opportunities that they can't afford. ... Maybe gasoline for tractors and farming, herding cows... maybe home heating ... maybe tech schools for associate degrees ... maybe health care medications or treatment.
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html (Chart of SS Cola Increases by year from the 1970s)
The Sanders and Sherman legislation would give the Treasury Department 90 days to identify commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies whose "failure would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either the financial system or the United States economy without substantial government assistance."
VT Senator Bernie Sanders & CA Rep. Brad Sherman introduce bills to break up TBTF banks.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20130409/THISJUSTIN/130409960
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/292623-liberals-push-bank-break-up-bill
Let's move the U.S. to the top of that list, above the happiest country in the world, Denmark!!
H.R.129 — 113th Congress (2013-2014) (This is the Old Bill, Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2013 (Introduced 01/03/2013) )
http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/129?q=+Bill+113th+Congress+April+2013+Banking
New Legislation Senate Sanders 2013 159 Cong. April (search criteria)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/B?r113:@FIELD(FLD003+d)+@FIELD(DDATE+20130410)
By Mr. SANDERS :
S. 685. A bill to address the concept of ``Too Big To Fail'' with respect to certain financial entities; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
So the Bill in the Senate is S. 685 ...Could not find House Bill
Still looking.......
Here is Text S. 685 ``Too Big To Fail'' by Bernie Sanders, Rep VT.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s685/text
H.R. 1450: To address the concept of “Too Big To Fail” with respect to certain financial entities. by Brad Sherman, Rep CA: Introduced Apr 09, 2013 with No Text Yet... as per GovernmentTrack.us
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr1450
I just figured out how to find it I guess ... since I got your message.
H.R. 129: Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2013, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, OH, Introduced, Jan 03, 2013
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr129/text (Click here)
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr129
To repeal certain provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and revive the separation between commercial banking and the securities business, in the manner provided in the Banking Act of 1933, the so-called ‘Glass-Steagall Act’, and for other purposes.
do you see now why I insisted on postcards?
Break em up - ASAP. No wait a moment - SOONER.
Free Trade? That Just Means That The Large-Scale Merchants Are in Control of Tax Policy.
http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2013/04/free-trade-that-just-means-that-large.html (Click for hot links)
Commentary by Roger Erickson
Regulatory policy too.
Does the following say it all? Or what?
“The [imported fruit] that’s coming in from China is not subject to the kind of regulation that American food is,” said Diane Kearns, a fifth-generation farmer and president of Fruit Hill Orchards, one of Virginia’s largest apple growers with nearly 3,000 acres. “People are being priced out of the business. You can’t make money at it anymore.”
Free trade? That just means the large-scale merchants are in control of tax, regulatory, tariff and public spending policy.
"But merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
Worse, merchants may have no country, but their TBTF bankers don't even have a conscience ... just a double-entry accounting ledger with no place to enter either fiat OR return-on-coordination. Plus, their purchased politicians apparently don't know about evolution, adaptation, recombination or invention either. In fact, they seem incapable of grasping the difference between static and dynamic value. Otherwise, all our merchants, bankers and politicians would actually have a country, and let us consume all that it can produce too.
Adding $500 million in overhead costs ONLY to domestic suppliers of food may be yet another demand leakage, especially if most of the test & monitoring equipment comes via large importers using yet another source free from regulation, taxes or tariffs. One can imagine a future where even blonde American's can only follow looped instructions to "breathe-in, breathe-out" by using canned air imported from China, along with the imported audio equipment!
If you want to track families, clans or classes over-taxing and under-funding perceived competitors, just look for the phrase "sold out to larger [merchant] operations."
What about that joke where mother's milk, if sold in any other container, couldn't be legally transported across state lines? Yet it is, daily, whenever a large enough merchant wants it imported from China or elsewhere, which is exactly what Nestle was criticized for doing with powdered baby formula. What's in YOUR powdered milk? Merchantamine?
The darkest joke yet may be a future image of people jailed for pissing untested urine into the wind. You'll only be allowed to have a certified robot do that for you, using certified urine - both available only from a certain large merchant.
Don't like it? Then go buy your OWN Congressperson! Either that, or apply some moral persuasion to the ones already bought & sold by our existing merchants. Better act quick, before the Free Trade crusade morphs into Free Politics.
Every simplistic push for "One Size Won't Fit All" regulation invariably & mistakenly favors the largest merchants. Over time, cultures that survive are those that wake up in time, and revert to distributed, "One Agile Fits Small" resiliency. Better speak up now, and vote with your feet, or acquire a taste for whatever roadkill dregs the large merchants choose to put on your shrinking menu choices.
BTW - WHAT IN THE HELL IS CHINA DOING EXPORTING FOOD ??? They should be feeding their own people decently - before they ever imagine exporting food.
YEP - same goes for any country - feed your population - then see about exporting excess.
England blamed a potato blight for the Irish famine that killed how many?, while taking everything else grown on Ireland for themselves to eat or trade.
Free trade as it is being practiced today - means these world polluting mega CorpoRATions who are starving their workers and not paying taxes. Get to do what ever the fuck they want to do. Sorry but "THAT" is INSANE TRADE.
Something has got to turn the tide.
http://52shadesofgreed.com/store/ (Sale item with Guy Fawlkes)
The Truthseeker: The Looting Of America (RT volume E12)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-r0U-pbdiU (12 minutes)
The man who jailed a thousand bankers tells us how to do it;
Twice the size of the US economy exposed offshore;
Wall Street circles the nation's last assets.
Seek truth from facts with former senior financial regulator Bill Black (2008 88 times larger than S&L Crisis),
The Price of Offshore Revisited author James Henry,
former Wall Street executive Richard Eskow,
Econned author Yves Smith, economists Stephanie Kelton and Dean Baker,
and chief vampire squid Lloyd Blankfein.
The People should unite and claim eminent domain and get to work immediately - as the way things are going - we do not have much time left before the Greedy Few destroy the world.
IT is Crisis Time. Austerity is here. They are coming after Social Security & Medicare because there is a lot of money just sitting there waiting for someone to come and take it. And they will continue after that to grab Pensions and Retirement Fund ... under a guise to Fix them. "We'll take them even thought they are insolvent and short of required fund levels" they will say.
Yep - put it in the market they say. Sure - so that the market can lose it all in their next ( continuing ? ) crash. The Fuckers.
They won't back off till, they get slapped.
In the face with a 2x4
S. 685 Senate Bill to "TBTF Banks" Introduced.
By Mr. SANDERS :
S. 685. A bill to address the concept of ``Too Big To Fail'' with respect to certain financial entities; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
VT Senator Bernie Sanders & CA Rep. Brad Sherman introduce bills to break up TBTF banks.
Sorry man. I just want to get the word out.
Nothing to be sorry about.
Lol!!!
Gotsta get their attention.
Yep! Its the only thing they understand. Make 'em see stars.
We even have jargon to use to give the military so they understand.
You and military expenditures are being re-tasked.
[-] 2 points by Renneye (2071) 38 minutes ago
Yes, but think of all the jobs available...from clean up to tech and science. jobs, jobs, jobs. We can use the funds from the military industrial complex to pay for it! ↥twinkle ↧stinkle permalink
I can think of a few tasks I'd like to assign to the highest ranks in the military.
There is so much clean-up work to be done. Not just stopping the polluting - but cleaning up from past and current polluting. It ( Polluting ) must be ended. Or life as we know it will end.
Yes, but think of all the jobs available...from clean up to tech and science. jobs, jobs, jobs. We can use the funds from the military industrial complex to pay for it!
Before none of us are able to look at a night sky and see them.
...and the sooty ravens'(.01%) doom turn the oceans murky.
Excellent post
Stormcrow2 and friends don't think so. Wonder where they came from?
Who knows?, they are clearly NOT occupiers, or progressive.
How do they know when to descend? The forum has eyes.
one of them must always be on watch duty.
How pathetic!
Again I ask, does or has or will anyone here monitor their BS forums???
I have no interest. They are morons!
I disregard them. I sense them growing weaker.
They do get more frantic as their efforts fail and the talking points just repeat and recycle.
It becomes comical entertainment.
How to get out of the current Great Depression http://www.prairie2.com/2013/04/how-to-get-out-of-current-great.html
Before you can do any of these things you will need public campaign financing so that Congress actually reflects the will of the people. State government would need the same. A Constitutional Amendment could enforce this at all levels and guarantee the right to vote.
1 - Immediately raise the minimum wage to the level set in 1938, adjusted for inflation, about $11/hour. Over the next five years raise it to reflect real worker productivity of about $22/hour. Increase all government benefits to reflect the true cost living. Repeal all 'right to work' laws.
2 - Ramp up infrastructure spending until we reach full employment.
3 - Reinstate tariffs on anything we still make here and gradually reintroduce them on everything else.
4 - Make all higher education free and forgive all outstanding loans.
5 - Nationalize the Federal Reserve & seize all the 'too big to fail' banks. Establish a plan to replace all commercial banks with credit unions.
6 - Begin enforcing anti-trust laws. No national chain stores, period. No conglomerate companies. Make 80% of what Wall Street does illegal. Ban retirement money from being 'invested' in Wall Street Ponzi markets.
7 - Ban 'for profit' energy production. Put big Agri-business companies out of business. Introduce land reform and government support of small sustainable farming operations. Require farmers to join organized price contracting groups and put real teeth in them.
8 - A one time wealth tax on estates over a billion dollars. Reinstate inheritance taxes. Ban paying CEOs in stock, require boards to include workers.
There are a lot of other things to be done of course, but a real Congress that is elected by the people, not by lobbyists and big money donors could easily tackle these problems. When enough people know what the real questions are, then we can get real answers.
Have you ever lived in a country where those things were done?
I think you need to have first hand experience before you try telling society what's good for them.
Have you ever been to heaven?
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul
Austrian delirium!
You are missing the real republiclan point -
If we reduce Social Security & Medicare -
THEY will die sooner and WE will have to spend less
.....................................................................................thank you Alan Grayson
and, of course, if we make sure the peons are well armed
THEY will kill each other
THEY will die sooner and WE will have to spend less
More AGs! More AGs!...
There is only one way to get more AG + EW -
VOTE
So you think this "Vote" thing is the answer do you? What is it? Just how does it work? Who do we do it to? When do we do it? Who can do it? And why should we do it?
Hell fucking YES!!!!
Is this just federal tax? Is state local school/propert and sales tax and all the rest included in that?
I find that hard to believe!
It's everything that doesn't effect you!! The RICH are getting away with murder and we are paying for it!!!
A Wsmith/EricWeis/Bensdad trifecta top post marathon.
Congrats, you have switched handles faster than anyone else in the last 24 hrs.
NOw go back to attacking some war mongers and ignoring the other ones like a good little American.
Don't forget Middleaged.
In other words economic asshole liberals say..."just give us more money. Never mind the 17 trillion we are in debt. We don't have a spending problem"
Re-Learn recent history, if possible, RW Zombie: Nixon-Raygun-Bush-& Cheney reversed "The Great Society" to the "Great 1%"!!! Greatest redistribution of public funds in human history!!!! They got jealous and then GREEDY!!!!!!!!