Lone senator blocks unemployment benefit extensions

[TKshreve]

The richest 1% of Americans own 70% of US financial assets. 400 Americans now own as much as 155M Americans. 40 state unemployment programs ore on the way to going broke. "If our income had kept pace with compensation distribution rates established in the early 1970s, we would all be making at least three times as much as we are currently making." "The past decade proves that -- whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats running the government -- our tax money is not going into our community, it is going into the pockets of the billionaires who have bought off both parties - it is obscene."
-alternet1 and alternet2

One tax measure no politicians have explored, and probably for good reasons of their own, is taxing corporations for rewarding their executives excessively. For instance, companies that compensate executives 500 times more than the company's average worker would pay a tax based on that ratio. A company which paid it's top executive 15 times its average worker would pay a much smaller tax on that ratio. Calculate what the company pays workers in foreign countries too. That would be an incentive to manufacture here without being considered an import tax. Don't go after the executive. Go after the company. Make it in the stockholders' interest to cut executive pay and hire decently paid American workers.

Could be the smartest thing I have read here in a while. I've also thought of this angle in the past, but your description articulates it very well.

[oldredfordette]

Similar to a movement in Britain; the Robin Hood Tax.

http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/


Expand it to more than the banks [[though they should be first).

[Detroitej72]

Whether it is taken from me before or after my paycheck is printed is immaterial. It is a cost of labor that does not get paid to employees, but instead is paid to the government.

We already know your stance: let them starve, it'll decrease the surplus population and save you precious tax dollars.

[ghettopalmetto]

I'll reiterate that I simply don't understand how some people think they can prosper all by themselves.

[Sstashmoo]

Looks like the old codger gave in..

[ghettopalmetto]

Looks like the old codger gave in..

I think the 120,000 unemployed in Kentucky were about to lynch him.

[Eastside]

Looks like the old codger gave in..

Yup, his 15-minutes of fame is done. [[For now at least.)

[Eastside]

By the way, here is a quote from the Senator that appeared in a NYT story a few moments.

“We are on an unsustainable path as far as the budget,” said Mr. Bunning, who said the fight had caused him to be on the floor more than any other time during his 24-year-career in Congress.

My questions, what's he been doing for the past 24-years?

Jez...

[Pam]

Good speech from Sen. Bernie Sanders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sDbLmyngWs

[Papasito]

One old man wanted to prove a point. We had a multi-trillion dollar stimulus plan passed, with so much money left unspent, but we couldn't use any of the money to fund this effort? We have to create NEW spending? Have to print or borrow NEW money? We have a massive Federal budget for 2010..... We couldn't use any of those trillions to pay for this?

And is this bill EXCLUSIVE to extending unemployment benefits? Or is it chock full of earmarks and programs to special interest groups? I'm willing to guess it's the latter.

I was unemployed for six months of last year, So I know how critical it is to at least have the pittance unemployment pays. Without it and my savings I would have been homeless. I realize that this bill was a political football to oppose. Stopping spending a week after Obama suggests a PAY-GO policy is a good thing, but having them stuff an unemployment benefit extention in it makes you a bad guy if you vote against it.

This is the method of the crooks in Washington. You take a necessary action, such as funding the military or funding unemployment, and stuff in 9000 earmarks and special interest programs. Then when someone opposes the wreckless spending you say YOU DONT CARE ABOUT THE TROOPS or WHAT ABOUT THE JOBLESS YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD !!
Politics suck.

[gibran]

earmarks are bad [[agreed)...unless they create jobs...unemployment extension good unless it doesn't go to the people...politics really suck lately...special interest groups depending what the interests are ...that's where the real budget warriors should focus..

save billions cut foreign funding of countries that can sustain themselves...

[Hermod]

Damn, I'm so disappointed. Jim Bunning was one of my favorite pitchers growing up.I guess ole Charles Barkley was right, Athletes aren't role models.

In fairness to Sen Jim Bunning, he wasn't pulling a "fast one" in this case. The Senate leadership was trying to "fast track" the bill through a shortcut process which required unanimous consent rather than having it introduced as a bill in the normal process. Bunning just said "wait a minute".

..

[Hermod]

save billions cut foreign funding of countries that can sustain themselves...

Most of our "foreign aid" which is direct aid to countries not tied to our Afghan and iraq ventures goes to Israel and Egypt under the US obligations in the peace treaty engineered by Jimmy Carter.

[jiminnm]

Hermod, much of our foreign aid is simply another form of subsidy to the defense industry. We give funds to countries with the understanding that they will then, in turn, buy arms from our manufacturers.

That said, though, total foreign aid is less than 1% [[1/4% +/-, I think) of the federal budget.

[Sstashmoo]

Quote: "Most of our "foreign aid" which is direct aid to countries not tied to our Afghan and iraq ventures goes to Israel and Egypt"

Our sole reason for being in Iraq and Afghanistan IS Israel. Many in the middle east have a problem with us for our unwavering and seemingly uncontrollable support of the Likud's. Period. Not about oil, not about Daddy's fight WMD or some other such bullshit. We are there because of the Likud's treatment or apartheid of the Palestinians.

Stay tuned, Iran is the next on the list of people we need to attack for no real reason.

"Regarding Iran, nothing is off the table" Barak Obama

That shit is killing this country. How this will turn out, one only needs to look at VietNam and Russia and their occupation of Afghanistan in the 70's. Did wonders for their economy.

[Retroit]

We already know your stance: let them starve, it'll decrease the surplus population and save you precious tax dollars.

Did I say all that? It is not the government's obligation to feed people, but rather to provide a business climate where American companies can prosper and provide jobs to Americans so that we can feed ourselves. Current government policies favor foreign companies and discourage the employment of more expensive American labor.

[Bigb23]

Why when I was a kid, we worked, dammit! We ate dirt and we loved it! We knocked on doors and offered to lick them clean! None of this namby pamby paint stuff! By God if you wanted food, you boiled the cat and thanked God you had a cat to boil! We used to...GET OFF MY LAWN, YA DAMN KIDS YA! Rotten little droopy pants bastards..Where was I? Oh yeah, we knew how to work there in the 70's! Not like now...

Thanks for the laugh, Red !

I'm in my fifties and out of work again. I retrained for everything my employers asked for over the years to stay on top of the job market. But over the last twenty years Wall Street wanted everything outsourced out of the country to increase profits.
Now the only ones not hurting are - guess who, Wall Street, and Polititions.They need to come down a few more notches.

[ghettopalmetto]

Did I say all that? It is not the government's obligation to feed people, but rather to provide a business climate where American companies can prosper and provide jobs to Americans so that we can feed ourselves. Current government policies favor foreign companies and discourage the employment of more expensive American labor.

No, it's not an obligation of government to feed people.

On the other hand, a workforce of homeless, hungry, and ill indigents ain't exactly good for business.

[Retroit]

^ LOL, tell that to the Chinese!

[ghettopalmetto]

^ LOL, tell that to the Chinese!

I'm sure you've seen some of the fantastic products that are now manufactured in China. Toys with lead paint, toothpaste with diethylene glycol, food products tainted with formaldehyde, electronics components that spontaneously combust, drywall that corrodes copper--A real success story, huh?

Race to the bottom all you want--just don't drag the rest of us with you.

[choquant]

^ LOL, tell that to the Chinese!

And so many people are just waiting to move there! What quality of life!

The ultimate goal of making money and having businesses in the first place is to increase the quality of life of the people of a country.

I agree with ghettopalmetto-- it's a race to the bottom with some people.

[ghettopalmetto]

The ultimate goal of making money and having businesses in the first place is to increase the quality of life of the people of a country.

I would take that a step further, and say that the purpose of having a *government* is to *improve* the lives of the citizens of that nation. Right now, our national conversation is being dominated by a bunch of uneducated morons and greedy pricks, whose only goal is to put more pennies into their own pockets, while absconding any responsibility to the rest of us.

As it stands, there are people in this nation who have fewer rights than handguns do. It's time we START DEMANDING that our fellow citizens live up to the responsibility they have to each of us, and that we each return that favor in kind.

[Hermod]

Could be the smartest thing I have read here in a while. I've also thought of this angle in the past, but your description articulates it very well.

And baseball/basketball/football stars should be limited to X times what the ticket takers make??

[Retroit]

Race to the bottom all you want--just don't drag the rest of us with you.

LOL, yeah, I want our economy to be dragged down like China's. China's products are so dangerous that Americans have stopped buying them.

And so many people are just waiting to move there! What quality of life!

Many Chinese have left the countryside to move to manufacturing centers. Their quality of life improves by doing so.

I think you two are missing the point. American policies are less friendly toward business than the Chinese. Are you two aware of the trade imbalance and the fact that the Chinese are funding our socialisticly-enhanced debt? The quality of life in China is improving tremendously while ours is in decline. This is not due to the superiority of Communism over Capitalism; it's the result of Chinese companies being free of the burdens imposed on American companies.

[Sstashmoo]

GhettoP wrote: "the purpose of having a *government* is to *improve* the lives of the citizens of that nation."

Translation: I want an "Government" that gives me stuff for zero effort of my own.

You could not be more wrong about the purpose of government. It is the individual's responsibility to make their life better. We are all just individuals. The role of Government is to govern, nothing else.