WP Factchecker Taxes My Patience

 On July 3rd, @BarackObama tweeted “FACT: In 2010 and 2011, Romney paid less than 15% in taxes on $42.5 million in income—much less than what many middle-class families pay.”


This was too much for Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post's Fact Checker, who gave the President 3 "Pinocchios" for misleading the public. Kessler does not dispute what percentage Romney paid, but rather what percentage a middle class American pays in taxes. Using figures from Kessler's own column, Obama was indeed correct if you are a glass half full kind of person: 

Effective Tax Rates (including payroll tax paid by employer)

Bottom 20 percent (0-$17,000):         1 percent

Second 20 Percent ($17,000-$33,500): 7.8 percent

Middle 20 percent ($33,500-59,500): 15.5 percent

Fourth 20 Percent ($59,000-$103,500): 18.7 percent

Top 20 Percent ($103,500+):  24.3 percent

Romney paid an effective rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and 15.4 percent in 2011, lower than the mid point of 15.5 percent. Kessler does point out that, contrary to most Republican and TEA Party rhetoric, "most Americans pay a relatively small percentage of their income in taxes."  What bothers me is that many million and billionaires pay rates similar to those of the struggling middle class. 


Dividing income into quintiles is misleading. Is a household that makes over $60,000 truly upper class? What about $103,501, which gets you into the top 20 percent? Even when he was unemployed, Mitt Romney was able to make $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million in 2011. Romney is clearly in a different social-economic class than a small business owner making a little more than $104,000 a year, but Romney's apologists would prefer you not think of that.  Paying high taxes to get the country out of a crisis is patriotic. Rigging the system so the wealthiest 1/1000th can have tax loopholes is not.  

I Prefer Green Tea

Obama birthers

drinking sweet tea and Kool Aid

flavored with hatred

Another Mitt Cover Up

Yo yo! Who let the dawg out of his cage on the roof? Hi, I'm Mitt Romney and for only fifty dollars, you can purchase one of my fine quality Believe in America hooded outer garments! Like my positions, it's totally reversible!

Obamaromneycare

Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney all loved the idea of the individual mandate for health care coverage as a free market alternative to the Democrats' socialistic single payer or public option plans. What could possibly have changed to make conservatives so prejudiced against their own idea?

Obviously they're as different as night and day.

An Elephant and a Dark horse Candidate Walk into a Convention...

The GOP doesn't even seem to be trying to win the Presidency in 2012. The current Republican candidates have spent only half of what their counterparts did in 2008. Republicans seem to know they are dealing with bargain basement candidates.

My solution to the current malaise plaguing the party is to nominate the most moderate and qualified in their party:

Still available on Ebay and Amazon

Eve Merriam's The Nixon Poems came out in 1970, before the full horror of the Nixon years had been made public. I bought my copy in the 90s at Manzanita Book Store in San Francisco for $4. I might get around to reading it from cover to cover to make me feel a little bit better about our current administration. So far I've just looked at poems randomly, which are accompanied by old fashioned collages done without photoshop.

The second poem in the book may prove to be increasingly relevant as Occupy Chicago approaches this May...

Spring

The sky

is as blue

as policemen's helmets.

The Democrat In The Woodpile

I love the whole damned world.

Even the foreigners.

Scenes from an Elitist Upbringing

I've read too many comments from internet conservatives complaining about elitist Barack Obama never having worked a day in his life and owing his success to affirmative action. Barry Obama had more than a glimpse of real poverty and elitism when he lived in Indonesia. By fifth grade, young Barack Obama probably knew as much or more about the "real" world as the loudmouthed birthers and truthers who accuse him of being a pawn of the socialist Islamo fascist conspiracy.

My stepfather Lolo said, "Men take advantage of weakness in other men. They're just like countries in that way. The strong man takes the weak man's land. He makes the weak man work in his fields. If the weak man's woman is pretty, the strong man will take her. Which would you rather be? Better to be strong. If you can't be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who's strong. But always better to be strong yourself. Always.
Source: Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama, p. 37

My stepfather Lolo said, "Guilt is a luxury only foreigners can afford. Like saying whatever pops into your head." Mother didn't know what it was like to lose everything, to wake up and feel her belly eating itself. She didn't know how crowded and treacherous the path to security could be. He was right, of course. She was a foreigner, middle-class and white and protected by her heredity whether she wanted protection or not. She could always leave if things got too messy. That possibility negated anything she might say to Lolo; it was the unreachable barrier between them. Dreams from My Father, p. 42