How Tea Party tax cuts are turning Kansas into a smoking ruin

"States considering deep tax cuts in hopes of sparking a surge of economic growth should look carefully at Kansas," ...  Yes, look carefully -- and run the other way!

By Michael Hiltzik
LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sam Brownback, the Republican governor of Kansas, doesn't just believe in whistling past the graveyard--he's willing to stroll past it in full-throated song.

The graveyard is where the economy of Kansas has been buried since 2012, when Brownback and his Republican state legislature enacted a slew of deep tax cuts in a tea party-esque quest for economic "freedom."

Our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.

"Our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy," he promised then. Brownback's tax consultant, the supply-side guru Art Laffer, promised Kansans that the cuts would pay for themselves in supercharged economic growth.

Instead, job growth in Kansas trails the nation. The state's rainy-day fund is dwindling to zero. Month after month, revenue comes in even lower than fiscal officials' most dire expectations.

In the rest of the country, school budgets are finally beginning to recover from the toll of the last recession; in Kansas, they're still falling. Healthcare, assistance for the poor, courts, and other state services are being eviscerated.

Who's benefiting? The rich, including those proud offspring of Wichita, Kan.: the Koch brothers.

Despite all this, Brownback resorted to an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago to declare that "the early results are impressive." Among other statistics he cited, "In the past year, a record number of small businesses — more than 15,000 — were formed."

Yes, but as shown by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington economic think tank, 16,000 disappeared. And many of those businesses that Brownback crowed about were surely created to take advantage of one of the tax-cut quirks Brownback enacted. This is the elimination of all taxes on partnerships, sole proprietorships, and LLCs that pass through their tax liabilities to their owners. That allows everyone from freelancers and petty contractors to huge partnerships to avoid any state income tax at all, as long as they're organized as a certain type of "small business."

Brownback's policy, and his claims about its outcome, define the term "ideological" -- the imposition of preconceived notions on a contradictory reality.

The record of Kansas since 2012 shows the folly of such draconian cuts in revenue. It's one thing to enact targeted cuts in tax rates during an economic upswing, when such a policy can add fuel to job generation. It's quite another to do so blindly during a slump, when cuts in state services undermine efforts at recovery.

Brownback's tax policy came right out of the conservative playbook. His 2012 package cut the top two personal income tax rates from 6.45% (on income over $60,000) and 6.25% (on income between $30,000 and $60,000) to 4.9%. The rate on income under $30,000 was pared to 3% from 3.5%. Pass-through business income was made fully tax-exempt. The law increased the standard deduction, but also eliminated several tax credits that assisted the poor....

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President Obama's Weekly Address 12/29/12: Congress Must Protect the Middle Class from Income Tax Hike

President Obama urges Congress to meet its deadlines and responsibilities, protect the middle class from an income tax hike, and lay the groundwork for future progress on more economic growth and deficit reduction.

President Obama's Weekly Address 11/17/12: Working Together to Extend the Middle Class Tax Cuts

President Obama urges Congress to act now on one thing that everyone agrees on -- ensuring that taxes don’t go up on 98 percent of all Americans and 97 percent of small businesses at the end of the year. On Friday, the President had a constructive meeting with Congressional leaders on finding ways to reduce our deficit in a way that strengthens our economy and protects our middle class, and he looks forward to working together to get this done.

Cartoon Of The Day...

Salt Lake Tribune Endorses Obama For Another Term; States Too Many Mitts

"...Therefore, our endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who, against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first."

If  the Salt Lake Tribune, the leading newspaper in Utah, doesn't think Mitt Romney is quailfied to be President what makes anyone think he can actually do a better job than President Obama? The Salt Lake Tribune, with very precise reasoning, lets the world know why Mitt Romney is the wrong choice to be the next president of the United Stated:

Nowhere has Mitt Romney’s pursuit of the presidency been more warmly welcomed or closely followed than here in Utah. The Republican nominee’s political and religious pedigrees, his adeptly bipartisan governorship of a Democratic state, and his head for business and the bottom line all inspire admiration and hope in our largely Mormon, Republican, business-friendly state.

But it was Romney’s singular role in rescuing Utah’s organization of the 2002 Olympics from a cesspool of scandal, and his oversight of the most successful Winter Games on record, that make him the Beehive State’s favorite adopted son. After all, Romney managed to save the state from ignominy, turning the extravaganza into a showcase for the matchless landscapes, volunteerism and efficiency that told the world what is best and most beautiful about Utah and its people.

Sadly, it is not the only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party’s shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?"In short, this is the Mitt Romney we knew, or thought we knew, as one of us.

The evidence suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive Romney’s next speech or sound bite. Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear.

More troubling, Romney has repeatedly refused to share specifics of his radical plan to simultaneously reduce the debt, get rid of Obamacare (or, as he now says, only part of it), make a voucher program of Medicare, slash taxes and spending, and thereby create millions of new jobs. To claim, as Romney does, that he would offset his tax and spending cuts (except for billions more for the military) by doing away with tax deductions and exemptions is utterly meaningless without identifying which and how many would get the ax. Absent those specifics, his promise of a balanced budget simply does not pencil out.

If this portrait of a Romney willing to say anything to get elected seems harsh, we need only revisit his branding of 47 percent of Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, yet feel victimized and entitled to government assistance. His job, he told a group of wealthy donors, "is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Where, we ask, is the pragmatic, inclusive Romney, the Massachusetts governor who left the state with a model health care plan in place, the Romney who led Utah to Olympic glory? That Romney skedaddled and is nowhere to be found.And what of the president Romney would replace? For four years, President Barack Obama has attempted, with varying degrees of success, to pull the nation out of its worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression, a deepening crisis he inherited the day he took office.

In the first months of his presidency, Obama acted decisively to stimulate the economy. His leadership was essential to passage of the badly needed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Though Republicans criticize the stimulus for failing to create jobs, it clearly helped stop the hemorrhaging of public sector jobs. The Utah Legislature used hundreds of millions in stimulus funds to plug holes in the state’s budget.

The president also acted wisely to bail out the auto industry, which has since come roaring back. Romney, in so many words, said the carmakers should sink if they can’t swim.

Obama’s most noteworthy achievement, passage of his signature Affordable Care Act, also proved, in its timing, his greatest blunder. The set of comprehensive health insurance reforms aimed at extending health care coverage to all Americans was signed 14 months into his term after a ferocious fight in Congress that sapped the new president’s political capital and destroyed any chance for bipartisan cooperation on the shredded economy.

Obama’s foreign policy record is perhaps his strongest suit, especially compared to Romney’s bellicose posture toward Russia and China and his inflammatory rhetoric regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Obama’s measured reliance on tough economic embargoes to bring Iran to heel, and his equally measured disengagement from the war in Afghanistan, are examples of a nuanced approach to international affairs. The glaring exception, still unfolding, was the administration’s failure to protect the lives of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, and to quickly come clean about it.

In considering which candidate to endorse, The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago. Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of presidential debates, Romney’s domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust.

Therefore, our endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who, against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first.

Why Obama Now

In a charmingly animated video, Lucas Gray, one of the artists behind the Simpsons and Family Guy illustrates why, with words from President Obama, trickle down economics is a failed experiment. - Addicting Info

Trust - Obama for America TV Ad

It took less than 16 hours for Team Obama to put together a TV spot attacking Mitt Romney on his economic plan that calls a 5 trillion dollar tax cut, which he denied but refused to give specifics about.

A Paul Ryan Primer: Deficit Hawkman

by markfiore

Cut taxes and cut services for the poor, yay! Finally, Mitt Romneys everywhere have a hero.

Chris Christie 2012 RNC: There is no ‘New Jersey comeback’

Before tuning in to  Governor Chris Christie's keynote address at the Republican National Convention, here is a little something that you should keep in while watching. 

The follow op-ed was written by State Senator Barbara Buono and appears online at Politico.com

By Barbara Buono

Many tennis buffs probably remember the early ‘90s Andre Agassi camera ads, with the slogan “Image is everything.”

It’s not hard to compare this to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has let it be known that he hopes to “change people’s image of our state” when he delivers the keynote address at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. If he can do that, he maintains, he’ll “have accomplished a heck of a lot.”

(Barbara Buono)

Unfortunately for New Jersey residents, image won’t address ballooning unemployment, an anemic economy and a stagnant revenue outlook.

Tuesday night, many Americans are due to get their first taste of the carefully constructed Christie image — a brash, tough-talking fiscal conservative who thinks his leadership, economic policies and tax cuts should serve as a model for the rest of the nation.

As always, he will be entertaining – he isn’t called “Gov. YouTube” for nothing. The problem is that this carefully constructed image is based on exaggerations, at best, and falsehoods, at worst.

Christie claims to have put New Jersey on a sound fiscal path — cutting spending, holding the line on property taxes, fighting off tax increases, investing in education and laying the foundation for the “Jersey Comeback.”

That is the image you can expect to see brandished on televisions Tuesday night.

Here is the reality:

New Jersey ranked 47th in economic growth in 2010 and 2011, and our economy shrink by 0.5 percent last year. There are 175,000 fewer jobs in New Jersey today than in December 2007, before the recession started. New Jersey lost 12,000 jobs in July alone, the highest job loss of any state in the nation.

Meanwhile, property taxes for the average New Jersey family were at a 20 percent net increase during his first two years in office, up from $6,244 to $7,519.

To be fair, Christie, like President Barack Obama and all the governors elected from 2008 to 2010, inherited an economy crippled by the Great Recession.

The question to ask however, is: What has Christie done as governor to fix it? And are his policies a model for “America’s Comeback Team,” as the presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney seems to think? Or a prescription to avoid?

On taking office, Christie cut state aid for education by $1.1 billion, slashed property tax relief for senior citizens and cut government worker pensions — breaking campaign promises in all three cases, as The Star-Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper, recently reported.

In addition, Christie’s personal and political ideology has cost New Jersey billions of dollars in federal aid for education, transportation and women’s health funding.

It gets worse.

Poll after poll shows that New Jersey’s highest-in-the-nation property taxes are residents’ No. 1 concern. So what does Christie propose? Offering a 10 percent across-the-board income tax cut that would give millionaires a $7,625 break, while a family making $50,000 a year would save just $80.

Sound familiar?

To prove that New Jersey can afford a big tax cut, Christie put out a budget that projects that the state will take in 7.3 percent more revenue this fiscal year – a wildly optimistic figure that represents the nation’s highest anticipated growth rate.

When a highly-respected, veteran budget expert for the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services questioned those numbers, Christie did what he always does: He went on YouTube and attacked Legislative Budget and Finance Officer David Rosen as the “Dr. Kevorkian of the numbers.”

Meanwhile, state tax collections came in below Christie’s rosy-colored predictions in March, April, May and July. We know the June numbers were down anywhere from $250 million to $540 million. But we can’t be sure how much because Christie is violating his own executive order on “fiscal transparency” by refusing to release the June numbers.

So far, unfortunately, it’s “Dr. Kevorkian” and not “Gov. YouTube” who has been right about the revenues. Being honest about the numbers would undermine the “Endless Summer” tour that Christie has embarked on to demand that New Jersey’s Democratic legislature approve an immediate tax cut that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest – regardless of whether the state can afford it.

You won’t hear about any of this Tuesday night, when Christie joyously proclaims that his policies should serve as a model for the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan ticket — and the nation.

But an interesting thing happened on the way to Tampa – Christie admitted there won’t be any mention of the “Jersey Comeback” in his keynote.

Perhaps he’s finally reached a moment of enlightenment? Perhaps, like Agassi, he’s finally realized that to truly achieve greatness, you have to let go of the notion that image is everything and accept reality.

Sincerely,


Barbara Buono
Senator, 18th Legislative District

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan: Back To The Failed Top-Down Policies That Crashed Our Economy

Learn more about Romney and Ryan: http://OFA.BO/hunUfC

Paul Ryan is the mastermind behind the extreme GOP budget plan. It's a plan Mitt Romney endorses.

But what does that budget mean for America? The GOP budget plan hurts seniors, it hurts middle-class families, and it hurts students. All to pay for tax cuts for those at the top..

The Dangers of the ‘Jersey Comeback’ Fantasy

July 16th, 2012  |  by Gordon MacInnes  |  Published in Editorials & Op-Eds, NJPP Blog: As a Matter of Fact ...

The Christie narrative goes like this: I inherited a Democratic-manufactured mess. I set to work to make tough choices, cut spending, reform pensions and reduce property tax burdens. It worked, so now it’s time to reward everyone with a cut in tax rates and to declare New Jersey the national model for fiscal integrity and effective bipartisanship. I call it the “New Jersey comeback.”

But the “comeback” is a slogan without substance or documentation. Instead, the evidence is overwhelming that New Jersey is still crawling out of the Great Recession:

• New Jersey’s jobless rate is fifth-highest in the country, down from 19th-highest when Gov. Chris Christie took office;

• In 2011, New Jersey was one of only six states with an economy that did not grow, ranking us 47th in the country;

• The rating agencies give New Jersey the third-lowest credit rating. It it weren’t for California and Illinois, we’d be dead last;

• The governor’s proposed budget included the largest spending increase and the most optimistic revenue forecast of any state. In just four months, the differences between forecast and actual tax collections have opened a gap in the 2013 budget of no less than $700 million (the administration’s hope) maybe as much as $1.5 billion (the Office of Legislative Services projection) and, possibly, $2 billion-plus (Moody’s warning); and

• More New Jersey families are sliding out of the middle class with almost 40 percent of households barely holding on.

This onslaught of bad news is not the stuff of partisan attacks or manipulation of a few negative numbers. The news comes from independent, trusted, dry statistical reports.
“Okay,” you say, “politicians are known to exaggerate and simplify, so what’s the big deal?”

The big deal is that the mythical “comeback” is being used to frame the agenda for New Jersey’s future, but it is an agenda that shrinks our future and blocks the path to restored prosperity.

Let’s be clear: The governor arrived just as the Great Recession hit New Jersey head-on. With Democratic support, he cut spending, passed pension and benefit reforms, imposed ceilings on property taxes and spoke out against gimmicks such as one-shot revenues and borrowing from our kids to pay this year’s bills. Then, he forgot his own sermon.

Like his predecessors, the governor finds it much easier to fall back on precisely the one-shot revenues and borrowing that put New Jersey in such a perilous state. His budget for 2013 is a replay of the practices he condemned and claimed to have conquered. In this, he is joined by the legislative majority, which accepted the Christie revenue projections.

The problem for New Jersey goes far beyond next year’s budget. “Comeback” deceives. It tells us that everything is pretty much taken care of and it’s time to invoke the panacea of tax cuts.

“Comeback” focuses our attention on the wrong problems and wrong solutions:

Distributing relatively small amounts to millions of households will not restore the state’s competitiveness or attract the kinds of jobs that made New Jersey a perennial leader in income and wealth.

“Comeback” ignores New Jersey’s strongest advantages. Talented, well-educated, enterprising people want to raise their families in pleasant, vibrant communities that enjoy good transit to New York in the north or Philadelphia in the south. And, that have excellent public schools. Instead of headlining the excellent performance of New Jersey’s students — second only to students in Massachusetts — the Christie administration has spent its time lambasting our schools, using the failure in the poorest neighborhood schools to condemn teachers in schools that are among the best in the nation.

“Comeback” and the tax-cut hysteria combine to divert attention from the economic and intellectual engines represented by New Jersey’s two great research universities, Princeton and Rutgers. While competitor states such as Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Texas have regularly invested in creating centers of research, engineering and innovation, New Jersey has stepped away and encouraged an “every-institution-on-its-own” mentality. The prospect of a modest bond issue for higher education this year is only a belated gesture — welcomed to be sure — at starting to play catch up.

“Comeback” pretends that all is well for most New Jersey families when, in fact, the proportion now struggling to provide bare necessities is growing dramatically. The recent theatrics around tax cuts dealt a cruel blow to poor working families with the governor’s veto of a bill to rescind the tax increase imposed on them alone just two years ago when he scaled back the earned income tax credit.

“Comeback?” We wish it were so.

If our leaders continue to blind us with unsupportable and fictional descriptions of New Jersey’s status and aim their policies at the wrong targets, we will continue to fall further behind.

This op-ed appeared in the July 15, 2012 edition of the Star-Ledger

Op-Ed: Tax Cuts: Wasting New Jersey’s Recovery

by Gordon MacInnes  |  Published in Editorials & Op-Eds, NJPP Blog: As a Matter of Fact ...
This op-ed appeared in the June 19, 2012 edition of the Bergen Record

Tax cuts are all the rage. Governor Christie and Senate President Sweeney are seeking to reduce taxes by10 percent for households earning $400,000 or less. They would add to New Jersey’s high debt level by borrowing the money to finance the cuts.

Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald, D-Camden, is pushing a similar but larger plan, which would reduce taxes by 20 percent and be partially paid for with a higher rate on high-income taxpayers.

Only Warren Buffet thinks his taxes are too low. The rest of us would delight in having more money stay in our pockets. Unless, that is, the tax cuts would kill New Jersey’s ability to regain its competitive edge.

The governor asserts that the state’s finances are in such good order that he can find $1.35 billion that the state won’t need by 2016. Actually, the evidence is overwhelming that New Jersey is still spiraling downward: Unemployment (5th highest rate naitonally), economic growth (4th lowest) and credit rating (3rd lowest).

We are one of only six states to suffer a decline in economic activity in 2011 — New Jersey is still in a recession.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the governor is right: New Jersey has a cushion of $200 million this year, $650 million to $700 million in FY2014, $1 billion in the following year and $1.35 billion by 2016.

Does it make sense to distribute these funds in barely noticeable amounts to millions of households, or would we be better off investing in regaining our competitive edge to attract well-paying jobs and providing concrete opportunities to struggling families?

Not so many years ago, New Jersey was a hotbed of research and development. Bell Labs attracted thousands of scientists, engineers and researchers (including Nobel Prize winners).

New Jersey’s boom years

This was the “World’s Pill Box,” in part because it was the center of the pharmaceutical industry with headquarters, manufacturing and, yes, research and development laboratories. With two world-class research universities at Princeton and Rutgers, the state enjoyed boom years with high wealth and income.

Gov. Tom Kean understood that New Jersey could maintain its place by only investing in new technologies and research. Build the laboratories and computer centers and they — the world’s best educated scientists, engineers and researchers — will come. In his tenure, New Jersey voters approved two bond issues that would be worth almost one billion in today’s dollars to create new centers of exploration on the campuses of Rutgers, Princeton, the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Kean’s raising the visibility of higher education with bond issues and operating-budget support, paired with the construction of state-of-the-art research facilities, produced what is still called “the golden age” of higher education in New Jersey.

In recent years, New Jersey has lost its competitive advantages. States like North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, California and Massachusetts have been eating our lunch.

Instead of dribbling out modest tax cuts to everyone, New Jersey should concentrate any “cushion” on building on the science, research and technology foundation that brought us prosperity in the first place.

The amount required for the Christie-Sweeney tax cut, which would total $1.35 billion by 2016, could have a major impact on New Jersey’s restoration.

Starting with $200 million in the first year to assist higher education institutions with planning costs, a noticeable boost could be given to graduate, undergraduate and postdoctoral scholarships in specified fields like mathematics, computer science, genetics and nanotechnology.

By the second year, the investments would represent a 35 percent increase or so in state support for higher education, reversing decades of disinvestment.

To put the decline in context, matching the $231 million appropriation for Rutgers operating support in Governor Kean’s last budget in 1990 would require an appropriation of $408 million in FY2013. Instead, the governor’s recommendation is $241 million.

Tuition assistance

The other investment Governor Christie could include is to adjust the Tuition Aid Grants and Education Opportunity Fund scholarships to reflect the steep rise in tuition. A step in this direction would send a message to New Jersey’s striving students that the state wants to hold onto them by helping with rising tuitions and avoiding even higher student loan debt.

The choice is simple: invest in New Jersey’s future or play for short-term political points.

The state is stumbling at the bottom of the recovery from the Great Recession. Our leaders should drop “Comeback” and replace it with “investment” and “opportunity.”

President Obama's Weekly Address 6/16/12: Ending the Stalemate in Washington

WASHINGTON, DC— In this week’s address, President Obama told the American people that the stalemate in Washington is holding our economy back during this make-or-break moment for the middle class. The President’s jobs bill could create more than one million additional jobs if Congress were to drop its opposition to common sense ideas like giving small businesses tax cuts for hiring more workers, helping states keep thousands of teachers, firefighters and police officers on the job, and putting thousands of construction workers back to work. It’s time for Congress to end this partisan gridlock and work with the President on behalf of the American people to help grow the economy and support new jobs.

Koch Brothers, Karl Rove and Others Pledge Spending $1 Billion To Defeat President Obama

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations. -  Politico

One New Jersey: GOVERNORS ONE PERCENT UNITE IN WISCONSIN

For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
 

Christie Rushes To Help Embattled Walker in Shared War Against Middle-Class Families

 
(NEW JERSEY) – Today, America’s two most anti-middle-class governors are joining forces, as One Percent Governor Chris Christie heads to Wisconsin to headline two fundraisers for fellow One Percent Governor Scott Walker. By rushing to Walker's aid during this historic recall, it is clear which side Christie stands on in the struggle between middle-class families and corporate interests.


Walker and Christie are cut from the same Koch Brothers cloth. They both do the bidding of deep-pocketed backers at the expense of the middle-class and share the same political D.N.A when it comes to harming the working families who make up the backbone of their states. Just like Walker, Christie demonizes public unions and puts collective bargaining in the crosshairs as the centerpiece of so-called “reform”.

While raking in the right-wing money for Walker, Christie will undoubtedly tout his self-serving and factually-challenged “Jersey Comeback” - while conveniently neglecting to mention that New Jersey consistently lags the rest of the nation when it comes to unemployment. Considering how he shares the same warped worldview as Walker and the donors who support them both, Christie should have little trouble finding red meat to offer fawning audiences in Milwaukee and Green Bay. For once, Christie can rely on the truth – that he and Walker are kindred spirits in promoting the interests of the powerful and politically-connected ahead of the well-being of seniors, children and middle-class families. Tonight, Christie can easily clasp Walker’s hands as, together, they wave the banner of corporate interests while demonizing cops, firefighters, teachers and other public workers.

In New Jersey, Christie has championed rolling back environmental protections, union contracts and health benefits. He’s claimed fiscal discipline in cutting services, while giving handouts, bailouts and tax breaks to casino moguls, mall developers and the wealthiest One Percent. Christie refuses to even contemplate a millionaire's tax, while his much-ballyhooed income tax plan won’t help middle-class families in any meaningful manner. If Christie had his way, a family earning $50,000 would save a piddling $80.50 and a family earning $100,000 would get back just $275. Of course, millionaires will benefit most - by getting back a whopping $7,265.

In taking his swagger to Wisconsin, Christie is clearly embracing both Walker’s regressive policies and his politics of divisiveness. This is no surprise to anyone who has followed Christie’s record in New Jersey – where he has showered the super-wealthy with benefits and freebies, while hammering middle-class families. With a Walker-like reputation of his own, it will only be a matter of time before the people of the Garden State come to the same obvious conclusion against Christie as Wisconsin voters have against the out-of touch governor in the Badger State.

****

One New Jersey is shining a light on politicians who act against the best interests of New Jersey’s residents and who seek to divide our state for their own political gain. It is giving voice to the important issues that affect our daily lives. One New Jersey will closely monitor policy positions and actions of elected officials and expose their records on the issues that matter. You can follow One New Jersey on Twitter or search for “One New Jersey” on Facebook.

Congressman Pallone and Senator Menendez Vow to Protect Medicare for New Jersey Seniors

For Immediate Release:
4/20/12

BELMAR, NJ – Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) met with seniors at Matisse in Belmar, NJ to discuss the future of Medicare, Social Security and the benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  The lawmakers also talked about Republican efforts to end the Medicare guarantee and reopen the Medicare Part D “donut hole” by repealing the ACA.  Pallone and Menendez were hosted by Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty.

 “Republicans in Congress have launched an all-out assault on seniors,” said Pallone.  “Whether it’s through their budget, which ends Medicare as we know it and turns it into a voucher program, or their attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has done so much to make health care more affordable for seniors, Republican policies are hurting seniors.  Senator Menendez and I will continue to fight to maintain the programs that are so critical for New Jersey’s seniors.

” The Republican House Majority recently passed a budget that slashes $1 trillion from Medicare over the next decade and ends the Medicare guarantee, shifting costs to seniors by privatizing the program and creating a voucher system. Based on estimates, this would increase seniors’ health costs by over $6,000 each year.

The Affordable Care Act, which was eliminated in the Republican House budget, has already resulted in real benefits for New Jersey’s seniors. Almost a million New Jersey seniors have taken advantage of free preventative health services now covered under Medicare, such as colonoscopies and mammograms. New Jersey seniors also saved more than $95 million on prescription drugs in 2011 because of discounts provided for in the health care law.

 “Respecting seniors in this country means protecting Medicare and Social Security, not cutting them so we can give tax breaks to Big Oil Companies and tax cuts to billionaires who don’t need them. I can tell you that I will continue to do all I can in Washington and here at home to keep our promise to seniors,” said Senator Menendez.

Congressman Frank Pallone's Statement on Payroll Tax Cut, Unemployment Insurance and Medicare Doc Fix

WASHINGTON D.C.—On Friday, February 17, 2012, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives on the extension of the Payroll Tax Cut, Unemployment Insurance and Medicare doctor’s payment fix. The bill will continue vital programs that provide tax cuts averaging $1,000 for more that 160 millions Americans, extend unemployment insurance payments for those who are out of work through no fault of their own and ensure that doctors can continue to treat Medicare patients. While the extensions of the programs are critical, Congressman Pallone expressed his disappointment that the programs have been saved by cutting benefits to federal workers and payments to hospitals and nursing facilities.

The following is the statement Congressman Pallone delivered on the House Floor:

Thank you, M. Speaker. Today’s payroll tax conference agreement will provide $1,000 in the pockets of more than 160 million Americans and ensure that approximately 3.5 million Americans will continue to benefit from much needed unemployment insurance. We have also protected seniors’ ability to see their doctors with an SGR fix through the end of the year.

Despite these critical provisions, this is a difficult vote to take. I am greatly disappointed over how these extensions are offset. First, the unemployment extension is paid for on the backs of middle class Federal workers. These hardworking men and women continue to be targeted in this Congress – but yet they are not the reason for our nation’s deficits. Meanwhile, my Republican colleagues refuse to require the wealthiest few to pay their fair share.

Secondly, the SGR fix is being paid for with critical health care dollars. In fact, the bill slashes one of the most important investments this country has ever made in preventive health. That is extremely short-sighted. We cannot continue down that path or we will never address the real cost concerns of our health care system.

Sadly, the bill also manages to cut from one provider – hospitals and nursing homes – to help pay for another – physicians. We cannot rob Peter to pay Paul and our health care system cannot sustain further provider cuts. Meanwhile, there is still no permanent solution to an ongoing SGR problem that cannot continue to be kicked down the road again.

I will vote in favor of this bill, but I do so with grave reservations. Thank you.

Media Myth That Cutting Taxes Boosts Revenue Revived For 2012

Media Matters has a terrific post about the myth that tax cuts generate revenues and that bigger tax cuts generate larger revenues.

Media Matters shows how these claims are debunked by not only by those on the Left, like Paul Krugman but also by those on the Right, who actually proposed the claim and sold it to Ronald Reagan and George w. Bush.

Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economist who was the first chairman of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers estimated that a 10 percent tax cut would in fact reduce tax revenue -- but only by 3 to 5 percent.

"It is not that you get more revenue by lowering tax rates, it is that you don't lose as much," he said. [The New York Times, 3/26/08]


Read ... Here

This post I think ties in nicely with the last post from NJPP about what our tax dollars actually pay for.

As A Matter Of Fact ....What Do Taxes Pay For? A Better Quality of Life for Our Children

January 25th, 2012, by Jon Whiten Published in NJPP Blog: As a Matter of Fact ...





While it’s a well-worn cliché that “nobody likes to pay taxes,” one question isn’t asked often enough: what do those taxes pay for?

According to a new national study, they pay for a higher quality of life for our children.

Investing in Public Programs Matters: How State Policies Impact Children’s Lives, released last week by the Foundation for Child Development (FCD), finds “a strong relationship” between state tax rates and the overall quality of life for children.

The report’s key findings are that “higher state taxes are better for children,” and that “greater investments in government programs are strongly related to better quality-of-life for children in a state.”

The report, along with the annual KIDS COUNT data book that ranks New Jersey fifth — comes as states around the country, including New Jersey, are reacting to fiscal crises with austere, cuts-only spending plan, and it shows the folly of such an approach.

“Although states are currently revenue-starved, this is exactly the wrong time to reduce taxes,” says FCD president Rudy Takanishi. “The revenues generated by taxes should be used to invest more in the education and health of our children. Policymakers must recognize that the cost of shortchanging children today is too high a price to pay in the future.”

There’s good news here for New Jersey: the Garden State ranked first in the nation on the Child Well-Being Index, barely edging out Massachusetts. This finding, based on 2007 data, reaffirms the need to resist further cuts to education and other crucial public programs.

The stakes — our children’s well-being, and our state’s future prosperity – couldn’t be higher.

President Obama's Weekly Address 12/3/11 : Extending and Expanding the Payroll Tax Cut

President Obama calls on Congress to extend and expand the payroll tax cut -- to protect middle class families and ensure that the economy continues to grow