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Thom's blog
The Spending Bill Charade
 The tax bill is all about cutting income to the federal government and over a 10-year period the top one percent are going to gain five trillion dollars. The bottom 99 percent are going to lose three and a half trillion dollars. And the remaining one and a half trillion dollars will be added to the national debt. Also, we can give a five trillion dollar tax cut - they keep characterizing it as a one and a half trillion dollar tax cut: no that's just the amount added to the debt - when you add the amount that they're taking away from people who make less than a million dollars a year and giving to people who make more than a million dollars a year, it's a five trillion dollar tax cut. Now, that's the tax cut. That doesn't deal with spending. The Constitution is very clear that only Congress can appropriate, only Congress can lay taxes, only Congress can appropriate funds to be spent. The spending of them is done by the Executive Branch but the appropriation of those funds, the gathering of the money, the authorization of the money, the handing the money over to the Executive Branch so that they can spend it, that all happens within Congress. And so Congress has to come up with a spending bill and they don't have one. They've been operating under continuing resolutions for years. Basically all a continuing resolution says is, you know whatever we did last year, we're going to do the same thing this year. And the problem with that is it doesn't adjust things to inflation at all. It's not even as bad as the CPI that the Republicans are going to use to calculate your future taxes, to move working class people, middle class people, into higher tax brackets more rapidly. Keep in mind, the very rich are already at the highest tax bracket, they don't care about bracket creep. They don't care about inflation. All they care about is their taxes going away. Read more here. -Thom (What do you think? Tell us here.) |
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Tuesday's Daily Stack 
Hour One: Train Tracks, Cockpit Doors & 911
How Lobbying Pays Off...
Quote: "[A conservative is someone who] stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it." " by William F. Buckley Jr.
Quote: " The occupation of an hairdresser, or of a working tallow-chandler, cannot be a matter of honour to any person — to say nothing of a number of other more servile employments. Such descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or collectively, are permitted to rule. In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature" - Edmund Burke. Quote: " I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon" - Thomas Paine. Article: " 10th Amendment" " The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"
Article: " Preamble to the Constitution of the United States". "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Article: " Constitution of the United States" Article 1 section 8 (Powers of Congress). " The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States..."
Letter: " Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Monticello" by Thomas Jefferson, September 23, 1800. " for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." |
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Wednesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET
Congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI, 2nd District) will be calling in to talk about the issues of the day and take your calls.
And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...
The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"
And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...
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Thom's Poll
Should Senator Al Franken Have Resigned?
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Watch & Listen to Thom
Cutting Regulations Is Already Killing Us, The Tax Scam Will Make Inequality Worse
The Working Class Will See Their Taxes Rise, The Rich Get a Tax Break
The Tax Scam Means Some Won't Be Able To Afford Getting Sick
Do The Koch Bros Hate Everything That's Good For America
Is Slave Labor Putting Out Fires In California?
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