Bill Bradley: Taxes need to go up on more than just the wealthy

[Torie]

Who knew?  Is anyone but Clarence and myself old enough to remember Bill Bradley? 

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Foolish idea.

[Redalgo]

I strongly agree with Bill on this, though it is probably one of the very hardest things to sell to voters.

[opebo]

Who knew?  Is anyone but Clarence and myself old enough to remember Bill Bradley? 

It is garbage of course, but then again I'd be perfectly happy to hit the 100k+ crowd quite hard anyway.

The key is that if we are to raise taxes on these petit bourgeois or upper-working class types, we need to have at least first destroyed, as much as possible, the privilege of the parasitic class which rules over them - through confiscatory tax rates.

[anvi]

Who knew?  Is anyone but Clarence and myself old enough to remember Bill Bradley? 

I happen to remember him well.

[Badger]

Who knew?  Is anyone but Clarence and myself old enough to remember Bill Bradley? 

I happen to remember him well.

<raises hand>

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I remember him, too. It was only 12 years ago that he was Gore's only primary opponent of note.

Anyways, He's not the one person who wants all of the the Bush tax cuts to expire, but that's unlikely to happen.

[hopper]

Bill Bradley is probably right about this one.

[Beet]

I agree with Bill Bradley on this one. There simply isn't enough potential revenue from wealthy earners alone. I would even consider reviving the corporate tax on undistributed profits, so long as they were above a certain level. But with a complete expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the rest of the gap should be able to be closed by spending cuts.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's unpalatable but Bill's probably right.

I don't 'remember' Bradley myself but my mother was a huge fan and supporter of his for a long time despite not living in New Jersey until relatively recently.

[anvi]

I agree with hopper, Beet and Nathan--and Bradley--too.  Eliminating the Bush tax cuts on only the top 2.5% of income earners will net the Treasury about $1.2 trillion over the next ten years, while eliminating them all all taxpayers will bring in approximately $3.9 trillion.  If we're serious about both reducing our debt and funding program obligations so important to the left, it's clearly best to let all the rates go back to Clinton era levels.  Bradley is just plain old fashioned correct.

[Napoleon]

I agree with hopper, Beet and Nathan--and Bradley--too.  Eliminating the Bush tax cuts on only the top 2.5% of income earners will net the Treasury about $1.2 trillion over the next ten years, while eliminating them all all taxpayers will bring in approximately $3.9 trillion.  If we're serious about both reducing our debt and funding program obligations so important to the left, it's clearly best to let all the rates go back to Clinton era levels.  Bradley is just plain old fashioned correct.

These are the tough decisions that will have to be made whether we like it or not.

[Simfan34]

I own his memoirs. But he's right, and anvi sums it up well- if we really want to get serious about being to cut the debt, we need to raise taxes. Both parties promise the average voter more services with lower taxes, which is just impossible.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Yes, punish the taxpayers for wanting so many government benefits. I'm not being sarcastic either. Time to teach the world things cost.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I think it's a destructive proposal that we should raise taxes on middle class consumers at this time.  After the recession would be a good time to discuss rolling back everything to the Clinton-era rates, but economic recovery needs to be the top priority right now.

[phk]

I think it's a destructive proposal that we should raise taxes on middle class consumers at this time.  After the recession would be a good time to discuss rolling back everything to the Clinton-era rates, but economic recovery needs to be the top priority right now.

The recession has been over for 3 years.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I think it's a destructive proposal that we should raise taxes on middle class consumers at this time.  After the recession would be a good time to discuss rolling back everything to the Clinton-era rates, but economic recovery needs to be the top priority right now.

The recession has been over for 3 years.

Ah, right.

Should have phrased that differently.

[fezzyfestoon]

Perhaps, but it's quite a weak way to solve our problems. There would still be massive campaigns to enforce excessive spending to spur profits for corporations to "create jobs" at the lowest possible wage. Meanwhile people still wouldn't have any money. May as well just take it and put it towards something worthwhile I suppose.

[Sbane]

I agree with the sentiment, though maybe I wouldn't raise taxes on any single person making less than 50k and any family making less than 80k. It won't bring in the almost $4 Trillion letting the entire tax cuts lapse would bring in, but it would be much more substantial than the roughly $1 Trillion tax hike being proposed by the Democrats currently. The way I see it at least $2 Trillion in taxes over 10 years is needed with about $3 Trillion in spending cuts. And most importantly, we need to make sure it isn't passed through reconciliation so every 10 years it can be used as a political football. Republicans complain about not providing certainty when they themselves play the same games.....

[hopper]

I agree with the sentiment, though maybe I wouldn't raise taxes on any single person making less than 50k and any family making less than 80k. It won't bring in the almost $4 Trillion letting the entire tax cuts lapse would bring in, but it would be much more substantial than the roughly $1 Trillion tax hike being proposed by the Democrats currently. The way I see it at least $2 Trillion in taxes over 10 years is needed with about $3 Trillion in spending cuts. And most importantly, we need to make sure it isn't passed through reconciliation so every 10 years it can be used as a political football. Republicans complain about not providing certainty when they themselves play the same games.....

I think the Bush Tax Cuts shouldn't be extended for people making over 1 or 1.5 million a year per say.

Yeah something like your plan making 3 trillion dollar in cuts and the 2 trillion dollars in tax increases could work in my opinion.

How much debt could we eliminate if we eliminated duplicate programs in the US Government? I heard US Senator Tom Coburn(R-OK) said we could elimimate 9 trillion dollars in deficit if we eliminated duplicate programs in the US Government.

Oh yeah raise the retirement age in entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security too. Have to put that on the table too.

[Badger]

If coburn said it, don't trust it.

Increased life expectancies have been confined largely to the uppeer middle class and up in recent decades. Despite advances in medical technology, life epectancy rates amoong workibg class and poor people have increased little.

Telling janitors factory workers they need to work more years because lawyers and accountants are living longer ain't cool.

[Green State]

I think it's a destructive proposal that we should raise taxes on middle class consumers at this time.  After the recession would be a good time to discuss rolling back everything to the Clinton-era rates, but economic recovery needs to be the top priority right now.

The recession has been over for 3 years.

Not it is not the American people are still suffering greatly under the neo-liberal policies put in place by both the Republicans & the Democrats.