American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

While almost all working Americans will pay into Social Security through their paychecks throughout the year, the 900 wealthiest people in the country won’t. That’s because the highest-earning 0.0001 percent of the U.S. — many of them corporate CEOs — made $117,000 in the first two days of the year, which is the maximum annual income that is subject to Social Security taxes under federal law.

It’s tough to say for certain who will be a part of this group in 2014, since the most recent available data on Americans’ earnings is from 2012. In that year, 894 individuals nationwide made enough to qualify for membership in this club, according to the Los Angeles Times. Economist Teresa Ghilarducci came up with the calculation, and points out that Forbes data on top earners enables analysts and the public to see some of the members of this group. There were nearly 70 corporate CEOs who made enough to qualify in 2012, including the top officers at companies like Philip Morris, NewsCorp, Starbucks, ComCast, and Pfizer.

They get to live the year free from Social Security taxes because the law says that only the first $117,000 earned in a year can be taxed to fund the retirement program that kept more than 15 million people out of poverty in 2011. Democrats have pushed to raise the cap in recent years from $106,800 in 2009 to the current level. Eliminating the cap entirely could make the program solvent for the next 75 years without cutting a dime from anyone’s benefits — and doing so wouldn’t touch the earnings of 94.2 percent of all American workers.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/03/3118281/rich-social-security-taxes/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_01/jesse_myerson_throws_down_five048479.php

It’s called “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For.” Myerson’s reforms are the following:

1. Guaranteed Work for Everybody
2. Social Security for All
3. Take Back The Land
4. Make Everything Owned by Everybody
5. A Public Bank in Every State
All right, settle down, these proposals are hardly as far-out as they may sound on first hearing. Number one is a public works program, number two is a universal basic income, the third is a land value tax, the fourth is collectivizing wealth ownership by having the government buy up private sector assets and paying a dividend to all citizens (Alaska has a program similar to this in place), and the fifth is pretty much what it says: i.e., a public bank that doesn’t rip off its customers or rape the country.

As Digby points out, the wingnuts are having a meltdown over Myerson’s article

"disorderly conduct," myerson's podcast with alexis goldstein, is fuckin awesome and highly recommended.

(alexis goldstein, Wall Street IT nerd turned OWS talking head)

Ohhhhh good good good I needed a new podcast! Excellent. I love Alexis Goldstein.

she asked my mic advice for the show! i was flattered. they only do a show like once a month tho, i wish they were on more often.

I want to say lots of things about how incongruously small and elfin she is but I won't.

Okay I will. She's this unassuming looking small person with economic justice superpowers just blackly gathering, swirling under her hoodie, waiting to be released. She legit might be a superhero.

thx for the tip hood

hoos

<3

also <3 tiny alexis

the comments in the Rolling Stone article are edifying.

Boy there sure are a lot of libertarians on the internet.

lol

good god that myerson article

Sad Frank Luntz is sad.

A few weeks after our lunch, Luntz tells me he's made a move. He has changed his principal residence from Northern Virginia to a condo overlooking the Las Vegas Strip

that should make him feel better, i always hear las vegas is really nice

Most of all, Luntz says, he wishes we would stop yelling at one another. Luntz dreams of drafting some of the rich CEOs he is friends with to come up with a plan for saving America from its elected officials. "The politicians have failed; now it's up to the business community to stand up and be heard," he tells me. "I want the business community to step up." Having once thought elites needed to listen to regular people, he now wants the people to learn from their moneyed betters.

if only business could have an impact on our politics in some way

Speaking of which there's a big Washington Post article today on the Koch brothers and their network

Koch Bros influence is overrated imho, they're kind of an easy target but there are so many other groups basically writing terrible legislation

OTM. Picking out one group or another misses the point.

Koch Brothers help fund ALEC, one of the largest of such legislation writing groups http://www.thenation.com/article/161973/alec-exposed-koch-connection

From today's W. Post article:

The filings show that the network of politically active nonprofit groups backed by the Kochs and fellow donors in the 2012 elections financially outpaced other independent groups on the right and, on its own, matched the long-established national coalition of labor unions that serves as one of the biggest sources of support for Democrats.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/koch-backed-political-network-built-to-shield-donors-raised-400-million-in-2012-elections/2014/01/05/9e7cfd9a-719b-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html

x-post

I know there's the Chamber of Commerce acting upon behalf of business and a zillion others all influencing Congress for years in ways that Luntz wants to pretend does not happen.

there is a hivemind out there

but Scorsese's transgressive, numbing film will wake everyone up

wake them up until the next bright shiny crusade appears

this country loves to take a nap

sometimes at the movie theatre

Yeah it's pretty clear that American politics overwhelmingly represent the business community (and have since the beginning).

Actually even before the beginning.

and now after the end

i haven't read that yet, but this sentence -- "Luntz dreams of drafting some of the rich CEOs he is friends with to come up with a plan for saving America from its elected officials." -- could be a slightly unfair gloss on him?

i mean, i'm well primed to hear pinochet behind every business-centrist utterance, but that's pretty blatant

^^ crux of that sentence is "saving America from", which is a bit crafty, but not a bit subtle.

(we should have a new thread but i can't think of a title)

i guess we're long into the 'wheels coming off' stage here

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/robert-gates-former-defense-secretary-offers-harsh-critique-of-obamas-leadership-in-duty/2014/01/07/6a6915b2-77cb-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html

^^^ this story was MADE for FOX News/Sunday morning fare

Bob Woodward's ego and Bob Gates' ego

hah thats what you get for having a republican in your administration you fucking idiot

Gates’s severe criticism is even more surprising — some might say contradictory — because toward the end of “Duty,” he says of Obama’s chief Afghanistan policies, “I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.”

ok get the fuck outta here

Everyone in DC loves this congenital spook and liar whose ass was never subpoenaed for Iran-Contra.

the article makes it seem like gates is mad obama wasnt lovin all these FUCKED UP bush admin wars and wouldnt implicitly trust the generals, etc when he came to office. well, no shit.

"Similarly, in a battle over defense spending, “I was extremely angry with President Obama,” Gates writes. “I felt he had breached faith with me . . . on the budget numbers.” As with “don’t ask, don’t tell,” “I felt that agreements with the Obama White House were good for only as long as they were politically convenient.”"

this also assumes obama has control over the fucking budget. yeah how has that process been going the last 6 years?

At a March 3, 2010, National Security Council meeting, Gates writes, the president opened with a “blast.” Obama criticized the military for “popping off in the press” and said he would push back hard against any delay in beginning the withdrawal.

According to Gates, Obama concluded, “ ‘If I believe I am being gamed . . .’ and left the sentence hanging there with the clear implication the consequences would be dire.”

Gates continues: “I was pretty upset myself. I thought implicitly accusing” Petraeus, and perhaps Mullen and Gates himself, “of gaming him in front of thirty people in the Situation Room was inappropriate, not to mention highly disrespectful of Petraeus. As I sat there, I thought: the president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand [Afghanistan President Hamid] Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

ok seriously this man is defense secretary genius guru?

“I got up at five every morning to run two miles around the Mall in Washington, past the World War II, Korean, and Vietnam memorials, and in front of the Lincoln Memorial. And every morning before dawn, I would ritually look up at that stunning white statue of Lincoln, say good morning, and sadly ask him, How did you do it?”

is he trying to consult for sorkin in his dotage or something

the loneliness of the middle distance runner

think Gates should hook up with Frank Luntz.

I would ritually look up at that stunning white statue of Lincoln, say good morning, and sadly ask him, How did you do it?”

By telling McClellan to go fuck himself?

Gates was so aggrieved about Obama that he kept his limo privileges and stayed four years.

getting thru this luntz piece -- he's a sneaker pimp lol