Tax Breaks for the Rich, or Food Aid for the Poor, Oh, What to Do? What to Do?

The current Super Committee goal is to find a minimum of $1 trillion dollars in savings over ten years, in combination of tax revenues and spending cuts. There are those in Congress pushing for a $4 trillion dollar package, which would be my preference, but the base goal is $1 trillion over ten years, or about $100 billion a year.

According the Tim Dickinson’s article in the Rolling Stone-- How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich- there are 400 households in the US that average $350,000,000, yes $350 MILLION, a year in income. In total this group of 400 pulls down a nifty $140 BILLION a year in income. A 10% surcharge on this group of 400 would raise about $14 Billion a year or just under 15% of the total target amount. A 10% tax surcharge on 400 taxpayers pulling down an average of $350 MILLION a year would fulfill almost 1/6th of the goal.

There are about eight million Americans that earn over $1 Million a year. In total these households pull down $8 trillion a year. A 2% surcharge on these incomes would raise about $160 Billion a year, a three percent surcharge would bring in $240 billion a year. Over ten years the 2% surcharge would raise $1.6 trillion, more than the budget reduction target.

Does anyone really feel that the “job creators", earning a million or more a year, would stop hiring, maids, nanny’s, drivers, gardeners and landscapers, tutors for their kids and so forth if their income was reduced by $20,000 a year?

According to Mother Jones magazine the average income of the highest income groups has grown by nearly 1/3 since 2000. Which means this tax surcharge would amount to a fraction of the increase portion in their compensation/ wealth in that period.

Let’s see, we can cut Medicare, Social Security, medical care for the poor or do this. Oh, oh, oh what to do???

Romney wants to close the gap by cutting off all funding for Planned Parenthood, which is just over $350 Million a year. Anyone who proposes cutting PP funding as a partial down payment to close the yawning budget gap is not a serious political person. The person is a soulless demagogue pandering to his party’s right wing religious nut job faction.

The US will spend upwards of $70 Billion in 2011 on food stamps. Seems like an insane amount of money to spend and we can be sure that there are some abusing the system. But that expense supports over 45 million people in putting food on the table every day.  According to the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine about one in two children will at some point in their lives between the ages of 1 and 20 receive some sort of food aid through the SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp program. One in six Americans are feed at least partially by Food Stamps.

Of course the rich want their wealth, apparently all of it, but the question is not what anyone wants, but what is right for America.