Well before the very end of the next decade even at continued sluggish GDP growth rates, the federal government would be out up to $4.3 trillion if the 2001, 2003 and AMT take cuts are made permanent which is precisely what Bush, McCain and all the Republicans want. Pizzagatti is correct. This give away to the upper one percent of tax payers would do more to produce an equities bubble than all the federal funds rate cuts by the FED in the last decade combined!! This is the essence of the current epoch's pattern of financialization. Tax cuts, interest rate cuts (the current fed rate is 3% as of January 30), a strong US dollar and massive foreign capital inflows fueled by the equities bubble created not by corporate growth but rising share prices due to low interest rates and the ability of firms to raise capital.

Non-financial corporate debt has remained significant though declining. Since 2002, debt/equity ratios for the S&P 500's non-financial firm dropped precipitously from 75% to 40%. Yet by evaluating a firm's assets according to replacement costs some analysts have concluded that the debt asset ratio has actually increased from 45% to 52%. Inflated asset prices gave the appearance of greater solvency. This has made large corporations vulnerable to the current recession and the resulting stock market declines. Company balance sheets no longer reflect the strength of the stock market. They are more leveraged than previously thought. They are also far more vulnerable to financial shocks like the ongoing subprime meltdown. Increasingly, our economy looks like a proverbial house of cards. Foreign investors won't stay on board forever.

It is time for sanity to be restored to the national economy. Eventually, the instability of the US dollar and the worsening fragility of US financial markets will drive foreign holders of growing US debt out of the US market. We need to restore taxes on the very rich to pay down the deficit and reduce the bubbles. Furthermore, we need real reform to reregulate the banking industry and other large industries to reduce monopoly power and corrupt practices. The restoration of Glass-Steagall is an absolute must!! We need to restore the incomes of the working and middle classes. Strong unions and minimum wage laws have a role to play. The destruction of efficient, profitable domestic manufacturers over pennies on the dollar by big box oligopsonists like Walmart who have shifted to cheaper overseas suppliers must be reversed. A business strategy that merely squeezes cost out of global supply chains through retail led competitive pressures will eventually cost rather than bring savings to the domestic US economy. We must restore domestic manufacturing with a package of workable incentives not massive tax cuts that just return loads of money to the rich with no growth of fresh investment.

In addition, we need to build a new economy. One based on the rebuilding of our major physical and infrastructure. We need to invest in resources saving and employment generating mass transit, universal health care, renewable energy generation, road and bridge repair for major metropolitan areas and affordable housing. This is more of a stimulus to the current sluggish economy than more tax cuts for the rich that have led us to the current recession and paltry rebates to the working poor intended to buy votes in an election year.

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While I'm no where near that magic $1million number..I saw recently that the top %5 of the nations earners paid over 1/3 of all taxes while the top %15 pays over %50 of all taxes. So while I'd like to have the tax cuts myself it still seems that the top earners pay more than their share while the bottom earners do not..

As for spending, no need to cut programs, just cut the waste and pork. Washington will never do it..They'd just rather raise taxes. It's eaiser.

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Carbon based makes that old argument that the rich pay the most taxes. Of course they do - they have most of the money in America. But the taxes have no real impact on them at all - They still live luxuriously. For a rich person to pay 30% of his income (and for these purposes let's say $500K a year is rich) - it would still leave him with $350K in income. That is astonishing and far beyond the wildest dreams of any ordinary worker. Now let's say the $50K worker pays 30% (which really does happen in real life). That means he lives on $35K a year. There is no real cushion there, especially when house values have been pushed sky high by those who received indefensible tax breaks...when he could lose his job at the whim of Wall Street...when gasoline and healthcare and other expenses just keep rising - remember, this person probably doesn't get a comparable raise for that.

But the CEO on Wall Street - he gets everything - and doesn't need anything. Imagine - you, my fellow median and under income tax payers, are paying for that CEO to have a free healthcare policy - because overpaid CEOs get all kinds of freebies they don't need or deserve, thanks to the amoral and greed based market engineering we have now. The CEO who gets say $100 million in a year - many times does not pay for many of the services he receives - because, unbelieveably, they are given to him - and worse, most CEOs have no shame and they accept these freebies in addition to being grossly overpaid in the first place.

But the regular worker pays for everything - and he feels the pinch. That is why his tax rate has so much more of an effect than any tax on the top.

And money begets money - we should never forget how it just builds and builds for those who least need it, and how downward spirals are devastating and unstoppable for the bottom. That is why we need not worry about the top. They are not doing any sort of suffering here nor any sort of service by paying a large aggregate of income taxes - it in fact should be much more, to negate the imbalance of power that comes with profound riches and profound greed. This is what has produced the subprime "crisis" - the engineering of wealth flow to the very top, while waging war on wage earners....not building affordable housing or having sensible economic policies....finally we see the devastating results. What a surprise - the regressive tax code, the overpriced housing, the power leveraged entirely towards the top...has produced a crippled economy. Median and under income customers just can't buy anything any more...what a shock. I guess all of those taxes paid by the rich just didn't help after all. Maybe we should go back to the rip-roaring 1950s where everyone enjoyed prodigious economic growth and the top tax rate was a more sensible 70%. The moral is, you can't steal from your customers and expect them to have the continuing economic power to participate in the economy. Ponzi schemes just don't work and the rich pay the most taxes argument just doesn't work either - after all when you look at who is hurting here, it certainly isn't them.

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I'd like to take this opportunity to identify IdiotBush as the miserable,no-good, cowardly son of a b---h that he is, on this day dedicated to love.

I wish you a most tortured end to your worthless life and may it extend to your equally worthless elite family of war-profiteers, dating back to your trecherous grandfather Prescott Bush who never saw a war he didn't like, as he dealt business with Nazi Germany, even while our nations were at war and our soldiers were dying. Happy Valentine you coward!

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