This is not a recovery. It’s a continuing jobs emergency and it demands action.

I borrowed the title from Robert Reich because it just seem to fit the mood I was in, as I started to write this, and I had just read Robert's blog.

http://robertreich.org/post/2082971308

We now have over 15 million unemployed. plus another 1.3 million who have given up looking for work. U6 has been 16.5% to 17.3% for the last year or so. And we no longer have the infrastructure to replace those jobs, that infrastructure must be rebuilt. Tax breaks for the wealthy to build the factories that manufacture solar panels and wind turbines, start up incentives for installers, and incentives for the consumer to buy. But thats only a few million jobs, but its a start.

Just in the NYC area alone; mass transit connections from NJ to NYC, thru to Queens and Brooklyn, a southerly and a northerly route, 4 tunnels. High speed rail from Bangor Maine thru DC, a southerly route and a northern route to the west coast, link up to Chicago. Thats another few million jobs.

The CCC and the WPA was not just about infrastructure building as in bridges and roads and National parks. There was an educational component, getting high school degrees, building the buildings that became teachers schools, building new college campuses to be filled by the new teachers, and once the actual infrastructure for a University system was in place, filling them with students. Over the last 30 years financial services as a percent of GDP has risen from 10% to 22%, and it took University faculty to crank out the MBA's and such that made this possible. Our university system needs to be rebuilt, refocusing on science and emerging technologies and not how to scam the SEC.

6 tax brackets are just not cutting it, there is too much of a difference between someone who makes 250k and 2.7 million annually. 20 tax brackets would far better describe the arc that is an effective progressive tax. Think of it this way, do 6 pixels describe a curve on your computer very well? And wouldn't 20 pixels do a much better job? In the 1980's Reagan gave the wealthiest a 60% tax cut, and doubled payroll taxes. He also defunded Federal programs in schools - putting the burden on municipal tax systems to make up the difference. Federally mandated school programs used to be funded by the Feds, now its something on the order of 26% Federal funding. A 70% percent top individual rate can be used to pay for all these investments .. investments in the future of our country.



GNP in 1934 was 11%, 1935-9%, 1936-13.9%, thats what recovery looks like.

From 1933 to 1936 unemployment dropped from 25% to 14%, not a bad start to recovery. (Full employment did not come until the run up to WW2, and then there was an acute labor shortage by 1942.)

GNP in 1936 exceeded that of 1929. (103 billion compared to 96 billion.) Thats what recovery looks like.

In 1936 Chevy set a record for selling sedans, Louis Armstrong seta record for selling records.

Right now half the individuals in this country make 27k or less.......
Whats in your wallet?

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Why stake out a losing position to begin with? him

Democrats could\should stop talking about the Bush tax cuts. When do we start talking about what a reasonable tax is?  How about a 50, 60, 70 or 75% top rate with 20 tax brackets. Not 6 brackets....we used to have 67. This country worked its way out of the Depression, won WW2, won the cold war with 60% to 94% to rates. Defending the Bush tax cuts expiration is a stunning defeat in the battle of ideas.

Obama, Moveon.org and a number of dem organizations seem hung up on defending positions that are untenable and then compromising their fundamental values away, and now the republicans have a majority in the house. 

Why a progressive income tax system?

Revenue, right? Nope... thats what a lot of peole think but they really miss the mark, there's more to it than revenue. And right now with U6 longterm unemployment (June) rising from 16.3% to (Oct) 17.5%, and looking to break 18% by late winter/early spring, I have a question:

The question I ask tonite is what sort of society do we want?

Do we allow the wealthy to oppress the rest of us? Do we call for a more Egalitarian society? (Less economic oppression) Low tax rates like we've had since Reagan are considered progressive, but they have a regressive effect, taxing the working poor and middle classes out of the economy, as a result families are less capable of taking care of their own, and more often than not rely on government hand outs.

When tax rates are high enough, the working poor and middle classes are engaged in the economy. The point is having a large and vigorous middle class that can participate as citizen legislators, send its kids to college, so those kids can invent lots of cool stuff for the corporations to make money off of. Consider kids as assets. How do you make best use of those assets? Educate those assets of course.



The above chart is from the Heritage Foundation, the infamous conservative think tank, where much of the Kool Aid is actually manufactured. The really funny thing is, when reading the title, the opposite is also true, lower tax rates don't raise more revenue.

The Progressive Policy Institute says basically the same thing, comparing real low tax rates to real high tax rates.

By itself, economic theory cannot choose between the two cases, and hard economic evidence does not fully support either side.

If low rates or high rates raised more revenue there would a correlation between the next 2 charts:

As you can see, Reagans 28% raised no more revenue as a percent of GDP, than when Ike jacked up the top rate to 94%. (IIRC there was a recession caused when Ike went too high) I fail to see any real relation to tax rates and revenue, but I do see a relation to low tax rates and economic oppression (Do you see those 2 yellow lines?).

Not too long ago Thom Hartmann wrote:

"Progressive taxation has a long history: As Jefferson said in a 1785 letter to James Madison, "Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise." Hartman concludes, "Progressive taxation has helped create every middle class in the First World, and without it the middle class will vanish."

As a percent of GDP, revenues are incredibly consistent, Something I think Bill Clinton clearly understood when he raised the top rate a little and concentrated on getting the economy really ramped up, as GDP increased so did revenue, and over time Clinton was able to balance the budget. And do note that the economic stimulus happens first, and balancing the budget occurs later. FDR wanted to balance the budget in 1937, after all GDP in 1936 was a touch higher than inn 1929, 1936 was a good year, nearly 14% GDP growth, hours worked were down, wages were up But FDR made the mistake of cutting back the WPA and the rest of the stim programs in 1937, causing a recession. FDR learned his lesson and brought back the stim packages he had cut, plus he added a 200 ship navy building program.

If all you want to do is balance the budget, then just get the economy cranked up. If you want the idea called democracy to work, where folks get involved in participatory government, then you must stop economic oppression in the form of a tax system that taxes the majority of us out of the economy, and leaves running for office an entitlement for inherited money.

So at this point I am renewing my call for an increase of the Individual top tax rate to at least 60%, and using a minimum of 10 tax brackets to get the proper progressivity amongst the top quintile of income earners. In simple terms if you have individual income, not family income, of 90k, you'll see a tax break. I'm not just talking about letting the Bush tax cuts sunset, I'm talking about sunsetting Reagans 60% tax cut for the richest amongst us.

And don't even get me started on the 12 millin jobs we need and the stimulus to craete them, Arrggg.....