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Elizabeth Warren |
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the next woman to get the police
to extradite your ass to Washington State |
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Richard Baehr h/t Docs Talk) For three years after college, U.S. President Barack Obama was a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side. In September, his former green jobs czar, Van Jones, who left the White House after his radical background and views were exposed by Glenn Beck, promised that America would take to the streets in October, expanding Occupy Wall Street to a mass movement around the country. The president’s adviser, Elizabeth Warren, who helped form the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and is now a U.S. Senate candidate in Massachusetts, claimed she created the intellectual foundation for Occupy Wall Street, remarks she has since backed away from a bit as the movement has turned violent, and others have challenged her proclaimed role. Democratic members of the House and Senate, and the president himself, have shown some affection or sympathy for the growing movement, and certainly for its message of the 1 percent versus the 99%.Since the Republicans took back control of the U.S. House, the president has led the charge with the mantra of “us (the great majority of Americans, asked to make sacrifices due to reduced federal spending) versus them (the rich and the corporations, who need to contribute more through higher taxes).” The president’s message has been divisive and stark -- that the choice facing the country was whether to continue tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, corporate jet owners, oil companies and hedge funds, or to hire police, firefighters and teachers. Put simply, the president’s message was public need versus greed. The facts that the top 1% pays 38% of the income tax burden, and that its share of the tax burden has been rising faster than its share of national income, are not allowed to get in the way of the inequality demagoguery. The president’s proposals call for a top income tax rate of 45% on wages, interest and dividends, a top capital gains tax rate of 24%, a 2.5% Medicare tax, plus state and income taxes (as high as 10% in some states). The near 60% marginal tax rate would be almost double the top combined rate established 25 years ago by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s agreement with then New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley.