A Republican Surtax On Millionaires? Of Course Not

Yesterday Arkansas freshman Rick Crawford introduced a bill in the House, The Shared Responsibility in Preserving America’s Future Act, which the Village media has been breathlessly hyping as a wonderful, almost Broderesque surtax on millionaires. It isn't. It's another call for a Republican Balanced Budget Amendment that Crawford and his cronies would like to balance on the backs of working families by severely cutting back on the social safety net. In return-- and after the Balanced Budget Amendment passes-- Crawford's plan would authorize a 5% surtax on individual income exceeding $1 million annually (income, not wealth). Crawford: "Republicans have long championed a balanced budget amendment to force the federal government to live within its means. Democrats have pushed for new taxes on millionaires to address our debt. This reasonable approach can be the beginning of a new era in Washington where Congress puts the needs of the country first and stops burdening future generations of Americans with immense debt.”

Crawford's district is traditionally Democratic and he has two Democratic opponents, an ultra conservative Blue Dog, Clark Hall and Gary Latanich, a progressive economist. Hall, whose reactionary economic and fiscal views pretty much mirror Crawford's, so his attempt to disguise his corporate views in populist drag yesterday fell flat. “Rick Crawford," Hall said in a press release, "thinks taking all sides of an issue and holding one’s finger up to the political wind will help his election chances. In reality, it’s political cowardice, and the only compromise Rick Crawford has shown willingness for is a compromise of his principles." Gary Latanich took a more comprehensive approach in addressing Crawford's claims to having a plan to resolve the deficit and the debt crisis. "What Congressman Crawford is calling for," he told me this morning, "is an additional tax on those making more than $1 million per year. The suggested tax increase is something slightly more than 2.5%. According to Congressman Crawford, without some form of revenue enhancement, any proposals for reducing the deficit have no chance of passing in the Democratically controlled Senate."

"On this point the Congressman is probably right, without revenue enhancements, which Democrats see as “shared” sacrifice, any deficit reduction proposal is dead on arrival. And while this seems like a major concession by a Republican, it is just political posturing because he also wants it to be packaged with a proposal for a balanced budget amendment.

"Let’s take a closer look at Congressman Crawford’s proposal. He’s interested in an additional tax on millionaires. As far as an additional tax on those at the upper end of the income distribution is concerned, this is most appropriate given the increasingly skewed distribution of income we’ve experienced since the end of the 1970s. The first problem, thought, is with his timing. Now is not the time to raise taxes. Any tax hike at this time will reduce demand, and even though the demand reductions may be small, they are not what is needed at a time when the demand for goods and services is not sufficiently large to significantly reduce unemployment.

"The time for his proposal to be implemented is when the economy is well on the road to recovery, when the nation is nearing the full employment. At that time a comprehensive tax reform should be undertaken. It should include additional tax hikes for those making considerably more than $1 million, and it should also contain relief for those at the bottom of the income ladder. In addition, there should be a closing of tax loopholes, such as the preferential tax treatment of dividends and capital gains, both of which should be taxed as ordinary income.

"But the real flaw in his proposal, the one that makes me think that it is just for show, is its attachment to a balance budget amendment. The annually balanced budget amendment is pro cyclical. That means it will intensify any recession or inflation we enter into. If the annually balanced budget amendment were in place today, it would force the government to cut spending by more the $500 billion, and raise taxes by a like amount. A $1 trillion cut in the federal budget would send the economy into a Greek style nose dive, which in the end, would leave us in the same condition that we were during the Great Depression.

"The annually balanced budget amendment always forces the government to do exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time, cut spending during a recession making it worse, or raise spending during an inflation making it worse. Nice try Mr. Crawford, but you economics is still wrong for Arkansas and the nation."

Last year Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced a real millionaires surtax bill in each House. Conservatives killed the bills, of course, but the Congressional Progressive Caucus is planning on reintroducing their ideas as part of their budget proposal this year. Sanders proposal was paired with his legislation eliminating tax breaks for Big Oil. “It would be morally wrong for the United States to balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in our society while asking nothing from the wealthiest," he said at the time. In fact, he says it all the time. It's been a hallmark of his career-- which is why he's the only incumbent Senator on the Blue America Senate page. Bernie's bill called for a 5.4 percent surtax on adjusted gross incomes over $1 million would raise as much as $50 billion a year. “In the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, America's middle class and working families have already paid a very heavy price in terms of lost jobs, lost homes, lost wages, and lost opportunity,” Sanders said. “The time has come to ask the wealthiest in our society and the most profitable corporations in America to help our nation address its deficit crisis.”

Superficially, the Beltway media may equate what Crawford is proposing with what Sanders and Schakowsky tried to get passed. But the two things aren't really alike. Crawford further penalizes working families and helps entrench plutocracy in this country. Bernie's legislation would strike a blow for economic justice and for democracy itself. That simple.

How Have Those Town Hall Meetings Been Working Out For Big Business' Congressional Shills?

As you've been reading all week, and as you can see in the compilation clip above, not all that well. And yesterday another teabaggy freshman, Rick Crawford of Arkansas, became just the latest to feel the wrath of his constituents, angry at Crawford's vote to gut Medicare. At his first-ever congressional town hall, Crawford followed suggestions from the GOP conference call from earlier in the week insisting that all questions be pre-screened. When audience members kept shouting at him he just announced "We're done," stalked away from the podium imperiously, and left the meeting.

Others are trying to lie their way out of their own black-and-white voting records-- and not just about wrecking Medicare. Cornered like rats by their constituents, several Republicans-- each of whom has voted several times to extend billions of dollars to Big Oil in taxpayers subsidies-- have publicly said they now (as opposed to last month) support the Democratic position: ending subsidies to Oil giants. Even Boehner, who has now backed away from it, said Big Oil "ought to be paying their fair share." Paul Ryan and Daniel "Taliban Dan" Webster were screamed into submission by angry constituents at town hall meetings. But will Boehner ever let Congress vote on ending corporate welfare to Big Oil? See all that red? It represents the portion of the campaign contributions that went to Republicans from each Oil company. (The blue, where there is any, is what went to Democrats, overwhelmingly Blue Dogs.) You tell me if that's a vote that will ever take place.


And in case you're pointing at the teensy weensy patches of blue... forget it. Those were bribes to Blue Dogs like Dan Boren, Jim Matheson and Mike Ross to keep them voting with the GOP and undermining Democratic initiatives within the caucus.

Say it ain't so, Schmo -- has Chimpy the Ex-Prez abandoned the old prop ranch in Crawford?

The former Yellow Rose in Crawford, TX, one of four souvenir shops that have gone belly up since the town's former First Rancher decamped

"'Ever since he got that new place in Dallas, he hasn’t been around much,' said Carter Blenden, the waiter at the Coffee Station who served Mr. Bush a cheeseburger with jalapeño fries on July 28 last year, his last trip to the local restaurant. (The ticket is preserved on the wall of the kitchen.)"

-- from James C. McKinley Jr.'s Monday NYT report,

"Texas Town Adusts to Life Without Bush"

by Ken

Remember how being a president always seemed to be a distraction for poor George W. Bush, taking him away from his never-an-idle-moment chores on the ol' ranch? There was always another vacation to take, some riding around in his golf cart to do, and of course his mountain bike to fall off.

All bunk, of course. His Chimpiness was as much a rancher as, say, PeeWee Herman. But an awful lot of gullible Americans swallowed the act whole, cheering him on as he set about destroying the country, and any other county he could get his grubby mitts on. And it seems no sooner did he drag his sad carcass out of the White House, relocating to his $3 million pad in Dallas, than he lost the need to play rancher. James McKinley reports:

He still comes to his 1,400-acre ranch on holidays and on some weekends, but he does not arrive with the thwap-thwap-thwap of helicopters anymore. He slips quietly through town in a black sport utility vehicle and leaves just as quietly, townspeople say. . . .

Mr. Bush has seldom appeared in Crawford, where he bought the ranch from a local family just before becoming president. He still comes to the ranch to ride his mountain bike over trails, and he likes to fish for bass in two ponds he had created behind his house.

Last August, he held a barbecue for about 100 local ranchers, some neighbors said, to make amends for all the traffic headaches they had dealt with during his presidency, when peace protesters regularly clogged the road to his land. The former president himself flipped burgers for the guests.

"Most of the former president’s energy," McKinley reports, "has gone into starting up a conservative research and policy center, the George W. Bush Institute, and planning his presidential library at Southern Methodist University." It's a shame they don't call the "conservative research and policy center" a think tank, which would set up the same joke as the idea of a Bush library.

Just because Chimpy has given up play-acting his role as the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan doesn't mean, though, that he's permanently abandoned Crawford. It appears, by his own testimony, that he never will.

"I asked him how long he was going to keep that ranch, and he said, 'As long as I live,'" recalled Newt Westerfield, 86, who owns land next to the Bushes’ place.

After all, sometimes a fake cowboy's just gotta git out in the open spaces and air out the ol' golf cart. Plus, it's such a long way to the Bush family homestead in Paraguay. (Besides, they've no longer got that friendly fascist regime down there.)

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SINKING BUSH POLL RATINGS HURT CRAWFORD'S TRINKET SHOP ECONOMY

Bush may be fighting to get back above the 30% approval mark nationally, but his Texas disapproval ratings haven't been quite as bad as they are in most other states. Although he's only above 50% in Utah and Idaho, the latest SUSA poll (Jan 16, 2007) for Texas shows him with a 40% approval in his home state, almost 10% better than he does on average. And although Harris County (Houston) is more like the rest of America-- 70% disapproval-- there is no area of Texas, not even the conservative north, where Bush gets to 50% approval.

What about his home town, Crawford, you ask? When I was there the area was over-run with protestors who were there, like myself, to support Cindy Sheehan. The one stop light town itself is tiny... and moribund. It seemed like the kind of place people stuck there would give anything to escape from. SUSA breaks out a poll for Harris County-- but not Crawford. But there's another way to judge how Bush is doing there. All the gift shops selling Bush memorabilia are bankrupt or headed that way. There are only 700 people who live there, considerably fewer than the number of protestors who used to camp outside Bush's pig farm ranch, and the town that was booming, briefly, as the home of "western White House," has fallen on hard times. There's only one restaurant and one bank and there's no hotel but there were plenty of Bush-oriented trinket shops. One, the Crawford Country Style store, brought in over two and a half million bucks in 2004, but it's closed down now.

One somewhat delusional Bush supporter who also operates a gift shop, says "I think the president's ratings will go up, and when that happens, the sales go up. As far as Crawford's future, I think it looks bright. Is it going to be as hectic as it was a few years ago? No. But Crawford's name is known far and wide, and when he retires, people who are endeared to him will want to come to Crawford." I guess... but Utah is a long drive... and, like I said, there's no hotel.


JULY UPDATE: NO ONE THOUGHT IT COULD GET WORSE

Like Bush's poll numbers, Crawford's economy has continued to get worse and worse. It can't really be called "an economy" any more.

Shuttered storefronts and eroding retail sales figures show tourism and the Bush memorabilia business are slumping in this once-sleepy farm-and-ranch town of 732 residents.

A for-sale sign is the only thing in the smudged window of the turn-of-the-century, two-story brick building that once housed the Crawford Country Style store. "The numbers just weren't working," said Norma Nelson Crow, who closed the shop at the beginning of the year.

Traffic and sales of shirts, caps, refrigerator magnets and other presidential curios began slowing in 2005, she said. By the summer of 2006, Crow said, her hopes for a turnaround in the business faded. "It was my baby and I loved that little store, but I had to face the facts," she said.

Retail sales figures kept by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts document the slide. In 2004, gross retail sales in Crawford totaled $2.6 million. They fell to $2 million in 2006, down by more than 20 percent.

Nobody is saying things have improved at all this year. "It's pretty slow, slower than last summer," Jamie Burgess, manager of the Red Bull gift shop, said last week... "We knew this wouldn't last forever, but we expected it would last longer than this.