Moody's warns of U.S. debt downgrade

But, but, but national debt doesn't matter................

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,2694733.story

Apparently it matters to someone, somewhere, and it has reprocussions.

Will Nearly Double Budget Deficit if Continued, Mostly Benefit the Rich

Ten years ago, on June 7, 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the first of several tax cuts that drove the balanced budget he inherited from President Clinton deep into the red. Last year, Congressional supporters of Bush’s policies pushed through an extension of these tax cuts through the end of 2012.

Many lawmakers want to extend the Bush tax cuts again into 2013 and beyond, which would almost double the federal budget deficit.

47.2 percent of the benefits of this tax cut extension would go to the richest five percent of the nation’s taxpayers.

The richest one percent would receive an average tax cut of $68,079 in 2013.

The poorest 60 percent of taxpayers would receive an average tax cut of just $487 in 2013.

See the national data and state-by-state fact sheets.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/d...dTylCtU5eeAKtv
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Oh, yeah. Everything matters. Except those that make more paying fairly. Except pukes being honest. Except not allowing unfairness. Except treating everyone the same. Except saying that the needy are the fault of the financial problems and therefore have to get FKD.

Yeah, I understand the point!

I don't want to pay any more income taxes. I pay enough. Soon I'll have to hire a tax accountant, and I can't afford one.

But thanks for posting.

So you are telling me that it needs to be more fair than this? http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...w=1190&bih=624

The Lowest Federal Tax Rate in 60 Years Says Reagan Advisor
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...s-high-or-low/

Low Federal Tax Rate Means Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars Lost Annually, Bartlett Says

Posted: 05/31/11 04:56 PM ET

Hearing some politicians talk about taxes, one might be convinced the United States has one of the highest tax rates in the world.

But the reality is the federal tax rate, broadly measured, is the lowest it has been in 60 years, Bruce Bartlett writes in a new column. A look at the effective tax rate, which expresses taxes as a share of the country's economic output, belies the stream of political rhetoric arguing that taxes are relatively high, says Bartlett, who was a senior policy analyst under President Ronald Reagan.

Federal taxes will be 14.8 percent of the nation's economic output this year, according to a recent estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. That's compared to a postwar annual average rate of 18.5 percent, Bartlett notes.

With the nation's gross domestic product at about $15 trillion, that low effective rate means the federal government is missing out on hundreds of billions of dollars every year.

"Revenues have been at a historically low level for three years now, so we've probably left a trillion dollars on the table," Bartlett said in an interview with The Huffington Post.

He added that the most recent year when the federal government took less from the economy was 1950, according to the Office of Management and Budget. There's no evidence, he said, that lowering taxes further would help stimulate the economy.

The effective federal tax rate is "low by that historical standard, and it's rarely been as low," Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, said in an interview.