Occupy(We the 99) Jasiri X

Community JustUs: Occupy(We the 99) Jasiri X: Pittsburgh hip-hop/activist Jasiri X goes deep into the belly of the beast at the Occupy Wall Street protests in Pittsburgh. Check out the v...

The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, positions or strategies of Holland Turner Media Group, or any employee thereof. Holland Turner Media Group reserves the right to delete, edit, or alter content in any manner it sees fit or deems unacceptable.

Occupy(We the 99) Jasiri X

Pittsburgh hip-hop/activist Jasiri X goes deep into the belly of the beast at the Occupy Wall Street protests in Pittsburgh. Check out the video post below.

The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, positions or strategies of Holland Turner Media Group, or any employee thereof. Holland Turner Media Group reserves the right to delete, edit, or alter content in any manner it sees fit or deems unacceptable.

Why I oppose 9-9-9:

While I observe from last week’s debate that Romney’s analogy to a bushel of “apples and oranges” is inaccurate (if your tax bill is the same under a flat tax versus a combination income/sales tax then you should be indifferent, money-wise) and I disagree with Santorum’s desire to pick his “winners” by maintaining several deductions in the tax code (the problem isn’t that we are picking the wrong winners, it is that we are playing the game to begin with), I have to join them in opposing Cain’s tax plan. Here are a few reasons why:

- Sales taxes are regressive. In general, a representative earner earning a lower income will spend a greater share of his income on basic consumption than someone earning a higher income. Cain’s response, that lower earning consumers will substitute used for new goods, doesn’t wash. How, exactly, do you buy used groceries? Or used gasoline? Are there any used childcare providers? And I’m not quite sure how he would deal with residential real estate transactions (new versus existing construction, how do you calculate profits, etc.). Food, energy, child care, and shelter are the Big Four for many low earning families. His announcement on Friday that he would adjust taxes in his plan further in ‘opportunity zones’ validates that he knows that he has a problem with this issue, but the whole basis for his plan in the first place rests on the premise that carve outs are why our current code is so bad, so he is being inconsistent. The existing tax code framework of offering a standard deduction seems to be better policy, trading deductions for a larger standard deduction eliminates regressivity and is actually more progressive than the current code;

- Remember that his proposal is for our tax code to transition to a national sales tax. Sales taxes also create accountability issues. Under such a scheme, when you go to the store, you’ll have no idea how much each level of government is taxing you and there is a perverse incentive for all levels of government to slightly increase taxes over time as they know full well that it will be difficult for consumers to trace the individual assessments back. For example, if you had to pay a combined 30% in taxes on groceries, how much would you attribute to the federal government versus the state government? Reconciliation shouldn’t be a classroom accounting exercise with a shoebox full of receipts. It should be transparent;

- Contrary to what is argued by proponents of sales taxes, consumption taxes are actually a form of social engineering. You are being taxed for making a decision to 1) spend money and 2) buy new goods. Effective tax rates obviously increase as consumption increases, meaning that a household that spends more money pays more in taxes even if that household brings in less income than their neighbor. Sounds like a problem that we have already! If, on the other hand, we adopt a level tax rate and eliminate deductions, what people do with our money is our business. As it should be. If more dollars are in our pockets, we will spend and save more. Lower corporate tax rates will increase rates of return for investors in the form of higher dividends and share prices, encouraging even more saving (capital investment). You don’t have to force it. Address monetary policy, health care costs, and other issues that affect household debt and saving rates will go up even more;

- It is obvious to anyone that 9-9-9 was a marketing device and not based on any sort of coherent target with respect to federal revenue requirements. Post-WWII government/GDP ratio is about 18.5%. Yes, that may be larger than most conservatives would wish for, but we all know that the next decade or so will not be where that fight plays out, the historic benchmark is really our end game for the foreseeable future. So how does he achieve this revenue target? Making behavioral assumptions about consumers across income cohorts is not fiscally robust and we would constantly be tweaking the tax scheme as behavioral assumptions post-tax implementation break down, which they would do in a dynamic environment (uncertainty);

- Sure, current corporate taxes are embedded in the goods and services that we buy right now, but that means that they are embedded in ALL resources used in production, to include the price of labor. Which means that they are embedded in the wages we are paid. That means that wages would fall or firms would lay people off under the new equilibrium. By itself, reducing corporate tax rates may result in explosive levels of economic growth such that tax receipts would rise over time. But a corporate tax on gross earnings would cause firms to pass on part of that tax to their workers, especially workers who are low or unskilled (under current law firms get to deduct wages as an expense) meaning that workers would get hit with a share of the corporate tax AND the income and sales taxes and the degree to which we are hit would be related to the type of job we have. In the aggregate, household consumption and saving could decrease, adversely affecting economic growth projections. Workers, especially the most vulnerable, suffer under the shell game of trading corporate taxes for sales taxes. I can support a much flatter corporate tax, but not on the gross;

- A flat income tax with a large, standard deduction offers simplicity, transparency, is pro-growth, and ensures that we collect enough revenue. We will also know how much the federal government is taking from us, the annual hammer of filling out an abbreviated tax form maintains accountability. To the degree that there are other taxes that are currently not a part of the income tax but cuts at our take home pay (e.g. payroll taxes), they can be addressed by examining the underlying programs being financed (e.g. Social Security, Medicare). I appreciate that Cain would like to roll them into something transparent, but it seems more responsible that we address these programs individually.

Steve Tolbert is an economics professor. He has previously run for local office in Pennsylvania, managed political campaigns, served in key leadership positions in the College Republicans, written opinion editorials for national newspapers, and served as a guest commentator on both CNN and C-SPAN.

Young People - It is time for us to step up to the plate

When most people think of politics they think of people who cannot be trusted. They think that all politicians are liars who cannot be trusted and are out for their own self interests. Because people are so turned off from the negative stuff that they hear and read about when it comes to politics they decided to turn away from. As young people, members of generation X and the millennial generation, we have witnessed a President cheat on his wife, another President steal an election, unemployment at an all time high, 9/11, unaffordable college tuition and rising costs in everything. Yet, the people who are in charge making these decisions that result in these out comes, who are bickering constantly on Capitol Hill and not getting anything done are people who are not from our generation. You have folks our parents and grandparents age bitching (pardon my French) and complaining about what the other side is doing or saying instead of making decisions and getting stuff done. This criticism is on both sides of the aisle. People are worried about the next election and raising money from special interest groups instead of trying to compromise to get things done.

I don’t care if you are a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green party or Independent, when young people vote it changes the outcome of elections. It was proven again in 2008 with the election of Bracka Obama. In 2008 approximately 22 and 24 million young Americans ages 18–29 voted. That was second highest percentage of young voter turnout since 1972 when the voting age was lowered to 18 years old.

As young people we cannot sit on the sidelines and shrug our shoulders. We must speak up and say something. The tea party protest and the Occupy protest are great in getting people excited about the issues. But it does not make a difference if we don’t vote the people out of office who are part of the problem. If you are not registered to vote then you cannot vote. If you do not vote, then you cannot complain about the people in elected office.

It is time for young people to step up the plate.

- Nicole Williams

Nicole was a former candidate for State Delegate in Maryland. She is currently the Chair of the Judicial Council of the Young Democrats of America, member of the executive board of the Young Democrats of Maryland and President of the Prince George’s County Young Democrats. Her grandfather was a Republican but has chosen another path.

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The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, positions or strategies of Holland Turner Media Group, or any employee thereof. Holland Turner Media Group reserves the right to delete, edit, or alter content in any manner it sees fit or deems unacceptable.