#National tax

[the-birth-of-art]

The Smithsonian has made over 4,000,000 images in its archive open source.

An example:

Fishing Cat, Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Photo by Mehgan Murphy.

#fishing cat #smithsonian #national zoo #kitty! #cat #open source #your tax dollars at work

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #twitter #tweet #republicans #conservatives #gop policy #gop platform #gop #sen. bernie sanders #vermont #independent #2023 #estate tax repeal bill #national debt #tax the billionaires #tax the 1% #walton family #elon musk #jeff bezos

[sb-essebi]

Get in loser, we're taxing the rich!

There's an official proposal to the EU to tax the rich!

You only need to be a EU citizen to sing it. The goal is 1 million signatures before october 2024, and we're already at 140.000!

If you need extra incentive to sign, the French have the most signatures as of right now. You wouldn't want the French to be better than you, right? And if you are French, well, Italians are second right now, you wouldn't want the Italians to catch up, right?

Please reblog so more people can see, EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT FROM THE EU!

#tax the rich #eu #europe #european union #tax the billionaires #european news #european parliament #european politics #I hope it's obvious that the cringe jokes about nationality aren't meant to offend #I'm trying to promote a serious post on the circus website (affectionate) I gotta be silly

[faceeracer]

Everyone is fed up with this illegal invasion!

#fireworks in Chicago #democratic national convention riot #white are fed up #Mexican Americans are fed up #tax payers are fed up #blacks are fed into #everyone in America is fed up

[saywhat-politics]

#senator elizabeth warren #u.s. house of representatives #republicans #national sales tax

[jasonraish]

Organize the unorganized was my topic for the 2023 National Labor Federation calendar. I thought of the metaphor of the fox hunt. A cruel pastime of the wealthy and noble class in Britain where a gang of hunters on horseback with dogs chase down a single fox to the death. What if you could organize a coordinated effort against the wealthy and other systems at play? Could a labor organization/union take down the nobleman? Prints available https://society6.com/art/organize-the-un-organized

#fox hunt #fox #foxes #hunter #illustration #artists on tumblr #fyiart #run the jewels #national labor federation #eastern farm workers association #support unions #union strong #organize #organizing #eat the rich #tax the rich

[eternalistic]

"The American government’s big pile of IOUs is about to get even bigger.

That was the conclusion of the latest report from the Congressional Budget Office, which forecast this week that the US is on track to add $19 trillion to its national debt by 2034, with payments on that debt totalling some $12 trillion as higher interest rates increase the burden of the nation’s borrowing.

‍Serious interest

‍In the latest fiscal year, which ran to the end of September, the federal government raked in more than $4.4 trillion in receipts from individual taxpayers, with nearly half of that sum stemming from individual income taxes ($2.18 trillion). But, as many of us can surely relate to, the government's spending appetite consistently outpaces its income, resulting in a deficit of $1.7 trillion.

The magnitude of the national debt, currently ~$34 trillion in total, means that the government is shelling out nearly $2 billion a day on interest payments (~3% of GDP) just to service the debt. Were the government to somehow magically wipe out its debt — leaving it with no interest to pay — it would have saved a whopping ~$660 billion last year, though that still wouldn't be enough to get the overall federal budget back into the black.

The CBO forecasts have sparked a national conversation about the right level of federal spending, raising questions that beg political answers, rather than definitive economic ones."

#chartr #politics #budget #us politics #usa #us treasury #debt #national debt #federal budget #taxes

[sixpossumsinaclownsuit]

Remember kiddos, polygamy and polyamory was only demonized for four core reasons:

Tw: homophobia, sexism, religious commentary, political commentary, oppression

1.) America wanted more taxes

Part of the legal institutionalization of marriage is that there is tax benefits for the individual parties when they get married, and financial ties/power is attorney between married people. It becomes messy when these ties extend to multiple people/marriages and the I*RS wants they tax money, and America would rather just make an entire way of life illegal than make laws and systems that accommodate people. See point #4 for more on that

2.) Puritan culture (aka thinly veiled sexism)

Puritan culture relies heavily on systems of control that villainize sex and women (that's a whole other conversation but I won't digress), and lots of marriages/polygamous marriages having sex with each other is obviously bad bad bad!! Hard to control!! Save the defenseless women from their pimp husbands! Orgies, the devil's work! And...

3.) Homophobia

Good god, women being in marriages together! Married to a man, but what if these women end up by being married to each other by extension! And having sex with each other! And what if a woman marries more than one man! Would these men become inferior to their wives? Would one of these husbands be less dominant than another? Would the men function in these complex marriages like a woman?! Disgusting! That's gay (derogatory!) Would these husbands be having sex with each other? But that's gay and gay is bad! Sex is bad! God, purge these sinners of their Sodomy!

(Surprise surprise, homophobia has very little to do with actual gay people and has everything to do with puritan culture, control, sexism and the demonization of sex, and points two and three are actually the same thing)

4.) Christian nationalism

Polygamy and nonmonogamy is normalized and integrated with several non-Christian and alternative Christian cultures going back thousands of years, like Islam, Mormonism, feudal Japanese/samurai cultures, Hinduism, several Native American cultures, etc... even in the Bible in Judeo-Christian history and biblical era cultures nonmonogamy was normalized. Banning nonmonogamy in America is banning the right to engage in non-christian religious rite and practice. It's only something criminal to post-puritan Christians and those beliefs becoming law, regardless of other religious beliefs and practices also existing in America, is the unseparation of church and state.

So before you tell a polyamorous person "oh that's cheating with permission" or "I could NEVER do that," or "I love my partner too much to do that/cheat like that," remember that these are the institutions and the propaganda you're upholding with your judgement. Supporting/ being kind about polyamory is religious tolerance, and biting your thumb at the I*RS.

Tl:dr, the dissolution of separating of church and state, puritan culture and the sexism/homophobia associated with puritan culture is why nonmonogamy is demonized and why polygamy is illegal in America.

Tone indication/post intention: satirical and exaggerated tones criticizing longstanding institutions of oppression with the intent to explain why judging, hating or criticizing nonmonogamous practices is oppressive and a result of propaganda. This post is not intended to persuade people who practice monogamy to practice nonmonogamy instead or to demonize monogamy. It is intended to advocate for breaking the stigma around nonmonogamy.

#polyamory #polygamy #nonmonogamy #ethical nonmonogamy #enm #monogamy #toxic monogamy #puritan culture #religious tolerance #religious freedom #islam is not inherently oppressive #hijab is not oppression #puritan culture is oppression #puritan culture is sexism #puritanism is control #crash the mode #Christian nationalism #end Christian nationalism #homophobia #sexism #marriage equality #American history #political commentary #tax evasion is a moral obligation #tax evasion

[historyforfuture]

The israeli war criminals told people in Gaza to move south and when they headed to south the Israelis followed them by bombs at the south too .

Are all these countries unable to stop ugly Israeli crimes ?

قال لهم مجرمي الحرب اتجهوا جنوبا فلما انطلقوا لاحقوهم بقصف الطيران

شهداء في خانيونس جنوب قطاع غزة 🇵🇸

#palestine #gaza #israeli war crimes #war criminals #free gaza #united nations #amnesty international #jerusalem #space #astronomy #star wars #succession #human rights violation #support palestine #ryan gosling #joe biden #usa news #tax payers #genocide #israeli lies #london #USA #usa taxes money #genshin impact #climate change #jeruzalem #nasa #painting #france #art history

[agentfascinateur]

Revert Palestine to its original territory, to multiculturalism and to democracy. Stop funding crimes with US taxpayer money.

"..the Israeli air attacks and ground actions in Jenin “amount to egregious violations of international law and standards on the use of force and may constitute a war crime”."

#palestine #israeli apartheid #palestinians #israeli occupation #illegal settlements #justice #free palestine #jenin #free gaza #west bank #rightwing extremism #settler violence #war crimes #icc #icj #united nations #international law #un violations #un sanctions #us taxes #taxpayers #usa

[tomorrowusa]

There's been another tranche of student debt forgiveness by the Biden administration.

The Biden administration on Friday announced another $5 billion in debt forgiveness for 74,000 student loan borrowers. Why it matters: Although the Supreme Court blocked Biden's signature student loan forgiveness plan, his administration has found alternative ways to provide relief to more than 3.7 million people.

The Republican Supreme Court has tried to block student loan relief, but the Biden administration hasn't stopped looking for legal ways around SCOTUS for specific groups of Americans burdened by such debt.

Since 1981 Republicans have serially backed enormous tax breaks for their filthy rich contributors, but they vehemently oppose loan forgiveness for middle class and poorer taxpayers.

House GOP advances bill to block Biden’s student loan repayment program

Supreme Court, Republicans to blame for lack of debt forgiveness, students say in poll

In general, Republicans oppose higher education. Their base is made up of dumbass morons who believe conspiracy theories and they need more voters like that who won't question the bullshit that comes out of the GOP.

The Republican jones for deregulation since the Reagan-Bush era has led student debt to spiral out of control. The vicious circle of more burdensome loans feeding ever-increasing tuition fits well into the GOP agenda. It's a system that discourages post-secondary education for anyone who isn't rich.

President Dwight Eisenhower was no radical. But he knew what made America strong. The highest federal income tax rate for the filthy rich during most of his administration was 91%. And it was universally regarded as a period of enormous economic growth and prosperity.

A portion of that tax revenue went into the National Defense Education Act which, among other features, provided for grants and loans for post-secondary education – particularly for STEM, teacher education, and foreign languages. That was the impressive start of the federal student loan program. It was never meant to be a permanent chain around the necks of college graduates.

National Defense depends on smart Americans. But certain Russia-friendly Republicans have no interest in standing in Putin's way.

#student loans #student debt forgiveness #biden administration #post-secondary education #national defense education act #national defense #dwight eisenhower #high tax rates on the filthy rich #republicans oppose debt forgiveness #house republicans #the gop us supreme court #election 2024

[thelofian]

Deceiving Daily Booster Table (TTCC DBT) for 2024-04-15 (Week 16), 🚢 Titanic Remembrance Day | 🧾 Tax Day | 👕 National Laundry Day

I'M FINALLY BACK, took a hiatus

#Toontown #TTCC DBT #Merit Monday #TTCC #Toonblr #Toontag #Corporate Clash #Toontown Corporate Clash #Titanic Remembrance Day #Tax Day #National Laundry Day

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

#ManChildTrump #Donald Trump #Trump #Drumpf #CrybabyTrump #Tiny Hands #Limp Dick #Spanky #Pee Brain #Cadet Bone Spurs #Five Deferment Don #The Orange Menace #The Manchurian Cantaloupe #Defendant Dumb Dumb #TrumpIsALoser #Alina Habba #The Lincoln Project #healthcare #taxes #national debt #The Mad Sonneteer #Bud Koenemund #Koenemund

[saywhat-politics]

#republicans #national sales tax

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 13, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 14, 2024

There are really two major Republican political stories dominating the news these days. The more obvious of the two is the attempt by former president Donald Trump and his followers to destroy American democracy. The other story is older, the one that led to Trump but that stands at least a bit apart from him. It is the story of a national shift away from the supply-side ideology of Reagan Republicans toward an embrace of the idea that the government should hold the playing field among all Americans level.

While these two stories are related, they are not the same.

For forty years, between 1981, when Republican Ronald Reagan took office, and 2021, when Democrat Joe Biden did, the Republicans operated under the theory that the best way to run the country was for the government to stay out of the way of market forces. The idea was that if individuals could accumulate as much money as possible, they would invest more efficiently in the economy than they could if the government regulated business or levied taxes to invest in public infrastructure and public education. The growing economy would result in higher tax revenues, enabling Americans to have both low taxes and government services, and prosperity would spread to everyone. 

But the system never worked as promised. Instead, during that 40-year period, Republicans passed massive tax cuts under Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump, and slashed regulations. A new interpretation of antitrust laws articulated by Robert Bork in the 1980s permitted dramatic consolidation of corporations, while membership in labor unions declined. The result was that as much as $50 trillion moved upward from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. 

To keep voters on board the program that was hollowing out the middle class, Republicans emphasized culture wars, hitting hard on racism and sexism by claiming that taxes were designed by Democrats to give undeserving minorities and women government handouts and promising their evangelical voters they would overturn the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion. Those looking for tax cuts and business deregulation depended on culture warriors and white evangelicals to provide the votes to keep them in power.

But the election of Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 proved that Republican arguments were no longer effective enough to elect Republican presidents. So in 2010, with the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision, the Supreme Court freed corporations to pour unlimited money into U.S. elections. That year, under Operation REDMAP, Republicans worked to dominate state legislatures so they could control redistricting under the 2010 census, yielding extreme partisan gerrymanders that gave Republicans disproportionate control. In 2013 the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision greenlighted the voter suppression Republicans had been working on since 1986.  

Even so, by 2016 it was not at all clear that the cultural threats, gerrymandering, and voter suppression would be enough to elect a Republican president. People forget it now because of all that has come since, but in 2016, Trump offered not only the racism and sexism Republicans had served up for decades, but also a more moderate economic program than any other Republican running that year. He called for closing the loopholes that permitted wealthy Americans to evade taxes, cheaper and better healthcare than the Democrats had provided with the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., and addressing the long backlog of necessary repairs to our roads and bridges through an infrastructure bill. 

But once in office, Trump threw economic populism overboard and resurrected the Republican emphasis on tax cuts and deregulation. His signature law was the 2017 tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy at a cost of at least $1.9 trillion over ten years. At the same time, Trump continued to feed his base with racism and sexism, and after the Unite the Right rally at Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, he increasingly turned to his white nationalist base to shore up his power. On January 6, 2021, he used that base to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

Republican senators then declined to convict Trump of that attempt in his second impeachment trial, apparently hoping he would go away. Instead, their acquiescence in his behavior has enabled him to continue to push the Big Lie that he won the 2020 election. But to return to power, Trump has increasingly turned away from establishment Republicans and has instead turned the party over to its culture war and Christian nationalist foot soldiers. Now Trump has taken over the Republican National Committee itself, and his supporters threaten to turn the nation over to the culture warriors who care far more about their ideology than they do about tax cuts or deregulation.

The extremism of Trump’s base is hugely unpopular among general voters. Most significantly, Trump catered to his white evangelical base by appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, and in 2022, when the court did so, the dog caught the car. Americans overwhelmingly support reproductive freedoms, and Republicans are getting hammered over the extreme abortion bans now operative in Republican-dominated states. Now Trump and a number of Republicans have tried to back away from their antiabortion positions, infuriating antiabortion activists. 

It is hard to see how the Republican Party can appeal to both Trump’s base and general voters at the same time. 

That split dramatically weakens Trump politically while he is in an increasingly precarious position personally. He will, of course, go on trial on Monday, April 15, for alleged crimes committed as he interfered in the 2016 election. At the same time, the $175 million appeals bond he posted to cover the judgment in his business fraud trial has been questioned and must be justified by April 14. The court has scheduled a hearing on the bond for April 22. And his performance at rallies and private events has been unstable. 

He seems a shaky reed on which to hang a political party, especially as his MAGA Republicans have proven unable to manage the House of Representatives and are increasingly being called out as Russian puppets for their attacks on Ukraine aid.  

Regardless of Trump’s future, though, the Reagan Era is over. 

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have quite deliberately rejected the economic ideology that concentrated wealth among the 1%. On their watch, the federal government has worked to put money into the hands of ordinary Americans rather than the very wealthy. With Democrats and on occasion a few Republicans, they have passed legislation to support families, dedicate resources to making sure people with student debt are receiving the correct terms of their loans (thus relieving significant numbers of Americans), and invested in manufacturing, infrastructure, and addressing climate change. They have also supported unions and returned to an older definition of antitrust law, suing Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple and allowing the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.

Their system has worked. Under Biden and Harris the U.S. has had unemployment rates under 4% for 26 months, the longest streak since the 1960s. Wages for the bottom 80% of Americans have risen faster than inflation, chipping away at the huge disparity between the rich and the poor that the policies of the past 40 years have produced. 

Today, in an interview with Jamie Kitman of The Guardian, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who negotiated landmark new union contracts with the country’s Big Three automakers, explained that the world has changed: “Workers have realized they’ve been getting screwed for decades, and they’re fed up.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#GOP #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #UAW #the economy #history #income inequality #culture wars #trickle down #supply side #deregulation #white nationalism #tax cuts

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #quotes #thom hartmann #democrats #debt ceiling #national debt #federal deficit #national deficit #118th congress #biden administration #donald trump #trump administration #trump tax cuts #taxes #federal budget #tax the 1% #2023