Look at this!!!
Republican fiscal policies are responsible, fair
Web Posted Saturday, September 06, 2003
No, Minnesotans are not undertaxed
Web Posted Saturday, September 06, 2003
Here’s the letter they are responding to:
Letter to the editor:
The other night, I attended a Northfield Precinct 2-1, neighborhood meeting hosted by Bill and Janet McGrath, a great idea for promoting citizen action and involvement. It was an open mic event. all were invited to speak, and they talked about their concern for their community, for their state and their distress over the impacts of the last legislative session.
Among the things folks talked about was the Republican directive that every one has to do “More with Less”. They are using this phrase a lot, but I wish they’d say what they mean. To understand the Republican message, we have to look at what Republicans say are their priorities and how that matches with their policies, both expressed and enacted. In the last session, they protected those who have power and money, and harmed those who have little. Republicans believe that it is their money so they should be able to keep more of it. But in most cases they got that money from some where, often your pocket — by keeping workers’ wages low, passive income from investments while the rest of us work for our income, or by making investments with high profits that means someone is
paying too much for something They say “we want quality education for our children,” but their policies mean that teachers are paid less. They say, “We want our workers to take home more money”, but through their policies, wages are stagnant, the poor and disabled get less in state aid, and state services for everyone cost more in fees. What Republicans mean when they say ‘more with less’ is that most of us should do less with less so that some can have more – more for a few and less for you!
Republicans say they are protecting hard working employees from having to pay more in taxes. Democrats recognize that hard working middle class people now pay more than their fair share in taxes and that wealthy people who can afford more pay a lower percentage in taxes In the Department of Revenue’s “tax incidence study,” which shows who is really paying taxes, they found that the state’s 2.32 million households had total income of $132.1 billion in 2000. These taxpayers coughed up $14.8 billion, or 11.2 percent of their income, in state and local taxes. Researchers found that the highest-income group was taxed at 7.7 percent, a much lower rate than any other income group. On the other side of that equation, the bottom 906,500 households, whose income equals the top 5,831 households, paid 11.3 percent of their income, averaging taxes of $1,647 for an average income of $14,575. (Source: )
So in Minnesota, we’re trying to make do with less while those few in high income groups have more and more. All this happens because the economic and political systems support the inequity They owe their wealth to the system and to
hard working individuals who are continually coerced and extorted into giving more for less.
These examples of Republican actions and impacts are not the politics of fiscal responsibility, they are not the politics of quality education or quality health care or compassionate government but it is the politics of ‘low wages’. Who benefits? Who pays? Those who benefit are that top 10% and particularly that top 1% who control the wealth, who drive the engine of profits and profitability — they can and they are choosing to increase their profits at your expense.
Adam Smith, the great free market economist said, “All wealth comes from Labor” and even Lincoln, our greatest Republican President said, “Labor is first before property in value.” The ideas of yesterday’s Republicans have been twisted by modern supply-siders. One of the citizens at the precinct meeting put it well, “Our power is that we do the work in the country and our strength lies in our seeing when we stand together we are strong.”