Tom Toles for October 14, 2019

The real Reagan Revolution — REDISTRIBUTION of wealth from the working people who produce it to the few richest elites (and corporate welfare queens) who already had the most.

After FDR / Truman / Eisenhower / Kennedy / LBJ, we had recovered from the Harding / Coolidge / Hoover Republican Great Depression (the legacy of policies attempting to return to the “gilded age” of elitism) and been reborn in broad-based, widespread middle-class prosperity where workers had living wages (even minimum wage could support a family … as in the story of how Elizabeth Warren’s family survived economic tragedy when her father suddenly had a heart attack, could no longer work, and her mother, who had never worked outside the home, could save the family home and support a family with a MINIMUM WAGE job — something that could never be done today).

Then along came Nixon and then the war on working people doubled down under Reagan with corporate welfare and tax giveaways to the few richest elites at the top, breaking up unions and obstructing minimum wage growth and other worker protections.

Oh, and eliminating those pesky “regulations” designed to protect workers, consumers and our shared environment form corporate bullies running roughshod over individual rights — eliminating the rules that allow markets to work, in the same way that rules of the road enable, not inhibit, the ability to drive wherever you want and rules of sports enable, not inhibit, the ability to enjoy sports competitions.

“On the one hand, the IRS said, auditing poor taxpayers is a lot easier: The agency uses relatively low-level employees to audit returns for low-income taxpayers who claim the earned income tax credit. The audits — of which there were about 380,000 last year, accounting for 39% of the total the IRS conducted — are done by mail and don’t take too much staff time, either. They are “the most efficient use of available IRS examination resources,” Rettig’s report says.

On the other hand, auditing the rich is hard. It takes senior auditors hours upon hours to complete an exam. What’s more, the letter says, “the rate of attrition is significantly higher among these more experienced examiners.” As a result, the budget cuts have hit this part of the IRS particularly hard."

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor

This government has been a kakistocracy for the last several years. But it’s been an oligarchic plutocracy for some decades (I’d listen to an argument that it’s been that way most of our nation’s existence).

Of course tax regulations are designed to maximize benefits to the rich.

And, of course, the trumpster is sitting on his tax returns………

Cui Bono? {Who Benefits?} – {a rhyme}

Cui bono? Plutocrats. They’re of course who.

Many times historically; – in Trumpism too.

An overview:

Money will woo // the governing crew

to pull off its coup, // more wealth to accrue.

Plutocratic kung fu. // Democracy askew.

… Coda:

The Blame might well belong

to those who Gain from a wrong.

So Bernie-ites are quite correct

that Capital’s excesses must be checked

before our World is further wrecked.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Toles’s vision, returning soon to a country very near you. By the same ideology with the same arguments, demons, fear-mongering, and hate. All those with a living memory of the Great Depression are dead. So there is no one to speak out as a witness, and remind us that we have already been here and done this and it took us two world wars – before we had the capacity to destroy ourselves – to finally recover from the mess the world had been in because of this mindset. You cannot kill an idea, even a bad one. Each generation fails to learn from the experiences of those that they cannot remember personally.

Uncle Pennybags, channeling the spirit of Leona Helmsley.

“Only the little people pay taxes .” – Leona Helmsley, nickname “The Queen of Mean”

What’s good for the USA is good for General Bullmoose!!https://youtu.be/Kj65AcbekIE

Senator Warren is on to something. I’ve been saying this for years. The wealth of the wealthy is founded upon and sustained by the prosperity and productivity of America’s working people. Those among the ±1%, and most especially the 0.1%, who are not sociopaths (“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” ~ Gore Vidal et al.) must realize that the best investment that the well-to-do have ever made in all of human history was in America’s infrastructure and its middle class during the 3+ decades following WW II. It was a large part of what made America great.

Even though the taxes on the wealthy during those years were, arguably, overly confiscatory, not only did it result in remarkable economic prosperity for all, including the wealthy, it also meant that the wealthy could sleep safely in their beds and not have to cower behind walls and private armies for fear that their heads might end up on a pike. Sadly, those days seem to be passing. A person with no hope and nothing to lose can be deadly, so, as the people lose more and more, the rich must, perforce, fear more and more. Some of them know that, and know better, but… So keep it up you rich [illegitimate children].

In any case, it is mostly NOT the 0.1%‘s money. The bulk of the wealth that has been accumulated by the über-wealthy over the last four decades has been obtained by skimming, scamming, and strip mining the productivity of the working people, those who actually produced the 0.1%’s wealth. We’ve been robbed and we want, indeed demand, OUR money back.

“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” ~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis

When John D. Rockefeller, at the time the richest man in the world, was asked, “How much money is enough money?” He replied, “Just a little bit more.”

It’s those socialists preying on our defenseless rich!

It is a bummer that any of them pay taxes at all. Natural aristocracy and all. We need to treat Our Betters better.

The New G.O.P. Tax Form:

Line #1: How much did you make last year?

Line #2: Send it in.

Exemptions: This does NOT apply to anyone making more then $5.000.000 annually. You don’t owe ANYTHING!

that dude needs a monocle.

Only a few ‘ultra rich’ pay such little taxes. Most of them are somewhere in the middle like the rest of us. Toles likes to repeat the mantra however because so many of you fall for his dogma.

Shame on the Republicans for making “rich” people pay any taxes.

Monopoly….pass go but don’t pay $200.00

“Those who oppose reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.” – Teddy Roosevelt

Exactly!!

Marie Antoinette for President!!!!

Alexander Do we have permission to copy your post and paste it on other sites? It’s too good not to reach as many people as possible.

Some of the Ultra Rich children have inhaled so many drugs they can no longer remember that the tax laws were changed to give them a free pass on Taxes.

The 1% have traded those crumbling castle walls for expensive upscale gated communities. At least they can still look down on the riff-raff of average America. /s

Shocking