Taxes

So DO Tax Cuts Create Jobs?

Dave Johnson — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:27:10 -0400

In Wednesday's debate Mitt Romney repeated his claim that cutting individual and corporate income taxes creates jobs. But when you look at what actually happened, the periods when we had the highest tax rates were the periods we had the greatest job and economic growth. And the periods with lower taxes had lower job and economic growth. (And we all know what happened in the Bush years...)

Here is Romney at Wednesday's debate,

"54 percent of America's workers work in businesses that are taxed not at the corporate tax rate, but at the individual tax rate. And if we lower that rate, they will be able to hire more people. For me, this is about jobs. This is about getting jobs for the American people."

and,

"The problem with raising taxes is that it slows down the rate of growth. And you could never quite get the job done. I want to lower spending and encourage economic growth at the same time."

So DO tax cuts for rich people and already-profitable businesses create jobs? DO businesses hire people when they have extra money? When few customers are coming through the door will tax cuts cause businesses to hire people to sit around reading newspapers or checking Twitter?

I think that people with jobs have money to spend and then the businesses that get their business will hire people, and will make money and be happy they have profits to pay taxes on. And I think that the numbers -- and charts that help us visualize those numbers -- back me up. Here are some of those numbers.

Michael Linden at Center for American Progress took a look at tax rates and job creation, in Rich People’s Taxes Have Little to Do with Job Creation, Conservative Arguments that Higher Income Taxes for the Wealthy Hurt Employment Don’t Hold Up to Scrutiny,

... in years when the top marginal rate was more than 90 percent, the average annual growth in total payroll employment was 2 percent. In years when the top marginal rate was 35 percent or less—which it is now—employment grew by an average of just 0.4 percent.

And there’s no cherry-picking here. Pick any threshold. When the marginal tax rate was 50 percent or above, annual employment growth averaged 2.3 percent, and when the rate was under 50, growth was half that.

In fact, if you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher. The top 10 years would share marginal tax rates at 50 percent or higher. The two worst years, on the other hand, were 2008 and 2009, when the top marginal tax rate was 35 percent. In the 13 years that the top marginal tax rate has been at its current level or lower, only one year even cracks the top 20 in overall job creation.

OK, got that? The periods of highest job growth correspond to the periods of highest tax rates on the wealthy. 70% top tax rates. 90% top tax rates. Maybe this is because that money gets used to build roads and bridges and buildings and ports and dams and the things that make our economy more efficient and competitive. And maybe because the years of low tax rates are the years of government cutbacks because there isn't enough revenue coming in -- infrastructure not maintained, education budgets cut, etc.

What do tax rates do to economic growth? Romney says raising taxes hurts the economy. Is that what happens?

Michael Linden looked at what happens with taxes and GDP growth, in The Myth of the Lower Marginal Tax Rates, Conservatives’ Go-To Growth Solution Doesn’t Hold Up (I'll spare you the blow-up photo of Speaker Boehner's face),

The top marginal income tax rate has ranged all the way from 92 percent down to 28 percent over the last 60 years. With such a large range, it should be easy to see the enormous impact of lower rates on overall economic growth, as conservatives routinely claim. Years with lower marginal rates should boast higher growth, right?

That’s definitely not what happened. In fact, growth was actually fastest in years with relatively high top marginal tax rates. Back in the 1950s, when the top marginal tax rate was more than 90 percent, real annual growth averaged more than 4 percent. During the last eight years, when the top marginal rate was just 35 percent, real growth was less than half that.

Altogether, in years when the top marginal rate was lower than 39.6 percent—the top rate during the 1990s—annual real growth averaged 2.1 percent. In years when the rate was 39.6 percent or higher, real growth averaged 3.8 percent. The pattern is the same regardless of threshold. Take 50 percent, for example. Growth in years when the tax rate was less than 50 percent averaged 2.7 percent. In years with tax rates at or more than 50 percent, growth was 3.7 percent.

These numbers do not mean that higher rates necessarily lead to higher growth. But the central tenet of modern conservative economics is that a lower top marginal tax rate will result in more growth, and these numbers do show conclusively that history has not been kind to that theory.

Zaid Jilani at CAP's Think Progress also takes a look, in Top Reagan Economic Advisor: Return To Clinton-Era Tax Rates Would Not Hurt Economic Growth,

Historically, the United States has actually had some of its strongest periods of economic growth while taxes were high. As this graph from Slate shows, some of our strongest periods of growth in gross domestic product actually occured while taxes were very high:

In the 1950s, which had one of the sharpest periods of economic growth in all of American economic history, the top marginal tax rates for the richest Americans stretched above 90 percent. Likewise, economic growth in the relatively higher-taxed 1990s was much stronger than in the 2000s. This isn’t to say that higher taxes necessarily cause greater economic growth, but it does seem to show that higher taxes do not appear necessarily to be impeding job growth, nor are lower taxes especially helpful.

OK, did you see those charts? Not only do high taxes on the rich not impede growth, but growth looks to be higher when taxes are higher. Maybe this is because higher taxes on the rich means that the government -- We, the People -- has more to spend on the things that make our economy more efficient and competitive like schools, roads, bridges, transit systems, courthouses, judges, etc...

And, again, the periods of low taxes are the periods of government cutbacks ...

David Leonhardt at the NY Times looks at recent numbers, in Do Tax Cuts Lead to Economic Growth?

President George W. Bush and Congress, including Mr. Ryan, passed a large tax cut in 2001, sped up its implementation in 2003 and predicted that prosperity would follow.

The economic growth that actually followed — indeed, the whole history of the last 20 years — offers one of the most serious challenges to modern conservatism. Bill Clinton and the elder George Bush both raised taxes in the early 1990s, and conservatives predicted disaster. Instead, the economy boomed, and incomes grew at their fastest pace since the 1960s. Then came the younger Mr. Bush, the tax cuts, the disappointing expansion and the worst downturn since the Depression.

(Click that graphic for larger)

Whoa, did you see what happened after Bush cut taxes for the rich? Do you remember what happened after Bill Clinton got taxes increased on the rich?

My own 2010 post, Did The Rich Cause The Deficit? included this chart, (The red line is the tax rates, the blue is growth and the red arrow shows the trend.

But, from that post, one thing that cutting taxes on the rich obviously does cause is deficits:

And deficits cause government to cut back, cut infrastructure projects, cut the things government -- We, the People - does for We, the People. And the economy slows...

The real job creators are working people with money in their wallets.

Tax the rich, use the money to modernize our infrastructure and help regular working people. Build roads, schools, bridges, ports, airports, dams, courthouses, wind farms, water systems, high-speed rail, municipal transit systems, all the things that make our economy efficient and competitive...

(PS I also came across a chart showing that lowering capital gains rates correlates with lower, not higher, economic growth. But somehow we knew that would be the case...)

Are Republicans Ready To Drop "No-Tax" Pledge?

Dave Johnson — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:16:33 -0400

Republicans have been holding to a no-tax pledge for decades as a strategy to undermine government. But more and more people are noticing that our schools, roads, police and fire departments, bridges, courts, food-safety system -- and everything else non-military that our government does -- are starting to fall apart. At the same time, Republican-created anti-deficit hysteria is starting to backfire on Republicans themselves. So are some Republicans starting to back off?

But First

Before any deficit discussion begins people should be reminded of one very important and relevant fact: When 'W' Bush took office we had a huge budget surplus and we were on track to pay off the entire national debt in just ten years. In other words, our country's debt would be entirely paid off by now, and there would be no emergency at all. But Bush changed some things, and said the return of budget deficits was "incredibly positive news," and now we have a huge deficit and debt. The cause of our deficits and debt has implications for any discussion of what can be done about our deficits and debt.

The Norquist Pledge

The Norquist pledge is a pledge that Republican politicians take promising to oppose any increase in tax rates, and any reduction or elimination of tax breaks or subsidies. This is the House version, the Senate version is the same, without a district.

Taxpayer Protection Pledge
I, _____, pledge to the taxpayers of the (____ district of the) state of ______ and to the American people that I will: ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.

The purpose of this anti-tax pledge is to force a reduction in government revenue, while redistributing wealth upward. Combined with huge increases in military spending (and other spending on conservative "clients" like oil and pharma) the result is ever-increasing government deficits and debt. Since the Reagan administration conservatives have intentionally created "strategic deficits." Conservatives believe this will "starve the beast," making the non-military portion of government "smaller," forcing cuts in those things conservative oppose -- health care, food stamps, environmental protection and especially enforcement of regulations on corporations.

Intentional Deficits

President Reagan reduced taxes on the wealthy, while greatly increasing military spending. This left behind huge deficits, and a dramatically-increased national debt. (It also pushed income distribution up to the top few.) President 'W' Bush used the same formula to reverse President Clinton's budget surpluses. This was effective and by the time President Obama took office the country had a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion in a single year!

Now, with the deficits maneuvered to be sufficiently high for use scaring the pubic, Republicans are engaged in an effort to pursue the goals of this decades-long strategy. Without mentioning that just a few years ago we were paying off the debt but cut taxes on the rich and dramatically increased military spending, Republicans have been engaged in a drumbeat that the resulting debt is going to destroy the country. Just two years after holding the country "hostage" in order to force an extension of the Bush tax cuts, they are trying to claim that huge deficits must force cuts in non-military spending, to make government "smaller."

Is Deficit Hysteria Backfiring?

This drumbeat of deficit hysteria is working -- effectively scaring the public into believing that we must place a very high priority on cutting deficits. However, this is occurring when people with very high incomes are understood to be paying very low tax rates. As a result many of the public believe that cutting loopholes and increasing top tax rates should be done before budgets are cut -- if actually doing something about deficits is really the point. Many Republican politicians see that the public understands this, making it difficult for them to continue to pledge not to do it.

Huffington Post: Grover Norquist Pledge Against Taxes Attracts Fewer Republican Candidates,

Rep. Scott Rigell's (R-Va.) message for up-and-coming Republicans would have been considered political heresy just two years ago: You don't have to bow to Grover Norquist to win.

"My advice and counsel to 'Young Guns' would be to not sign the Americans for Tax Reform pledge," the Virginia Republican told The Huffington Post. The anti-tax oath authored by conservative activist Norquist had, until recently, been signed by almost every Republican in Congress or aspirant.

It isn't just Rep. Rigell,

Rigell is one of dozens of GOP challengers and incumbents who have declined, so far, to take the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Their objections range from personal to political. But underneath is the belief that being locked into a pledge to never support new revenues in a debt-reduction deal is unpalatable.

Just 45 of 83 of the Republican National Congressional Committee's current crop of so-called Young Guns have signed the no-tax pledge this election season, according to a Huffington Post analysis of pledge signatures.

The Huffington Post story discusses several other Republicans who are not signing the Pledge. (click through for more.)

Turning Point?

This could be a turning point, where drummed-up concern about deficits is backfiring on Republicans. If they are really concerned about deficits, of course they will undo the things that caused the deficits. A pledge to never raise taxes or undo loopholes is in the way of actual concern about deficits, and many Republicans understand that the public gets that.

Taxes -- A System Turned Upside Down

Dave Johnson — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:36:29 -0400

The Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year. For more than 30 years the public has been told that low taxes promote economic growth and jobs, and now we have low taxes, low economic growth and a no job growth. Oh,, and really, really high deficits from the revenue shortfall. The 1%ers, of course, want to extend their tax cuts. Progressives are trying to find ways to overcome 30+ years of economic misinformation when we talk to the public about the need to raise taxes. The 98 to 2: Raising Taxes to Invest in America and Promote Fairness panel at this week's Take Back the American Dream conference discussed the problem.

Frank Clemente moderated the discussion. Frank is Campaign manager for Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 30 organizations who want the Bush tax cuts to expire for people making over $250K. Also on the panel were Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Guy D. Molyneux, a partner at Peter D Hart research, and Ellen Nissenbaum, Senior Vice President for Government Affairs for the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities.

Clemente began by saying that the public mindset has to be changed on taxes, we have a lot of work to do, people have been told for 30 years since Reagan that lower taxes grow the economy.

So this will be a long struggle both at the national and state level. Now is the time to make this a key issue; there is no better time because elections. We will get a chance to debate priority choices. Occupy Wall Street has been successful in framing this issue, so things are better than a year ago. The public is with us in a lot of ways.

Ellen Nissenbaum said that she has worked on these issues for 28 years, and this is a critical moment. The magnitude of the budget decisions that are about to be made will affect every part of society for decades. The tax issue is part of a much bigger debate about who we are and how we want to allocate our resources.

We have an acute short term deficit. But if you care about programs to support vulnerable Americans, you have to care about long-term deficits or yours will pay the price. If you care about income inequality, job opportunities, it’s really all of it about revenues. Issues like housing, public safety, etc., are really all about revenues. Without revenues there is no way not to devastate non-defense discretionary spending, which is everything we care about.

History shows that taxes to not cut growth as we learned under Clinton.

If the threshold for these tax cuts expiring is moved from $250K up to $1 million it costs us a tremendous amount, and half of these are already millionaires.

Sen. Whitehouse made "3 quick points."

"An 18th century politician said one ought not to be obstinate unless one ought to be and then be unshakable."

First point: On Social Security and Medicare, we should not yield an inch. Medicare's cost problem is a health care system cost problem, and you don’t solve that by cutting what Medicare beneficiaries get and leaving them in this health system. Instead we have to focus on better care at less cost, as in Obamacare. This generates savings in all health systems, Medicaid, Kaiser, everyone.

Second, we have an upside-down tax system, and we need to fix that. Republican nonsense and spin makes it not look that way, but the Congressional Research Service says that 65% of individuals earning $1 million or more pay taxes at a lower rate than median middle-income taxpayers. 2/3 paying lower tax rates, that is a systemic failure, a system turned upside down.

If you go back to pre-WWII, for every tax dollar from individuals, we got a dollar from corporations, a 1-1 ratio. Now it is 1 corporate dollar for every 6 individual dollars, a 600% drop in the corporate share.

Third: Infrastructure matters. We have roads with holes, water treatment plants failing, a lot of infrastructure out there is crumbling. Then on top of that we are now in an electronic age, so now we have to consider modern infrastructure like health information exchange system, other things…

Investing in infrastructure creates jobs. The highway bill is 2.9 million jobs, has been held up 3 months now, the House wouldn’t pass it at all.

Guy Molyneux: There are a couple of polling results that show public already substantially understands that tax system is upside down, gives progressives for the first time in 30 years a chance to go on offense on taxes.

Polls:
Close loopholes that benefit wealthy and large corporations - 61% favor.
Avoid cuts to Medicare, education, etc. - 57% favor.

27% say keep all Bush tax cuts. 45% say keep those below $250K, 20% say end all Bush tax cuts so that is 65% say end them or end them above $250K

A strong majority of Democrats and Independent say this, even Republicans poll even on it.

How do you put the other side on the defensive?

95% favor a minimum tax for corporations.
85% favor changing the tax break for hedge fund managers.

The GOP loses the old "It is Class Warfare if you tax the rich at same rate argument, 62% to 37%.

People do say Republicans side with the rich and corporations over middle class. Romney rates 62%.

Huge majorities say arguments about cuts in investment while cutting taxes for rich and corporations makes them doubt the Republicans in Congress

Messaging to use:

Talk about "Bush tax cuts for top 2% (or richest 2%)"

Use a core message: fairness. "It is time for the rich to pay their fair share of taxes, we cannot afford to keep giving tax breaks to those who need it the least."

Put conservatives on defense. Portray them as defenders of a status quo that favors the rich and large corporations, and rewards them for sending jobs overseas.

BUT

Many voters do not see the link between revenue and programs or good purposes. They believe there is a lot of waste in government. So there is work to do to help people see the link between spending and the need for taxes to do those things.

You Can't Have Healthy Businesses Without Strong Government

Dave Johnson — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:13:16 -0400

As much as conservatives want to pretend otherwise, you can't have strong, healthy, prospering businesses without a big, strong government. The kinds of businesses that don't want a big, strong government are exactly the kinds of businesses that We, the People don't want.

Government Provides The Soil For Businesses To Thrive

Government creates the "public structures" that support smaller, innovative business. Government defines the playing field for business, right down to defining and regulating the money itself. Government creates the laws that define what business even is, and the police and courts to enforce that law. Government provides the infrastructure that is the soil in which businesses thrive -- or whither and die. Government educates the employees and innovators. Government negotiates the trade agreements that let businesses sell outside our country, and is supposed to protect our businesses from being undercut by those in other countries.

Government keeps larger, ultra-wealthy businesses from dominating, monopolizing and destroying the newer, innovative, disruptive, creative businesses that rise up out of We, the People.

But government can only do those things for us when it is big and strong. And that is why the very people and businesses -- and countries -- that want to dominate, monopolize, cheat, scam and take everything for themselves at the expense of the rest of us don't want our government to be big and strong enough to stop them.

Government Protects

Imagine this, though it might be difficult: some people are greedy and want more for themselves, at the expense of the rest of us. Yes, this is shocking, but true!

Government protects us from those who would take advantage and take too much. Government does this both domestically and internationally. At home it protects us from criminals and exploiters. Government also protects us from physical and economic threats from other countries. As I discussed last week in Why Can't Apple Make Your IPhone In America? we as a country face an updated, economic-attack version of these threats to our national security,

China sees itself as a country, and we no longer do. China competes with us as a country. But our businesses see themselves as GLOBALIZED, not as part of a country.

So since we – at least our businesses – no longer see themselves as part of a country we are not responding to this competition. We are not mobilizing to fight back.

In fact, China has essentially recruited our own business leaders to fight against our own government.

Government Keeps The System Going

Our "system" generally works when it is in balance; consumers with jobs and money are customers for our businesses. When customers are coming in the door, companies hire more people to serve them. However, in a system the things that each individual wants to do can be bad if too many of them do those things at the same time.

An example of an unbalanced system: if every driver decided to drive on the same road at the same time no one would be able to move. This is where government is absolutely necessary to regulate the larger system and make sure it maintains balance.

Am economy example: all businesses want to reduce costs, and one way to do this is to cut the number of employees they have, increase the workload of the rest and do what they can to cut their pay and benefits. This is an example of something that each player in a system does that might be "good" for that individual player, but is really bad for the larger system if they all do it. When too many business reduce costs by cutting employees or paying less, the system collapses from lack of demand. Government is needed to keep businesses from laying off too many people or cutting pay. Sometimes government does this by stepping in and hiring people (or just giving them money like unemployment benefits), or buying things, thereby creating demand, causing businesses to hire. (See Actually, "The Rich" Don't "Create Jobs," We Do.)

Another example: When a business becomes powerful it uses that power to monopolize, to keep competition from being able to compete. Pretty soon there are just a few large businesses that can charge whatever they want. Without strong government to keep this from happening the system breaks down.

Taxes

Taxes are the payback We, the People receive from our investment in creating the public structures that protect and empower us and enable our business to thrive. Taxes pay for the protections, courts, infrastructure, education and all the rest of the system that creates the prosperity and redistributes that prosperity to all of us, thereby balancing the system.

These diagrams are from Tax Cuts Are Theft, (please click through for more.)

The American Social Contract is supposed to work like this:

A beneficial cycle: We invest in infrastructure and public structures that create the conditions for enterprise to form and prosper. We prepare the ground for business to thrive. When enterprise prospers we share the bounty, with good wages and benefits for the people who work in the businesses and taxes that provide for the general welfare and for reinvestment in the infrastructure and public structures that keep the system going.

We fought hard to develop this system and it worked for us. We, the People fought and built our government to empower and protect us providing social services for the general welfare. We, through our government built up infrastructure and public structures like courts, laws, schools, roads, bridges. That investment creates the conditions that enable commerce to prosper – the bounty of democracy. In return we ask those who benefit most from the enterprise we enabled to share the return on our investment with all of us – through good wages, benefits and taxes.

But the “Reagan Revolution” broke the contract. Since Reagan the system is working like this:

Since the Reagan Revolution with its tax cuts for the rich, its anti-government policies, and its deregulation of the big corporations our democracy is increasingly defunded (and that was the plan), infrastructure is crumbling, our schools are falling behind, factories and supply chains are being dismantled, those still at work are working longer hours for fewer benefits and falling wages, our pensions are gone, wealth and income are increasing concentrating at the very top, our country is declining.

All Of Us Or Just A Few Of Us?

"We, the People" are the first three words of our Constitution. The writers of the Constitution were making a point, and to drive that point home they also made those three words the only words you can see from any distance:

"We, the People" was the point. This country exists for We, the People not for just a few people. We had fought a war to free ourselves from a system that was of, by and for a few wealthy and powerful people who controlled the levers of power, and we said, "Never again!" We designed a new system that was supposed to ensure that all of us prosper instead of a few people at the expense of the rest of us.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This Constitution is supposed to be for our benefit -- all of us. The economy is supposed to be for the benefit of all of us. For our general welfare, not for just a few. And to protect us from the wealthy and powerful, government has to be big and strong.

When Government Is Weak

Conservatives, funded by the already-wealthy -- the 1% and their giant corporations -- say we need less government, smaller government, government out of their way. They say they want our government to be small enough that they can "drown it in a bathtub."

Think about what they are saying when they say they want less government: they want less decision-making by We, the People. They want less protection of our general welfare. They want less infrastructure for our smaller businesses to thrive in. They want less enforcement of laws that protect our wages, safety, environment and rules against scamming, scheming, and defrauding us. That is what "less government" means in a country where the government is We, the People..

When government is strong we have more enforcement of a level playing field for all of us, more education for all of us, more security for all of us, more protection of our environment, more infrastructure so our own startup businesses can flourish and compete, more parks, more promotion of the general welfare.

And when government is weak we end up with a very few greedy, ruthless billionaires and their giant corporations controlling the economy, stifling competition, scamming and defrauding us, and consuming the environment and resources for their own short-term profit.

What Government Does For Us And Our Smaller Businesses

Protect:

Law.
Police.
Courts.
International agreements.
National Security.
Regulate and balance business activity.

Enable and empower:

Education.
Infrastructure.
Define and regulate money.
Redistribute - keep the top from having too much and the rest of us from having too little money, power, etc.

Invent and innovate:

Public universities.
Scientific research, esp. basic research for our businesses to apply.

Sustain:

Protect the environment and resources from those who would use them up for their own profit.
Fight monopolies so new businesses can innovate and compete.

Help me fill in this list. Leave a comment.

Can A Grand Bargain Be An Opportunity?

Dave Johnson — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 20:18:37 -0400

As I mentioned Friday in "Real Jobs At Stake" I attended a blogger meeting with Rhode Island's Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. The meeting was put together by Americans for Tax Fairness, a new coalition formed to help win the coming fight over the expiring Bush tax cuts.

Background

Two years ago the Republicans set a trap by holding unemployment benefits hostage, demanding the Bush tax cuts be extended for 2 years, dramatically increasing the country's debt. Obama paid the ransom to free the hostage, the Republicans have since then cut unemployment anyway, and now are springing the trap, running ads against Obama that say Obama increased the debt.

That extension of the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year. Republicans and other servants of the 1% are ginning up a serious battle to keep that from happening. Meanwhile some Democrats aren't helping matters. The President is proposing to restore Clinton-era tax rates only on those making more than $250,000. Now some Democrats are pre-caving even before negotiations begin, and raising that figure to $1 million. (Because people who make between $250 thousand and $1 million are't rich I guess, if you are used to the people that members of Congress and the Senate hang out with.) Americans for Tax Fairness wants a $250K cutoff.

From the press release announcing the launch of the coalition:

“We established Americans for Tax Fairness to help make the economy work for all,” said Americans for Tax Fairness Campaign Manager Frank Clemente. “To achieve this goal, we need adequate levels of investment in critical areas like education and rebuilding infrastructure that create and sustain jobs. We also need a balanced and equitable approach to the federal budget challenges we face, which includes protecting critical services for the middle class and the most vulnerable. This requires that we all pay our fair share of taxes, especially big corporations and the richest 2 percent making more than a quarter of a million dollars a year.”

There are proposals on the table to end the Bush tax cuts for those making $1 million a year. One of the coalition members, Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), estimates that 43 percent of the tax revenue would be lost if the threshold for extending the Bush tax breaks is set at $1 million in income rather than at $250,000 – the level President Obama has proposed. In addition, CTJ estimates that half of the breaks resulting from moving the threshold from $250,000 to $1 million would go to people with income exceeding $1 million.

From the Meeting

The following is from notes of Senator Whitehouse's comments.

Our side fights a guerrilla war, without a top-down message structure.

We offer a lot in substance and facts: Taxes right now are upside-down, with people at the top paying lower rates than the middle.

Here are some facts: 65% of people making over $1 million pay a lower tax rate than people in the middle class.

In 1930 the ratio of taxes was for every $1 in individual taxes we got $1 in corporate taxes. Now it is $6 individual for every $1 in corporate taxes.

With their taxes down but (and the result of) their political contributions up, corporations now fund our politics, not the country. The result is that corporations not only don’t pay much in taxes they have enough control that they do what economists call seeking rents.

On the other hand, most of the Republican “facts” are wrong or misleading.

On understanding what is going on, the public is way behind us. (We are not communicating our positions in ways that reach the public and resonate.) So if we bring something up once and move on we take a punch. But if we keep bringing these things up, if we are persistent, then the public starts to learn. Attention brings public awareness. In the Bible it took several times before the walls of Jericho were brought down.

The Coming "Grand Bargain"

Still from notes, summarizing Senator Whitehouse's comments:

Republicans learned that hostage-taking works. It pays off. So now instead of fighting on bills they want to do a debt ceiling drama and attach their stuff to it.

Framing the question is very important as the grand bargain debate begins.

Do we let them expire first, and not let a lame duck session of Congress happen? (Nothing is going to pass before the election, so the only way to change something before the expiration at the end of the year is to do it in a "lame duck" session -- after the election but before the people elected take office, and the people tossed out leave office.)

The President says he will veto bush tax cuts, but that obligates him to be reelected.

After Jan 1 norquist pledge expires by fiat.

A lame duck session won’t happen if house or senate changes, because the winning side will want to wait for their control to come in.

He is worried about an October surprise where they get the entire Republican machine (Fox, Limbaugh, lobbyists, op-ed writers, bloggers, etc.) on a message, try to get a stampede going, A stampede is not a rational process

Can we block Simpson Bowles? That requires 40 on our side to hold out. So it depends on how attractive the offer is.

Be prepared, legislation is chaotic, things can happen, if we have to take a hit then why now do something for us, like remove the cap on Social Security payroll taxes in exchange for the hit we take.

Other things can come out of that chaos if we are ready: environmental taxes, fuel taxes, we should be thinking about things like this. We should be prepared to seize moments and grab things we have wanted in the chaos of legislation

So a grand bargain can also be an opportunity. IF they remove the cap on Social Security.

My own opinion? During the questioning I asked, if the point is reducing deficits, don't the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and the cuts in military spending do just that?

If you really want to keep the Bush tax cuts for people making less than $250K or whatever, let the Bush tax cuts expire and then next year push a new tax cut, and call it the Obama tax cuts. (And push up the deficit with tax cuts that tell the public taxes are bad therefore government is bad...)

So Much Tax Evasion, So Little Accountability

Sam Pizzigati — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:11:35 -0400

Over two years ago, the IRS announced an ambitious new effort to subject the super rich to unprecedentedly intensive audits. How's that effort working out? Most lawmakers would rather you not ask.

Every once in a while, our plutocrats drop all democratic pretense and arrogantly offer up a raw display of their ample political might. One such display came last week. On Monday, a proposal to fix a minimum tax on America's rich — the “Buffett rule” — went nowhere in the U.S. Senate.

The Buffett rule proposal needed 60 votes to beat back a filibuster. The actual votes the proposal received: just 51.

But last week's most impressive show of plutocratic power actually came the next day — and made no headlines. On Tuesday, the annual federal income tax filing deadline came and went with America’s super rich once again stiffing Uncle Sam for hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes due.

We're not talking loopholes here, those entirely legal tax code provisions — like lower tax rates for capital gains — that give the rich preferential treatment at tax time. We're talking outright tax evasion, the willful misreporting of income.

The IRS periodically tries to measure how much of this cheating goes on. The latest estimate, released this past January and covering 2006, puts the tax gap — the difference between taxes owed but not paid on time — at $385 billion.

Some of this gap represents “innocent” tax return mistakes, the rest outright fraud. Taxpayers at all income levels, of course, cheat. But the only fiscally consequential cheating comes from the super rich. They both cheat at a higher rate than Americans of modest means and — given the enormity of their incomes — deny Uncle Sam far more tax dollars when they do cheat.

Why can't Uncle Sam get at those lost tax dollars? Have the super rich and their handsomely paid handlers simply become too skilled at squirreling income in tax havens? Do the complexities of the global economy simply make collecting taxes from the rich an impossibly difficult task?

IRS officials certainly don't think so. In 2009, they confidently launched a new task force dedicated to scoping out the super rich. This “Global High Wealth Industry Group,” the IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman predicted early in 2010, would bring a “game-changing strategy” to the battle against ultra wealthy tax cheats and their most sophisticated tax evasion stratagems.

Now, over two years later, an analysis of IRS data by tax experts at Syracuse University suggests that the tax game hasn't yet changed. The IRS super-rich task force, reports the Syracuse Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, has so far completed intensive audits on only a few dozen super rich.

That few dozen represents only about 0.4 percent of the more than 8,300 U.S. taxpayers currently reporting over $10 million a year in income.

On the bright side: The tiny handful of audits the special IRS task force has completed did recover $47.7 million in unpaid taxes. At that recovery rate, if the IRS had completed audits on all the taxpayers making over $10 million, the federal treasury would likely have picked up over $200 billion.

With a return on audit investment this high, why aren't IRS officials doing more to audit the super rich? Agency officials, for their part, insist they are doing more to make sure the rich pay the taxes they owe. They point to the rising number of traditional “correspondence” and “field” audits on high-income taxpayers.

In 2011, the IRS conducted these traditional audits on 29.9 percent of all taxpayers reporting over $10 million in income, a considerable hike over the 18 percent of these deep pockets audited traditionally in 2010.

But analysts at the Syracuse tax center note that the IRS is spending less time per wealthy taxpayer on these traditional audits, only 2.6 hours, on average, for each by-mail “correspondence” audit and only 31.4 hours on the average “field” audit, down from 41.7 hours in 2007.

The much more intensive audits that the new IRS high-wealth unit conducts, by contrast, can take months of staff time to complete. The agency simply does not have a large enough staff complement to put in that sort of time for more than a relative handful of no-holds-barred audits. The reason: Congress over recent years has consistently declined to adequately fund IRS tax-collection operations.

In just the last two years alone, budget cuts have cost the agency some 3,000 enforcement staff positions. The bigger picture: Just 20 years ago, in 1992, the IRS had 114,758 staff to cover a U.S. population of 249.4 million. In 2011, the agency’s 94,709 staff had to cover a total U.S. population of 312.6 million.

More taxpayers, fewer staff. The tax lawyers, accountants, lobbyists, and private bankers who make up what Northwestern University economist Jeffrey Winters has dubbed the “income defense industry” couldn’t be more pleased. They’re making millions cutting tax corners for the super rich, at precious little risk either to themselves or their clients.

In a fairer tax universe than ours, tax collectors would have all the resources they need to scour the tax returns of the super rich and squash their tax-evasion games. And in that fairer tax universe, tax collectors wouldn't just scour tax returns. They would scour, just as finely, the haunts of the rich and famous.

In Greece and Italy, two nations with a history of chronic and massive tax evasion by the rich, tax collectors are now doing that broader scouring. They're checking license plates at elite ski resorts, for instance, to pinpoint high-spenders, then checking the incomes these high-spenders have filed on their tax returns.

Aggressive tactics like these are identifying tax evaders that traditional audits have hardly ever snared.

Could our IRS ever become this aggressive? In Italy and Greece, tax collectors only stopped playing footsie with the wealthy after economic calamity hit. The Greeks and Italians never saw calamity coming. We don't have that excuse.

Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the online weekly on excess and inequality published by the Institute for Policy Studies. Read the current issue or sign up here to receive Too Much in your email inbox.

Deficit Trouble - Right Here In River City!

Dave Johnson — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 17:10:52 -0400

River City faces a terrible deficit, and if we don't cut spending on the things We, the People do for each other right now, there will be trouble. We gotta do some austerity! We gotta eat that seed corn. We gotta stop taxing the 1% and stop paying for things the 99% need!

It's a con as old as the hills. Whip up the people with fear, and then offer them the ready-made "solution." In his post, Ya Got Trouble — A fresh look at an old con, Tom Sullivan nails it with a scene from The Music Man. For those not familiar with The Music Man, here is the lead-up: "River City ain't in any trouble." "Well, we're going to have to create some." Then the ~~Republican Congressman~~ Music Man goes out and whips the town into a state. He does it to sell them. (The following is from a local production, which YouTube allowed to be embedded here. To see the clip from the movie click here.)

From Sullivan's post:

Trouble with a capital “T”
And that rhymes with “P”
and that stands for pool!

In one, short speech — building intensity as he goes — Professor Harold Hill gathers a crowd of onlookers and rattles off a litany of big city sins “the right kinda parents” worry about corrupting their children and their small town: sloth, drinking, gambling, being “stuck-up,” smoking, loose morals, and indecent pop culture. In a fevered crescendo, Hill warns parents of “shameless music • That’ll grab your son, your daughter • With the arms of a jungle animal instink!”

Sullivan explains the con:

Hill presses every button the people of River City, Iowa have to press, plus appeals to patriotism and God to create a city-wide moral crisis that four minutes earlier the townspeople didn’t know they had. Sound familiar?

Now strike pool. Insert contraception, voter fraud, death panels, or a half dozen other right-wing bogey men and the grifter’s pitch works the same. Today, Harold Hill would be working for Fox News or Americans for Prosperity. He’d be running American Crossroads, and making a lot more money.

This con has been perfected in recent years as The Shock Doctrine, forcing entire countries into debt or other crisis, then stepping in to plunder and privatize their resources, like what is happening to Greece right now.

Whipping Up Deficit Hysteria

This "con game" is what is happening to our own country as well, with the whipped-up terrification over deficits. The Reagan plan was cut taxes and increase military spending to force the country into debt, and then use the debt to force privatization of public resources into the hands of a few. George 'W' Bush said after cutting taxes on the rich and raising military spending that the resulting transformation of Clinton's budget surplus into huge budget deficits was "incredibly positive news" because it would force us into near-bankruptcy. Yes, he said that.

But the solution offered -- the current Republican budget that phases out Medicare and guts our government -- doesn't even cut the deficit! The Republican "austerity" budget starts with $10 trillion in tax cuts for the 1%! Then it guts most of what We, the People do for each other.

Don't be fooled, it is just one more conservative con game.

Every Progressive Should Know About The “Budget For All”

Dave Johnson — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:49:36 -0400

Every progressive should know about the Congressional Progressive Caucus's "Budget for All." In fact, every American should know about this budget. But the corporate news media sure isn't going to tell people. So you should help get the word out. Read and Share the One-Page Handout. Email this post to friends, relatives, and especially to your right-wing brother-in-law.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has put together a "Budget for All" that "puts Americans back to work, charts a path to responsible deficit reduction, enhances our economic competitiveness, rebuilds the middle class and invests in our future." This budget "makes no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits, and asks those who have benefited most from our economy to pay a sensible share."

Our Budget Puts Americans Back to Work

Our budget attacks America’s persistently high unemployment levels with more than $2.9 trillion in additional job-creating investments. This plan utilizes every tool at the government’s disposal to get our economy moving again, including:
• Direct hire programs that create a School Improvement Corps, a Park Improvement Corps, and a Student Jobs Corps, among others.
• Targeted tax incentives that spur clean energy, manufacturing, and cutting-edge technological investments in the private sector.
• Widespread domestic investments including an infrastructure bank, a $556 billion surface transportation bill, and approximately $2.1 trillion in widespread domestic investment.

Our Budget Exhibits Fiscal Discipline
• The Budget for All achieves $6.8 trillion in deficit reduction, hits the same debt to GDP ratio as the Republican budget, and has lower deficits in the last five years, but does so in a responsible way that does not devastate what Americans want preserved.
• We achieve these notable benchmarks by focusing on the true drivers of our deficit – unsustainable tax policies, the wars overseas, and policies that helped cause the recent recession – rather than putting the middle class’s social safety net on the chopping block.

Our Budget Creates a Fairer America
• Ends tax cuts for the top 2% of Americans on schedule at year’s end
• Extends tax relief for middle class households and the vast majority of Americans
• Creates new tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires
• Eliminates the tax code’s preferential treatment of capital gains and dividends
• Abolishes corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies
• Eliminates loopholes that allow businesses to dodge their true tax liability
• Calls for the adoption of the “Buffett Rule”
• Creates a publicly funded federal election system that gets corporate money out of politics for good

Our Budget Brings Our Troops Home
• Responsibly and expeditiously ends our military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving America more secure at home and abroad
• Modernizes our military to address 21st century threats and stop contributing to our deficit problems

Protects American Families
• Provides a Making Work Pay tax credit for families struggling with high gas and food cost 2013-2015
• Extends Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child and Dependent Care Credit
• Invests in programs to stave off further foreclosures to keep families in their homes
• Invests in our children’s education by increasing Education, Training, and Social Services

Let people know that there is a budget alternative that respects We, the People.

Also see: Three Reasons To Rally Around The Progressive Caucus "Budget For All"

Republican Budget For Billionaires: The Impact

Dave Johnson — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:03:26 -0400

The new Republican budget (called the "Ryan Budget" by DC insiders) reflects current electoral reality: billionaires and corporations now finance candidates, and we get government of, by and for billionaires and corporations. The rest of us no longer matter, except as "the help" and, at least to the extent we haven't been entirely fleeced, a flock to harvest. This budget starts with $10 trillion in tax cuts -- mostly for the rich. After adding $10 trillion to the deficits Republicans then claim that severe cuts are necessary to "fight deficits." Right. Details below.

Keep in mind where we are starting from: The way our economy and tax system is already structured, the top 1% received 93% of income gains from recovery. As Mitt Romney's tax returns demonstrated, those at the very top -- whose income comes as checks generated by the money they already have -- already pay much lower tax rates than those of us who work for a living.

Shock Doctrine

"Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes. -- Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay, 2003"

After passing tax cut after tax cut, and military spending increase after military spending increase, and starting war after war, Republican borrowing has added up. So now Republicans terrify the public, telling them that budget deficits will lead to the destruction of the country -- and soon. After a decade of screaming "9/11," "9/11," noun verb "9/11," they now scream "deficit, deficit, deficit." Then with the public suitably stirred up and terrified they offer "solutions" they say are necessary to cut the scary deficit (that they caused, for this purpose).

Behind a blizzard of fog and mirrors, the new Republican budget completes the ongoing shift of our government and our economy away from "we are in this together" democracy to a "you are on your own" system that is entirely for the benefit of a few at the top.

Cuts Taxes For The 1%

The smoke and mirrors: they claim this budget is necessary to reduce deficits, but it doesn't even pretend to. Instead it starts by cutting taxes on the rich and their corporations by another $4.6 trillion while making permanent the Bush tax cuts, costing another $5.6 trillion. It gives a $187,000 tax cut To every millionaire!

Cuts Jobs

Ethan Pollack at the Economic Policy Institute describes how Ryan’s budget cuts would cost jobs -- 4.1 million of them:

Paul Ryan’s latest budget doesn’t just fail to address job creation, itaggressively slows job growth. Against a current policy baseline, the budget cuts discretionary programs by about $120 billion over the next two years and mandatory programs by $284 billion, sucking demand out of the economy when it most needs it and leading to job loss. Using astandard macroeconomic model that is consistent with that used byprivate- and public-sector forecasters, the shock to aggregate demand from near-term spending cuts would result in roughly 1.3 million jobs lost in 2013 and 2.8 million jobs lost in 2014, or 4.1 million jobs through 2014.*

Cuts Everything Government Does For Regular People

This budget starts with $10 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy! After handing billionaires and their corporations trillions, increasing deficits by an additional $10 trillion, the Republican budget then cuts the things government does for the rest of us: Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance and public investments (mostly infrastructure and education), and pretends it is necessary because of deficits. (It increases funding for military contractors.)

What is cut? The following is from an analysis by the Office of Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer:

A Choice of Two Futures: A Look at How the Republican Budget Ends Medicare, Destroys Jobs, Benefits the Wealthy

Ending the Medicare guarantee and raising health care costs for seniors:

Ends the guarantee of health security and shifts higher costs onto seniors and the disabled over time.
Increases seniors’ health care costs just like last year’s budget – which drove up costs by over $6,000 per year, according to CBO.
Reopens the prescription drug donut hole, increasing seniors’ drug costs by up to $44 billion through 2020, including $2.2 billion in 2012 alone, according to HHS.
Increases seniors’ out-of-pocket costs for preventative care and annual checkups by over $110 million in 2012 alone, according to HHS.
54-year-olds would have to save more money just to cover health care costs – an analysis of last year’s budget showed they would have to save an additional $182,000, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of working families:

Provides millionaires an average tax cut of $150,000.
Reduces revenue by $4.6 trillion on top of the $5.4 trillion cost of permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts and other expiring provisions, according to the Tax Policy Center.
May force working families to pay higher effective tax rates to cover some of the cost of this $4.6 trillion tax cut for the wealthy by eliminating deductions.

Turning Medicaid into a block grant that jeopardizes access to affordable health and nursing home care for seniors and the disabled:

Cuts a total of $1.7 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade, and according to CBO, is on track to cut the program by 75% by 2050. According to the Urban Institute, block granting the Medicaid program could result in between 14 million and 27 million people losing coverage. An additional 17 million people, who gained Medicaid and CHIP coverage through health care reform according to the CBO, would also lose that coverage as a result of repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Making it harder for Americans to receive Social Security benefits:

Increases backlogs that delay people from getting benefits that they are due and could leave up to 90,000 people with disabilities waiting for a decision in 2013 and leave 300,000 more people with disabilities waiting for a decision each year over the next decade.

Weakening our ability to out-educate competitors and build a competitive workforce:

Reduces Pell Grants by more than $1,000 for 9.6 million students in 2014 and could eliminate Pell Grants for over one million students over the next decade.
Kicks 60,000 low-income children out of the Head Start program in 2013 and 200,000 low-income children out of the program each year over the next decade.
Cuts Title I funding, which could result in nearly 11,000 teachers and aides losing their jobs in 2013 and nearly 38,000 teachers and aides losing their jobs each year over the next decade.
Cuts funding for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which could result in 7,800 special education teachers, aides, and other staff serving children with disabilities losing their jobs in 2013, and 27,000 teachers, aides, and staff losing their jobs each year over the next decade.
Reduces work-study funding, meaning almost 37,000 students could lose access to college work-study opportunities in 2013, and more than 166,000 students could be affected each year over the next decade.

Slashing assistance to low-income families:

Cuts the WIC program (Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children), kicking 700,000 pregnant or postpartum women, infants, and children off the WIC program and leaving another 100,000 without access to critical foods necessary for healthy child development in 2013. Each year over the next decade, the cuts would kick 1.8 million women, infants, and children off the WIC program and leave another 100,000 without access to critical foods.
Converts SNAP into a block grant beginning in 2016, which could jeopardize access to food assistance for millions of Americans.
Cuts HUD’s rental assistance programs, resulting in over 116,000 fewer low-income families housed through the Housing Choice Voucher program in 2013 and 400,000 fewer low-income families housed through the program each year over the next decade.
Risks permanent loss of affordable units that serve 1.1 million Americans.

Repealing patient protections and putting insurance companies – not American families – in control of health care:

Allows insurers to once again be allowed to discriminate against up to 17 million children with pre-existing conditions.
Subjects 105 million Americans once more to arbitrary lifetime caps on their health insurance.
Increases 54 million Americans’ out-of-pocket costs for preventative care.
Puts up to 15 million Americans who are sick or injured at risk of being dropped from their private insurance because of a simple mistake on an application.
Eliminates tax credits for up to four million small businesses, which are already providing more affordable care to two million workers. [Figures provided by HHS and the Treasury Department]

Weakening national security:

Cuts COPS hiring grants, which could result in 75 fewer local police hires and 6,200 fewer bullet proof vests for state and local law enforcement personnel in 2013, and 285 fewer local police hires and 23,000 fewer vests each year over the next decade.
Cuts Department of Justice (DOJ) funding, resulting in 1,311 fewer federal agents to combat violent crime, pursue financial crimes, secure the border, and ensure national security in 2013, and 4,587 fewer agents each year over the next decade.
Cuts DOJ funding resulting in 948 fewer prison guards to maintain safe and secure federal prisons in 2013, and 3,319 fewer prison guards each year over the next decade.
Reduces Department of Homeland Security funding for preparedness efforts of state and local governments, which could mean 100 firefighters and 80 emergency managers not being hired or laid off in 2013, and 400 firefighters and 300 emergency managers not being hired or laid off each year over the next decade.

Undermining American competitiveness by cutting investments in science, medical research, space and technology:

Cuts funding for biomedical research by NIH, meaning 500 fewer grants NIH could award in a cutting-edge field in 2013 and 1,600 fewer grants each year for the next decade, limiting research that could lead to new cures for diseases.
Cuts funding for NSF, which could result in NSF making up to 1,100 fewer competitive research and education grants supporting over 13,000 researchers, students, and teachers in 2013 and 4,000 fewer grants supporting almost 48,000 researchers, students, and teachers each year over the next decade.
Cuts NASA funding and puts jobs at risk by forcing the agency to terminate major programs and potentially close major facilities.

Threatening our clean energy future:

Cuts investments in the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and its applied research program, known as ARPA-E, that was established specifically to conduct energy research that industry by itself cannot support but where success would provide dramatic benefits for the nation.
Eliminates jobs by setting back efforts to put a million electric vehicles on the road, retrofit residential homes, and make commercial buildings more efficient.
Fails to boost all energy sources by eliminating tax support for renewable energy generation and the domestic jobs created by those energy projects.
Unless otherwise noted, all figures from OMB.

Taxes Were Cut, So Where's The Growth?

Dave Johnson — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:06:22 -0500

Conservatives and plutocrats claim that cutting taxes makes the economy grow. But after 'W' cut taxes, the economy didn't grow. And after Clinton raised taxes on the rich the economy grew a lot. Maybe - just maybe - having a government that is funded and functioning helps the economy grow more than handing over a bunch of cash to the rich does. Go figure.

It's not just me who has noticed... Bruce Bartlett is a conservative who served under President Reagan and the first President Bush. But he's a bit fed up with the nonsense that the plutocrats keep spouting about tax cuts. today, in Fanning the Flames of Class Warfare, Bartlett writes,

I’m still waiting for the growth Republicans promised under George W. Bush after they cut the top federal income tax rate to 35 percent from 39.6 percent, the top rate on qualified dividends to 15 percent from 35 percent and the top rate on capital gains to 15 percent from 20 percent. All of these actions significantly lowered taxes for the rich without raising economic growth at all. Why will more tax cuts for these same people do any good now?

Yesterday I pointed out that the recession recovery under Reagan was the result of government spending and hiring. From The Big Reagan Recovery Was Government Spending And Hiring,

Conservatives like to talk about how well the economy did under Reagan, and how poorly it is doing now. Then they say that government "takes money out of the economy." But the difference in economic growth was that under Reagan the government was spending and hiring, and now it isn't.

Let me conclude with the same words as yesterday:

A government that is run only for 1%er plutocrats will only do things that benefit plutocrats. As the governments of the world are increasingly "captured" by the plutocrats they will increasingly cut back on doing things for regular people. It doesn't matter if this hurts or even kills their economies in the future, 1%ers don't care. Plutocrats want it now, for themselves, and take it now, for themselves, the rest be damned.

And let me add, they'll say what they need to say to get that.