I’ve got some new numbers for you that illustrate this in fresh detail:
They reveal that the surtaxes would be paid by an infinitessimally small
percentage of American taxpayers, and that the surtaxes themselves
would constitute an infinitessimally tiny percentage of the income of
the wealthy.
Tiny times tiny, doesn't add up to much, right? Let's remember what this tax is supposed to fund:
The plan would create a national infrastructure bank and would invest
$50 billion in upgrading highways, rail, and bridges, with the goal of
putting construction workers across the country back on the job and
revitalizing our infrastructure and economy. It would be paid for by a
0.7 percent surtax on income in excess of $1 million.
Okay, here's Sargent's numbers:
* If the new infrastructure proposal were enacted, the surtax on
millionaires would impact a grand total of 345,532 taxpayers nationwide —
or 0.2 percent of American taxpayers.
* If the new infrastructure proposal were enacted, the 0.7
percent surtax would amount to all of $13,457 on average for the
millionaires that would pay it. Given that their average income is
$2,923,000, this means they would be paying on average an additional
1/217 of their overall income, or just over an additional 0.4 percent.
That’s less than one half of one percent.
Okay, so 345,532 taxpayers, paying an additional $13, 457 totals how much kiddies? Answer: About $4.6 billion. To cover $50 billion in new spending.
A hilarious send-up of Ira Glass' This American Life:
If you've ever listened to NPR (and I haven't in years, but that's the beauty of NPR; it never changes), you'll get some of the terrific inside jokes.
When Will Obama Apologize to the Germans for Liberating the Concentration Camps?
The apologist-in-chief tried another goofy theya culpa:
In September 2009, US Ambassador to Japan John Roos reported to the Obama administration that the Japanese government did not think it was a good idea for President Obama to visit Hiroshima to apologize for the US having dropped an atomic bomb on that city, a secret cable published by Wikileaks revealed.
Roos wrote the cable after his August meeting with Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka, reporting to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the Japanese government felt “the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a ‘non-starter.’
The Congressional Budget Office on Friday confirmed that President
Obama’s jobs bill would be fully paid for over ten years and also gave
its seal of approval to Senate Democrats' version that includes a surtax
on millionaires.
The CBO said that the original Obama stimulus
bill would involve $447 billion in tax cuts and new spending—the same
estimate given by the administration. It said the bill would raise $450
billion over ten years. The result is a $3 billion decrease in deficits
over ten years.
What are they missing? Oh, yeah, there's this little bit:
The CBO did say that the original bill would increase the short term budget deficit in 2012 by $288 billion.
Translation: They're going to spend a lot now, and they promise pay it back years from now. Say you want to buy a new car. But because you put a lot of miles on your car every year, it will only last you two years, at which time it's basically a junker. And you want the bank to stretch your payments out over ten years.
Todd Rundgren had a couple of monster hits in the early 1970s, with Hello It's Me:
And I Saw the Light:
He popped up again on the charts about a decade later with the novelty song Bang on the Drum All Day:
But before, during and after this phase Rundgren had an incredible career as a hard rocker, phenomenally successful record producer, and musical innovator. As an example of his hard rock chops, consider these two selections from his initial band, The Nazz:
Rundgren produced the phenomenally successful Meatloaf album, Bat Out of Hell, which currently ranks as the fifth best-selling album of all time. And in the mid-1970s he created the innovative synthesizer band, Utopia, which later became a more conventional rock band. Here's Part I of the Ikon from the first Utopia album:
Utopia's Singring and the Glass Guitar was something of a Lord of the Rings for rock and roll:
I particularly like the opening to part II of this song, especially the drumming:
Be sure also to catch the ending of that track, starting around 6:45. Granted, the narration tying the segments together gets annoying, but the music is terrific.
Rundgren's politics were pretty consistently leftist, although there are only a few songs here and there where the message overwhelms the music. He is definitely one of the few musicians of the rock era where the label "genius" seems appropriate.
