Republicans start sounding like "socialists"?

Romney "like(s) being able to fire people."

Other GOP contenders have a problem with that (not firing people, just telling the public that's what they want to do)

"Can't we get back to bashing Obama's pro-middle class policies?"

Full story: http://www.denverpost.com/littwin/ci_19707306

By Mike Littwin
The last thing anyone could have expected from the Republican presidential field here was a late-breaking shift to the left...

...Here's Gingrich, who has called Romney a looter, explaining to the press how a historian/not lobbyist sees the issue:
"Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that, in fact ... a flawed system? So I do draw a distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighborhoods and leaving behind a factory that should be there."

Rick Perry — who is polling at 1 percent in New Hampshire — is in South Carolina, where he's focusing on a company that he says was "looted" by Bain and adds that "getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is ... indefensible."

"If you're a victim of Bain Capital's downsizing," said Perry, who routinely calls Barack Obama a socialist, "it's the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain, because he caused it."

I know. You think the outrage may be forced — and a little late in the game. Everyone figured Romney's problem in the primaries would be Romneycare. But it turns out to be Bain Scare...

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Concern over "class warfare" depends on which class you're in...

for full story, see http://www.latimes.com/business/personalfinance/la-fi-hiltzik4-2009mar04,0,1356927.column

by Michael Hiltzik
March 4, 2009

"Class warfare" comes in many flavors. There's the variety practiced by feudal overlords upon their serfs, and the variety waged by the Jacobins of the French Revolution against the monarchists.

Then there's the variety that Republicans claim to find in President Obama's proposed budget -- a taking from the rich to reward the undeserving poor. The rhetoric has spread quickly, moving from the libertarian Heritage Foundation to the ranks of GOP presidential hopefuls like flames leaping from tree to tree in the Angeles National Forest.

"Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff," says former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead, but a Union of American Socialist Republics is being born."

Yet the true class war of recent American history is the one that has pitted the upper 1% of income earners against almost everybody else. Over the last three decades, a period that spans Republican and Democratic administrations alike, average family income has scarcely budged an inch, while the wealthy have grown measurably wealthier.

In 1979, the top 1% of U.S. households earned eight times as much as the middle 20% and 23 times as much as the bottom fifth; by 2005, the Congressional Budget Office found, the upper crust touched 21 times as much as the middle class and 70 times as much as the bottom. Adjusting for inflation, the average American worker made 16% less in 2004 than in the 1970s, according to economist Benjamin M. Friedman....

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Tax Rates Fell by a Third for the 400 Richest Americans, Whose Average Income Doubled to $263 million a Year Under George Bush's Presidency

January 31, 2009
NOT FRONT PAGE NEWS???
in print edition C-4

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/31/business/fi-richtaxes31

The average tax rate paid by the richest 400 Americans fell by a third to 17.2% through the first six years of the Bush administration, and their average income doubled to $263.3 million, new data show. The 17.2% in 2006 was the lowest since the Internal Revenue Service began tracking the 400 largest taxpayers in 1992, although they paid more tax on an inflation-adjusted basis than for any year since 2000. The drop from 2001’s tax rate of 22.9% was largely because of President Bush’s push to cut tax rates on most capital gains to 15% in 2003. Capital gains made up 63% of the richest 400 Americans’ adjusted gross income in 2006, or a combined $66.1 billion, according to the data. In all, those taxpayers reported a combined $105.3 billion in adjusted gross income in 2006, the most recent year for which the IRS has data. “The big explosion in income for this group is clearly on the capital gains side, although there are also sharp increases in dividend and interest income,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research in Washington. In addition, “they are realizing more of their gains due to the lower tax rate,” Baker said. The data may provide ammunition for Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco who say they intend to increase the capital gains tax rate even as the credit crunch roils markets and is producing more investment losses than gains. President Obama pledged during the presidential campaign to increase the rate.

------------------
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/11/03/better-off/

Are You Better Off Than You Were Eight Years Ago?»

Our guest blogger is Adam Jentleson, the Communications and Outreach Director for the Hyde Park Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan famously asked America, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

After eight years of conservative rule, it’s worth posing a similar question – are Americans better off today than they were eight years ago?

As our new memo shows, unless you happen to be a big corporation or make enough money to be in the top percentage of earners, the answer is probably no:

A variety of metrics can be used to judge this question and assess what eight years of conservative policies have wrought. The picture painted here is clear: from job growth to debt, and from income disparity to national poverty indices, the conservative approach of putting big corporations and the very wealthy ahead of the middle class has failed to create prosperity that can be shared by all Americans.

Noblesse Oblige my ass!

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Rich getting richer faster

New studies spotlight a growing gap between top and bottom. The divide
is widest in Arizona, narrowest in Wyoming.

By MSN Money Staff 1/30/06

Two new studies find the rich are getting richer at a faster pace.

A study released in late January, from the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, found that the gap
between the highest- and lowest-income families is significantly wider than
it was 25 years ago.

And an analysis of income-tax data by Congressional Budget Office found
that the top 1% of households own nearly twice as much of the nation’s
corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.

The studies come among a growing push to increase the federal minimum
wage of $5.15 an hour for the first time in nine years. Public advocacy
groups have successfully lobbied for “living wage” reforms in 18 states
and a number of cities, raising the minimum wage in some places as high
as $12 an hour.

An employee working full-time at the federal minimum wage makes $10,712
a year. About 7% of the workforce earns a minimum wage.

“Growing income inequality harms this nation in a number of ways,”
stated Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute
and co-author of the income report. “When income growth is concentrated
at the top of the income scale, the people at the bottom have a much
harder time lifting themselves out of poverty and giving their children a
decent start in life.”


Market rebound favors well-off:

The five states with the largest income gap between the top and bottom
fifths of families are New York, Texas, Tennessee, Arizona and Florida.
Generally, income gaps are larger in the Southeast and Southwest and
smaller in the Midwest, Great Plains and Mountain states. (To see the
state-by-state list, ranked, see end of story.)

Income inequality declined somewhat, the report found, following the
bursting of the stock and high-tech bubbles in 2000, which were costly to
the highest-income families. But incomes at the top have rebounded,
while the negative effects of the recent recession on low and
moderate-income families have lasted longer than usual.

In 38 states where the incomes of the bottom fifth of families grew
more slowly than those at the top, incomes at the top rose by an average
of $45,800 (62%), while the incomes of the poorest grew by $3,000 (21%).

The only state in which incomes of the poor grew faster than those of
the rich was Alaska.

The study is based on Census income data that have been adjusted to
account for inflation, the impact of federal taxes and the cash value of
food stamps, subsidized school lunches and housing vouchers. Income from
capital gains is also included. The study compares combined data from
2001-2003 with data from the early 1980s and early 1990s, time periods
chosen because they stand as comparable low points of their respective
business cycles.

Possible steps to stem the disparity, the report offers, include
raising state minimum wages, strengthening supports for low-income working
families and reforming the unemployment insurance system. In addition,
states can pursue tax policies that partially offset the growing
inequality of pre-tax incomes.

Corporate wealth concentrates further:

The richest 1% of households -- those with incomes above $237,000 for
2003, the latest year analyzed -- owned 57.5% of all income from capital
gains, dividends, interest and rents in 2003, the CBO analysis found.
That was up from 53.4% the year before and 38.7% in 1991.

Long-term capital gains were taxed at 28% until 1997, and at 20% until
2003, when rates were cut to 15%. The top rate on stock dividends was
cut to 15% from 35% that year.

The poorest fifth of Americans owned 0.6% of corporate wealth in 2003,
down from 1.4 percent in 1991.

The CBO analysis excludes the stock held in retirement accounts such as
401(k)s and IRAs, which isn’t subject to taxation and was thus
unaffected by the tax cuts.

Although these tax cuts are slated to expire in 2008, Congress is
already debating whether to extend them through 2010. The Bush
administration has been calling for the cuts to be extended or made permanent.

An analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center found that an
extension of the tax cuts would save households with incomes under $50,000
about $11 in 2009. Those with incomes above $1 million would save about
$32,000.

The growing gap in family incomes:

Rank State Top 5% Bottom 20% Ratio

14 Alabama $172,029 $14,765 11.7
45 Alaska $180,148 $20,533 8.8
1 Arizona $223,081 $15,719 14.2
13 Arkansas $163,908 $13,888 11.8
8 California $207,363 $16,773 12.4
19 Colorado $215,109 $18,983 11.3
24 Connecticut $231,928 $21,003 11.0
41 Delaware $188,435 $20,225 9.3
7 Florida $199,892 $15,396 13.0
36 Georgia $158,382 $16,345 9.7
26 Hawaii $208,340 $19,294 10.8
43 Idaho $162,923 $17,847 9.1
20 Illinois $203,876 $18,032 11.3
30 Indiana $195,217 $18,590 10.5
48 Iowa $155,722 $18,503 8.4
17 Kansas $209,125 $18,284 11.4
5 Kentucky $193,766 $14,814 13.1
16 Louisiana $153,334 $13,347 11.5
31 Maine $164,232 $15,975 10.3
12 Maryland $253,923 $21,480 11.8
11 Massachusetts $233,108 $19,690 11.8
21 Michigan $200,814 $17,927 11.2
33 Minnesota $223,411 $22,608 9.9
25 Mississippi $145,342 $13,456 10.8
38 Missouri $176,320 $18,482 9.5
42 Montana $135,164 $14,788 9.1
49 Nebraska $160,862 $19,242 8.4
39 Nevada $180,521 $19,143 9.4
35 New Hampshire $226,178 $23,128 9.8
4 New Jersey $268,889 $20,391 13.2
18 New Mexico $157,011 $13,748 11.3
3 New York $216,061 $16,076 13.4
9 North Carolina $183,253 $14,884 12.3
44 North Dakota $147,519 $16,805 8.8
27 Ohio $195,175 $18,216 10.7
37 Oklahoma $150,011 $15,483 9.7
32 Oregon $175,976 $17,367 10.1
10 Pennsylvania $223,152 $18,548 12.0
28 Rhode Island $200,859 $18,916 10.6
29 South Carolina $157,634 $14,957 10.5
47 South Dakota $155,427 $18,353 8.5
6 Tennessee $187,026 $14,303 13.1
2 Texas $203,174 $14,724 13.8
34 Utah $192,142 $19,594 9.8
40 Vermont $176,291 $18,846 9.4
23 Virginia $200,191 $18,110 11.1
15 Washington $195,170 $16,911 11.5
22 West Virginia $147,434 $13,208 11.2
46 Wisconsin $174,919 $20,197 8.7
50 Wyoming $145,587 $18,171 8.0

Gap between rich, poor seen growing

Income disparity reaches highest since 1920s, paper reports, with recent Wall Street boom partly to blame.

October 12 2007: 9:56 AM EDT

http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/12/news/economy/income/index.htm?section=money_mostpopular

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The income gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans grew to its widest level since the 1920s, according to a report published Friday.

Citing Internal Revenue Service data, the Wall Street Journal reported that the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans earned 21.2 percent of all the nation's income in 2005, up from the previous high of 20.8 percent in 2000.

Conversely, the bottom half of working Americans earned just 12.8 percent of all the nation's income, down from 13.4 percent in 2004 and slightly lower than 13 percent in 2000.

While the IRS data only dates back as far as 1986, academic experts told the paper that the last time the rich had this large of a share of income was during the 1920s.

The figures, based on "adjusted gross income" which incorporates certain deductions such as contributions to individual retirement accounts, revealed that the income level for the tax filer in wealthiest 1 percent of Americans grew 3 percent to $364,657 between 2000 and 2005, according to the Journal.

At the same time, the median American income, however, slipped 2 percent during that same period to $30,881.

Academic experts told the paper that the income disparity among Americans was due a combination of factors including globalization and technical advances, which favor the most skilled workers, while the recent boom on Wall Street was also seen playing a large part.

Leading up to this summer's market meltdown, stocks were on a tear, while the availability of cheap credit helped led not only to big deals, but hefty payouts for workers in the private equity, hedge fund and investment banking businesses.