22 April 2011 afternoon

Workout notes I got a break in the action to take a short but fun walk (5K; not time but a 13-14 mpm effort). Nothing hurt.

Posts

No, taxing the rich won’t solve ALL of our problems right away, but it will close the gap. What is wrong with Ronald Reagan tax rates?

Of course, the conservatives won’t hear of it. They respond with “that’s unfair!” and “some people pay nothing”. Paul Krugman sets the record straight:

The claim that only rich people pay taxes is a zombie lie — something that keeps coming back no matter how many times it’s killed by evidence.

So, let’s try another shot to the head.

Yes, high-income people pay the bulk of the federal income tax. But that’s not the only tax! And while the income tax is quite progressive, the payroll tax — the other major federal tax — isn’t; and state and local taxes are strongly regressive.

Citizens for Tax Justice (pdf) has the goods: combining all taxes, federal, state, and local, we get this:

He also points out that the Progressive Caucus came up with a reasonable plan, not that it will get the light of day. Here is a brief snippet if you want to google past the New York Times paywall:

I’ve been remiss in not calling attention to the budget proposal from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It’s not going to happen — but then neither is the Ryan plan. And unlike the Ryan plan, it actually makes sense.

The CPC plan essentially balances the budget through higher taxes and defense cuts, plus some tougher bargaining by Medicare (and a public option to reduce the costs of the Affordable Care Act). The proposed tax hikes would fall mainly on higher incomes, although not just on the top 2%: super-brackets for very high incomes, elimination of deductions, taxation of capital income as ordinary income, and — the part that would be most controversial — raising the cap on payroll taxes.

None of this is economically outlandish. Marginal tax rates on high incomes would rise substantially — enough to make even liberal economists slightly uncomfortable — but the historical evidence suggests that the incentive effects wouldn’t be too severe. Overall taxes as a share of GDP aren’t given, but they would clearly remain well below European levels.

Oh yes, as you can tell, I am a New York Times subscriber; I love the weekend edition.

Evolution and the “homosexual agenda”:
No, I am not making this up:

The Creation Studies Institute is warning members that, like the Nazis, gay-rights activists are using public schools to indoctrinate students. While many Religious Right groups have alleged that safe-school and anti-bullying programs lead to “homosexual indoctrination,” the Creationist Studies Institute claims that the “gay agenda” has taken over schools because schools have “fully embraced Darwinian Evolution.”

“Indeed, the rampant teaching of evolution in our schools that is effectively undermining belief in God and absolute moral standards is not only creating an atmosphere of ‘tolerance’ for homosexuality, but for just about anything,” writes Tom DeRosa, the organization’s founder and executive director, who adds: “Of course, in a purely evolutionary world, homosexuals would naturally be bred out of existence.” DeRosa goes on to compare homosexuality with polygamy and pedophilia, and asks members to purchase Focus on the Family’s Secure Daughters, Confident Sons booklet:

Those who hold godless ideologies have long understood that the best way to transform societies and change the way people traditionally think is by indoctrinating children from the earliest stages of education. In the last century, this methodology was effectively employed by those who held the atheistic ideologies of Nazism in Germany and Communism in countries such as the Soviet Union, where the state assumed total control of the educational system—even to the extent of turning children against parents. Of course, both of these worldviews fully embraced Darwinian evolution as a way to justify their actions and nullify the beliefs of their largely Christian populations. While U.S. federal government does not have that kind of authority in our school system (not yet, anyway), is it any wonder that those who lack a biblical worldview in our country, including those with a gay agenda, have seized upon our primary schools as the main vehicle of transforming our nation more to their liking?

In America, the adoption of evolution in our schools has paved the way for the introduction of the gay agenda. Those pushing it understand that nothing will more thoroughly and quickly undermine the traditional biblical foundations of our country than the normalization of homosexuality among our nation’s school children, regardless of their parents’ beliefs. Currently, under the banner of “tolerance” or “equal rights,” states like Massachusetts, New York, California, Wisconsin and Minnesota are actively implementing a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) curriculum in their public schools. But those behind the effort to legitimize LGBT lifestyles won’t be content until this kind of curricula is taught in all of our nation’s schools. So what is being taught, you might ask, that should concern those of us in the creationist community?

Gee, teach science “advances the “gay agenda”"???

And yes, sadly, some of the biggest anti-gay bigots vote Democratic: re: proposition 8 in California which passed on the strength of the African American vote…70 percent of blacks voted for it!. Then there was Maine which repealed a gay marriage law and Maine both voted Democratic in 2008 and is almost all white.

Spandex butts
Lynn said that she wouldn’t read my post without a spandex butt shot so here you go:

Now I will admit that I did some cropping in the above photo since the original had a guy’s butt right in the center and I am not interested in that. But you can see it by clicking on the thumbnail.

But this person’s photo spread contains more than just bike shots; it also contains some political photos like this:

(click the thumbnail to see the larger version at the source)

Well done!
I attended our health care rally but our Representative is a right wing Republican (Aaron Schock, IL-18) and it was of little use.

Advertisement