Day 5 – Immigration Q & A

Do immigrants increase the crime rate?
Research has shown that immigrant communities do not increase the crime rate and that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born Americans.

Do immigrants take jobs away from Americans?
A study produced by the Pew Hispanic Center reveals that “Rapid increases in the foreign-born population at the state level are not associated with negative effects on the employment of native-born workers.”

Are immigrants are a drain on the United States economy?
The immigrant community is not a drain on the U.S. economy but, in fact, proves to be a net benefit.  Research reported by both the CATO Institute and the President’s Council of Economic Advisors reveals that the average immigrant pays a net 80,000 dollars more in taxes than they collect in government services.

Longer answers to these and other questions can be found at http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org/myths.shtml

Majority of Rich Want Themselves Taxed More

CNBC is reporting on a new poll which shows that 67 percent of the top one percent of American earners support higher income taxes.

American Express Publishing and The Harrison Group found that 67 percent of the top one percent of American earners support higher income taxes. Their support has grown since the election. This summer, 62 percent of them supported higher taxes.  

. . .  

"There is an absolute willingness for the vast majority of the One Percent to take a tax increase," said Jim Taylor, Vice Chairman Harrison Group. "What the Republicans think is not necessarily what their constituents think."  

Granted, the one percent is not happy about paying higher taxes. The American Express/Harrison poll shows that 64 percent say they carry an "unfair tax burden in the amount of money I pay in taxes." This number is higher for Republicans and lower for Democrats.

The rest of the article is here.

Labor-Religion Coalition and the fiscal cliff

The Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State, co-chaired by Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, has issued the following statement on the impending "fiscal cliff":　

As the nation faces an austerity crisis (or so-called fiscal cliff), religious communities are highlighting their concern for the individuals and families living at the economic margins. We call on our political leaders to adopt solutions that support the most vulnerable, promote the common good, and establish a fair system of taxation and distribution.
Such solutions must include:
Allowing the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthiest to expire on December 31.
Protecting the social safety net, including social security, medicare and medicaid.
Creating good jobs through investment in education, public transportation infrastructure and other community-building initiatives.
Take Action

Please call your Senators and Congressional Representatives.

You can call them using this toll-free number: 888-659-9401
Tell them to eliminate the tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% in our nation and fund social safety-net programs that allow people to live in dignity.

Tax reform decoded

A new Tax Policy Center report “shoots more holes in the popular mythology that some sort of comprehensive 'tax reform' will offer the White House and Congress an easy path out of the country's debt and deficit problems.”

If Congress has any hope of defeating armies of lobbyists and doing away with beloved tax breaks like the mortgage interest deduction, it will take bipartisan cooperation. The two parties will have to hold hands and jump off this particular cliff together. And even by taking 100 percent of the tax breaks away from the wealthiest Americans, the Tax Policy Center analysts could not keep the tax code from growing more regressive under the Romney plan.

How will real reform work? You can read more here.

Higher taxes on the rich?

Whitney Tilson, a hedge fund manager and a member of Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, recently wrote in The Washington Post about the need to raise his taxes.

I am part of the 1 percent of the 1 percent. I mean, I am fortunate to be a wealthy American and I say, "It's OK to raise my taxes."

I was at the White House last Wednesday supporting President Barack Obama in his call for Congress to pass the "Buffett rule." This legislation — inspired in part by Warren Buffett's exasperation upon learning that his assistant paid a greater percentage of her income in federal taxes than he did — would require anyone whose income exceeds $1 million a year to pay a minimum 30 percent in taxes.

It would hit me hard. I haven't finished my taxes for 2011, but in 2010, my federal tax rate was 21 percent; if the Buffett rule had been in effect, my federal tax bill would have been 40 percent higher. Some years, my taxes would probably be more than 50 percent higher.

Why am I OK with this? Simple math, and basic fairness.

This country is running enormous and unsustainable budget deficits that will bankrupt us all if they are not narrowed. There is no way to do that without both cutting spending and raising revenue.

Everyone is going to have to make sacrifices as part of a comprehensive budget deal along the lines of Simpson-Bowles, with tens of millions of people getting smaller entitlement benefits, for example, and tens of millions of people paying higher taxes.

It's not class warfare to say that people like me — who aren't suffering at all in these tough economic times, who are in many cases doing the best we've ever done — should be the first to make a small sacrifice.

You can read more here. In addition, you might be interested in this survey that shows the majority of Americans support the "Buffett rule."

Seven-in-ten (70%) Americans favor “the Buffett rule,” a proposal to increase the tax rate on Americans earning more than $1 million per year, compared to only 27% who oppose it.

Government transparency (updated)

The New York Times has joined several good government groups in taking Governor Andrew Cuomo to task for the way in which he pushed a new tax bill through the state Legislature this week. As the Times noted in its editorial:

New York’s legislators began arriving in Albany on Tuesday morning, and, by late Wednesday night, the Legislature had voted to revamp the entire state income tax code. The Senate voted less than half an hour after Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 19,000 word bill was made public. As for the voters and taxpayers? They were out of the loop.

The governor’s plan, which drew only eight no votes from the entire Legislature, will raise about $2 billion next year, less than half as much money as the so-called millionaires’ tax that expires at the end of December. It also means that the state will still face a deficit of at least $1.5 billion next year.
. . .
At a press conference after the voting, Mr. Cuomo dismissed criticism by good-government groups for failing to allow full public debate. And, as for legislators, he said that if any had not been thinking about state tax policy, “then that is a person who shouldn’t be serving in the Legislature.”

That is not the point, of course. Everybody has thought about taxes. It is the specifics of tax law that matter, not the generalities.

The entire editorial is here. Also worth reading is Jimmy Vielkind’s article in today’s Times Union, about how pressure was brought on legislators to approve the measure. Here is a portion:

Assembly Republicans were huddled late Wednesday in the parlor where they hold their private conference. It was about 9:30 p.m., 30 minutes after a bill to restructure the tax code was finally printed.

Members were asking questions based on the legislation, which had been announced via news release Tuesday afternoon, when, according to four sources in the room, the phone rang.

It was Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

He asked Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, to hurry up, the sources said. The leader said his members were reviewing the bill, and to back off. Kolb had said he was going to vote against the measure earlier in the day, but as the governor phoned, the 32 Republicans in the Senate were leading the way to its unanimous approval in that chamber.

Cuomo then told Kolb he wanted a unanimous vote, and threatened to campaign in the district of any member who voted against the package, Kolb repeated to the room, according to the sources.

The Governor's office has not denied the electoral threat.

[UPDATE: Governor Cuomo says the story is “inaccurate,” but others disagree.]

Prior to the vote, Bill Hammond at the Daily News had written about the effort to bring the legislators back and push through an overhaul of the state tax code:

That is absurd. Overhauling the state’s entire tax code, with billions of dollars at stake, is not something to be squeezed in between shopping trips to the mall. It’s serious business that demands serious, thoughtful consideration and debate.

New York’s Constitution provides a step-by-step procedure for making large-scale decisions about revenue and spending. It’s called the budget process. Cuomo should use it.

Apparently very few in state government were listening.

Is capitalism at odds with Christian values?

A survey conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service found that, overall, more Americans believe that Christian values are at odds with capitalism and the free market than believe they are compatible.

Among Christians in the U.S., only 38% believe capitalism and the free market are consistent with Christian values while 46% believe the two are at odds. Religiously unaffiliated Americans look similar to the general population and to Christian Americans, with a plurality (40%) saying capitalism is at odds with Christian values, compared to 32% who say they are compatible; 14% say they do not know.

Other findings:

More than 6-in-10 (62%) Americans believe that one of the biggest problems in this country is that more and more wealth is held by just a few people. About 1-in-4 (24%) say that this is not that big a problem.
. . .
Nearly two-thirds (66%) say that it’s fair for wealthier Americans to pay more taxes than the middle class or those less well off.
. . .
Overall most (61%) Americans disagree that most businesses would act ethically on their own without regulation from the government. Less than 4-in-10 (37%) believe that they would. This holds true across political and religious lines, with the lone exception of those who identify with the Tea Party movement (53% agree).

You can read more here.

NY's tax and poverty rates a'changing

As New Yorkers wait for legislative action on a possible change to the State’s tax code, which might generate in the neighborhood of $2 billion, America magazine is reporting on alarming trends in poverty across the United States. Citing data from Catholic News Service, its own staff and other sources, the magazine is reporting the following:

The impact of increasing poverty and the diminished economic resources of the U.S. middle class became evident in late November. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that poverty among school-age children showed “a statistically significant increase” in one in five counties across the nation, and an analysis by The New York Times of Department of Agriculture data concluded that the number of students receiving subsidized school lunches rose to 21 million in the 2009-10 school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase. According to the analysis, 11 states had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, “huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth.”

Reports from Catholic Charities USA agencies across the nation were just as discouraging. According to the organization’s 2011 Third Quarter Snapshot Survey, 66 percent of Catholic Charities agencies saw an increase in requests for assistance from families with children and 59 percent reported increases in aid requests from middle-class families. Eighty percent report increased requests for assistance from the working poor.

Perhaps most alarming were the snapshot’s findings related to the toll the rising demand was having on C.C.U.S.A. capacity. More than 88 percent of local agencies reported that they maintained a waiting list or had to turn people away for at least one of their programs or services in the last quarter, and 64 percent reported that they could not meet the need they faced for emergency financial assistance. Fifty-six percent of Catholic Charities agencies were unable to respond to some requests for utility assistance.

Commenting on the report, the Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, said that while the need for food and utility assistance has been consistent, never in his experience had so many agencies been forced to turn clients away or place families on waiting lists. “Many never had to do this in the past,” he said. “This is really very difficult emotionally for our staff, to have to do that.”

The rest of the article is here. Also of interest is this blog post by Jimmy Vielkind of the Times Union, who has put together spreadsheet showing the income tax brackets and marginal rates.

A conservative take on budget negotiations

Conservative columnist David Brooks writes about the current budget battle and the clash over lowered spending versus higher taxes.

According to the Gallup Organization, only 20 percent of Americans believe the budget deal should consist of spending cuts only. Even among Republicans, a plurality believes there should be a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts.

Yet the G.O.P. is now oriented around this 20 percent. It is willing to alienate 80 percent of voters and commit political suicide because of its faith in the power of tax policy.

These three groups — bankers, Democratic Keynesians and staunch Republicans — have one thing in common: They all believe they have identified the magic lever. They believe they can control their economic fate.

Some of us do not believe there is a magic lever. Deficit spending stimulates growth, but not by that much. Tax increases are bad, but they are not disastrous. We believe that there are a thousand factors that go into economic growth, and no single one is dispositive.

We look at the tax cuts of 2001 and do not see tremendous gains. We look at the tax increase of 1982 and do not see a ruinous disaster. We look at high deficit eras and low deficit eras and do not see an easy correlation between deficit spending and growth. On the contrary, if you look around the world there’s a slight negative correlation between government size and prosperity.

We believe that if you rest everything on a single lever (Increase deficits! Cut taxes!), you give people a permission slip to be self-indulgent. They will spend or cut to their hearts’ content and soon you’ll be facing national bankruptcy. We believe that even if you are theoretically right, your policies will be distorted by human frailties and special interests.

The people in my group (you might call us conservatives) are more likely to embrace a low and steady approach to fiscal policy. Control debt. Control entitlements. Keep tax levels reasonable and the tax code simple. Work on the economic fundamentals: human capital, productivity, labor market flexibility, open trade, saving and investment. Don’t believe you can use magic levers to manipulate growth month to month.

People in my camp form a silent majority. But we have been astonishingly passive during these budget negotiations. The tax cut brigades and the Medicare/Spending brigades are well organized. The people who believe in balance and the fundamentals sit piously on the sidelines.

The tragedy is that in Barack Obama and John Boehner we have leaders who would like to do something big. They seem to know that you need bipartisan cover if you want to really cut spending. They seem to know circumstances for deficit reduction will only get worse in the years ahead.

But they are bracketed on all sides — by the tax cut and Medicare brigades, by the wonks hatching budget gimmicks that erode trust, by political hacks who don’t want to lose their precious campaign issues: tax cuts forever, Medicare spending without limit.

Mostly, they are buffeted by the proud, by those who think they have a magic lever to control human destiny and who will not compromise it away. This is the oldest story known to man.

The entire column is here.

Tax Myths

In the most recent issue of Commonweal magazine, Charles Morris writes:

Recently, when speaking to a number of businessmen, I came to realize how convinced they were that America is a high-tax country, which just happens not to be so. But, then, almost everything that everyone, liberals and conservatives alike, thinks about taxes is not so. Here are a few of the standard myths.

Myth 1: Americans Pay High Taxes Each year, the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), a research group sponsored by the thirty leading industrial countries, publishes an analysis of comparative tax burdens—taxes actually paid as a percent of the Gross Domestic Product. They include all taxes—sales, income, property, whatever, imposed by all levels of government. And they count actual tax revenues—in other words, they measure what governments do, not what they say.

The most recent data are for 2007. And guess what? The United States, as usual, ranked twenty-seventh out of the thirty, trailed only by Korea, Turkey, and Mexico. The total American tax burden is about 28 percent of GDP; the OECD median is about 36 percent; and the highest, in Denmark, is 48 percent.

To learn the other myths, and the facts, go here.