Thom Hartmann: FDR has advice for Pres. Obama

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 07:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whR-0I-KFhg   Posted on YouTube: August 04, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 20   Posted on DU: August 04, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 638

 
With Sam Pizzigati, Associate Fellow Inequality and the Common Good - Institute for Policy Studies. As we speak right now - 46 million Americans are on food stamps. Combine that with soaring poverty numbers and soaring unemployment numbers - and we see a pretty grim picture of the American working and middle class. And yet - as we just saw in this debt-limit debate - it is precisely these people who are suffering around the nation - and who will bear the brunt of deficit reduction. Not the billionaire hedgefund manager who pays a lower tax rate than his secretary - not the billion dollar oil corporation that is raking in more profits than any corporation in the history of the world but still gets billions in taxpayer subsidies - and not the billionaire corporate jet owner who pays lower taxes than normal jet owners. Republicans - and half the Democrats in Congress - let these oligarchs off the hook - even though the richest Americans today have seen their tax contributions drop to a 50-year low. President Obama still wants us to believe that the "Super Congress" Gang Of Twelve in charge of finding another $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction in November will make the necessary tough choices to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires - but as Speaker of the House John Boehner told CBS - there's not a chance. But just like last December - the billionaires in America dodged another tax bullet. So how long can our economy - with growing wealth inequality creating a whole host of social ills - sustain these historically low tax rates for the richest of the rich? And what lesson can President Obama learn from past presidents to get this economy working again for EVERYONE - and not just the richest 1%?

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[democracy1st]

1. K & R for later!