To The Editor:
I have heard many voices that have admonished Congressman John Katko for not representing his constituents in Congress when it comes to the recent debate concerning tax reform.
I think those people are wrong.
Congressman Katko is representing his constituents in Congress and one only needs to look at his Federal Election Commission reports to realize who his constituents are; Virginia tobacco producer the Altria Group, Oklahoma’s Chesapeake Energy Corporation, Indiana pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly, Pacific Gas and Electric from California, Koch Industries of Kansas, the Florida Sugar Cane League and many others that will benefit from the current tax reform proposal and have donated thousands and thousands of dollars to Congressman Katko.
I applaud John Katko for vigorously advocating for his constituents.
It’s just unfortunate that none of them are in the 24th Congressional District.
Sincerely,
Mark Mulroney
Syracuse, NY
missing or outdated ad config
…and God forbid American businesses benefit from a much needed tax reform bill so they may be competitive in a global economy. Oh, the horror!
Taxes need to be cut, and they will.
Let these foolish children continue to kick and scream, and beg for taxes to remain high.
The adults will do the work they were elected to do.
Thank you Rep. Katko for your proper vote.
OMG, you people just won’t give it up, will you? NO ONE is begging for taxes to remain high, what we would like to see is a fair tax bill that doesn’t give the huge majority of the tax breaks to the super wealthy and corporations, and also doesn’t throw in a lot of extraneous, conservative ideological battleground issues just to salt the pot a bit. You do realize of course that American corporations pay nowhere near the 35% tax rate after they take advantage of the massive deductions they are allowed to claim, do you not? General Electric, for instance, hasn’t paid any federal income tax for years, and in fact has received generous subsidies instead. How is it a fair and equitable tax plan to eliminate the state and local tax exemption, which only punishes you, the residents of New York State, and California, more than any other states, which also happen to vote Democrat, I’m sure that’s just a coincidence? How is it a fair and equitable tax plan to make graduate students who get tuition assistance in return for work performed in the university have to pay taxes on that tuition assistance as if it was income? Is it the Republican’s intention to destroy colleges and universities around the nation in their effort to dumb down America so no one has the ability to think critically and be able to do more than read at a 3rd grade level, like our esteemed president? Even at this late hour, Senators have no idea what is really in this shaggy dog of a bill, and I think it’s pathetic the way it’s being rushed through with so little evaluation. How come Republicans all of a sudden don’t have a problem with a tax bill that explodes the deficit by $1.5 trillion? I seem to remember a time not so long ago when anything proposed by a certain Democrat president had to be offset by a spending cut. What happened to that concept? Remember the fiasco around the Super Storm Sandy funding? You need to get your nose out of the propaganda machine and round out your reading sources a bit more.
If you so desire fairness in taxation, then you should be for a flat tax, where everyone pays the same rate instead of the “progressive” current system where the more you make the higher the rate. Where 50% of our population pay no federal income tax, yet miraculously receive tax returns at the end of the year.
Were you sooo concerned with an exploding deficit when Obama added more to it than every prior president combined? Can you account for where that sum of over 10 trillion dollars went? Shovel ready jobs remember? Solyndra? Obamacare scheme?
High state taxes are a state problem. Lowering federal taxes helps us who currently pay them. Talk to our governor about lowering the burdensome taxes here in NY so you need not worry about disappearing deductions that “punish us”.
Tax cuts do not cause deficits or punish you, overspending does.
Thank you Rep. Katko for your proper vote.
re:Taxed…Well said, you made some really good points and comparisions. As for Frank, (thank’s to Nancy Pelosi), Obamacare was rushed through with little or no evaluation as well. “We have to pass it to know what’s in it”..remember? As for the “dumbing down of America” comment, personally I’d be more concerned with the liberal indoctrination they are getting at this level than any lack of smarts they may not as a result of Frank’s statement. Talk about people that just won’t give it up, these angry snowflakes NEVER DO. Deal with it! Elections have consequences!
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was “up” over 300 points yesterday.
Yes for Flat Tax no to the tax bill presented. Just more trickle down economics and the first on never trickled down to me. Well said Frank B. As for our takes being high here in Oswego County rennet this next time your county,city, state senator and state representatives run for office and promises jobs. Ask the to be more specific and tell you what jobs, were and when they will be coming. Most have been in office for years and haven’t brought one job to Oswego County. So let’s keep giving out PILOT programs to hotels and not keeping it available for big businesses. Let’s just wait and see how many corporations come knocking on OUR door thanks to Mr Katko’s vote. I personally think not. Can’t wait till Mayor Minor (sp) runs. That’s what I like about voting…. if she fails then vote her out until we get someone that truly represent US.
Thank you, Congressman Katko, for supporting tax reform. Don’t listen to people like Mulroney.
Last i knew, business are owned by people, who receive income from them when they are doing well, and then new employees get hired…. and then they can buy homes and pay taxes. People in New York State need to change policies at the local level. This state is so depressed and is hemorrhaging its population due to the poor local economy. Wake-up, people!
Just curious Frank, about the elimination of the state and local tax exemption. It would seem to me that the ones who currently benefit from being able to do so are the people who actually itemize on their tax returns. The people who do so would seem to be the higher income earners who typically itemize as opposed to the lower income wage earners who file a standard form. Correct me if I’m wrong. If so, as a result of using that deduction, wouldn’t that actually be shifting the tax burden onto the lower wage earners by doing so? If so, wouldn’t the elimination of it make more people pay their fair share, thereby lowering others tax obligation? Couldn’t this be considered a “massive deduction” as well by people like perhaps yourself? Furthermore, wouldn’t it also appear that the people who typically vote for higher taxes (democrats) to support local issues such as schools, police, fire, etc…seemingly don’t care so much about tax increases if they are utilizing the deduction, or benefitting from higher taxes in other ways such as their own salaries and pensions by being members in a public service union? Just wondering why you are so opposed to large corporations using deductions but seemingly want to use them for yourself? Isn’t that a contridiction of sorts?
You nailed it, Wizard.
Brilliantly concise letter from Mr. Mulroney. Well said.
Taxed/Wizard/etc are just obedient servants of Corporate America. They love inequality. They’re calling for overturning the American and French Revolutions. Bring back aristocracy … eliminate the democratic experiment from human affairs.
The President of the United States is a fascist, and is regarded as such the world over.
The Republican Party does not conceal its devotion to, and class war on behalf of, the oligarchs, plutocrats, billionaires, robber barons. The richest individuals and most profitable corporations in history are aggressively manipulating “American democracy” through their Republican servants to give more to themselves and less to everybody else.
Regular people who vote Republican and regurgitate the GOP’s shallow and obviously oligarchic talking points are easily led. You’ll have a thousand more dollars and that will solve all your economic worries as we oligarchs continue to relentlessly assault the American Middle Class (deprive them of national healthcare, ship the jobs abroad, go after their Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, etc. weaken unions, appoint Citizens United upholders to the Supreme Court … all to make billionaires richer and corporations even less likely to pay taxes … while intentionally depriving the government of revenue in order to pivot to the argument that “entitlement spending” (i.e. government spending on policies that benefit the vast majority of the American people) must be cut, etc and so forth.
A flat tax? Any aristocrat would love a flat tax. Any billionaire. Any too-big-to-fail-bank. Any American corporation stashing money in the Cayman Islands.
Progressive taxation, heavy taxes on “the rich” to fund the public good, has been a given value in Western Civilization since the French Revolution … the revolution that eliminated a social class that had exploited the French people (the aristocracy and their king).
Writers like Taxed/Wizard and Republicans generally seem to be calling for a return to aristocracy: rule by a relative few wealthy and privileged people/business entities and the ability to pass that wealth/power down generationally (hence the passionate calls to repeal the Estate Tax …).
Republicans are no longer democrats in the small-d sense. This is a fascist party led by a fascist billionaire pursuing fascist/aristocratic aims.
The American people, as Bernie Sanders has said, need to put aside the “Democrat/Republican” thing, unite across class lines, and fight back. Stop wasting society’s resources on billionaires, on empire, on violence, on fossil fuel burning. A peaceful democratic revolution to end oligarchic control of our government and society …
[Just as an aside, Barlow and the local government would be so much easier to like if they dropped the embarrassing endorsement of the “Republican” brand in the Age of Trump.]
Re: anonymous
mention oligarchs – check
mention plutocrats – check
mention aristocracy – check
class warfare – check
fascism – check
hate for billionaires – check
Then to top it off, support a socialist to solve all our problems.
blah blah blah blah blah
Anyone else heard all of these items on the robotic list of leftist talking points for the past, oh I don’t know, 30 years?
Thank you Rep. Katko for your proper vote.
Re: “hate for billionaires” … No, hate for concentrated wealth.
Justice Louis Brandeis, “you can have concentrated wealth or you can have democracy, you can’t have both.”
Taxed and the rest have chosen concentrated wealth.
Interesting that Taxed can’t actually engage with the arguments/analysis … just resorts to listing a bunch of words and denying that those words accurately describe American society.
When billionaires literally buy elections and control the Republican Party (and much of the Democratic Party) how does one not label that aristocracy/plutocracy.oligarchy?
It is what it is Taxed, I’m sorry the truth hurts. But again, why does it hurt? Why do you support concentrated wealth in the hands of a few instead of democracy?
yes, I support a socialist … and you support a fascist. In 2020, we won’t have Hillary Clinton in the way to block the showdown we should have had in 2016: socialism vs. fascism, Bernie vs. the Billionaire. See you then.
People like “Annonymous” watched far too many “Adventures of Robin Hood” back in the 1950’s. They have such a fixation on “the Have’s and the Have-nots” that they need to incite and perpetuate class warfare at every crossroad in the forest. To them, every person who is eating a leg of lamb (or mutton) is someone who must be one of “the Kings men”, and needs to be dealt with.
This is the picture that they like to paint,.. that their cause is rooted in moral decency by “stealing from the rich to give back to the poor”, and thereby justified. While most of us enjoyed watching Earl Flynn with all his personal charm jump up onto tables with his sword in hand, naturally our minds were filled with the impression that this “folk hero” was “a fighter for the people”…an image they would like to project of themselves as well. At age 6, we weren’t really focused on the politics that others like “Annonymous” would eventually use later on in life to convey a political message by basically using his example.
Everybody loves a hero. It’s easy to see why many would be swayed into this line of thinking, (since it’s already ingrained in their minds that Robin wasn’t really “robbing anyone”), but rather just giving back to the people what was rightfully theirs. The flawed thinking is, that somehow the government should be able to do the same thing to the rich through taxation,… which is almost “a reverse Robin Hood situation” by stealing from the people to give back to the government. Somehow, I don’t think even Fryer Tuck or Little John would approve of that.
Re: Wizard and Robin Hood
I mean, do you really not understand that over the past several decades those at the top have gotten spectacularly richer while the Middle Class has been disappearing?
The rich have taken/stolen/rigged to the point that inequality is worse than at any time since the 1920’s. That’s the context.
The rich have never been so rich, corporations have never been so profitable, and yet Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. That’s a result of class war from above.
George W. Bush passed a huge tax cut for the rich and by the end of his administration the country was facing its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Now Donald Trump is about to sign his huge tax cuts for the rich …
We are literally watching a return to aristocracy: a handful of people with immense wealth and political privilege running the society for their own benefit. How Taxed and Wizard can applaud that injustice is beyond me.
It’s the rich individuals and corporations that have been stealing from the people for 40 years. CEO’s making hundreds of times what their workers make … that’s called injustice, theft, aristocracy.
Here’s Bernie on the provision in the Senate bill giving huge tax cuts to hedge fund managers based in the Virgin Islands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EaZcqTsUAQ
I mean, have the American people been clamoring to give rich hedge fund managers who evade taxes even more money? That’s why Republicans go to the polls and vote for Katko? Trump? To give major tax breaks on capital gains to hedge fund managers claiming residency in the Virgin Islands? Because that’s what Republicans actually do in office. Robin Hood in reverse there Wizard.
re: Annonymous”…I actually agree with some of what you are saying, but there are many other reasons as well that have also contributed to this situation besides just “pure greed” as you only see it. Here’s just a few other reasons.
1) Unlike 50 years ago, we are living in a much more globalized world in terms of the economy, trade, and even demographicly. There’s a much larger base of people “buying products” due to this, as well as the natural increase in world population over that time span.
Internet transactions on a global scale versus no computers…how could this NOT have an impact??
2) Unions DID play at least some part in this with excessive demands at various times, making cheaper labor a more attractive alternative.
3)Higher taxes and more regulation causing companies to relocate.
4) Companies selling stock on the open market and being beholding to stock holders as a result, putting their interests first above workers.
5) The elimination of Fair Trade Laws, “Blue Laws” etc., and the implimentation of 24 hour business cycle..(stores/resturants that never close, open on Sundays, holidays etc.).
These are just a few reasons, (along with new technology/products/services and the DEMAND for it) that have contributed greatly as to why corporations are making so much more money than they used to. Things such as higher health care costs have contributed greatly to lower or stagnent wages. In many cases, people have become much less employable due to poor lifestyle choices contributing greatly to inequality as well.
When it costs as much to buy a car as it used to cost to buy a house, it’s easy to see why there’s inequality. It takes a lot of money to have both these days, especially when you want more than one of each. People want more material things than ever before, like smartphones, designer sneakers, and big screen T.V.s. With that said, it’s easy to see why the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.