For Me, All Fools' Day Is Also Tax Day

I don't want to contemplate the symbolism of that fact too intensely, but today was the day I dealt with my income taxes. I didn't plan it that way; it just happened to be the day it was most expedient to do it. My accountant (old habits die hard; for many years, I hired an accountant to do my business taxes, and now I still do so for my personal taxes) will e-file for me if he has the proper paperwork from me, which is a great advantage to a cripple who can't easily leave home without at least a day's planning, and who isn't very steady on his feet standing in long lines. I recently received my completed return from him, so today I sent him the e-file authorization that lets him sign the return for me and file it online. Hey, it worked last year.

As for American taxpayers in general, we... at least those of us who work or worked for a living, who don't own a member of Congress or two of our own... we are indeed All Fools. No one in Washington represents us anymore... no one. Welcome to the era of pointless bipartisanship. Enjoy your taxes!

Star Dreck: Your Tax Dollars At 'Work'

Yes, the IRS really did make this Star Trek parody video, at your expense, of course. IMHO, it's pretty weak tea... Earl Grey... hot.



H/T TPM.

Mr. President, About That Alleged 'Fiscal Cliff'...

Over the Fiscal Cliff

... here's some advice from Robert Reich: let the automatic tax restorations take effect, then pressure Congress to restore ONLY the lower- and middle-class tax cuts, allowing pre-Bush-era taxes to settle again on the very wealthy. The mechanism is already in place; indeed, it's automatic if Congress does nothing before 1/1. It's true that Repub's could refuse to restore any tax cuts unless they can restore those for the wealthy, but that's bound to be a politically untenable position for them.

Will it work? Reich calls it "bungee-jumping over the fiscal cliff," and describes it as follows:

...

Obama’s only real bargaining leverage comes from the fact that when the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of December, America’s wealthiest will take the biggest hit. The highest marginal income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (for joint filers), and the capital gains rate from 15 to 20 percent.

This will happen automatically if nothing is done between now and then to change course. It’s the default if Republicans won’t agree to anything else. It’s Obama’s trump card.

So rather than stoking middle-class fears about the cliff, the White House ought to be doing the opposite – reassuring most Americans they can survive the fall. To utilize his trump card effectively, Obama needs to convince Republicans that the middle class is willing to jump.

...

It's time Obama took advantage of a manifestly strong position. Next year will be too late. Do it now, Mr. President!

There Is No ‘Fiscal Cliff’!

As many have said, in politics, s/he who controls the choice of language controls the dialogue. Enter the "fiscal cliff": a mythical Jan 1. deadline by which all sorts of dire things are supposed to happen, unless Congress and the president act to... well, to what? Well, to hear Republicans tell it, to avert a major fiscal crisis that will push us back into recession immediately.

And what do those same congressional Republicans propose as a remedy to these dire predictions? Awwww, c'mon: what do Republicans ever propose? tax cuts for the wealthy... the very thing least likely to alleviate any fiscal problem, except the problem of anything resembling fair taxes on their obscenely wealthy base! This is just another GOP attempt like the one they perpetrated some months back, to hijack a government they don't legitimately control at the moment.

Fortunately, MoveOn has done my homework for me and compiled a concise list reflecting the state of things, which I am taking the liberty of reproducing here (MoveOn explicitly invites us to share it):

1. The “Fiscal Cliff” Is A Myth. As Paul Krugman put it, “The looming prospect of spending cuts and tax increases isn’t a fiscal crisis. It is, instead, a political crisis brought on by the G.O.P.’s attempt to take the economy hostage.”^[1] Republicans are manufacturing this crisis to pressure Democrats to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and accept painful cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

2. The Bush Tax Cuts Finally End December 31. If Congress does nothing, the ax will fall on all the Bush tax cuts on New Year’s Eve.^[2] Then, on January 1, the public pressure on John Boehner and House Republicans to extend the middle-class tax cuts (already passed by the Senate and waiting to be signed by President Obama) will become irresistible.^[3] So the middle-class tax cut will eventually get renewed, and we’ll have $823 billion more revenue from the top 2% to do great things with.^[4]

3. The Sequester. The sequester is another political creation, forced on Democrats by Republicans in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling last year to avoid crashing our economy.^[5] It’s a set of cuts (50% to a bloated military budget and 50% to important domestic programs) designed to make both Republicans and Democrats hate it so much that they’d never let it happen.^[6] And the cuts can be reversed weeks or months into 2013 without causing damage.^[7]

4. The Big Three. Nothing happens to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits on January 1—unless Republicans force painful cuts to beneficiaries in exchange for tax increases on the wealthy, which are going to happen anyway if Congress does NOTHING.^[8] So, there’s literally no reason benefits cuts should be part of the discussion right now.

5. We Should Be Talking About Jobs. The real crisis Americans want Congress to fix is getting people back to work. And with just a fraction of that $823 billion from the wealthiest 2%, we could create jobs for more than 20,000 veterans and pay for the 300,000 teachers and 52,000 first responders, which our communities so desperately need.^[9] That’s not to mention jobs from investing in clean energy and our national infrastructure.

---

Sources

[1] “Hawks and Hypocrites,” The New York Times, November 11, 2012

[2] “Bush-Era Tax Cuts,” The New York Times, November 9, 2012

[3] “Boehner Is Bluffing,” Slate, November 9, 2012

[4] “CBO: Ending High-Income Tax Cuts Would Save Almost $1 Trillion,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, August 24, 2012

[5] “The sequester, explained,” The Washington Post, September 14, 2012

[6] Ibid.

[7] “Let’s Not Make a Deal,” The New York Times, November 8, 2012

[8] “How the Across-the-Board Cuts in the Budget Control Act Will Work,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,” April 27, 2012

[9] “Veterans’ Jobs Bill Blocked in the Senate,” The New York Times, September 19, 2012

[10] “Jan Schakowsky Announces new Budget Plan With Focus On Jobs,” The Huffington Post, August 10, 2011

[11] “Fact Sheet: The American Jobs Act,” The White House, September 8, 2011

I understand this full well. You do, too, if you've been following the same sources I have. The only question is whether Obama both understands it and will act on it. There is some hope: he seems to be feeling his post-election Wheaties these days. It's time he shows us what he's really made of.

'Poopy Head'!

Americans for Tax Deform

Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Deform (damn, I never could type that org name right), had something stupid to say about Obama's re-election. Here's TPM quoting Politico quoting Norquist:

“The president was elected on the basis that he was not Romney and that Romney was a poopy-head and you should vote against Romney,” Norquist said on CBS’s “This Morning.” “[Obama] won by two points, but he didn’t make the case for higher taxes and higher spending. He kind of sounded like the opposite.”

Well, thanks, Grover, that was informative... mostly about you. Minimize Obama's victory any way you like. Use language appropriate to a two-year-old. It will garner attention for you for perhaps five minutes. "Breaking news! Conservative anti-tax guy says something really stupid and childish!"

Of all the nutjob movements that arise on the Right, opposition to taxes must be the most idiotic. Perhaps it should be made a crime. Norquist could be sentenced to do without everything he doesn't want his tax money to pay for. Start with roads...

No, start with sewers...

2 + 2 = 6, And Other GOP Mathematical Oddities

If only Obama were
really saying this...

Josh Marshall of TPM reports that senior Rmoney adviser Ed Gillespie is claiming that...

• Six recent studies confirm that Rmoney's (secret!) tax plan would pay for the announced savings,
• Rmoney's tax plan does, indeed, contain specifics on how he would achieve the astonishing savings he claims without battering and frying the middle class, and 
• Mr. Rmoney will only reveal the details of his plan after he is elected, to a bipartisan congressional panel. 

The Lyin' King
Myth Rmoney

How wonderful for us peons that His Highness King Myth, er, King Mitt would condescend to tell us the particulars of his tax miracle once his coronation is behind him!

But Marshall also points out that the lack of revealed specifics in Rmoney's plan is scarcely half the problem: even Fox News's Chris Wallace confronts head-on Gillespie's claim that "6 studies" show that the plan, as understood by Fox (where do they get their particulars?), would work as advertised. The "6 studies" have been named, and include such bastions of bipartisanship as

• a blogger who was a top adviser to George W. Bush,
• the American Enterprise Institute, and
• a Harvard group.

How dare some of us question King Myth Rmoney's good faith in enumerating sources! His Majesty is not to be questioned on any matters whatsoever! [/snark]

The Hill confirms Gillespie's position that Rmoney's tax plan will be revealed after the election. Bloomberg Business Week reinforces that cutting the most popular middle class tax deductions would result in a total savings of only 4%, far too little to pay for Rmoney's 20% across-the-board tax cut. And just to be clear, Business Week's source of its information is the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which is, in its own words, "... a nonpartisan committee of the United States Congress, originally established under the Revenue Act of 1926. The Joint Committee operates with an experienced professional staff of Ph.D economists, attorneys, and accountants, who assist Members of the majority and minority parties in both houses of Congress on tax legislation." In other words, while any source of such information is imperfect, there's probably not a better one out there than the JCT. If they say it won't cut 20% but rather only 4%, the chances are pretty good that it won't cut 20% but rather only 4%.

In short, just as regarding the information on his personal tax returns, Rmoney is trying to pull a fast one on the public. Repeat the words "six studies show it works" enough times between now and elections, and enough goddamned fools will believe it to give Rmoney an advantage. And those are the goddamned fools likely to pay most dearly under Rmoney's plan.

What a bastard! I hope someday he experiences a genuine free market!

UPDATE: David Dayen of FDL does the heavy lifting on the "six studies".

Robert Reich: Rmoney Is 'Living Embodiment' Of Upward Redistribution Threat To Democracy

Robert Reich offers his observations on Rmoney's very circumscribed release of his tax information (those who remember Richard Nixon may call it his "modified limited hangout"), and what it implies:

...

"Job Creator's" Reward

American has had hugely wealthy presidents before — think of Teddy Roosevelt and his distant cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt; or John F. Kennedy, beneficiary of father Joe’s fortune.

But here’s the difference. These men were champions of the working class and the poor, and were considered traitors to their own class. Teddy Roosevelt railed against the “malefactors of great wealth,” and he busted up the oil and railroad trusts.

FDR thundered against the “economic royalists,” raised taxes on the wealthy, and gave average working people the right to form unions — along with Social Security, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, and a 40-hour workweek.

But Mitt Romney is not a traitor to his class. He is a sponsor of his class. He wants to cut their taxes by $3.7 trillion over the next decade, and hasn’t even specified what “loopholes” he’d close to make up for this gigantic giveaway.

And he wants to cut benefits that almost everyone else relies on — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and housing assistance.

...

In other words, everything America is learning about Mitt Romney — his tax returns, his years at Bain Capital, the video of his speech to high-end donors in which he belittles half of America, his gaffes, the budget policies he promotes — repeat and reenforce the same underlying reality.

So much wealth and power have accumulated at the top of America that our economy and our democracy are seriously threatened. Romney not only represents this problem. He is the living embodiment of it.

As I shut down my tiny business in the face of an overwhelming recession that kicked the bottom out of demand for the once highly sought product I produced, in my last year of that tiny business, as things were clearly going to ground for me and for millions of other small business owners, in that last year, I paid federal taxes at a far higher rate than Mitt Rmoney. In fact I'd say that because my income was earned income (not capital gains), and because self-employed Americans pay both halves (employee's and employer's) of their payroll tax, my tax rate was dramatically higher than that of Mitt Rmoney, Rich Boy Wonder.

And what does Rmoney do to "earn" all this money? That's simple: he uses other people's money to buy companies, squeezes them hard (firing people, selling assets) to make them appear more profitable, sells their lifeless carcasses to someone else, who finds out the hard way that you can't run a company without employees and equipment... and finally takes home his tidy profit. "Job creator," my fucking ass!

I'm sorry, but that's just not right. Mitt Rmoney is a freeloader. He takes from the little guy and gal. He doesn't worry about us; he said so right out in front of Dog and everybody. He forces the rest of us to compensate for his low, low tax rate; he leaves thousands of people jobless. And he does it because he can, and for him, that makes it "right." May the good Dog preserve me from people engaged in that sort of "rightness"!

Mr. Rmoney: you're no Teddy, and you're no FDR!

Social Security Under Siege: Sen. Bernie Sanders

I could not possibly describe the situation better than Sen. Sanders does:

...

... Before Social Security existed, about half of America’s senior citizens lived in poverty. Today, less than 10 percent live in poverty.

Today, Social Security not only provides retirement security but also enables millions of people with disabilities and widows, widowers and children to live in dignity and security.

...

In these highly-volatile economic times, when millions of Americans lost their life savings in the 2008 Wall Street crash, it is important to remember that since its inception, through good economic times and bad, Social Security has paid every penny owed to every eligible beneficiary.

... Social Security, which is funded by the payroll tax, does not contribute to the deficit. In fact, the Social Security Trust Fund today, according to the Social Security Administration, has a $2.7 trillion surplus and can pay 100 percent of all benefits owed to every eligible American for the next 21 years.

... Social Security is run with very modest administrative costs.

...

As Sen. Sanders emphasizes, the same is very much NOT true of Wall Street firms, where people like Paul Ryan and Pete Peterson want to put Social Security money. We all remember what happened in 2007 when the last bubble burst, yielding the great crash of 2008. If you believe the future does not hold a similar crash at some point, you are a sucker, ready to be taken for everything you've put into Social Security through the payroll tax over the years. Sucker, or smart taxpayer... which will it be?

Sen. Sanders is rightly wary of President Obama's approach to Social Security: the president emphatically said "no cuts" before the 2008 elections, and now isn't saying anything much, except vague statements that it may have to be cut. Sen. Sanders has challenged this by introducing a bill that advocates exactly the program Obama advocated in 2008. I have my doubts that that bill will have any champions except for Sanders in this Dog-awful Congress we have today.

There is no rational basis for cutting Social Security at all:

• It works... well. 
• It is solvent. 
• It is in no way a financial burden; indeed, it runs a surplus. 
• It will pay out its scheduled benefits for 21 years with no alterations. 
• With one small change (and this is the crux of the radical Right's real objection), it could continue paying out scheduled benefits indefinitely. 

The change? apply the payroll tax to annual income above $250,000. I have never understood why there is a cap on the payroll tax income in the first place, but we will somehow have to beat down the wealthy bastards, the Pete Petersons, the Mitt Rmoneys, the Paul Ryans of the country, to achieve fairness on this issue. In the Declaration of Independence, there is a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is no similar right to be obscenely wealthy and not share that wealth with society. Benjamin Franklin said it superbly well:

Private Property therefore is a Creature of Society, and is subject to the Calls of that Society, whenever its Necessities shall require it, even to its last Farthing; its Contributions therefore to the public Exigencies are not to be considered as conferring a Benefit on the Publick, entitling the Contributors to the Distinctions of Honour and Power, but as the Return of an Obligation previously received, or the Payment of a just Debt.

And there you have it.

Tax Policy Center: Rmoney 'Reform' Would Raise Middle-Class Taxes

Read about it at TPM. Rmoney calls the TPC report "garbage." Here's Benjy Sarlin:

...

The Tax Policy Center addressed a number of criticisms from the Romney campaign and his supporters in a detailed Q-and-A [.pdf] posted on its website Thursday. None of the complaints affected its conclusions, which the group said were based on running simple numbers around Romney’s previously stated goal of revenue-neutral tax reform that would lower income tax rates while eliminating tax deductions, starting with those that benefit the wealthiest Americans.

...

If you're wealthy and also have no conscience, you probably don't need me to tell you that Rmoney/Ryan will make you wealthier. If you're part of the 99%, now you know that money is coming from your pocket. Yes, it really is that simple.

In For A Penny, In For A Pound(ing): Ryan To Release 2 Years Of Tax Records

It's almost as if the GOPers are trying to hand Democrats an issue with which to batter them into the ground. Mitt Rmoney claims he will (eventually) release two years of his tax returns; now Paul Ryan says the same. Ryan also says he provided Rmoney "several" years of his returns for vetting. I suppose the implication is that we should just trust Rmoney's judgment about Ryan's worthiness.

Think about what the well-scrubbed white male twins' refusal to release tax returns... they're the first prez/veep candidates in recent history to refuse... could mean:

• One man (or both) could have paid zero taxes in a recent year;
• One man (or both) could have substantial money hidden away in offshore tax havens;
• One man (or both) could have persuaded their doubtless well-paid accountants (I almost typed "accountaints") to claim some dubious or even outright illegal deductions in one or more years;
• One man (or both) could be perceived as wealthy enough to bail out a large percentage of the national debt out of his own pocket;
• One man (or both) could have participated in illegal political activities... e.g., illegal campaign contributions, in the days before Citizens United when such were possible... to influence Congress to create tax breaks for them;
• And on, and on, and on... the possibilities are not limitless, but neither are they negligible.

The very real possibility is that Mittens and Big Ears could have been getting filthy rich, not merely instead of, but at the expense of ordinary working Americans. Would that disqualify them from being prez and veep? The decision will be yours, but consider how much more they could steal, and how much easier it would be for them to do so, if they held the Biggest Chair and the Next Biggest Chair.

This nonsense has to stop. The American people must demand, and receive, those tax returns. If that inconveniences the well-scrubbed white male twins, that's just too bad.

Taxes, Our Taxes

Texans and possibly other Americans not intrinsically hostile to Texas will recognize the post title as a reference to our state song. No, it isn't "The Eyes of Texas," as Texas Aggies will quickly tell you... that song effectively belongs to the University of Texas. And, I suppose, to people workin' on the railroad.

Anyway, King Mitt the Self-Interested has a plan for your taxes. He wants to cut income taxes across-the-board by 20%, and his "pay-fors" (gawd, I hate that term) are the closing of "loopholes" and the ending of "tax breaks." No, he won't tell you which ones, any more than he will show you his own tax returns.

You have seen Mitt's sense of "fairness" on display in his years with Bain Capital: once you understand their schemes, you'd think the candy jars on Bain executives' desks are proudly filled with candy taken from babies. Stealing: it's the new capitalism.

But of course Rmoney pays his share of taxes on all that money, right? Right: in 2010, on his income of $20 million (yes, twenty million smackers), he paid... wait for it... 13.9%. If you're a typical lower-middle-class American, that's less than the rate you paid in the same year... much less. So Mittens, going into the game of tax-and-switch, has a head start on all us poor schmucks.

But of course his new tax plan will remedy that injustice, right? The middle class will get a tax cut along with the wealthy, right?

Wrong.

The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, has published a new study titled "On the Distributional Effects of Base-Broadening Income Tax Reform" by Samuel Brown, William G. Gale and Adam Looney; the full paper is available here [.pdf] and its executive summary says this:

This paper examines the tradeoffs among three competing goals that are inherent in a revenue-neutral income tax reform—maintaining tax revenues, ensuring a progressive tax system, and lowering marginal tax rates—drawing on the example of the tax policies advanced in presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s tax plan. Our major conclusion is that any revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers.

The short explanation? Unenlightened self-interest. It's the Rmoney way. Taxes on the top 5% will go down; taxes on the other 95% of us will go up.

The Obama campaign was quick to respond with an ad:

I am the first to admit that Obama has done too little for lower- and middle-income Americans, and his economic policies have been, and will doubtless continue to be in a second term, stubbornly wrong-headed. But I give him credit for this. If Rmoney takes the presidency (word "takes" used advisedly), and we come out of this election paying still more for the luxuries of the über-wealthy, I'll be mad as hell.

(The house demolition behind Our House is really taxing my patience; now I must take a tax break. <grin_duck_run />)

'One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others'

... and we're not talking Sesame Street here. Via l'Enfant de la Haute Mer in comments, we have an article by Lee Drutman at the Sunlight Foundation comparing Mitt Rmoney's taxes... the very small amount he has graciously condescended to let us know about them [/snark]... to those of other recent presidents, starting with Poppy Bush in some cases and Saint Ronald Reagan in others. Several aspects are compared and presented:

• a scatter plot of adjusted gross income against effective tax rate;
• a simple bar graph of capital gains taxes,
• a chart of the length in pages of the presidents' tax returns.

See Drutman's article for the actual graphs.

The most striking is the adjusted gross income vs. tax rate. Rmoney has the highest AGI of any president listed, and also the lowest effective tax rate, so much so that the income axis had to be extended above $20 million just to show Rmoney's income. No president in recent history comes close: the second largest were Obama's 2007 and 2009 incomes, bracketing $5 million, and most of the other presidents hover around... I kid you not... zero, presumably the result of hiring a good accountant to do the adjusting.

Rmoney's capital gains income, for the two years for which the amount is publicly known, again blows out the top of the chart. Again, perhaps the other presidents hired better tax accountants. Do you believe that? Me neither. Rmoney had no earned income at all, again for the two years we know anything about. It must be nice...

Finally, the length of the returns. Again, for the two years King Rmoney has deigned to tell us about, his returns are in the vicinity of 200 pages and 100 pages; at a glance and without calculating, I'd say the median length from Reagan through Obama is around 20 or 25 pages. Again, Obama takes second place in the dead tree division (unless he submitted electronically).

Rmoney?

Tell me this: how can a man as rich as Rmoney even remotely begin to identify with the challenges facing the typical middle-class American family, let alone a poor one? I do not begrudge Rmoney his wealth (though the way he acquired it would do credit to a Star Trek Ferengi), or all the homes, planes, yachts, cars and whatever other toys he owns. But the presidency is not a toy, and no one should buy it just because s/he can. Rmoney's insensitivity to the lives of ordinary Americans is only one of many ways in which he is completely unsuited to be president.

We have had one president in the past century who at least to some degree overcame his family's extreme wealth to become an effective president at a time of economic disaster at least as great as in our own time. That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and I think I can say without reservation: Mittens, you're no FDR.

Rmoney's Secret Taxes And The American Economy

Paul Krugman offers two current hypotheses... guesses, really... about why Rmoney refuses to release his tax returns:

... (There are two competing theories about his tax stonewalling. One is that he had one or more years of zero taxes. The other is that he actually made a lot of money in 2009, because he shorted the market. We may never know which is true.)

It doesn't matter to me what Rmoney's income was, per se, but it does matter very much how he obtained the money and whether he paid anything remotely resembling a fair share of taxes on it. As long as he refuses to release his tax returns, I have to assume two things:

• Rmoney obtained the money legally but through various shady dealings,
• He paid proportionately less in taxes than the proverbial "nail lady."

But Krugman, in the same post, talks about the real reason the American public stands divided, and it has nothing to do with Obama's allegedly "attacking capitalism." First, after-tax income from 1979 to 2007 grew in the first four quintiles, with increases ranging from roughly 20% to 50% (the growth was roughly proportional to the income level), while in the same period, the income of the top 1% grew by nearly 300%. Second, starting in about 1980, i.e., the Saint Reagan era, median family income began decoupling from average household income and, even more importantly, from productivity, such that the fruits of the productivity gain overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest, not the workers who created it. (When the average increases and the median doesn't, it means rich people are getting richer relative to everyone else.) To me, this has a real 19^th- and early 20^th-century flavor to it: Gilded Age II, here we come here we are. I'm sorry, but that is simply unjustifiable. Please see Krugman's charts, based on CBO data.

And Rmoney wants to double down on the policies that made all this happen. If Rmoney is elected, or if the GOP manages to steal yet another one for yet another wealthy scion of another powerful family, this is what we'll see much more of. I'd say "it's your choice," but as much effort as the GOP is putting into voter suppression, I don't know that it actually is your choice. One can hope... and fight... and vote.

The Tax-Cuts-For-The-(1%,99%) Election

Paul Krugman calls it "The Class Warfare Election", and who am I to deny it. Please look at Krugman's chart, comparing the change in effective tax rates under an Obama presidency and under a Rmoney presidency, according to their own proposals. This isn't rocket science, and it isn't about whether Obama is an OK guy compared to Rmoney. (He isn't, based on his civil liberties record alone. But please look at Krugman's chart.)

Obama would raise taxes on the 95^th percentile of income, with modest tax increases by income. Rmoney, starting with the 20^th percentile of income and moving upward, would cut taxes for everyone, more or less in direct proportion to their income, the highest-income folks getting the highest percentage cuts. Such a plan means, inevitably, cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid aid to states, and other safety-net programs to pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy. It's a sort of "reverse Robin Hood" program... rob the poor; give to the rich. And this is only what the two candidates have openly announced.

Here's Krugman's conclusion:

So like it or not, we have an election in which one candidate [Obama] is proposing a redistribution from the top — which is currently paying lower taxes than it has in 80 years — downward, mainly to lower-income workers, while the other [Rmoney] is proposing a large redistribution from the poor and the middle class to the top.

It's your choice. You can't control what either candidate does in the international sphere, or what Obama does regarding civil liberties... probably about what Rmoney will do. So what are you going to vote on? I'm going to vote on two things: economic policy and women's rights. YMMV, and I won't criticize you if it does. But those two issues are sufficient to tip the scales for Obama, in my opinion. Yes, I hate having a choice like that.