Tag Archives: taxes

Wisconsin Gov. Uses Line-Item Veto to Boost Education Funding for 400+ Years

This is how you’re supposed to legislate,” said Nina Turner.

By Jessica Corbett Published 7-5-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Governor Tony Evers/Twitter

Among the dozens of Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ line-item vetoes for state Republicans’ two-year budget on Wednesday was a move to boost funding for public education for the next four centuries.

The budget approved by Wisconsin lawmakers hiked the revenue limit for school districts—or how much they can raise from state aid and local property taxes—by $325 per student “for the 2023-24 school year and the 2024-25 school year.” Evers, a former public school teacher and administrator, turned that into “for 2023-2425.”

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‘Drowning Our Democracy’: US Billionaires Have Pumped Nearly $900,000,000 Into Midterms

“Billionaires represent 0.000002% of the American population, but they’re responsible for 7.4% of all political donations so far this cycle,” according to Americans for Tax Fairness.

By Jessica Corbett  Published 11-3-2022 by Common Dreams

Peter Thiel speaking with attendees at the 2022 Converge Tech Summit at The Waste Management Phoenix Open at the Skybar at TPC Scottsdale in Scottsdale, Arizona. Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

With under a week until the U.S. midterm elections, Americans for Tax Fairness revealed Thursday that billionaires have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns this cycle, largely to benefit Republican candidates.

“A torrent of billionaire cash is drowning our democracy,” declared Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF). “Money talks when it comes to influencing candidates and winning elections, and the loudest voices by far are billionaires pushing for lower taxes so they can accumulate even greater wealth and have even more power and influence.” Continue reading

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The IRS already has all your income tax data – so why do Americans still have to file their taxes?

The government could toss the 1040 in the trash.
Kameleon007iStock via Getty Images

 

Beverly Moran, Vanderbilt University

Doing taxes in the U.S. is notoriously complicated and costly. And it gets even worse when there are delays and backlogs, making it especially hard to reach the Internal Revenue Service for assistance.

But to me this raises an important question: Why should taxpayers have to navigate the tedious, costly tax filing system at all? Continue reading

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Republican Policies Are Killing Americans: Study

“Changing all policy domains in all states to a fully liberal orientation might have saved 171,030 lives in 2019,” researchers estimate, “while changing them to a fully conservative orientation might have cost 217,635 lives.”

By Kenny Stancil  Published 10-26-2022 by Common Dreams

Main Street, Mount Hope, West Virginia. Photo: Tim Kiser/Wikimedia Commons/CC

The Republican Party’s regressive policies are not just unpopular, but a new study out Wednesday suggests they are also deadly to those who live under them.

Working-age mortality rates have been rising for decades across the United States, but premature deaths are more pronounced in states where “conservative” policies predominate and less common in states that have adopted more “liberal” policies, according to peer-reviewed research published in PLOS ONE. Continue reading

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Intense heat and flooding are wreaking havoc on power and water systems as climate change batters America’s aging infrastructure

Volunteers distributed bottled water after Jackson, Mississippi’s water treatment plant failed during flooding in August 2022.
Brad Vest/Getty Images

 

Paul Chinowsky, University of Colorado Boulder

The 1960s and 1970s were a golden age of infrastructure development in the U.S., with the expansion of the interstate system and widespread construction of new water treatment, wastewater and flood control systems reflecting national priorities in public health and national defense. But infrastructure requires maintenance, and, eventually, it has to be replaced.

That hasn’t been happening in many parts of the country. Increasingly, extreme heat and storms are putting roads, bridges, water systems and other infrastructure under stress. Continue reading

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Just 27 Billionaires Have Spent $90 Million to Buy GOP Congress: Report

“They’re counting on that ‘small’ investment in anti-tax Republicans to save them billions in taxes,” said Americans for Tax Fairness, which conducted the analysis.

By Kenny Stancil  Published 7-18-2022 by Common Dreams

Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder and CEO of Blackstone, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 23, 2018. Photo: World Economic Forum/flickr/CC

A few dozen billionaires are spending tens of millions of dollars on the 2022 midterm elections—mostly to support Republican candidates, including many who have parroted the dangerous lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen—in a bid to ensure that Congress is full of lawmakers willing “to make their wealthy benefactors even richer,” according to a fresh analysis.

Titled Billionaires Buying Elections, the report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) details how “billionaires are increasingly using their personal fortunes and the profits of connected corporations to drown out regular voters’ voices and elect hand-picked candidates who further rig the nation’s economy—especially the tax system.” Continue reading

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Supreme Court Ruling Turns Separation of Church and State Into ‘Constitutional Violation,’ Warns Sotomayor

“We are witnessing one of the most extreme Supreme Courts in modern history rewrite the most basic social commitments of our society,” said the head of one of the nation’s largest teachers unions.

By Julia Conley  Published 6-21-2022 by Common Dreams

United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaking to attendees at the John P. Frank Memorial Lecture at Gammage Auditorium at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. in 2017. Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday warned that the court’s right-wing majority had further eroded the nation’s bedrock laws separating church and government when it ruled that Maine must include religious schools in a state-run tuition program.

“Today, the court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation,” wrote Sotomayor in the minority’s dissent of the 6-3 decision. Continue reading

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Tax on Global Mega-Rich Could Help Lift 2.3 Billion Out of Poverty

“The insane reality is that whilst billions face a daily struggle to survive during this pandemic, billionaire wealth is spiraling out of control. This cannot be right.”

By Jake Johnson.  Pubished 1-18-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Bryan Ledgard/Wikimedia Commons/CC

A new analysis released Tuesday estimates that an annual wealth tax targeting the world’s millionaires and billionaires would raise enough revenue to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty, provide universal healthcare to the people of low- and middle-income nations, and produce enough coronavirus vaccines to meet global demand.

“During 2021, we witnessed the epidemic of Covid-19 and wealth-hiding, and it’s time to reverse course.” Continue reading

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Facebook: Genocide is Cool but Don’t Threaten our Profits

“Facebook’s willingness to block credible news sources also stands in sharp distinction to the company’s poor track record in addressing the spread of hateful content and disinformation on the platform.” — Tim O’Connor, Amnesty International Australia

By Alan Macleod  Published 2-19-2021 by MintPress News

Photo: Anthony Quintano/flickr?CC

Australia’s 18 million Facebook users woke up yesterday to find that, without warning, local and global news sites were unavailable, meaning that they could not view or share news at all. Facebook users across the world were also unable to read or access any Australian news publications. The tech giant had taken the step of essentially shutting down its site and “unfriending” an entire nation in response to the government’s proposals to tax them.

Lawmakers in Canberra had drawn up plans to “level the playing field” between social media giants and the traditional press. In practice, this would mean Facebook and Google handing over a sizable chunk of their advertising profits to the government to subsidize struggling news outlets, on whom they depend for content. Continue reading

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Warnings of ‘Unconstitutional’ Assault on Social Security as Trump Threatens Unilateral Suspension of Payroll Tax

“Donald Trump is so desperate to defund Social Security, he may rip the Constitution to shreds to make it happen.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-5-2020

Photo: White House/flickr

President Donald Trump confirmed Tuesday that he is considering circumventing Congress to unilaterally suspend collection of the payroll tax, a move advocacy groups and lawmakers said would be an “unconstitutional” abuse of power and a destructive attack on Social Security funding.

Trump said during a Covid-19 press briefing that his administration is examining a variety of potential executive orders should Congress fail to reach an agreement on the next stimulus package by the end of the week, a deadline Democratic leaders and the White House set on Tuesday. Continue reading

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