2015 State Of The Union Announcement - Obama's Plan To Fight Income Inequality

"During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama will lay out a plan to extend tax credits to the middle class by hiking taxes on wealthier Americans and big banks, according to senior administration officials.

Under the plan, the capital gains tax for couples with income over $500,000 per year would be raised from its current level of 23.8 percent up to 28. The plan would also strip a tax break, known as a "step-up," that allows heirs to avoid capital gains taxes on large inheritances.

In addition, the plan would institute a new tax on the biggest financial institutions, basing the fee on liabilities in order to discourage risky borrowing. The administration says the fee would hit the roughly 100 banks that have assets of $50 billion or more."

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MLK Day, State of the Union, ISIS Executions & Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform - The Young Turks 1/19/2015 News & Politics

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[ChrissonatorOFL]

You know Republicans are going to fight him tooth and nail on that one.

[ralphinator]

First, do you understand that by the effects of inflation, wages are not increasing but decreasing?  The numbers need to go up around 3% annually for the value to STAY THE SAME.  Then if the value of the wage stays the same, how can it be the cause of inflation?

Since wages fall in value without adjustment, it is more fair to say that refusal to adjust wages creates an artificially low rate of inflation.  Business owners have an interest in decreasing their costs, so they lobby vigorously to pay employees as little as they can, and that helps them in the short term, but in the long term, it ruins the economy by reducing the number of customers, lowering tax revenue since people are earning less, creating more dependence on welfare at the same time there is less money to pay welfare, and also reduces the number of educated people since low wage workers are less likely to afford education. This is exactly what we see happening in USA, when it is not a coincidence that wages have been falling behind the rate of inflation for over 40 years.

It has been proven when wages have been increased in the past, that more disposable income creates more retail and manufacturing activity.  When wages barely cover rent and utilities, there will be limited retail and manufacturing.

Customers who need or want things and have the ability to pay for them create jobs.  Wage increases have been proven for decades all over the entire globe to create more customers.

REAL economic activity increases immediately following a wage increase, ALWAYS.  If you pretend that costs don't go up when wages aren't increased, that's an obvious fallacy.  Inflation happens always and decreases the value of currency always.  So if an employee is doing the same job this year that he was last year, why should he accept 3% less value for his labor?

Civilized first world nations match wage increases automatically to the inflation index every year, and they shame America when it comes to living standards and poverty.

The biggest problem with the argument against wage adustments is when you frame wages as rising.  Wages are not rising in value.  They have been FALLING for more than a decade.  Every year that you don't get a raise, you and all your friends and customers are effectively getting a pay CUT.  And you should not want your purchasing power to be reduced. ESPECIALLY when the economy is bad, it's the MOST IMPORTANT time to raise wages.

Wages are NOT going "artificially higher".  When you vote against annual wages adjustments, YOU are helping wages to become artificially LOWER.  You are causing your own purchasing power to decrease by playing along with the politicians who tell you not to ask for a raise.  When you vote against wage adjustments, you are screwing over your self, your family, and destroying your own customer base.

Small businesses get their money exclusively from customers.  It has already been proven that a healthy customer base increases when wages are raised, and customers are the single most important factor to small businesses.  The most healthy economies in the world raise wages every year.  USA hasn't raised wages barely at all since 2000, and customers have lost a lot of purchasing power.  It is not a coincidence that USA has one of the highest rates of poverty among western nations.

By voting to freeze wages, you vote to get rid of customers, then blame everyone else for the bad economy.  Unless you can stop inflation completely, no matter who is causing it, then with any sensibility, you would be DEMANDING that wages be corrected for the declining value of the dollar.

Companies will ALWAYS try to reduce costs to the lowest level possible, and if allowing customers to order from a tablet computer instead of a waitress is cheaper, they will do that. It already has happened with checkout counters in grocery stores - they are all self-scan, these days. It's not because WalMart has to pay their employees $7.50 an hour instead of $5.25, it's because each machine is a one-time fixed-cost of $X.XX dollars and then they are done paying on it. Forever. We, as a society, have never been put in a position before, where machines are able to take such a large portion of jobs away from workers because the costs of the machine over time are reduced to almost nothing. This is a very unique time we live in, and at some point SOMEONE has to step in and fight for the workers ability to earn a wage they can live on - that someone is generally looked to as the government. Henry Ford understood this basic economics, and at the start of the automobile boom in Detroit he started paying his employees more than twice the common wage and gave them Saturdays off work (when the common practice was only to give employees Sunday off). As a result, his employees were more financially stable, the economy around the automotive industry exploded, Detroit became the wealthiest place in the nation, and the auto industry grew enormously prosperous, because their employees were able to afford the very product they themselves produced. Raising wages creates customers, which is good for business.

The only thing that makes inflation painful is when everybody doesn't keep up with it.  If everybody got the same percent increase as the COL index, your paycheck would go just as far this year as last, whether inflation was 3% or 10%.

How is it that Republican congressmen can grasp the idea that the budget of the Pentagon needs to keep pace with inflation to maintain current capabilities, but somehow the idea that household income also needs to match inflation blows right over their heads??  They vote against wage raises unanimously, causing harm to their constituents because their donors pay them.

[flake]

I thought the point of taxes was to pay for public services not to just give people money for the sake of it.

[Tristengi]

"Now the nigga has some baritone in his voice" A Pimp Named Slickback.

[laterlatrinabarr]

I love Obama you tried your hardest and when your a black man against this fucked up world you never give up!

[buffalosoldier]

Why should a middle class/low class person that started a company on limited funds and struggled for ten years before starting to make a profit be punished with high taxes in order to support someone that chose to drop out of school and insists on not working a 'traditional job' (person I know; traditional means a set schedule, drug testing, hourly wage).

[bobbydickenbags]

A lot of it is screwing over the upper middle class, not the UPPER class. 

[markh]

The US government ended as well as our constitution in 1913 with the Federal Reserve and the IRS enactments.

[menacingfox]

Instead of trickle down economics maybe we could try something called circle economics, every American receives a 5% spending tax break, it's a spending tax break meaning you have to spend it in America on American products and services, you have 3 months to spend the money, what doesn't get spend goes towards paying off the debt or towards a surplus.

[soexclusive]

This is truly a PROGRESSIVE POLICY
His other policies were more for the benefit of corporations than the people as a whole.
I almost forgot 2016 is around the corner. No wonder....

[DonWenzel]

More taxes, more government waste. Politicians and their cronies benefit most from tax increases. Income inequality will not be solved by these measures, the money never reaches those it's intended to reach.

[lufo]

There's a redistribution of wealth alright.  Steal from the poor and middle class and give it to the rich.  That's the real redistribution of wealth, that's the real welfare, that's the real problem!  Sucker Carlson makes my skin crawl and causes me to regurgitate anything I have ingested within the past 24 hours.  TYT, warning next time you plan to show a clip with that scumbag, please!

[sickofwashington]

If it's not "playing politics", why did he not push this when he HAD both houses of Congress?

[bdjoe]

It's pretty cool as soon as a finish school with a mountain of debt... now they consider making the shit free... fml lol.

[MistressArte]

Between a tree and Tucker Carlson, I'd pick a tree. XD

[Jakvin]

"I would be against restributing income to ISIS. Call me antimuslim but i am against that."
-Ben Mankiewicz
Priceless

[sethn]

According to the department of labor if a Family, thats both the man and the wife,  make $25, 000 - 62, 000 you are middle class,  thats bullshit.   I know many, many, many families that are struggling on those wages.  You could make $25, 000 a year flipping burgers.  How many people do I know who flip burgers that go to the food bank, get food stamps, or other government help?  A LOT!!!  That is poverty!!! Not middle class!!!  In order to have kids you and your wife need to make at least $120, 000.    This country is bullshit .  We get fed a bunch of fucking lies by our government!!!!  

[josh]

When you say that you are going to present a bill to rich people that will require rich people to pay more taxes, you can't expect that it will ever pass. It doesn't even matter if it's a republican or democrat. Nothing will change because of this bill, but if something does change a slight slight bit, it will benefit the rich and screw the middle class and poor.

[janoos]

Obama is finally starting to act like progressive. Taking on income equality, Restoring some diplomatic ties with Cuba, immigration reform, and now tax reform.

[vektorblue]

One of the best, most well spoken and issue addressing state of the union speeches I've heard since the JFK administration.
That kind of speech makes you feel good as an American .
And that's coming from an racial idealist.
Absolutely wonderful.