Sheldon Adelson's Income: $3.3 Million Per HOUR (for 2/9/12)

The biggest contributor to Newt Gingrich's campaign, Sheldon Adelson, recently gave $5 million to a Gingrich Super PAC. This helped Gingrich to an unexpected GOP primary win over Mitt Romney in South Carolina. Adelson's income last year was $7 billion. This wealth came from his ownership of Sands Corporation, a big casino and resort operator based in Las Vegas. This shows the staggering income inequality that exists in America. If he worked just 40 hours per week, his hourly wage rate would be $3.3 million per hour. He met with Gingrich for several hours at The Venetian earlier this month. Adelson earned much of this money from stock gains in his casinos and resorts in Asia, particularly China. He would also be open to supporting other GOP candidates such as Mitt Romney. Last year, the median American household earned $49,455, an hourly rate of $23.77 on 40 hours weekly. This comes out to a rate of almost 140,000 times to one. This inequality and concentration of wealth fuels social unrest and understandable class envy. Even if he kept $1 billion of income for himself last year, he could give one million full-time workers in Sands' hometown of Las Vegas an hourly wage increase of $2.80 per hour. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/08/newt-gingrich-sheldon-adelson-income_n_1263249.html

Romney: My Tax Rate is Lower Than Most Americans (for 1/17/12)

Mitt Romney says he pays about 15% taxes on his income. The investments he previously made comprise much of his yearly income over the past decade. He also gets income from his book and giving speeches. Noted investor Warren Buffett has railed against the 15% rate for being lower than average Americans and wants Congress to stop favoring the wealthy. For the year ending February 2011, Romney received over $300,000 for giving speeches. This is not much for him, which speaks to his immense wealth. Tax rates for dividends and capitol gains are only 15%. Democrats do not like seeing people who teach, keep our streets safe, or do hard, physical labor pay higher income tax rates than multi-millionaires like Romney. Even Newt Gingrich wants Romney to make his tax returns public. This should spur tax reform to make the Top 1% pay higher minimum taxes. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57360230-503544/romney-admits-he-pays-lower-tax-rate-than-most-americans/

GOP Presidential Candidates Attack Romney's Greed (for 1/10/12)

Independents, Democrats, liberals, and anybody else who does not have a right-wing viewpoint regularly attack Mitt Romney for cutting jobs to make massive profits for himself. In the GOP debates however, his rival contenders have gone after him and broke ranks with current GOP economic thought. Romney started Bain Capital, a prviate equity firm, in 1984 and was its first CEO. Of 77 companies Bain invested in over 15 years, 22% of them went bankrupt as Bain bought them, ran up lots of debt, sold them off, and laid off thousands of workers. Jon Huntsman said, "he likes firng people." Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry both believe Romney raided businesses, destroying jobs to enrich his investors. But, he remains the leading GOP Presidential Candidate to win the nomination. Which suggests that most GOP voters do not have a problem with all of the jobs going overseas and dismiss it has a harsh reality of the mythical free market capitalism that they believe in. Which also suggests that they do not believe that Romney's tactics as a corporate raider do not harm the economy, despite evidence to the contrary. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/01/09/400769/republican-pile-on-bain-capital/ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/09/400404/romney-bain-bankrupts-billions/

Romney Tax Plan Least Generous to Top 1% Among GOP Candidates (for 1/8/12)

Mitt Romney wants to give millionaires and billionaires even more tax cuts they don't need. But, among GOP Presiential candidates the least generous to the Top 1% of the wealthiest Americans. He would still tax a millionaire's income at an effective rate over 25% on everything above $1 million. Newt Gingrich's plan would see even steeper tax cuts for the wealthy, as nobody would face a rate over 18%. Millionaires would face an effective tax rate of 11-12%. Under Rick Perry, Nobody would face a rate of ovr 20% and millionaires would face a rate of 15%. Under Herman Cain and his infamous "9-9-9 Plan", millionaires would pay the lowest tax rate of everyone. This is the worst plan of all as everyone from $35,000 to $200,000 would face the highest tax rates. Millionaires currently face a top rate of 35%. They are not suffering. They cannot get more tax cuts with the possibility of Medicare or Medicaid cuts in the near-future. That would be inhumane. http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/01/06/relative-to-gop-field-romney-tax-plan-gives-less-to-the-rich/

GOP's Hostage-Taking Tactics (for 12/25/11)

In a broken political system, one thing that makes every non-Republican angry is the Republicans' history of holding publicly beneficial programs or policies captive to their extreme demands. Current Republican Presidential contender Newt Gingrich used this mindset to shut down the U.S. Government when he was Speaker of the House in 1995 and 1996. The GOP did this to get the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy extended for another two years. It started with Richard Nixon's 1968 sabotage of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam peace talks to win the election. Republicans did it again in 1980 as they secretly conspired with Iranian radicals to delay the release of 52 American hostages, helping Republicans to win back the White House from Jimmy Carter. Out of fear, both Johnson and Carter did not go to the public to expose these shady dealings. Republicans currently use these tactics on President Obama on issues such as job creation, the debt ceiling, and the payroll tax holiday. Democrats usually cave in without making the GOP pay a strong political price. http://www.alternet.org/story/153559/the_gop%27s_long%2C_sordid_history_of_shameless_hostage-taking/