Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
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Common Dreams:
"As Washington gears up for a fight over federal spending and the national debt, lawmakers may want to consider some new polling figures.
A survey from CBS News' "60 Minutes" and Vanity Fair magazine shows that most Americans, given a set limited choices for balancing the national budget, would prefer to see taxes increased for the wealthy.
As many as 61 percent said they would prefer increasing taxes on the rich over three other options: cutting defense spending, cutting Medicare or cutting Social Security. Another 20 percent chose cutting defense spending as the best option. Just 4 percent said they would cut Medicare, and just 3 percent said they would cut Social Security."
-Poll by "60 Minutes" and "Vanity Fair"
-->The NY Times, like our new Governor Cuomo, talks endlessly about the need to cut social spending, rather than make the rich tax pay their fair share of taxes. The billionaire hedge fund managers pay a lower percentage of their taxes than the average school teacher. Exxon Mobile pays no taxes at all. Where is the outrage? Certainly not on the pages of our newspaper of record.
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Press TV:
"A senior Republican senator has suggested that the US should devise a plan to permanently keep American troops in war-ravaged Afghanistan.
Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, told NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday that Republicans would push for indefinite US stay in Afghanistan in the years ahead.
'We have had air bases all over the world and a couple of air bases in Afghanistan would allow the Afghan security forces an edge against the Taliban in perpetuity. It would be a signal to Pakistan that the Taliban are never going to come back. In Afghanistan they could change their behavior. It would be a signal to the whole region that Afghanistan is going to be a different place.' "
-->The NY Times didn't cover Graham's recommendations. Maybe that's because this deeply unpopular war is wholeheartedly supported by Obama and both political parties. Only the American people want to end the war. Why make them uncomfortable about their children and grandchildren dying in Afghanistan?
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Fiscal Policy Institute:
"The Path Not Taken: How New York State Increased the Tax Burden on the Middle Class and Cut Taxes for its Highest Income Taxpayers by Over $8 Billion a Year...
Since the late 1970s, New York State has pursued an income tax policy that has meant higher than necessary income taxes for middle income families and huge tax cuts for the best-off 5% of state taxpayers - many of whom are actually residents of other states (primarily Connecticut and New Jersey) who commute into New York City to work...
At the other end of the spectrum are the big winners. A family earning $500,000 is now paying $22,000 a year less than they would be paying...At the $1 million level, this savings is about $63,000 and at $2 million, it is about $145,000.
Why has New York State pursued such an attack on the middle class just to provide huge benefits to those who have the least difficulty in making ends meet? Has this been a conscious effort at class warfare? or, Have our policy-makers just been oblivious to the impact of the state's misguided tax policies?"
-->The specifics about how NY Sate favors the very rich are often absent from the pages of The New York Times. It didn't cover this report by the Fiscal Policy Institute.
