American Ruling Class

‘Fiscal Cliff’ Bill Provides for Cheaper Office Space for Goldman Sachs

"Section 328 of the bill extends tax-exempt financing for the 'Liberty Zone,' the area around the former World Trade Center, for another year. As Matt Stoller points out, this tax provision was supposed to help fund reconstruction after 9/11. Yet a recent Bloomberg investigation found the bonds have mostly helped finance new luxury apartments, not to mention the construction of Goldman Sachs’ new headquarters." Continue reading →

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Hollywood Gets Tax Break Extension, While Payroll Extension Break Ended

"Section 317 of the freshly approved legislation includes an extension for 'special expensing rules for certain film and television productions.' The fiscal cliff deal extends the tax incentives through 2013--even as payroll taxes rise on ordinary Americans. The original tax incentive applied to productions costing less than $15 million to make ($20 million in low-income areas). The 2008 extension applies to all films, up to a deduction of $15 million (or $20 million in low-income areas). The incentive is especially generous to television series; it applies to each TV episode." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHollywood Gets Tax Break Extension, While Payroll Extension Break Ended

Lord Obama on Shared Sacrifice

"So what's the definition of shared sacrifice, and what's the definition of 'forward?' 54 Christmas trees, a 300 lb. gingerbread presidential palace, and a dandy $4 million Hawaiian vacation. Robert Keith Gray, a former Eisenhower staffer, revealed that last year the U.S. presidency cost American taxpayers $1.4 billion. Over the same period, the entire royal family cost British taxpayers about $57 million. There’s nothing 'royal' about the current level of 'presidential perks': The Obama family costs taxpayers more than every European royal house put together." Continue reading →

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Congress, federal workers to get raise

"Members of Congress will be getting a small pay increase next year. Under an executive order issued by President Obama on Thursday, members of Congress will join federal workers in seeing their pay rise by 0.5 percent after March 27. Congressmen and senators make $174,000 a year and will see an extra $900 in their annual pay packages before taxes next year." Continue reading →

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Merry Christmas and Happy Gun Control, Chicago

"This is another banner year for Rahm Emanuel's tightly controlled non-gun 'paradise.' Chicago's own stats show that 440 school age children were shot in 2012 in Chicago's paradise. And yet, it has long been reported that the school where Rahm's children attend to their education has an armed security guard. Additionally, his children also have an armed escort to get them to and from school, just like those Hollywood celebrities who clamor for gun control while they enjoy full-time, armed bodyguards." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMerry Christmas and Happy Gun Control, Chicago

Petition Proposes Gun Free Zone for School President’s Daughters Attend

"The petition states that 'If Gun Free Zones are sufficient protection for our children,' meaning regular Americans' children, 'then Gun Free Zones should be good enough for politicians.' Likely spurred by a Breitbart report published earlier this week pointing out that the president’s daughters attend Sidwell Friends School in Washington D.C. – a school that has no less than 11 armed security guards at all times – the petition is quickly garnering the signatures needed to necessitate a response from the Obama administration." Continue reading →

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The Fiscal Cliff’s Structural Endgame

"This Grand Bargain is coming apart as the promises made to everyone cannot possibly be met. Claims on welfare and disability programs are skyrocketing at the same time that the demographics of an aging populace are causing 10,000 people a day to enter Social Security and Medicare, the two costliest government programs. Meanwhile, the upper middle class that pays most of the taxes has been slammed with lower income and a devastating drop in their housing-based net worth." Continue reading →

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Will Grigg: “Damned from Memory”: When the Drug War Turns on its Own

The 'war on drugs' is a narcotics price support program and a public works project for the coercive sector (especially the prison-industrial complex). It also provides an apparently bottomless well of revenue to fund the projects in subversion and state terrorism carried out by the CIA and its affiliates. Investigators like John McLaughlin are rewarded for gathering up huge volumes of tiny fish – and severely punished when they disturb any of the politically protected barracudas." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWill Grigg: “Damned from Memory”: When the Drug War Turns on its Own

The Forever Wars of Frederick & Kimberly Kagan

"Kimberly is currently president for the oddly named Institute for the Study of War while Fred is the director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. Fred’s brother Robert is at the Brookings Institution and has also been a foreign policy adviser to both John McCain and Mitt Romney. The Kagans are classic neocon entrepreneurs who rely on nepotism and cronyism to work their way through the system. Kimberly studied ancient history at Yale under Donald Kagan and then married his son. She is now billed as a 'military expert' by the neocon media in spite of her lack of any actual military experience." Continue reading →

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While Much of America Suffers with Stagnation, Washington’s Political Class Is Having a Very Merry Christmas

"In the town that launched the War on Poverty 48 years ago, the poor are getting poorer despite the government’s help. And the rich are getting richer because of it. The top 5 percent of households in Washington, D.C., made more than $500,000 on average last year, while the bottom 20 percent earned less than $9,500 – a ratio of 54 to 1. That gap is up from 39 to 1 two decades ago. It’s wider than in any of the 50 states and all but two major cities." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhile Much of America Suffers with Stagnation, Washington’s Political Class Is Having a Very Merry Christmas