Jamelle Bouie explains how Paul Ryan will "cook the books" to "prove" that tax cuts grow economies, create jobs, and increase federal revenue. Never mind that none of those same promises made by Tha Bush Mobb after its tax cuts ever materialized, and never mind how spectacularly Sam Brownback's tax cut "experiment" is blowing up in Kansas as we speak -- Paul Ryan and his disciples will forever concoct new ways of "scientifically" showing that it must happen.
Paul Buchheit at Nation of Change points out that the richest 14 Americans made the same amount of money as our entire federal food stamp program. So we're not exactly "broke," are we, when a mere fourteen people's income can pay for an entire massive federal program? The numbers get worse from there, impossible as that sounds; keep some of them at the front of your mind for your next argument with your Tea Party uncle.
Surprise, surprise: the Center for Popular Democracy finds over $30 million in charter school fraud in Pennsylvania over the last 17 years. Nobody could have predicted that diverting taxpayer money to schools that can goose up their stats by kicking students out at will would lead to fraud. Nobody could have predicted that the state would completely drop the ball on its oversight duties. Nobody, that is, except any sentient life form who gave the matter a nanosecond of thought. Let me know when the sarcasm starts wearing thin.
Facebook's shuttle bus drivers, who transport Facebook employees to and from work, want to organize and bargain collectively. Naturally, Facebook's "hands are tied," because they contract the bus driving function out to another corporation, whose President says the benefits and pay are good (though the given pay figures aren't that good, especially for the area) and adds that he has no solution for the bus drivers' main complaint -- that their eight- or nine-hour shift is spread out over 15 hours, such that they never get to see their families. No solution, eh? And you thought our entrepreneurial class were bold thinkers!
Do you keep hearing that if we tax the rich less, they'll donate more to charity, thus making up for lost government functions? Well, that isn't true, either: folks making over $200,000 have given more total money to charity since 2006, but their incomes have gone up rather faster than their charitable contributions have. Meanwhile, Americans overall still donate about 3% of their income to charity annually, meaning that lower- and middle-income Americans have picked up the slack. You know what would induce more charitable giving by the rich? The return of the 91% tax bracket for millionaire income, that's what.
Finally, from the "I Wish This Was from The Onion" file: author sues yogurt maker Chobani, claiming that Chobani's slogan "How Matters" infringes on his trademark on the word "how." Mr. Seidman not only insists that he uses the word "how" uniquely enough to trademark the word, but that Chobani uses the word in exactly the same way and can leverage its power to cripple his very ability to make money looking at "how" businesses do things. Seriously, Chobani's not going to win because it's a big corporation with deep pockets, but because this is an utterly frivolous lawsuit. (I feel compelled to note, though, that if "How" really "Matters" to Chobani, they shouldn't be using GMO milk to make their yogurt.)
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