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The New York Times announced today that the Democrats aren't going to do anything about the tax cuts the Republicans and George Bush gave to the rich (themselves included). It is nice to have what you are pretty sure is going to happen confirmed by the Times.
For those of you who have forgotten, the federal income tax cuts passed back around 2001-2002 were distributed to all tax brackets, but mainly favored people with assets over $1 million and incomes of over $100,000 per year. The cuts centered around favorable treatment of dividends (from stocks and bonds) and capital gains (from stocks, real estate and business ownership) which tend to benefit the private-jet flying, $1000-a-bottle cabernet swilling, trophy-wife owning elite beyond all others, not that the Mercedes-driving, $100-a-bottle chardonnay drinking corporate lawyers, accountants, managers and other second-tier predators did not do well by it.
While the Democratic Party will do some good things, no doubt, like raising the minimum wage back to semi-starvation levels from true starvation levels, most working people will benefit little from their ascendancy. There are reasons for this. The main reason is that no one is allowed to ascend the Democratic Party elected hierarchy unless they agree to be part of the machine. And the Democratic Party machine is every bit as controlled by the fabulously wealthy and self-interested as the Republican Party machine.
Take the fem-dem trio from California, Senators Boxer and Feinstein and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. All three of them are fabulously wealthy; they are not about to come clean by giving away their fortunes, or by allowing them to be taxed away, either. All three benefited from nepotism in their rise to the top. That said, as rich people go, and as top-level politicians go, Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer are pretty nice. They prefer to milk their cows rather than slaughtering them. They realize their money is no good if the environment is destroyed to the point that it won't support civilization.
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is another story. When American-paid for bullets shot from American-paid for machine guns flown in American-paid for helicoprter rip through the innocent flesh of Palestinian children, Dianne is there. She never saw an anti-Palestinian bill she did not like, and she authored quite a few. She votes like a Republican quite a bit, which is not surprising given that her husband is an investment banker. With the Senate almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Dianne's looking out for hubby's money in itself will stop any taxing of the rich. Given her love of Israel and hatred of Palestinians, the war on (anti-US, anti-Israel) terror will to on a long time, keeping California's defense industries profitable. Dianne Feinstein has no redeeming qualities.
I would not mind so much the rich not paying a fair share of taxes if the federal budget were balanced by deleting unnecessary military spending, including aid to Israel, and if special tax breaks for corporations and give-aways to wealthy individuals were eliminated. I could see a special low tax rate on capital gains if capital were marked-to-market every year. In other words, if Bill Gates stock went up 10% in a year, he would have to treat the gain as income and pay taxes on it. Currently, in fact ever since the income tax was devised, you only pay capital gains when you sell a stock. So, if like Bill Gates, you go decades without actually selling the stock, you don't pay any income taxes on it.
No, don't expect much from the Democrats. Fairness is not part of the agenda. Better figure out how to fend better for yourself in this Age of Global Warming.