2 Reports from Blog For Arizona: Tyranny of The Majority +

Tyranny of the Majority at the Arizona House of Representatives

Posted on January 29, 2019 by David Gordon 

Arizona House Republicans demonstrate what tyranny of the majority looks like by attempting to ram through new rules (some of them changed for the first time in 72 years)  for the legislative session, some of them designed to stifle and reduce debate.

Democratic members, energized by their electoral victory in 2018 which reduced the Republican Majority to two seats, were astonished by this maneuver, complaining that they had no input into the drawing and revisions of these rules and were only given days (after protesting the wish of Republicans to vote on them the day of their release) to review them.
According to State Representative Pamela Powers Hannley (also a contributor to this blog) who was on the floor during this session, “The House Democrats were flabbergasted a week ago when the Republicans wanted to vote a week ago– with NO notice– on these extensive changes. After out leadership protested, Speaker Bowers let our caucus look at the changes for a few days. The two leadership teams met. We thought that there might be a compromise, but their caucus voted not to compromise on anything. . .
READ MORE > click here

 

The GOP tax cut scam was even worse than you imagined

Posted on January 30, 2019 by AZ BlueMeanie | Leave a comment

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes did a brief segment on Monday night’s episode of All In with Chris Hayes about a new economics report that got lost in all the noise of the corporate media’s fixation this week with Billionaire plutocrats of the New Gilded Age dismissing progressive proposals to increase taxes on the super-wealthy to address extreme wealth inequality (i.e., Michael Bloomberg and Howard Schultz).
See Oxfam’s new report, “Public Good or Private Wealth,” which shows how the growing gap between rich and poor is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging our economies and fueling public anger across the globe. Last year, billionaires saw their wealth grow by $2.5 billion a day while the poorest saw their wealth fall:

The 2017 US tax bill is super-charging the worldwide tax race to the bottom and exacerbating the trend of governments dramatically cutting tax rates for wealthy individuals and corporations around the world. In the US, 30 people hold as much wealth as the poorest half of the population. Cutting wealth and corporate taxes predominantly benefits men who own 50 percent more wealth than women globally, and control over 86 percent of corporations . . .

 

Point of fact: Corporate America gives out a record $1 trillion in stock buybacks and 2018’s Record in Stock Buybacks Could Be Shattered in 2019.

 

Earlier this month, economist Paul Krugman explained, The Trump Tax Cut: Even Worse Than You’ve Heard:

The 2017 tax cut has received pretty bad press, and rightly so. Its proponents made big promises about soaring investment and wages, and also assured everyone that it would pay for itself; none of that has happened.

Yet coverage actually hasn’t been negative enough. The story you mostly read runs something like this: The tax cut has caused corporations to bring some money home, but they’ve used it for stock buybacks rather than to raise wages, and the boost to growth has been modest. That doesn’t sound great, but it’s still better than the reality: No money has, in fact, been brought home, and the tax cut has probably reduced national income. Indeed, at least 90 percent of Americans will end up poorer thanks to that cut. . .

. . . As I said, even the mainly negative reporting doesn’t convey how bad a deal this whole thing is turning out to be.

READ THE ENTIRE REPORT > https://blogforarizona.net