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Lowering Taxes on the Middle Class Is a Loser for Democrats

by MarlaMott7 Posted on May 29, 2017

Mother Jones

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Eric Levitz argues today that Democrats need to campaign on lowering middle-class taxes:

The party has plenty of internal disagreements on pocketbook issues. But there is a broad consensus on Team Blue that the tax code should be more progressive. It shouldn’t be difficult for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to unite most elected Democrats around a tax-reform blueprint.

Such a plan could combine return-free filing with a massive increase in the tax credits for earned income and child care, financed by healthy increases in the taxation of high-income individuals and multi-million-dollar estates. The party could also go more ambitious, and offer a detailed plan for overhauling the tax system with an eye toward simplicity and progressivity.

Here’s the problem with this: Middle-class Americans barely pay any federal income tax at all. Here’s the data from the Tax Policy Center for 2013:

The income quintile in the dead middle pays 2.6 percent of its income in federal income taxes. How much less do even Democrats want to make it?

If liberals really want to have an impact on the middle class, they have to focus on other taxes. For the middle quintile, the payroll tax is about four times higher than the income tax. State sales taxes are in the same ballpark. Those are the taxes that matter. As far as the federal income tax goes, if Democrats really want to lower and simplify it, they should just propose a zero percent rate up to an income of $100,000, along with an EITC that refunds money to the working poor. That would be pretty popular.

Of course, it would also mean that Democrats have decided to battle Republicans on their home field, which is probably a losing strategy. It also means they’ll have a much harder time justifying single-payer health care, free college, subsidized daycare, and all the other stuff they support. Sure, they can pay for some of this stuff by raising taxes on the rich, but that only takes you so far.

If I had to guess, I’d say Democrats are better off focusing on more and better services for the middle class, not lower income taxes. That redistributes income at least as well as progressive tax rates. Probably better.

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Lowering Taxes on the Middle Class Is a Loser for Democrats

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The Surprising Green Benefit of Living in the City

by ArlethaRichter Posted on April 27, 2017

Were not in the 60s anymore, Toto. Seems young people these days (aka millennials) no longer dream of moving to the country to try their hand at communal living and organic farming. Instead, they are turning to another way to help green the planetcity living. Huh? Well, unless you live entirely off the grid, most folks have to work for a living, and most jobs tend to be located close to urban cores. City dwelling also offer more cultural diversity, educational institutions, art galleries, museums, and nightlife, often within walking distance. And walking, rather than driving, to work or play is one of the greenest lifestyle changes you could make. Learn more.

Save money.

For families living in suburban communities, the cost of transportation comprises 25 percent of total household expenditures, making it the second largest household expense, exceeded only by the cost of housing itself. Compare this figure to thebudget of urban dwellers, where the percentage allotted for transportation drops to only 9 percent.

Save time.

Theres been a trend over the past 40 years toward what theWashington Postdubs the mega commuteran individual who, in order to get to the job every day, faces a long haul of 90 minutes each way. Do the math and youll see that adds up to an annual total of 31.3 days gobbled up traveling to and from work, an activity that many people rank among their least favorite ways to spend time. One simple solution to an admittedly complex problem is to move closer to your workplace.

Save gasoline.

Although electric cars (and the public charging stations they need in order to drive long distances) are becoming available, most people still rely on gasoline to power their automobiles. Gasoline has a number of drawbacks. To start, gas is expensive. Whats more, as a fossil fuel manufactured from crude oil, it is a non-renewable resource. But the most compelling motivation to reduce gasoline use stems from the fact that it contributes heavily to your carbon footprint. Burning a single gallon of gas produces20 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Save the planet.

In recent years, theres been a lot of buzz about taking steps to make homes more energy-efficient:installing energy-saving HVAC systems, replacing worn-out appliances with Energy Star certified models, and sealing and insulating the house exteriors. However, the Environmental Protection Agency advises thatlocation efficiencyis even more important to the health of our environment thanenergy efficiency. By this logic, the most eco-friendly home of all would combine energy-efficient features with a very walkable location.

Think like a millennial.

Millennials (young adults born between the mid-1980s and the early years of the 21stcentury) prefer walking to driving by a whopping 12 percentage points according tosurvey results. When theyre not driving, they like to bike to their destination, whether it be work, shopping, or entertainment. Compared to older age groups, they are much readier to live in attached housing, rather than the traditional single-family detached home in the suburbs, in order to shorten their commuting time.

Check theWalk Score.

If you are planning a move, consult the Walk Score for any property you might want to rent or buy. Based on accessibility to such facilities as schools, grocery shopping, restaurants, cultural activities, and parks, the score is calculated based on an ideal of 100. Anything over 70 rates as very walkable, while 90 plus is considered a walkers paradise. Not surprisingly, homes in cities tend to score highest on the scale.

Push for green spaces.

Some municipal governments are beginning to fund out-of-the-box oases such as green roofs and linear parks. Push your locality to add more and maybe even create your own community vegetable plot or roadside guerilla garden. Urban green spaces improve the air quality, soak up stormwater, and may evenreduce crime ratesin the area. Besides, they provide a pretty view when youre out walking.

By Laura Firszt, Networx.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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The Surprising Green Benefit of Living in the City

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A Baseball Sacred Cow Finally Starts to Fall

by HesterMcKibben7 Posted on April 12, 2017

Mother Jones

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I’m getting answers to all sorts of nagging sports questions this month. Earlier I learned that, as I’ve long suspected, intentional fouling virtually never works in the final seconds of a basketball game. Today, Jared Diamond writes about the windup used by baseball pitchers, which has always puzzled me:

This spring, Washington Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg asked a simple question that threatens to upend more than a century of baseball tradition: Why should he pitch one way with nobody on base, and another way with runners aboard? After all, he threw just as hard from the stretch as he did from the full windup, but with improved precision.

Strasburg did some research and embarked on an experiment. He ditched the windup and plans to work exclusively from the stretch this season, beginning his delivery facing third base instead of home plate. Pitchers usually deploy the stretch—a quicker, more compact delivery than the full windup—with runners on base to prevent base-stealers.

I’m not a pitcher, obviously, but I’ve never understood the weird, arms-over-the-head windup. In most sports, it’s a given that a simple, smooth motion is the best way to engage the kinetic chain, improve consistency, and throw/shoot/serve/etc. with maximum accuracy. Among quarterbacks or tennis players, for example, even small hitches in the delivery motion are mercilessly trained away by good coaches. But in baseball, an enormous hitch is not only not trained away, it’s encouraged.

I guess I always figured there must be a reason that I just didn’t understand. But maybe not. Maybe it’s just the way things have always been done. In any case, I applaud Strasburg. Pitching from the stretch should work fine, and it should improve performance with runners on base too since no delivery change is required. I wish him a great season except when he’s pitching against the Dodgers.

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A Baseball Sacred Cow Finally Starts to Fall

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It’s official: Oil is making its way through the Dakota Access Pipeline.

by BeatrizMackenzi Posted on March 28, 2017

When Rebecca Burgess was working in villages across Asia, she saw the impacts of the clothing industry firsthand: waste, pollution, widespread health problems. But in these same communities, from Indonesia to Thailand, Burgess also saw working models of local textile production systems that didn’t harm anyone. She was inspired to build a sustainable clothing system — complete with natural dye farms, renewable energy-powered mills, and compostable clothes — back home in the United States.

The result is Fibershed, a movement to build networks of farmers, ranchers, designers, ecologists, sewers, dyers, and spinners in 54 communities around the world, mostly in North America. They are ex-coal miners growing hemp in Appalachia and workers in California’s first wool mill. In five years, Burgess plans to build complete soil-to-soil fiber systems in north-central California, south-central Colorado, and eastern Kentucky.

People have asked her, “This has already left to go overseas — you’re bringing it back? Are you sure?” She is. Mills provide solid, well-paying jobs for people “who can walk in off the street and be trained in six months,” Burgess says. “This is all about dressing human beings at the end of the day, in the most ethical way that we can, while providing jobs for our home communities and keeping farmers and ranchers on the land.”

Meet all the fixers on this year’s Grist 50.

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It’s official: Oil is making its way through the Dakota Access Pipeline.

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Trump’s environmental executive order is everything we feared.

by OliveChristenson Posted on March 28, 2017

When Rebecca Burgess was working in villages across Asia, she saw the impacts of the clothing industry firsthand: waste, pollution, widespread health problems. But in these same communities, from Indonesia to Thailand, Burgess also saw working models of local textile production systems that didn’t harm anyone. She was inspired to build a sustainable clothing system — complete with natural dye farms, renewable energy-powered mills, and compostable clothes — back home in the United States.

The result is Fibershed, a movement to build networks of farmers, ranchers, designers, ecologists, sewers, dyers, and spinners in 54 communities around the world, mostly in North America. They are ex-coal miners growing hemp in Appalachia and workers in California’s first wool mill. In five years, Burgess plans to build complete soil-to-soil fiber systems in north-central California, south-central Colorado, and eastern Kentucky.

People have asked her, “This has already left to go overseas — you’re bringing it back? Are you sure?” She is. Mills provide solid, well-paying jobs for people “who can walk in off the street and be trained in six months,” Burgess says. “This is all about dressing human beings at the end of the day, in the most ethical way that we can, while providing jobs for our home communities and keeping farmers and ranchers on the land.”

Meet all the fixers on this year’s Grist 50.

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Trump’s environmental executive order is everything we feared.

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Portable Healthy Meals for Work and School

by ChristopherPrenz Posted on January 26, 2017

Any meal can be portable if you’re creative. However, some dishes are better suited to on-the-go living than others!

Whether you’re in school, take a mealto work with you every day or are a full-on nomad, these portable healthy meals will help you step up your brown bag lunch game.

So, grab your reusable container, check to seewhat’s in the fridge, and let’s make lunch!

Make a Salad

Quinoa Radish Arugula Salad

Salad is the colorful, waving banner of the fit and fabulous for a reason! It’s often the first food people turn to when they want to get healthier, and itcan be a wonderful foundation for a meal packed full with nutrients and high-quality protein.

To make the perfect salad, start with a pile of dark, leafy greens like baby kale or spinach, then add toppings in these categories:

1) Healthy Proteins: Kidney beans, black beans, almonds and chia seeds are healthy meat-free protein solutions.

2) Good Fats: Avocado and olives are two examples of good fats that will sustain you long into the afternoon.

Pair with a complex, whole-grain carbohydrate for a side and you’ll have a portable, healthy meal in a jiffy!

Load Up a Sweet Potato

As a gal who has recently learned the value in eating a whole foods, plant-based diet, I have become a massive fan of a good sweet potato.

To bake the perfect potato for lunch, place the tuber directly onto your upper oven rack with a baking sheet on the rack below,thenpreheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Set your timer for 45 minutes to an hour. When the timer goes off, turn off the oven but leave your sweet potato where it is for another 30 minutes or so.

Take it out and enjoy with some of these topping ideas!

1) Black Beans & Kale

2) Sweet Corn, Baby Tomatoes, & Green Goddess Dressing

3) Bacon, Sour Cream, & Chives (Non-Vegan)

4) Avocado Slices, Chives & Sprouts

Pile on the Oats

“Overnight Oats”has become a go-to healthful breakfast in our home. Once or twice a week, I cook a mixture of rolled oats, quinoa, and steel cut oats in coconut milk for a treat that is as delicious as it is filling.

Top with any of the following combos:

1) Banana Slices & Almonds

2) Granola & Blueberries

3) Peaches & Cream

Which of these recipes are you eager to try? Let us know!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Portable Healthy Meals for Work and School

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Trump’s First Move as President: Screwing Over Homeowners

by GalenMercer Posted on January 20, 2017

Mother Jones

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Earlier this month, then-President Barack Obama issued an executive action requiring the Federal Housing Administration to decrease insurance premiums on FHA mortgages, a change that could have potentially saved low-income homeowners as much as $900 per year. In his first administrative order as president, President Donald Trump suspended this Obama order, which was slated to go into effect on January 27. In practice, this means that low-income homeowners will be stuck paying higher insurance premiums on their FHA-insured mortgages.

FHA loans enable homebuyers—often those with lower incomes and who have fewer assets or bad credit—to bypass conventional lenders who would likely deny them loans by taking out a mortgage that’s insured by the federal government. The borrowers have to pay FHA mortgage insurance, to protect the mortgage lender from a loss should the borrower default on their home loan. In his announcement of the change, Obama said the drop in premiums would help stabilize the housing market and spur growth in housing markets still recovering from the financial crisis.

At his confirmation hearing last week, Ben Carson, Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees the FHA, said he was concerned about the Obama administration’s last-minute implementation of this insurance premium drop and would reexamine it. “I, too, was surprised to see something of this nature done on the way out the door,” Carson told members of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee. “Certainly, if confirmed, I’m going to work with the FHA administrator and other financial experts to really examine that policy.”

Presidential executive orders require no congressional approval to pass or overturn. Trump has vowed to eliminate all of Obama’s executive actions during his first days in office. This may be his first step toward fulfilling that promise.

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Trump’s First Move as President: Screwing Over Homeowners

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Steven Mnuchin Just Doesn’t Understand

by RenatoHanger Posted on January 20, 2017

Mother Jones

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This is adorable:

When Steven Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of the Treasury, was asked about tax reform in his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, he took things in a surprising direction: He suggested that the IRS needed a larger staff.

“I was particularly surprised, looking at the IRS numbers, that the IRS headcount has gone down quite dramatically, almost 30 percent over the last number of years,” Mnuchin said in response to a question from Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican….“Now perhaps the IRS just started with way too many people,” Mnuchin added. But he suggested that “staffing of the IRS is an important part of fixing the tax gap.”

That’s, um, surprising, all right. Yessir, Mr. Mnuchin. Very surprising indeed.

For those of you who don’t get the joke, this is sort of like Mnuchin testifying in front of a bunch of mafia dons and expressing surprise that they charge such high interest rates in their lending operation. Maybe with lower rates you gentlemen could expand into the suburban market and gain a share of the home equity business? Lotta kitchen remodels out there.

Basically, Mnuchin looked at the IRS numbers like a normal person and was surprised to see that they weren’t trying to maximize tax collections. He apparently didn’t realize that the Republicans he was testifying in front of have been very deliberately slashing the IRS budget for years precisely so they can’t maximize tax collections. The last thing Republicans want is an IRS that audits rich people more closely.

Mnuchin will learn. After all, Donald Trump did. Remember when Trump suggested that women who get abortions should be punished? He had no idea what he was talking about, and just assumed that since Republicans consider abortion bad, the maximal anti-abortion position must be good. He didn’t realize that jailing middle-class teenagers is a position unpopular enough to jeopardize GOP reelection prospects, and as a result Republicans have long insisted that even if they manage to make abortion illegal, they will always consider women who get abortions to be “victims” of unscrupulous butchers, not lawbreakers. That’s the party line, anyway, and everyone is expected to know it.

Before long, I’m sure Mnuchin will learn to listen respectfully to harangues about the gold standard and fiat money and ending the Fed. It’s a small price to pay for the opportunity to occupy the position once held by Alexander Hamilton.

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Steven Mnuchin Just Doesn’t Understand

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Were 401(k) Plans Just a Big Mistake?

by ChelseaGaertner Posted on January 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Wall Street Journal ran a piece yesterday about the folks who (accidentally) created the 401(k) retirement plan. They aren’t happy with their creation:

Many early backers of the 401(k) now say they have regrets about how their creation turned out despite its emergence as the dominant way most Americans save. Some say it wasn’t designed to be a primary retirement tool and acknowledge they used forecasts that were too optimistic to sell the plan in its early days.

Others say the proliferation of 401(k) plans has exposed workers to big drops in the stock market and high fees from Wall Street money managers while making it easier for companies to shed guaranteed retiree payouts.

The Journal piece is accompanied by the chart on the right, showing the decline of the personal saving rate over the past few decades. It looks pretty bad. Just as old-style pensions were going away, Americans were saving less and less, including their savings in 401(k) accounts. Retirement is now a hellhole, just a grim march from retirement to death subsisting on cat food.

But let me show you another chart. There’s more than one way to save, it turns out. For example, you can build up equity in your home. And as housing prices have risen over the past several decades, so has total personal wealth:

Even this number is down since the 80s, but a drop from 103 percent to 98 percent doesn’t seem all that scary, does it? And it’s worth remembering that housing wealth has long played a role in retirement, as retired homeowners either sell their houses, downsize their houses, or take out a reverse mortgage on their houses.

Now, this hardly tells the whole story. The truth is that there are good and bad aspects to both old-style pensions and 401(k) plans. Here are a few:

Most people vastly overestimate how generous those old-style pensions were. Half of Americans never got them at all, and most of the rest got modest pensions. The exceptions were public-sector workers and some unionized workers.
That said, old-style pensions were most likely distributed a bit more evenly than 401(k) wealth, which is skewed toward the wealthy. But the difference probably isn’t huge. Unfortunately, there’s no reliable data that tells us for sure.
Overall pension wealth hasn’t changed much. It was about 13 percent of total wages in 1984 and it’s about 13 percent today.
Early 401(k) plans largely bypassed the poor and working class. However, changes made in 2006 have increased the retirement saving rate among the young and the low-income. It’s probably the case that more low-income workers are saving for retirement today than ever in history.
401(k) plans are more vulnerable to stock market shocks. However, the 2006 changes included a provision that encourages employers to offer “lifecycle” funds, which become less volatile as workers get older. Hopefully this will become close to universal in the future.
The bottom third of the income spectrum is screwed now and always has been. Neither old-style pensions nor 401(k) plans have ever helped them much, and they rely almost entirely on Social Security. We should increase Social Security payouts for these folks.

I’ve written about this in more detail before, most recently here. Advantages of 401(k) plans over traditional pensions are here. The bottom line is that 401(k) plans aren’t perfect, and we could stand to make more changes to them. I’d like to see hard caps on management fees, for example. Nonetheless, on average, old-style pensions weren’t all that great either, and 401(k)s are getting better. I’m all for further reforms, and I’m all for expanding Social Security for the bottom third. But taken as a whole, 401(k) plans aren’t bad, and as the 2006 reforms continue to make a difference, they’re going to get better.

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Were 401(k) Plans Just a Big Mistake?

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Clean Your Bathtub the Nontoxic Way–With Only 2 Ingredients!

by LeilaniGower Posted on December 19, 2016

Soaking in a soothing bubble bath can be the perfect way to recharge after a long day. But if your tub has lost its sparkle, that can really put a damper on your relaxing evening in. When you need to scour the tub, skip cleaners withharmful chemicals and substancessome of which may be linked to respiratory problems, skin irritation, and even certain cancersand make this nontoxic spray using two simple ingredients.

The combination of castile soap and apple cider vinegar works like magic to cut through dirt and residueno more ring around the tub. The sooner you get scrubbing, the sooner you can relax!

APPLE CIDER VINEGAR BATHROOM SPRAY

What You Need

1 partcastileor dish soap
1 part warmapple cider vinegar
Spray bottle

Instructions

Pour castile soap into a spray bottle, followed by warm apple cider vinegar, and secure cap. Spray all over the tub; wait 30 minutes and then wipe with a sponge and rinse. Now you can hop in and enjoy a relaxing, detoxifyingbaking soda bath.

Written by Nicole Gulotta, and reposted with permission fromThrive Market.

More From Thrive Market
The No. 1 Appliance That Churns Out Toxins In Your Home Is…
This Item You’re Constantly Touching Is Filthy–Here’s How to Clean It
Are These 4 Common Cooking Tools Contaminating Your Kitchen?

Photo Credit: Thrive Market/YouTube

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Clean Your Bathtub the Nontoxic Way–With Only 2 Ingredients!

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