Half Changed World

Via Bitch PhD and Yglesias, this terrific graph showing the Obama and McCain tax plans and how much they’ll affect different income brackets’ taxes, with the bands scaled to reflect the number of people affected:

This is from a site called chartjunk, which attempts to use Edward Tufte‘s principles in designing charts.  Definitely lots to learn from.

The Freakonomics blog at the NY Times picked up on this too.

While we’re on the topic of taxes and distribution, I’ll point out that the big tax cut bill coming out of the Senate, which includes both the Alternative Minimum Tax patch and a bunch of business tax extensions, does include one provision that is really important for low-income families: allowing families to start to receive the child tax credit starting at an income of $8,500, down from the $12,050 under current law.  This would help 13 million low-income children.  It’s not at all guaranteed that the House bill will also include this provision, so it’s worth dropping a line or calling your representative.

I’m going to use the blogger’s prerogative to add this to the post, rather than risking having it get buried in the comments with all the back and forth about child support.

Maria commented on the stat that’s shown in the third chart on the Freakonomics post — that the top .1 percent of the country pays 20 percent of the income tax.  I haven’t seen that elsewhere, but it seems plausible.  There are great statistics on US income and wealth inequality here.

It’s worth noting that for all conservatives in the US mutter about European socialism, the tax system in almost all European countries is far less progressive than the US system, because they collect a large portion of their government funding through a Value Added Tax (VAT) which is if anything, somewhat regressive.

I

Via Becca at Not Quite Sure, Jon Stewart nailing people with their own words.

And Roger Simon on Why The Media Should Apologize.

I remember that around 9/11, people were saying that irony was going out of style.  But I don’t know how else we’re supposed to deal with this craziness.

Update:  Oh.  My.  God. I think I have to cry anyway.

For all that I think Sarah Palin would be a terrible president, I do think her nomination puts another dent in the glass ceiling.  Specifically, while there are a few hardliners still arguing that women shouldn’t be in positions of authority, there’s no doubt that the world has changed when Phyllis Schlafly is going around saying that Palin’s experience as a mother will make her a better vice president.  I really do think that the next woman who runs will find it a little bit easier as a result.

Martin Manley comments on the historical nature of this election:

"On the other hand, Clinton, together with Obama and McCain, may have just killed the white male ticket. As
a country, we are having our 56th presidential election, meaning that
about 200 people in American history have had the honor of running for
President or Vice President at the head of a major party ticket (some
have run more than once, some years there have been more than two major
parties). So far as I know, all but one of these candidates has been a white man (the exception is Geraldine Ferraro in 1984). With the nomination of Palin, neither party has fielded a white male ticket. Indeed, thanks to the contestants in this year’s election and the odd way the US selects Vice Presidents, a white male ticket may now be politically untenable.

"Fine."

In response to my initial post about Palin, Beth posted a comment questioning her judgment as the mother of a child with Down syndrome choosing to take on the responsibilities of being VP.  I wasn’t particularly swayed by that argument — for one thing, I suspect that the day-to-day responsibilites of being VP are probably less than those of being Governor of Alaska.  Not to mention that with the employment opportunities for oil field workers being somewhat limited in the greater DC area, her husband would probably wind being available for parenting duties more or less full time.  (I’ve heard some people say he’s already doing the SAHD thing now, on leave from his other jobs, but haven’t read anything authoritative.)  I did wonder a little about the time/travel involved with campaigning, but was planning on ending with a somewhat smug comment about basically trusting people to make good decisions about their families.

I’m feeling less smug and more judgmental today.  Not because Palin’s teenage daughter is pregnant, but because, knowing that her daughter was pregnant, she accepted the VP nomination, and the media frenzy that goes with it.  And that seems like a pretty crappy thing to do to a teenager who is already in a stressful situation.

Does that change my vote?  Not in the least — I was never going to vote for McCain.  But it does make me think somewhat less of Palin as a person.  And it makes me eat a little crow about my claim not to judge other people’s parenting.

Some reactions to Sarah Palin for VP.

First, I have to say that my dad suggested that McCain would pick Palin over a month ago.  I thought he was nuts.

Second, this choice clearly succeeded in changing the political conversation from being about Obama’s speech.

Third, I don’t know if it will make any difference to the election.  In general, very few people vote based on the VP choice.  It will make the Christian right more eager to get up on a wet November morning, but might scare some folks on the fence who worry that McCain’s VP might actually wind up in the Oval Office in the next four years.  It might win some Hillary voters, but will piss off others who see it as meaning that McCain thinks they’re stupid (or that she’s a younger and less qualified woman getting what they fought for).

Fourth, I don’t think she’s qualified to be President.  But I’m not sure she’s that much less qualified than, say, Mitt Romney.  He was Governor of Massachusetts for 4 years; she’s been Governor of Alaska for 2 years.  He’s got more business experience; she’s got more local government experience.  And even the people who like Romney’s politics think he’s plastic, while by all accounts she’s quite real and is very popular in her state.

I was working in the kitchen and listening to the convention coverage on the radio, but when it  was time for Clinton’s speech, I went to watch it on TV.  D popped out of his room (I had put him to bed an hour earlier) and asked if he could watch it with me.  I had already promised he could stay up tomorrow to watch Obama’s speech, and he doesn’t need to be up early tomorrow morning, so I said ok.

So we sat down to watch and after a few minutes the questions start:

• Where are the soldiers again?
• Why did you say that "we’re in Iraq"? (I meant the U.S.; he interpreted it as him and me.)
• Is Iraq in America?
• Why are American soldiers in Iraq? [I try to answer in a way that gives my opinion, but acknowledges that there’s disagreement about this.]
• Why can’t we just leave?
• Someone said that the reason we can’t leave is that they might follow us.  Daddy said that our army is too strong and they can’t do that.  Is that right? [I say yes, our army is the strongest in the world.  But then I try to explain about terrorism, and September 11…  He’s seen The Sphere and knew that buildings fell down, but I believe this is the first time he’s understood that it was intentional.]
• Did the people who flew the airplanes die as well?
• Good.  I think they deserved to die.  Do you think so?
• [Looking at the cat…]  How do they move their tails?
• But where do the tails come from?
• What’s "evolve"?
• Do you know about the birds that sit on top of sand iguanas?
• [I unpause the TiVo and try to watch some more of the speech.]
• Why do the parents have to die so their children can be ok?  [I explain that "starve" doesn’t really mean that the parents died.]
• Why do needs have to depend on money?

I’m watching the convention with half an ear.  For some reason, I can’t get my local PBS station at the moment, and the CNN coverage is driving me nuts — I’d rather listen to the speakers than to James Carville.  They’re saying that there’s not much happening that’s of interest to the television audience, but there’s no way to tell from their coverage, since they’re not actually letting anyone hear the speakers.

I’m enjoying reading the twitters from Bitch PhD, but am not sure they’re really adding to my understanding of the convention.

Ted Kennedy looks damn good under the circumstances.  He’s far less jowly than my image of him — don’t know if he’s lost weight or what.

I read the draft Democratic Party platform earlier today. In some ways platforms are always fairly meaningless documents — they’re written by committee, and include something for everyone, so they don’t tell you anything about what the real priorities will be when the rubber hits the road.  But, as laundry lists go, it’s a fine one.

I don’t have much to say about the choice of Biden as VP.  I don’t think he changes the dynamics of the race much.  He’s got good foreign policy credentials.  NPR this evening had a long piece about whether his support for the awful bankruptcy bill was because the credit card companies are major constituents or because they’re major donors.  I’m not sure the distinction is meaningful.  It’s the same problem as Schumer’s support of tax loopholes for hedge funds.  Fred at Stone Court says that Biden was particularly disrespectful to Elizabeth Warren during the debate.

The Republican candidate for Congress in this district just ran an ad that says he’s the one to support for "real change" in Washington.  Choke.

Michelle did a good job.    T. walked in during the "ice cream" part of the speech and we both went "awww…"  If you’ve already read Dreams from my Father, there’s not that much new in her description of Barack, though.

Gaak.  CNN has been going on about Carville’s complaints that there wasn’t enough "red meat" in the evening, but they just admitted that they didn’t cover Pelosi’s speech which did get people in the convention hall rared up.  Why?  Because they were talking with Carville!!

From the interviews with Rick Warren last weekend:

Obama:

Q. Okay. Taxes. This is a real simple
question. Define rich. I mean, give me a
number. Is it 50,000, 100,000,
200,000? Everybody keeps talking about
well, here we’re going to tax. How do
you define that?

A. You know, if you’ve got book sales of 25
million and you qualify —

Q. Okay. All right. I’m not asking about
me.

A. Look, here is how I think of it. Here is how I think of it and this is
reflected in my tax plan. If you are
making $150,000 a year or less as a family, then are you middle class or you
may be poor. But $150[000] down, you are
basically middle class. Obviously it
depends on region where you are living.

McCain:

Q Define rich. Everybody talks
about, you know, taxing the rich and — but not the poor, the middle class. At what point — give me a number, give me a
specific number, where do you move from middle class to rich? Is it 100,000, is it 50,000, 200,000? How does anybody know if we don’t know what
the standards are?

A Some of the richest people I’ve ever known
in my life are the most unhappy. I think
that rich is — should be defined by a home, a good job and education and the
ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one
that we inherited. I don’t want to take
any money from the rich. I want
everybody to get rich. I don’t believe
in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth. But I can tell you for example there are
small businessmen and women who are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week
that some people would classify as, quote, rich, my friends, who want to raise
their taxes and raise their payroll taxes…

So
I think if you’re just talking about income, how about five million. So — but seriously, I don’t think you can —
I don’t think, seriously that — the point is that I’m trying to make here
seriously — and I’m sure that comment will be distorted, but the point is —
the point is — the point is that we want to keep people’s taxes low and
increase revenues.

From a recent Pew survey:

2 percent described themselves as "upper class"

19 percent described themselves as "upper-middle class"

53 percent described themselves as "middle class"

19 percent described themselves as "lower-middle class"

6 percent described themselves as "lower class"

1 percent didn’t know or refused to answer.

When I worked at HHS, I occasionally found myself in the odd position of defending this administration to my friends.  Some of it (as my husband pointed out) was cognitive dissonance — if I had believed that they were as evil as some of my friends said, I couldn’t have survived working there as long as I did.  But it’s also true that, after listening to the political appointees, I often found myself in a position where I disagreed with them, but was convinced that they genuinely believed that their policies (stricter work requirements, marriage promotion activities) were the best ways to help poor children and families.

This spring, OMB issued a directive that said that agencies wouldn’t be allowed to rush through regs at the last minute.  I said at the time that I assumed this only applied to regulations they didn’t want to issue, not to ones they did.  Sure enough, the Post reported today that DOL is trying to sneak through a regulation that would make it harder to regulate workplace toxins.  So I thought I was maybe getting cynical enough.

Nope.  Apparently the Bush Administration doesn’t really believe that companies are supposed to pay their employees for the work they do.

"Achoo!"
"Bless you."
"Achoo!"
"Gezundheit!"
"Achoo!"
"Damn it, you better not be getting sick."

Tomorrow evening, I’m attending a fundraiser in support of the Ohio Healthy Families Act, which would guarantee full-time workers 7 paid sick days a year (with part-timers eligible on a pro-rata basis).   The ability to take a paid sick day is something that professionals take for granted, but only about half of American workers have any paid sick days, and many of those that do, can only use them if they’re personally sick, not to care for a sick family member.

Paid sick days are good for workers, good for families, and good for public health.  Trust me, you don’t want restaurant workers coming to work sick, and you don’t want other families sending their kids to school sick because they can’t afford to keep them home.

I support federal legislation for paid sick days, but I also think it’s great that folks in Ohio are using the ballot initiative process to try to move the idea.  For one thing, it might well get passed before anything happens at the federal level.  For another, it helps mobilize low-income workers to vote in November.