jmumich's blog

I don't think that this has been posted here yet, and though it's over a week old already, I thought it deserves mention.  Especially as we go from election-mode to re-organization mode, which by definition I believe means organizing to defeat Obama's policies.

The Tax Foundation wrote last week that "the U.S. tax system is far more progressive—meaning pro-poor—than similar systems in countries most Americans identify with high taxes, such as France and Sweden."  The Foundation cites a table of data gathered by th OECD, and finds that:

The table also shows that the U.S. collects more household tax revenue from the top 10 percent of households than any other country and extracts the most from that income group relative to their share of the nation's income.

The table is available here.   According to the OECD, the top 10% of income earners in the United States pay 45.1% of all household taxes.  That is higher than every single OECD country.  According to the Foundation:

Even after accounting for the fact that the top 10 percent of households in the U.S. have one of the highest shares of market income among OECD nations, our tax system is second only to Ireland in terms of its progressivity for households.

There is no question that Obama plans to make our tax system more progressive.  In his press conference on Friday, he said just as much.  He plans to "provide tax relief to families that are struggling, but also to boost the capacity of the economy to grow from the bottom up." However, he ignores that our tax system already is the most progressive of all developed countries!  

Setting aside the fact that Obama's "tax hike for 95%" amounts to nothing more than a redistributive welfare plan to those who pay no taxes, we see that Obama's plan will put us on the path to increase our lead as having the most redistributive tax system in the developed world.  

h/t dealbreaker.

The coming days will certainly be days for looking inward.  There will undoubtably be considerably discussion in the coming days and weeks about what went wrong, and what can be done to put Republicans back in the majority in this country.  

One thought that has crossed my mind several times before, and is especially permeating today, is the question of why Republicans have lost the cities.  Look beyond New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.  Republicans have lost Cincinatti, Louisville, Salt Lake City, and Grand Rapids.  McCain won a strong victory in Texas, but lost Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

There is no north/south split, no east/west split.  There is an urban/rural split.  Yesterday, Republicans won in rural areas across the country, from upstate New York to downstate Illinois.  But we were creamed in the cities, from the reddest to the bluest states.  

It doesn't have to be this way.  Republicans can make inroads into the cities.  Rudy Guiliani served two terms as mayor of New York.  The same with Richard Riordan in Los Angeles.  Yes, both of these men were moderate Republicans, and liberal on social issues.  

However, both were fiscally conservative and tough on crime, platforms that won over in their overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning cities.  

This question isn't easy, and I don't have the answer, but it is one we must face.  We cannot write off just about every city over 100,000 and expect to win nationally.  We have to figure out how we can sell conservatism and Republicanism in the cities. 

Our job starts right now.  Barack Obama, the next President of the United States, does not, for one day, get the benefit of the doubt.  We know the true character of this man.  We know what he wants to do to our country.  

He will take steps to increase the power of labor unions.  

He will allow the Congress to reinstate the fairness doctrine, and destroy the only part of the media where conservatives have any sort of advantage.  

He will reverse the United States' support for globalization and free markets worldwide.

He will dangerously weaken the United States' power abroad, putting the corrupt interests of world organizations ahead of the interests of the United States.  

He will encourage the class warfare that is setting our country back economically, and put in place policies that will slow our recovery.  

This man gets no honeymoon.  We must fight him from day one.  Attack him on everything we disagree on.  Surrender on nothing.  This is what they did to us for the last eight years, and their strategy appears to have worked.  Now we lick our wounds.  But in January, from day one, we fight back.  

Start with 2010.  We must reverse this tide in 2010.  They have picked all their low-hanging fruit.  We can, and must make significant gains in 2010, and to do that we have to start NOW.  Momentum is everything.  Organization is everything.  The democrats learned that after 2004, we have to learn that now.  

Across this great country of ours, we fight starting now.  Barack Obama does not get a single day where he can destroy this country unopposed.  Not one day.