Senator Orrin Hatch argues that the Working Poor and the Middle Class are too selfish and greedy to pay their fair share of taxes implying the rich and the super-wealthy have no reponsibility to pay for programs to help their fellow citizens who are stuggling to survive.
He wants average American citizens to pay more in taxes and the super-wealthy to pay less taxes.
Orrin Hatch like the Tea Party mob wants to do whatever they can to help the super-wealthy and to hell with those who are unemployed, homeless or lined up at Soup Kitchens and those struggling to pay their mortgages.
Hatch like most Republicans wants to gut government programs which do not benefit the wealthy .
Orrin Hatch and his like minded uberconservatives are completely divorced from the reality of the average Americans' financial situation.
These uberconservatives appear to believe it is unpatriotic and unAmerican to increase the taxes of the wealthy or even to close the outrageous loop holes in corporate taxes which allow many corporations to pay no taxes or a lot less than what would be their fair share.
Hatch doesn't bother to tell his audience that corporations are making record profits while increasing the pay and bonuses of CEOs while at the same time cutting jobs, reducing pay and benefits for their workers . Nor does he mention how these fine upstanding American corporations are outsourcing to jobs to other countries where workers have no protection from greedy predatory corporations. Nor does he mention how corporations and the wealthy keep much of their profits in off-shore bank accounts to avoid paying taxes on these profits and investments.
Orrin Hatch: The 'Poor' Should Do More To Shrink Debt, Not The Rich by Michael McAuliff, Huffington Post.com, July 7, 2011
...But it was Hatch whose remarks Wednesday raised the idea that the wealthy are already doing too much, even as the nation's effective tax rates are at modern lows since the Bush administration slashed rates in 2001 and 2003. In his view, it seems, the middle class and poor should be picking up the slack.
"The top 1 percent of the so-called wealthy pay 38 percent of all income tax. The top 10 percent are paying 70 percent of all income tax," Hatch said. "The top 50 percent pay somewhere near 98 percent of all income taxes. 51 percent don't pay anything," Hatch said, suggesting the payroll taxes that the poor and middle classes pay towards Social Security yields them an especially generous benefit.
"Democrats say they [the 51 percent] pay payroll taxes. Well, everybody does that because that's Social Security. They pay about one-third of what they're going to take out over the years in social security," Hatch railed. "Obamacare -- a family of four earning over $80,000 a year -- gets subsidies. Think about that. That's what we call the poor?"
Hatch hedged that the the poorest of the poor shouldn't have to pay taxes. But he was clear that people who qualify for subsidies because they can't afford things like health care should dig deeper.
"Now, we don't want the really poor people who are in poverty to have to pay income taxes," he said. "But 51% of all households. And that's going up, by the way, because of our friend down in the White House and his allies."
Bahrain’s Human Rights Crisis | Human Rights Watch, July 5, 2011
T
he Bahrain government, since March 2011, has been carrying out a punitive and vindictive campaign of violent repression against its own citizens, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today.
""Bahrain's Human Rights Crisis" ... summarizes Human Rights Watch's research on the ground since pro-democracy protests began in February. Human Rights Watch found widespread arbitrary arrests and incommunicado detention, torture, and unfair military court trials, as well as summary dismissals of workers accused of sympathizing with the protests. The government has failed to investigate the abuses or hold anyone accountable for these actions. On June 29, the king announced an independent commission of international rights experts to investigate and publicly report on alleged human rights violations.
"Bahrain has brutally punished those protesting peacefully for greater freedom and accountability while the US and other allies looked the other way," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The announcement of an independent investigative commission is a very promising first step for holding perpetrators of abuses accountable."
Human Rights Watch called on the Bahrain government to end unlawful and incommunicado detention, to free protesters unless legitimate criminal charges can be brought against them, and to allow monitoring by independent human rights organizations. The government has prevented Human Rights Watch from working in Bahrain since April 20.
Meanwhile according to Human Rights Watch back in the supposedly democratic Iraq peaceful protesters are intimidated,beaten and abused by the Iraqi government . Is this what America and its allies call democracy.
What can we expect when peaceful protesters in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla are prevented from sailing towards Gaza by Western nations such as Greece and the US etc.
We can add this to the list of oppressive measures sponsored by the US, Israel and their allies.
" Iraq: Attacks by Government-Backed Thugs Chill Protests/ Security Forces Offered No Protection; Joined Assaults " Human Rights Watch, JUNE 30, 2011
Instead of protecting peaceful demonstrators, Iraqi soldiers appear to be working hand in hand with the thugs attacking them. The Iraqi government needs to investigate why the security forces stood by and watched as thugs beat and sexually molested protesters - and take action against those who did so.
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
(Baghdad) - Iraqi authorities should order a prompt and impartial inquiry into the role of state security forces in attacks by pro-government gangs against peaceful demonstrators in Baghdad on June 10, 2011, Human Rights Watch said today. The groups of mainly young men, armed with wooden planks, knives, iron pipes, and other weapons, beat and stabbed peaceful protesters and sexually molested female demonstrators, witnesses told Human Rights Watch.
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