Did bankers help homeowners and small businesses after they received a 700 hundred billion dollar bill out from taxpayers?
No. Home foreclosures continued to climb and small businesses were still frozen out of credit.
Did the uber wealthy individuals and corporations create a job bonanza - as the GOP promised - upon receiving their Bush tax-cut extension?
No, they received the loot and gave us the boot - unemployment is still very high.
And now this:
Airlines are tossing consumers aside and grabbing the benefit of lower federal taxes on travel tickets.
By Saturday night, nearly all the major U.S. airlines had raised fares to offset taxes that expired the night before.
That means instead of passing along the savings, the airlines are pocketing the money while customers pay the same amount as before.
American, United, Continental, Delta, US Airways, Southwest, AirTran and JetBlue all raised fares, although details sometimes differed. Most of the increases were around 7.5 percent.
For consumers who wanted to shop around, only a few airlines were still passing the tax break on to passengers Saturday night, including Virgin America, Frontier Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
The expiring taxes can total $25 or more on a typical $300 round-trip ticket. They died after midnight Friday night when Congress failed to pass legislation to keep the Federal Aviation Administration running.
That gave airlines a choice: They could do nothing — and pass the savings to customers — or grab some of the money themselves.
"We adjusted prices so the bottom-line price of a ticket remains the same as it was before ... expiration of federal excise taxes," said American spokesman Tim Smith. US Airways spokesman John McDonald said much the same thing — passengers will pay the same amount for a ticket as they did before the taxes expired. read more
This is not rocket science. This cock-and-bull scheme promoted by the GOP - give more tax breaks for the rich and our economy will grow on all levels - has no merit. Yes, put a fork in it because this con is so over and done.
The rich get the money and like Steve Miller sang:
Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He ain't gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his livin' off of the people's taxes
Bobbie Sue, whoa, whoa, she slipped away
Billy Joe caught up to her the very next day
They got the money, hey
You know they got away
They headed down south and they're still running today
Singin' go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
I will comment by saying this about the airlines. First of all you don't know what their financial position is. So you can't really arrive at any valid conclusion. I am an accountant and can tell you that there are things that common sense doesn't explain. You would have to analyze their books before you can possibly understand anything about this.
ReplyDeleteUnderstand that businesses aim at maximizing their profits, not passing savings on to consumers. Oil prices just went down a bit. Do you think you are going to get lower prices tomorrow because of that?
The stimulus money worked quite well, depending on how you look at it. At the time the bill was signed we had a net loss of jobs of about 750k per month. That is how we ended up with the high unemployment rate we have. So the stimulus did stop the bleeding and saved many jobs as well. Now there is net gain in employment. So its slow, but it is positive and not negative.
Home foreclosures slowed a lot because of the home affordability act. Home mortgage modifications under the program helped many people keep their homes. But in order to qualify, one had to have a job with adequate income to get the modification. Many lost their job, so they didn't qualify. The program could have done more, but it was a new idea and didn't have time to develope into something more substantial.
Wall street doesn't make any money by just sitting on it. So they have used the funds they got from the government very well, and most of it has been paid back. As far as unemployment goes. We have many job openings that can't be filled by the current crop of candidates. They simply don't have the skills. We are not going to have a lot of those jobs that use to be available in factories, using unskilled labor. One is going to have to pursue higher education and training to get jobs. The Republicans don't want an education department. So that tells you a lot about how far in the past they are living. Like one man said "they have some of the greatest minds of the eighteeth century".
The Republican idea of giving tax cuts to the rich works well on paper. Its just a theory that says that if you allow businesses to keep more of their earnings, they will produce more revenue with the savings. It works on paper, but not in practice. But remember, the Republicans have a mental handicap and can't think "outside the box". So they will continue to promote stale ideas because they are "stuck on stupid".
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