Our Unrepresentative Representation

syndalis

I started with posting this in the OWS thread, but since I think it is a much broader topic in scope than just the protest itself, and deserves discussion free from pepper-spray and "occupy" location issues, here's a thread.



http://www.artonissues.com/2011/12/our-unrepresentative-representation/

The Occupy Wall Street movement has reason to protest. Special interest-driven deregulation policy was at the heart of the recent economic collapse. It has been the “99%” that has paid the price for this policy failure with lost employment, devalued housing prices, retirement accounts being cut in half, and increased levels of poverty while the wealthiest in America continued to do well. A valid question is why our elected representatives are not working together to put a stop to failed policy that has been so damaging to the majority of Americans. This article will examine the disproportionate number of the wealthy who hold elected office in Washington and the conflict of interest they face in setting policy versus their own financial interests as well as the special interests that finance their campaigns. And it will explore an incentive that politicians have to stay in office where they can act on non-public information to their own financial benefit. It examines the issue of whether our Congress has become ‘Our Unrepresentative Representation’.

There is a lot of meat in that article, but the basic gist of it is that there are many problems that are fixable by our representatives by increasing regulations, increasing taxes on the people who earn significantly more than the rest of America, and closing down loopholes and other "low tax" vehicles that the wealthy use to not pay into the system. Direct some of these funds gained into programs that promote social and economic mobility. But one of, if not THE driving reason that such change will never happen is because:

1) Politicians are beholden to extremely wealthy entities that ensure their electoral victories through donations and other contributions, who would never assist a politician who supported such policy.

2) Politicians themselves are part of the problem.





Expecting our representatives (who do NOT represent a broad swatch of the American people financially) to vote against their own financial self-interest is folly.

So I guess the question is... is this fixable? At the rate of economic class disparity we have reached in the past decade where 100 people hold as much wealth as 50% of the rest of America, do we have time to allow the process of electing new Politicians to correct this problem. What guarantees do we have that whomever gets elected will not be exactly the same as the one who left (someone seeking the ability to legally "insider trade" with classified knowledge, grow their own wealth, and be a lap dog to corporate and lobby interests).

How do we fix this?

Chanus

Kill all humans.


I think the only practical approach is to start pushing progressive politics at the local level and do it truly grass roots.

I just hope we have enough time left for it to work, because it took the Tea Party at least 40 years to get where they are.

spool32

Honest question... Are you suggesting that we would get better policy if we elected, or perhaps mandated, poorer people for national offices?

syndalis

spool32 wrote:

Honest question... Are you suggesting that we would get better policy if we elected, or perhaps mandated, poorer people for national offices?

Not really; there is a correlation between many of our financial elites, and skills/education that are good to have when representing our country.

I am simply pointing out that because so many of our representatives are straight-up millionaires, asking them to pass policy that will take a bigger chunk of their money away at the end of the year is not going to produce a good result.

When 80% of the country thinks millionaires and billionaires should be taxed more, and only a minority of representatives... there is a solid disconnect between the will of the people and those they put in office, and it is disconcerting.

Evil Multifarious

If it is true that representatives will not vote for policies that reduce their own wealth, even if those policies are beneficial for the nation as a whole, then the issue is not really with electing politicians who are wealthy, but with electing politicians who are greedy and selfish.

There are, in contrast, politicians who give their entire salary to charity, or wealthy individuals who strongly advocate for policies that would reduce their own wealth. Wealth itself does not inherently make a person opposed to more progressive taxation, for example. The real problem would be whatever is creating these values for the people in charge of a nation.

Tenek

spool32 wrote:

Honest question... Are you suggesting that we would get better policy if we elected, or perhaps mandated, poorer people for national offices?

I'll bite, at least on the "elected" angle and not the "mandated" one: Yes, for mostly the same reasons as this. To the extent that the congresscritters vote to protect people like themselves, it would be better if that represented a lower average net worth, which would increase the number of people who benefit from it.

emnmnme

Are half the candidates who run but lose also millionaires? Is the typical election millionaire vs millionaire?

Chanus

emnmnme wrote:

Are half the candidates who run but lose also millionaires? Is the typical election millionaire vs millionaire?

On the national level, I'd say the net worth of either candidate is well above the national average at least.

Unknown

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Unknown

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zeeny

spool32 wrote:

Honest question... Are you suggesting that we would get better policy if we elected, or perhaps mandated, poorer people for national offices?

No, he's suggesting that you will get a better representation. The fact that it may not result in "better" policy is actually irrelevant.

spool32

zeeny wrote:

spool32 wrote:

Honest question... Are you suggesting that we would get better policy if we elected, or perhaps mandated, poorer people for national offices?

No, he's suggesting that you will get a better representation. The fact that it may not result in "better" policy is actually irrelevant.

The idea that, to represent me, a person must be similar to me, is a giant fallacy.

zeeny

spool32 wrote:

zeeny wrote:

spool32 wrote:

Honest question... Are you suggesting that we would get better policy if we elected, or perhaps mandated, poorer people for national offices?

No, he's suggesting that you will get a better representation. The fact that it may not result in "better" policy is actually irrelevant.

The idea that, to represent me, a person must be similar to me, is a giant fallacy.

Not really, no. Unless you believe that altruism trumps the self in the majority of humanity. Gl with that.

Pi-r8

mcdermott wrote:

Chanus wrote:

emnmnme wrote:

Are half the candidates who run but lose also millionaires? Is the typical election millionaire vs millionaire?

On the national level, I'd say the net worth of either candidate is well above the national average at least.

And I'll say this again, just for emphasis: the net worth of the average person over 45 who is college educated is also well above the national average.

It's also worth comparing their wealth to the average of people who actually vote.

Besides, I'm more worried about the less wealthy freshman reps who sometimes end up way in debt after spending a lot on their campaigns.

zeeny

Pi-r8 wrote:

mcdermott wrote:

Chanus wrote:

emnmnme wrote:

Are half the candidates who run but lose also millionaires? Is the typical election millionaire vs millionaire?

On the national level, I'd say the net worth of either candidate is well above the national average at least.

And I'll say this again, just for emphasis: the net worth of the average person over 45 who is college educated is also well above the national average.

It's also worth comparing their wealth to the average of people who actually vote.

Besides, I'm more worried about the less wealthy freshman reps who sometimes end up way in debt after spending a lot on their campaigns.

This will just bring us back to how fucked up campaign financing is.........

JihadJesus

I think you're looking at the wrong misrepresentation; we intentionally overvalue the opinions of voters in rural areas and make it possible for minority views to constrain national policy options.

syndalis

spool32 wrote:

zeeny wrote:

spool32 wrote:

Honest question... Are you suggesting that we would get better policy if we elected, or perhaps mandated, poorer people for national offices?

No, he's suggesting that you will get a better representation. The fact that it may not result in "better" policy is actually irrelevant.

The idea that, to represent me, a person must be similar to me, is a giant fallacy.

I don't want a "similar to me, I will share a beer with them" representative. I want someone who will REPRESENT me, and my interests.

If 80% of the country wants something, a thing that everyone from lowly farmers to Nobel Prize winning economists think would benefit the country, a bill comes before the representative body that grants it, and less than 50% vote for it? There better be a damn good reason they are defying their own people.

Rchanen

mcdermott wrote:

syndalis wrote:

Actually, IIRC the percentage of Americans who are millionaires is closer to 5%. If you look at the demographics of Congress (average age of 50 or so, college-educated for the most part) I imagine that percentage shoots up considerably. My parents are millionaires, but that's just because my stepdad is over 60 and made a solid middle-class income his whole life.

I have little doubt that the kind of person who can find themselves in political office will trend wealthier, but by comparing them to the overall population (which includes a huge chunk who, if only by age, aren't even eligible to serve) isn't really fair.

Also, I don't think it's as much a matter of self-interest as you think. Plenty of rich-ass motherfuckers are willing to tax themselves more. I think you're ignoring the role that ideology plays here...it's not necessarily so much always a matter of "I got mine" as a matter of "it's not better for the country, or the economy." I don't think they're correct, mind you, but chalking it up to naked self-interest isn't really being honest either. This is the reason you find plenty of middle-class and lower-middle-class people who also don't want to tax rich motherfuckers more. Some are just dumb, and think they'll be rich someday. But for many it's ideological...also, arguably, dumb but in a totally different way.

Basically, Congress represents us more than you're giving them credit for. It's a bit off at the moment, but not as much as you're making it sound, and probably not for the reasons you're implying.

So you are saying its a bit like South Park's explanation of the 9/11 Conspiracy theories. There's just a percentage of people who are moronic enough to believe shit even when its not true. They will stick to ideology over facts, circumstances, etc.

You know that could also be a problem with our electoral system.

syndalis

mcdermott wrote:

syndalis wrote:

Actually, IIRC the percentage of Americans who are millionaires is closer to 5%.

The current U.S.A. population is over 311 million people (312,815,336)

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

And our most recent accounting, A report by Capgemini for Merrill Lynch stated that as of 2007 there are approximately 3,028,000 households in the United States who hold at least US$1 million in financial assets, excluding collectibles, consumables, consumer durables and primary residences.

Yes, there are some reports out there that skew as high as 16 million, but they are fluff pieces aimed at getting people to invest in specific industries and countries. The safe research puts us at 1, MAYBE 2 percent of our population.

If you look at the demographics of Congress (average age of 50 or so, college-educated for the most part) I imagine that percentage shoots up considerably. My parents are millionaires, but that's just because my stepdad is over 60 and made a solid middle-class income his whole life.

The opportunities your dad had are not afforded to you. Benefits are more expensive, and companies are giving less of them. Pensions and retirement plans are disappearing or getting matched less and less. A significant percentage of people don't even have jobs so that these first two points are even a concern. And the "Middle Class" is by no means anywhere near the middle any more.

Unknown

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a5ehren

syndalis wrote:

If you look at the demographics of Congress (average age of 50 or so, college-educated for the most part) I imagine that percentage shoots up considerably. My parents are millionaires, but that's just because my stepdad is over 60 and made a solid middle-class income his whole life.

The opportunities your dad had are not afforded to you. Benefits are more expensive, and companies are giving less of them. Pensions and retirement plans are disappearing or getting matched less and less. A significant percentage of people don't even have jobs so that these first two points are even a concern. And the "Middle Class" is by no means anywhere near the middle any more.

While this is true (and a problem), it's also not the point he was making.

For people of the age group that is currently in Congress, those things were afforded to them. They also had a 10-year run of stock market growth that was largely unprecedented in American history - I have a feeling that if you gathered the statistics for lawyers currently in their mid-50s and later (probably the most specific peer group that can be applied to Congress in general), you would find a very similar distribution of millionaires. While it may not be representative of the general population, it is representative of the people who tend to be elected to Congress.

ronya

When was the last time Congress was representative in income terms? Was it more representative at the height of the New Deal coalition era?

PotatoNinja

syndalis wrote:

2) Politicians themselves are part of the problem.

This provides an interesting question

Do we pay politicians enough that they siren call of money no longer tempts them so easily

or do we pay them less and hope that financial hardship engenders an empathy for the middle class?

Given the obvious interests anyone wealthy or powerful would have in political office, I don't think low pay is a viable option for anyone even remotely important in government, and creating a system where compensation is largely based on making rich friends to help you once you leave office is already a problem low pay could make worse.

I suspect the problem is more cultural than anything else, Congress is very insulated. Mitt Romney's $10,000 gaffe demonstrates this well (as do other gaffes from any number of other politicians, that's just a recent example). For someone in Congress, a $10,000 bet is appropriate because you need that amount of money or more before it becomes psychologically relevant, but for an average citizen the idea of a $10,000 bet is insane.

These people live in a world where $10,000 is not a large amount of money, and I suspect that culture does more harm than any fealty a politician has to their own pocketbook.

mrt144

If there is any place where the everyday man has a chance, no matter how slim, it's in the House of Reps.

Chanus

I think the idea that rich people make bad representatives is the wrong way to look at it.

Entrenched power at the moment is resulting in bad representation and needs to be overthrown... and the only possible way that's going to happen with a long, steady climb from the bottom.

Yar

Alternative way of looking at the problem: we should base the number of people in Congress on economics, not population. It isn't often exactly that rich people get to just buy politicians and elections. But it is the case that the number of people who actually donate to politicians is itself something like 0.1% of the population. Politicians are looking to hear from their electorate and to represent them. But they've only got so much time. They take time to listent to that 0.1% and that's about all the time they've got. Maybe we just need a lot more politicians, to greatly increase the amount of man-hours available to listent to constituents, and dilute the effect that money can have on monopolozing this time. Tying seats to economics would mean that every extra dollar that might go to buying off a politician only makes that dollar less effective at buying off enough politicians. It would force them to spend at least as much time reading those letters you can write to them, because in the end it is the #people, not the dollars, that elect them.

But the less crazy thing to focus on is the fact that our overly complex tax code makes it such that even the smallest and most unnoticed decisions of politicians can be extremely important to the finances of the wealthy and of businesses. And overly complex methods that attempt to correct for this only increase the amount of money and investment that those wealthy and businesses are going to put towards it. Politicans need to lose their ability to insert a small seemingly meaningless phrase into a 100,000-page bill that effectively nets a local coporation millions of dollars in tax savings. That is where the majority of their power comes from. The only solution I can see is a vast, firm simplification of taxation. This would instantly neuter the majority of corruption and money influence.

L Ron Howard

I would say we should just automate the whole thing and be done with it.

SyphonBlue

I think this belongs here

How much do Republicans hate taxes? THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS much

Okay actually they fucking LOVE them (on poor people)

A strange thing happened Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill.

As Rep. Stenny Hoyer (D-MD) attempted to call for a vote to extend a payroll tax cut to middle class and working Americans, his Republican colleagues adjourned the House and walked out of the chamber. And if that weren’t odd enough, it got even stranger: As Hoyer railed against them for failing to help working Americans, footage from C-SPAN went silent, then cut away.

Moments later, C-SPAN took to the Internet to explain that it wasn’t their doing, but someone working for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

The incident occurred mere moments after the House went into session. Hoyer made a motion for a vote on the Senate’s payroll tax cut extension, which would extend the lower rates for another two months, but the Republican presiding over the House did not acknowledge the motion. He instead adjourned the House, then got up and walked out.

“As you walk off the floor, Mr. Speaker, you’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from taxpayers, the unemployed, and very frankly, as well, from those who will be seeking medical assistance from their doctors, 48 million senior citizens,” Hoyer can be heard saying.

“We regret, Mr. Speaker, that you have walked off the platform without addressing the issue of critical importance to this country, and that is the continuation of the middle class tax cut, the continuation of unemployment benefits for those at risk of losing them, and a continuation of the access to doctors for all those 48 million seniors who rely on them daily for help.”

And that’s when the audio cut out. Seconds later, footage faded to a shot of the capitol from outside.

Moments later, someone at C-SPAN took to Twitter and explained: “C-SPAN has no control over the U.S. House TV cameras – the Speaker of the House does.”

It’s for reasons just like this, one might infer, that Boehner told C-SPAN back in February it would not be allowed control its own cameras.

The non-partisan political network, produced as a courtesy by the nation’s cable operators, had said it wanted to offer a more “journalistic product,” but the speaker denied their request to place and operate more cameras.

Kalkino

Rich people always have advantages over the rest of us, but rules can mitigate that to some degree. Sometimes these rules are trade-offs against other rights. An example is setting rather low caps on what a candidate or supporters can spend in an electoral campaign. Now this can be argued to violate free speech, but it does significantly reduce the cost of running for office, which could have the effect of increasing the ability of less resourced people to win elected office.

I think the per candidate restriction at the electorate level is about $25k NZ (about 19k USD?), noting of course others can spend on the behalf of candidates, parties, or causes. This is also regulated and capped.

That being said, the NZ PM is both the 17th richest elected leader in the world (apparently) as well as the 12th highest paid. So it clearly isn't all gravy

Feral

@SyphonBlue - Do you have the link for that C-SPAN story?

syndalis

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/21/393990/speaker-cuts-off-c-span-cameras-when-dems-attempts-to-bring-vote-on-payroll-tax-cut/

Here is the first article I could find on it.

Feral

Nice, thanks.

MentalExercise

Yar wrote:

Alternative way of looking at the problem: we should base the number of people in Congress on economics, not population. It isn't often exactly that rich people get to just buy politicians and elections. But it is the case that the number of people who actually donate to politicians is itself something like 0.1% of the population. Politicians are looking to hear from their electorate and to represent them. But they've only got so much time. They take time to listent to that 0.1% and that's about all the time they've got. Maybe we just need a lot more politicians, to greatly increase the amount of man-hours available to listent to constituents, and dilute the effect that money can have on monopolozing this time. Tying seats to economics would mean that every extra dollar that might go to buying off a politician only makes that dollar less effective at buying off enough politicians. It would force them to spend at least as much time reading those letters you can write to them, because in the end it is the #people, not the dollars, that elect them.

But the less crazy thing to focus on is the fact that our overly complex tax code makes it such that even the smallest and most unnoticed decisions of politicians can be extremely important to the finances of the wealthy and of businesses. And overly complex methods that attempt to correct for this only increase the amount of money and investment that those wealthy and businesses are going to put towards it. Politicans need to lose their ability to insert a small seemingly meaningless phrase into a 100,000-page bill that effectively nets a local coporation millions of dollars in tax savings. That is where the majority of their power comes from. The only solution I can see is a vast, firm simplification of taxation. This would instantly neuter the majority of corruption and money influence.

Not to mention that the IRS is so terrifying to many members of the middle class that they get little to no benefit from loopholes they're actually supposed to be able to take advantage of. They worry too much about being audited, but it's not financially viable to pay someone to do their taxes for them, or give them advice on how to minimize them.

Here's a solution for you: change the structure of congress. We stopped adding new congressmen based on population so it wouldn't get unwieldy in size, but those extra congressmen have simply been replaced in duty by large congressional staffs. Whereas if we actually had one congressman for every 60,000 citizens that's a small enough population size that those in more average income brackets could more likely be elected, and the congressmen would actually have some tie to the community they're from. 60,000 is not so great a number of people to represent, especially compared to the over 700,000 we have now.

Feral

http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/boehner-denies-c-span-its-wide-shot

"The current practice ensures that every word spoken during legislative debates and every exchange between Members or with the Chair is broadcast live." - Speaker of the House John Boehner, denying C-SPAN's umpteenth request to add their own camera feed to the House.

MentalExercise

MentalExercise wrote:

Yar wrote:

Alternative way of looking at the problem: we should base the number of people in Congress on economics, not population. It isn't often exactly that rich people get to just buy politicians and elections. But it is the case that the number of people who actually donate to politicians is itself something like 0.1% of the population. Politicians are looking to hear from their electorate and to represent them. But they've only got so much time. They take time to listent to that 0.1% and that's about all the time they've got. Maybe we just need a lot more politicians, to greatly increase the amount of man-hours available to listent to constituents, and dilute the effect that money can have on monopolozing this time. Tying seats to economics would mean that every extra dollar that might go to buying off a politician only makes that dollar less effective at buying off enough politicians. It would force them to spend at least as much time reading those letters you can write to them, because in the end it is the #people, not the dollars, that elect them.

But the less crazy thing to focus on is the fact that our overly complex tax code makes it such that even the smallest and most unnoticed decisions of politicians can be extremely important to the finances of the wealthy and of businesses. And overly complex methods that attempt to correct for this only increase the amount of money and investment that those wealthy and businesses are going to put towards it. Politicans need to lose their ability to insert a small seemingly meaningless phrase into a 100,000-page bill that effectively nets a local coporation millions of dollars in tax savings. That is where the majority of their power comes from. The only solution I can see is a vast, firm simplification of taxation. This would instantly neuter the majority of corruption and money influence.

Not to mention that the IRS is so terrifying to many members of the middle class that they get little to no benefit from loopholes they're actually supposed to be able to take advantage of. They worry too much about being audited, but it's not financially viable to pay someone to do their taxes for them, or give them advice on how to minimize them.

Here's a solution for you: change the structure of congress. We stopped adding new congressmen based on population so it wouldn't get unwieldy in size, but those extra congressmen have simply been replaced in duty by large congressional staffs. Whereas if we actually had one congressman for every 60,000 citizens that's a small enough population size that those in more average income brackets could more likely be elected, and the congressmen would actually have some tie to the community they're from. 60,000 is not so great a number of people to represent, especially compared to the over 700,000 we have now.

edit: of course, like I said this would require a change in how we structure congress. It would involve so many members it would require a more granular division of spheres than even the committee system we have now.

Kana

syndalis wrote:

mcdermott wrote:

syndalis wrote:

Actually, IIRC the percentage of Americans who are millionaires is closer to 5%.

The current U.S.A. population is over 311 million people (312,815,336)

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

And our most recent accounting, A report by Capgemini for Merrill Lynch stated that as of 2007 there are approximately 3,028,000 households in the United States who hold at least US$1 million in financial assets, excluding collectibles, consumables, consumer durables and primary residences.

Yes, there are some reports out there that skew as high as 16 million, but they are fluff pieces aimed at getting people to invest in specific industries and countries. The safe research puts us at 1, MAYBE 2 percent of our population.

If you look at the demographics of Congress (average age of 50 or so, college-educated for the most part) I imagine that percentage shoots up considerably. My parents are millionaires, but that's just because my stepdad is over 60 and made a solid middle-class income his whole life.

The opportunities your dad had are not afforded to you. Benefits are more expensive, and companies are giving less of them. Pensions and retirement plans are disappearing or getting matched less and less. A significant percentage of people don't even have jobs so that these first two points are even a concern. And the "Middle Class" is by no means anywhere near the middle any more.

Bolded the parts where you're messing up the statistics.

It's also a pretty narrow definition of millionaire households that you're using, which exclude consumer durables and primary residences. It's a fair rubric, but probably not what most people think of when they're thinking of millionaires in their mansions and sports cars.

Preacher

syndalis wrote:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/21/393990/speaker-cuts-off-c-span-cameras-when-dems-attempts-to-bring-vote-on-payroll-tax-cut/

Here is the first article I could find on it.

Read about this, but wasn't aware that he cut the feed on top of just walking off. What a bag of damn cowards, and the media is playing into their narrative again. The story according to most news is that the house wants the extension for more than two months, which is a load of horse shit and anyone who actually knows the situations knows that, but they don't get their information from the most inappropriately named thing in this country the "news" seriously its almost become an oxy moron in america to have an "unbiased" news source.

JihadJesus

Preacher wrote:

syndalis wrote:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/21/393990/speaker-cuts-off-c-span-cameras-when-dems-attempts-to-bring-vote-on-payroll-tax-cut/

Here is the first article I could find on it.

Read about this, but wasn't aware that he cut the feed on top of just walking off. What a bag of damn cowards, and the media is playing into their narrative again. The story according to most news is that the house wants the extension for more than two months, which is a load of horse shit and anyone who actually knows the situations knows that, but they don't get their information from the most inappropriately named thing in this country the "news" seriously its almost become an oxy moron in america to have an "unbiased" news source.

I almost threw something through the window when I heard this gocimpleyy unchallenged in an interview in fucking NPR. Here's a hint: these fuckers want you to stop existing, you don't need to toe their line. They fucking hate you already, call them on their bullshit!

emnmnme

Preacher wrote:

syndalis wrote:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/21/393990/speaker-cuts-off-c-span-cameras-when-dems-attempts-to-bring-vote-on-payroll-tax-cut/

Here is the first article I could find on it.

Read about this, but wasn't aware that he cut the feed on top of just walking off. What a bag of damn cowards, and the media is playing into their narrative again. The story according to most news is that the house wants the extension for more than two months, which is a load of horse shit and anyone who actually knows the situations knows that, but they don't get their information from the most inappropriately named thing in this country the "news" seriously its almost become an oxy moron in america to have an "unbiased" news source.

I thought they did these things in quarters ... so the 2 month extension should really be a 3 month extension? Is that what they're fussing about?

Lilnoobs

mcdermott wrote:

Oh, yeah, excluding primary residences will cut that number down considerably. And I'll accept that the couple figures I'd seen might have been inflated.

EDIT: Though given that the average household of a millionaire probably has at least two members, that means you're starting from at least 2% (6M people from 300M), and that is excluding primary residences (which is arguable).

Source? Now you're just guessing because it's "common sense".

Lilnoobs

emnmnme wrote:

Preacher wrote:

syndalis wrote:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/21/393990/speaker-cuts-off-c-span-cameras-when-dems-attempts-to-bring-vote-on-payroll-tax-cut/

Here is the first article I could find on it.

Read about this, but wasn't aware that he cut the feed on top of just walking off. What a bag of damn cowards, and the media is playing into their narrative again. The story according to most news is that the house wants the extension for more than two months, which is a load of horse shit and anyone who actually knows the situations knows that, but they don't get their information from the most inappropriately named thing in this country the "news" seriously its almost become an oxy moron in america to have an "unbiased" news source.

I thought they did these things in quarters ... so the 2 month extension should really be a 3 month extension? Is that what they're fussing about?

They want it for an entire year and also to tack on some extra things for good measure.