Washington State is willing to bribe Boeing with 8 billion in tax incentives. This bribe to stay put in the state that made them the premier corporation for aviation and space travel amounts to five hundred thousand per job retained in state. In other words, the state is willing to give Boeing 500k per worker in tax incentives if they bless the state with the presence.
What is Boeing doing with such a sweet tax deal and with their efficient and loyal workers? they are completely ungrateful, they have offered an ultimatum, a take it or leave it offer to the state and the workers, give us more, give us everything, or we go to a "right to work state" where we won't have to work with unions, and where we won't have to respect our workers.
Is this really the right track to take when manufacturing billions of dollars in machines?
Boeing is threatening to move even more union labor jobs from Washington state, to their union free labor plant in south Carolina.
reports are that the south Carolina non-union plant is slow to build, causing massive delays on the production line. word is the workers at the Carolina plant make half as much as the workers in Washington state. The workers in the right to work state, get less work place rights, fewer benefits, no retirement package, and reduced wages.
my question:
should a profitable company, with 70 billion in revenue, that creates state of the art jets that carry millions of passengers a year, really look to reduce worker wages and benefits? Those workers have enough to worry about as far as quality control goes, do they really need to worry about job security and a hostile workplace?
We Must Raise the Minimum Wage. Raising wages, better than raising taxes.
There are plenty of pressing issues at the moment, but this one issue needs to be heard- NOW!
Inflation has ravaged wages, and salaries have become so stagnant that the country is beginning to resemble an impoverished nation.
You know when the right wing think-tank's do studies saying that welfare pays more than the minimum wage- well if some part of that welfare, say public housing in indexed to inflation, it actually is. Due to a lack of union power, wages no longer increase to inflation, but if one welfare program does, well you get the picture.
There is another angle to this, if we can raise the floor on wages, that will generate more FICA revenue, and less dependence on welfare programs. If tax revenues can go up, and public assistance goes down, the deficit will begin to shrink without having to cut any assistance programs, and it will shrink without raising tax brackets.
the working poor, The Working Poor, THE WORKING POOR!
We need to eradicate this term!
If walmart charged one buck more per cart of items they could easily raise all workers wages by a few bucks an hour. Those workers that got raises would then turn around and spend that money right back at walmart and other local stores. so, no, profits would probably go up.
Same goes for fast food. Maybe if they paid their workers more, they could afford to eat out and spend that money at locally owned stores. All it would cost would be a few cents extra for the price of a burger.
prices are going up either way, i remember when a fast food meal cost 3 bucks, now it costs 7 or eight bucks. Inflation is killing everyone, but if wages don't go up to counter that inflation, we all suffer.
and if they make enough to eat, some people won't need public assistance in the form of food stamps.
A MCD meal in NYC costs an hour of work.
Should a worker have to waste one hour of wages to eat poor quality, GMO laced, unhealthy food?
They lose another hour of wages on transportation costs.
Food doesn't come cheaper than MCD in NYC, but buying lunch will cost them an hour of work.
Do the math, an eight hour work day, and two of those hourly wages are spent on subsistence and transit. The minimum wage therefore is meaningless (in that it doesn't cover the cost of living) in large cities where the cost of living is astronomical.
What the rich pay in federal income tax- pales to what the middle pays in state tax
So what if the rich pay 20% of all federal income taxes- we all pay the same or more, and then we have to deal with state and sales tax.
Take someone making 100k a year:
6.2% FICA on your end- millions will die before they collect one penny on this.
6.2 on your bosses end- it could be argued that if the employer did not have to pay this tax, the employee would earn more in gross income.
Two to 4 grand medical coverage- this is a tax- every other industrialized nation pays for universal medical through taxation.
IRA/ 401k- social security won’t cut it, and pensions no longer exist, so another 5- to 15k paid here to make sure we won’t be destitute.
20% federal tax.
4% state tax.
Sales tax- another 5 to 8 percent on 20k of goods and services.
Excise taxes gas etc etc
What’s let over is there to pay the rent, the car and for food. We might have a few bucks left for a ball game or a trip to the beach. Rmoney has enough left over to build that car elevator and buy that private island.
Now don’t tell me the rich don’t have loopholes that we don’t.
Otherwise how the hell did rmoney pay effective tax rate of 14.1 percent?
In the civilized world, medical coverage is most certainly a tax that must be paid.
All other western nations deduct medical coverage costs from paychecks. We decided to go and do it in a roundabout way. We pay a for profit insurer for the "privilege" of coverage but it is no different than paying FICA tax- It must be paid and it is regressive.
As the sequester and austerity kicks in federal deficits begin to drop, much of that money was going to states to pay for security, roads, and education, the states need that revenue, so they raise fees, and sales tax, and income tax to offset that lost federal revenue, again this is a regressive, and most times flat tax.
when the feds cut something, the states charge more tax to replace that income, in effect the states are helping the feds cut the deficit, but its done in a regressive way.
total tax burden means total tax burden, you can't just look at federal income tax, effective tax rates for the least of us are killing all of us.
The right wing really needs to understand this- so i will repeat it and type slowly.
effective tax rates on the poor and middle class is higher than that for the rich. Do the math on your own tax returns to get a feel for what your total effective tax rate is.
Why do the GOPers always forget that FICA taxes exist, Add in Medical coverage, sales and state tax, etc etc. And before you know it the middle class has lost more than 50% right off the top.
When the feds cut federal spending on the states- the states need to increase taxes- sales, income etc, they also must raise fees like toll roads all over texas.
As the feds cut, states increase taxes- the total effective tax rate on the middle stays the same of increases.
rmoney should pay the same as most in the middle class, but he doesn't. The FICA tax alone is one regressive flat tax that the middle and the poor must bear every paycheck. this "capital gains drives investment dollars elsewhere" pie in the sky crap as an excuse will not fly on this site.