I sent the e-mail below this morning to Zach Schiller of Policy Matters Ohio.

Zach Schiller:  I am glad to see that the Dayton Daily News published your article “Ohio Needs Revenue It’s Lost Since Tax Cuts 4 Years Ago,” this past Saturday.

I am trying to understand the discrepancy between your data published in the DDN article and the data published in a Policy Matters article last April, “A Step Toward Fiscal Balance: Options for Ohio’s Income Tax,” written by Jon Honeck.

In your DDN article, you wrote, “Restore the previous 7.5 percent top rate of the state income tax on income over $200,000 a year. This would affect fewer than 2 percent of Ohio taxpayers and generate around $375 million a year.”

In a Policy Matters article published last April, Jon Honeck showed a chart (on page 6) that showed that the top 1% of Ohio’s incomes (Starting at $340,000) received 26% of the total income tax reduction. Given that the total income tax reduction per year, when the 2005 Tax Reduction Act is fully implemented, is estimated to be $2.2 billion, it stands that this top 1%, alone, received over $570 million of the tax reduction.

The Honeck article does not show what percentage of the total tax reduction was received by those incomes in excess of $200,000, but by analyzing Honeck’s chart, it seems a conservative estimate would be that incomes in excess of $200,000 received about 34% of the total tax reduction, and 34% of $2.2 billion is about $750 million. Using Honeck’s figures, it appears that the amount of tax reduction received by incomes in excess of $200,000 is twice what you reported in your DDN article.

The fact that the top 1% of incomes (those in excess of $340,000) received 26% of the income tax reduction has been a very unreported fact, and I’m surprised this fact was not included in you DDN article.  Focusing on this top 1%  of income, I feel, gives a more compelling argument for tax revision than looking at those incomes in excess of $200,000.  I’ve been using this 26% figure in a lot of articles, so I hope I’ve not been given wrong information.

These are some of the articles where I refer to the fact that 26% of the total income tax reductions from the 2005 Tax Reduction Act go to incomes in excess of $340,000:

• The Quinnipiac Poll Failed To Ask: “Shouldn’t Ohio’s Most Wealthy Be Taxed More?” March 18, 2009
• Governor Strickland Fails To Explain Impact Of 2005 Tax Reduction Act On Ohio’s 2009 Budget Shortfall January 28, 2009
• Gov. Strickland Should Seek Revision In Ohio’s 2005 Tax Reduction Law — Before He Asks The Feds For Cash Handout December 9, 2008
• Democrat Candidates For Ohio State Assembly Fail To Challenge Republicans On Crucial Budget / Tax Issues November 3, 2008
• Chris Widener, Republican Senate Candidate, Boasts About Tax Cuts, But How Will He Solve Ohio’s Budget Crisis? October 8, 2008
• Ohio’s 2005 Tax Reduction Law Diminished, By 21%, The Progressivity of Ohio’s Tax Code August 6, 2008

I noticed in the NYT this morning this interesting headline: “Illustrator Maira Kalman observes, as Tocqueville did, the essence of democracy.” Wow. What a treat. Kalman evidently has recently visited a New England town hall meeting and the visit inspired this work. It is sort of a long poem — illustrated them with great drawings. I think she has some good insight into the essence of democracy.

I found a TED video of a Kalman presentation. She seems an endearing person. In the presentation she discusses a lot of her illustrations and explains some of her inspiration. (I embedded the video below.)

I checked the NYT for previous Kalman presentations, and found one that she completed in honor of Barack Obama’s inauguration. It is called, “Hallelujah” And in its first frame is a wonderfully drawn angel. I think Kalman is quite a poet. Her narration goes:
The angels are singing on this glorious day. And we mortals driving down to Washington, passing white mountains and black mountains of unidentified industrial stuff, listen to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sing words from a Bach cantata, “Now is the time of grace.” The heart is racing and all I can say is Hallelujah

Interesting interview with Eugene Jarecki on The Real News web-site. Jarecki talks about ideas in his book, “The American Way Of War,” and, his book, “Why We Fight.”

Jarecki expresses a lot of admiration for Dwight Eisenhower’s warning of the military industrial complex and says that President Obama should heed Eisenhower’s example and advice. He feels that a military point of view actually diminishes military aggression. Jarecki notes that, at the time of Eisenhower’s famous speech, it was Democrats who were pushing for more military spending and were accusing Eisenhower of allowing the military to become weak, of allowing a missile gap, etc.

Jarecki speaks of the trillion dollar military as being part of a “rapacious predatory power — undermining the very soul of our democracy.” He says this monster spending machine is under better control in other democracies but that in the U.S. the military industrial complex uses effective “political engineering,” to get its way. He points out that the B2 Bomber has production in every state, so many congressman have politically benefited from money spent on the B2. He says that many projects are organized, not for efficiency, but to exert the greatest political influence. Jarecki also says that our campaign financing laws empower the military industrial complex to be effective in their “political engineering.”

The F-22 fighter jet, according to Jarecki, has already cost over $70 billion that that it is “a case study of defense procurement.” He says it illustrates a “great shortcoming of democracy,” that time and again we choose that which is “most profitable for the few at the expense of the many.”

The interviews are worth the time to listen to. They include a plea from Real News to commit to help fund their efforts to create an independent news source.

Interview with Eugence Jarecki: Part One

Interview with Eugence Jarecki: Part Two