A report that came out last week from the Institute for Policy Studies provides more evidence of how the wealthiest Americans have rigged our tax structure for their benefit.  Corporate tax loopholes actually make it so that regular, middle-class Americans are subsidizing overpayment of our CEOs. 
http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/were_all_subsidizing_free_lunches_for_americas_ceos

As Americans, we need to understand that we are being played by our wealthiest people, who can afford to purchase representatives in Congress to do their bidding. 

My wife has been taking continuing education courses in financial planning, and it has been an eye-opening experience.  The entire field is based on helping rich people avoid paying their fair share of taxes.  Wealthy people get breaks that nobody else does.  For example, they can afford to offshore their money; most of us can't.

Yet the wealthy want more.  For instance, they want to repeal the estate tax.  You know, the "death tax" that so many conservatives rail against as being an attack on small farmers -- it only applies to estates worth more than $1.5 million, effecting about 1 percent of estates.  And noted conservative Winston Churchill was for it.

Social Security provides another example.  Because of its wage-base threshold of $106,800, above which earnings are not taxable, a billionaire pays the same amount of Social Security tax as somebody who earns $106,800.  Simply removing that threshold would solve the lion's share of the solvency question.

As someone nearing age 50, I am naturally concerned that my family won't receive Social Security benefits, even though my wife and I have paid into the system over much of our lives, because of plans such as that espoused by Paul Ryan.  However, he and Romney soothingly tell me that I shouldn't be concerned because people over 55 won't be affected.  Well, that makes me feel so much better. 

The fact is that their idea to pass on the costs of retirement care to our children -- merely to give the wealthiest Americans another tax cut -- is just plain immoral.

Anyone who saw "Animal House," the movie upon which so many of my classmates based their college careers, probably remembers the statue of college founder Emil Faber, with his blatantly obvious quote:  "Knowledge is Good."  

Incidentally, the University of Nebraska still follows that wisdom by putting the "N" on its helmets (the "N" stands for "nollej").

As it has often been said in the past, if you aren't learning, you are probably dead...    ...or watching Fox News...

--James F. Muench

The Republicans have every right to follow the first two prongs of their strategy to win the White House in November. 
If they want to win by tanking the economy -- killing our credit rating and fighting every Obama initiative to get our economy in gear, that's legitimate -- craven, but legitimate.  And if they want to spend yacht-loads of their uber-rich supporters' cash on false advertising, that doesn't frighten me either.  If they want to pursue an ideology in which government is always evil, that's also fair game. 

Republicans have the right to sell out their power to their uber-rich supporters as payoff for further rigging the tax structure so that the "one percenters" don't have to pay their fair share in taxes.  If, as Romney and Ryan have proposed, that the one percenters should get another $300,000 each a year, and they can con people into voting for it, so be it.  They also have every right to swindle middle class people into voting against their own interests if they can; in America, you can believe whatever you want, no matter how stupid.  Such action may be morally wrong, but it's totally fair.

The truly frightening tactic, however, is their effort to thwart the constitutional RIGHT to vote.  Several Republicans have been actually quoted as saying that voting is a PRIVILEGE.  Although forgetting grade school civics is not a crime, ignoring or thwarting the constitution is.  Voting is not a privilege; voting is a right.

They don't have the right to take away other citizens' right to vote.

Silver Tongue Press of Milwaukee, Wisc., plans to publish my first novel, The Teutonic Cross, next spring, probably May 2013.

What a great ticket for the Grey Poupon set!  If you like to fire people, easily make $10,000 bets, build elevators for your cars in your multiple homes, own a stable of dressage horses and off-shore your money in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes, these guys are for you.  If "vacation" is a verb for you, this is your team.  If you believe that government is evil and that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, college grants and loans, and the social safety net must be destroyed, these are the candidates for you.