Month: April 2009

The following was written by Robert Reich, who served as the United States’ 22nd Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 1997 and published on his blog. I thought it bore repeating here.

No one likes to pay taxes, so tax day typically attracts a range of right-wing Republicans, kooks, and demagogues, all of whom tell us how awful we have it. Herewith a short citizen’s guide (that is, a citizen’s guide that’s short rather than a guide for short citizens) responding to the predictable charges:

To borrow Kathy Shaidle’s defense of Bush: “If Obama is Hitler, why aren’t you a lampshade?” 

1. “Americans pay too much in taxes.”

Wrong: The United States has the lowest taxes of all developed nations.

Yeah, I know it’s the “Billionaires for Bush” counter-protest. It’s funny, because it’s true!

2. “The rich pay too much! The top ten percent of income earners pay over 72 percent of all income taxes!”

Misleading: The main reason the rich pay such a large percent is they’ve become so much richer than the bottom 90 percent in recent years. If you look at what they pay as individuals — the percent of their incomes over and above the highest rate below them — you’ll see a steady decline over the years. When Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, the marginal rate on the highest earners was 91 percent (after deductions and tax credits, closer to 50 percent); by 1980 it was still up there, at 70 percent (an effective rate of closer to 45 percent); under Bill Clinton, it was 38 percent (an effective rate closer to 28 percent).

Look at the after-tax earnings of families and you’ll see what’s really going on. Between 1980 and 2000, the after-tax earnings of famlies at the top rose more than 150 percent, while the after-tax earnings of families in the middle rose about 10 percent. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 raised the after-tax incomes of most Americans by a bit over 1 percent — but raised the after-tax incomes of millionaires by 4.4 percent.

3. “The bottom 60 percent pay only 3.3 percent of the taxes!”

Misleading again. Most Americans are paying more in sales taxes than they ever have. Property taxes have also been rising at a steady clip. And Social Security taxes have also risen (thanks to the Greenspan Commission), while earnings over about $100,000 aren’t subject to Social Security taxes. So-called “sin” taxes (mostly beer and cigarettes) have also skyrocketed. All of these taxes take a bigger bite out of the paychecks of people with lower incomes than they do people with higher incomes.

Whatta buncha MORANS!

4. “Obama is raising your taxes!”

Wrong. Obama is cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans, by about $400 per person a year — not a whopping tax cut, to be sure, but not a tax increase by any stretch. Only the top 2 percent will have a tax increase, but even this tax increase is modest. Basically, they go back to the rates they were paying under Bill Clinton (their deductions will be limited to 28 percent, which is only fair). And they won’t start paying this until 2011 anyway.

5. “The huge debts we’re wracking up will cause your taxes to rise!”

Wrong again. When it comes to the national debt, as I’ve said before, the relevant statistic is the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product. The only sure way to bring that debt down and make it manageable in future years is to get the economy growing again — which requires that, in the short term, the government spend a lot of money (because consumers and businesses won’t). In the long term, the biggest source of concern is rising health-care costs. And that’s something Obama and Congress are aiming to tackle.

I knew some Objectivists. Then they turned eighteen.

6. “We have a patriotic duty to stand up against Washington taxes!”

Just the opposite. We have a patriotic duty to pay taxes. As multi-billionaire Warrent Buffett put it, “If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you’ll find out how much this talent is going to product in the wrong kind of soil. I will be struggling thirty years later.” President Teddy Roosevelt made the case in 1906 when he argued in favor of continuing the inheritance tax. “The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the state because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.”

An acquaintance from law school, now a partner in one of Washington’s biggest and wealthiest law firms, explained to me one day over lunch how he and his partners use tax rules to create offsetting taxable gains and losses, and then allocate the gains to the firm’s foreign partners who don’t pay taxes in the United States. That way, they keep the losses here and shelter their income abroad. I noticed he had an American flag lapel pin. "You’re supporting our troops," I said, referring to his pin. "Yup," he replied, entirely missing my point.

True patriotism isn’t cheap. It’s about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going.

I wasn’t the only one who made it to the Dark Horse Cafe Spadina branch’s grand opening. Matthew Burpee was also there, hanging out with one-woman media machine Rochelle Latinsky, and he shot this photo of the lower level:

I was at U of T looking at demos of projects by computer science students for the consulting course, where I ran into Andrew Louis, who told me that the Dark Horse had finally opened and invited me along. He took a number of photos, some of which are shown below. If you want to see all of them, check out his Flickr set:

 

 

Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire, a rather lazy and facile laundry list of historic news events (the worst line of the song is “Trouble in the Su-ez”), got a new lease on life online when The Richter Scales’ borrowed it tune to create Here Comes Another Bubble, their 2007 ditty about overvalued tech companies and the people behind those crazy valuations:

CollegeHumor have given the song another lease on life with the more slick We Didn’t Start the Flamewar, an ode to the great tradition of arguing on the internet in comments sections and forums. I’m pretty impressed with the audio and video production on this number; the CollegeHumor guys keep raising the bar on internet funny:

The original Dark Horse Cafe, located in Accordion City’s East End, is a much-loved, much-praised cafe known for friendly service, excellent coffee and tasty snacks. They’ve been so successful that they decided to open a second branch in a more central location: the Robertson Building  in the Queen/Spadina area, where Chinatown meets the warehouse district housing the city’s tech startup and “Creative Class” crowds. Their grand opening has been held up by red tape, but at long last, the city’s most anticipated cafe of the year finally opened yesterday. I had a chance to drop by for a visit, sample their wares and take some photos.

It’s not much to look at from the outside thanks to the scaffolding (but it looks rather New York-y that way)":

…but inside, it’s a big, bright and beautiful space. Here’s the first thing you see when you walk in: their wide, welcoming coffee bar.

The cafe is split into two levels: a lower level at the front of the cafe and an upper level in the back. Here’s a view of the lower level, as seen from the north end:

Rather than fill the lower level with many small tables, the folks at the Dark Horse decided to use two ginormous tables, each of which can accommodate a dozen people quite handily. Here’s the square table at the north end of the room:

And here’s the rectangular table at the south end:

A small staircase to the left of the coffee bar leads you to the upper level located in the back. It’s more living room-like, with many small coffee tables and couches and chairs spread throughout:

Here’s a view of the coffee bar from the upper level:

Their selection was a bit limited on their first day: they didn’t have chocolate for mochas, nor ice for iced coffees, and the panini presses still had the plastic wrap on them; that’s all forgivable for the first couple of days. They did have an interesting-looking selection of pastries, and the peanut butter cream brownie I had was worth killing for (I suspect that the Ginger Ninja would absolutely love it).

It’s a gorgeous place with a lot of promise; my only real complaint is that it wasn’t around when I lived in the neighbourhood. I’m looking to hanging out there often.

This Friday’s Coffee and Code

With its grand opening, there’s no better venue for this Friday’s Toronto Coffee and Code. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a regular event in which I work out of a cafe so that I’m accessible to the public, where you can come join me for a coffee, ask about Microsoft, Windows 7, Microsoft tools and technology, the industry in general, accordions or whatever else. Yes, I could reach more people through email, blog and social networking software, but there’s no substitute for a friendly face-to-face meetup in a relaxed settings over coffee (or tea, or whatever your favourite beverage is).

Here are the details:

• What: Coffee and Code
• When: Friday, April 17th from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
• Where: Dark Horse Cafe, 215 Spadina Avenue (at Sullivan Street)

See you there!