Nurses fighting for everyone

Chico David, BSN, RN · Aug 11, 2011

"Regarding flat tax and national sales tax: these have been promoted for a long time and are just one more way of continuing to shift more and more of the tax burden away from the wealthy and onto everyone else."
Why shouldn't the tax burden be paid by everyone? We all live in this country and are all given the same freedoms and opportunities. We should all pay income tax. Almost half of those making income in this country don't pay income tax and I don't think that is fair.

Conservatives love to repeat that line about almost half the population paying no income tax. But income tax is only one part of the tax picture. Indeed, we've decided as a nation to give tax deductions for things like children and dependent care and education expenses and mortgage interest - so some folks who make rather small incomes reduce their income tax burden to nothing. however they all still pay Medicare and social security payroll taxes, and - at least in California - taxes to support the state disability system. And low income people pay a much higher percentage of their income in gas taxes and sales taxes than rich people do. No matter how rich you are, you can only buy so much stuff. Once you have your private jet and your 10th car and 3rd yacht and 5th house, you've pretty much run out of stuff to buy. But low and middle income people spend a much larger percentage of their income on the things they need to live every day, so sales tax and gas tax hit us much harder than the rich. I think pretty much everyone whould pay taxes, but I think those who have been fortunate enough to have more should pay more. And economically speaking, this country worked better for everyone when the rich did pay more. I wouldn't go back to the '50s in subjects like minority rights or women's rights, but I'd sure go back there economically, when my father's moderate middle class job supported a family of 5 in reasonable comfort and the University of California was free to everyone who qualified.

Laurie52 · Aug 12, 2011

I think we will have to respectfully agree to disagree. Clearly, neither one of us will change the other's mind. Thank you for your respectful discourse and hopefully in the future we can find a topic we can agree on.

allnurses Guide · Aug 12, 2011

When I was the only one working for 1 1/2 years (as an LVN) my DH, grandmother, and two grade school kids paid no income tax. So 80% of the people in our home paid no income tax.

We had no welfare, food stamps, or Medicaid.

Grandma had a small SS check because she paid enough into it. She also lived with family so she could pay off my grandfathers > $20,000.00 medical bills after he died of cancer. Sometimes she bought my kids a toy. She even had Medicare that helped with her diabetes.

allnurses Guide · Aug 18, 2011

nurses tell wall street to pay their fair share

[color=#333333]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tme5bc3cxwa

anniv91106 · Aug 29, 2011

Any chance ever that National Nurses or any other Nurse advocacy organization will ever recognize the voices or value of LPNs in this dialogue?

I very much doubt it. In their minds, LPN's are the ones holding them back!

allnurses Guide · Aug 30, 2011

nurses take on wall st. and the politicians who pander to corporations

on september 1, nurses will converge on congressional offices, calling on lawmakers to support a tax on financial transactions to raise revenues to "heal america."

...on september 1, nurses and their allies and supporters will converge on 61 congressional offices in 21 states, calling on republicans and democrats alike to sign on to a pledge that would support a tax on financial transactions to raise revenues to "heal america."

"what we know as union members, we have a contract, that's what gives us the opportunity to fight back," jean ross, registered nurse and co-president of nnu, told me. "america needs a contract--we call it a main street contract. they deserve the same kinds of things that, if you were able to be in a union, you would have."...

..."our current tax policies favor speculative investment in financial instruments over productive investments in human capabilities. this imbalance helps explain why [color=#ca8500]nurses' unions in the united states have been particularly outspoken advocates of a financial transactions tax."...

..."i've had it up to here with 'oh it's not class warfare.' yes it is," said ross. "they started it, they're winning, now it's time for politicians to decide: whose side are you on?"

http://www.alternet.org/story/152213/nurses_take_on_wall_st._and_the_politicians_who_pander_to_corporations/?page=entire

allnurses Guide · Aug 30, 2011

i very much doubt it. in their minds, lpn's are the ones holding them back!

a supreme court decision decades ago prevented an all nurses union. please see previous posts in this thread.

this thread shows ho nnu rns support our colleagues whether lvn/lpn, cna, rt, housekeeping, lab tech, or other fellow worker. - https://allnurses.com/collective-bargaining-nursing/taking-care-your-611293.html

like all people rns don't all have the same opinions. some hospital managements have allowed or even covertly created dissention between the staff. days versus nights, er versus med-surg, and lvn versus rn.

by forcing an lvn/lpn to work outside his or her scope and unsupervised the license of the lvn/lpn is at risk and they don't even pay that nurse as they would an rn doing the same job.

no one is holding us back. we are moving ahead by working for everyone to have jobs at living wages for everyone, guaranteed healthcare for all, a secure retirement, with the ability to retire in dignity, equal access to quality, public education, good housing and protection from hunger, and a safe and healthy environment.

allnurses Guide · Sep 3, 2011

National Nurses Make History - Sept 1, 2011 - http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/nurses-to-converge-sept-1/

scecile · Sep 3, 2011

fri sep 02, 2011 at 05:06 pm pdt

thousands of nurses storm 60 congressional offices

in a week that recorded no new jobs being created in the u.s. for the entire month of august, and many people struggling with what to do about it, nurses around the u.s. sent an entirely different message -- get out in the streets and demand change.

on thursday, thousands of nurses, joined by other labor and community supporters, went to the doorsteps of 60 members of congress in 21 states across the u.s.

their common message -- america is hurting, we've had enough, and we have a solution. tax wall street to fund the recovery to pay for jobs at living wages, quality schools, guaranteed healthcare for everyone, and freedom from hunger, housing, and retirement insecurity.

to read more on the daily kos:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/02/1013006/-thousands-of-nurses-storm-60-congressional-offices#comments

RN4MERCY · Sep 4, 2011

I would respectfully disagree with you. Any taxes on wall street would be passed on to the consumer. Credit would be much more expensive and any investments that I have would be taxed.

FTTs can be designed so that they are very difficult to avoid. The best example of this is the UK, where they have a stamp duty of 0.5% on all share transactions. The UK's major competitors do not have this and yet it is a successful FTT that raises around £5 billion pounds each year. It is designed so it can't be avoided and London remains one of the biggest stock markets in the world.

Financial transaction taxes are targeted at casino banking operations and experience in other countries demonstrates they can be designed in a way that protects the investments of ordinary people and businesses. Just like other taxes, specific exemptions and regulatory measures can be written in. Evading FTTs can be made more difficult, more costly, and in some cases actually impossible, by developing incentives to comply or disincentives to evade (including, for example, making non-taxed trades legally unenforceable), according to Owen Tudor, Trades Union Congress (TUC).

The International Monetary Fund has studied who will end up paying transaction taxes, and has concluded that they would in all likelihood be 'highly progressive'. This means they would fall on the richest institutions and individuals in society, in a similar way to capital gains tax. This is in complete contrast to the Value Added Tax, which falls disproportionately on the poorest people.

The financial sector is highly competitive, which also makes it less likely that institutions will pass on the costs to customers because they will lose business to others who don't.

allnurses Guide · Sep 12, 2011

tax wall street

local nurse submits a modest proposal

by elizabeth pataki

when politicians in washington, d.c., debate how much to cut from medicare, social security, medicaid or other basic programs while failing to touch the record profits and financial misdeeds on wall street, it's time to say we need a change.

i worked past age 70 as a registered nurse in sacramento and still retired with minimal savings. why? because my children either had no health coverage or it was inadequate to provide needed care. here's what happened.

my first child was grabbed from behind at a college cafe, turned to strike at the offender and broke her hand. due to minimal college insurance, a simple cast was placed on her broken hand--which resulted in a weak, misshapen hand. fearing the hand would not be functional, i paid for an orthopedic surgeon to reset the hand--at the cost of one-fifth of my savings.

my second child, unemployed and homeless after being displaced from a flooded city, developed a potentially serious health issue. fortunately, after expensive tests, the situation was resolved--but at another huge cost to my remaining savings.

my third child, seriously ill, also had minimal school insurance, which ran out. the hospitalizations, consultations, ongoing care, medication, travel and support expenses used up almost all of my remaining savings.

my situation is hardly unique.

and yet, in the midst of the worst economic crisis our nation has seen in many decades, our political leaders are planning additional huge reductions in programs that provide assistance for the families on main street, while continuing to resist requiring those who created this financial calamity to pay their fair share.

nurses across the country have seen a precipitous increase in health problems that have a direct link to the lack of jobs, low wages, retirement insecurity, substandard housing and poor access to health care. and it's not just anecdotal.

a unicef report from last december found the united states is a paltry 22nd in health well-being for children among industrial nations. ...

...one reason is the shocking disparity in wealth and resources in our nation. ...

....america's nurses have proposed an alternative to the parade of endless budget cuts to our social fabric.

a small fee on wall street speculation, the major transactions on dividends, credit default swaps, stocks, bonds and futures--the very fiscal wheeling and dealing that left main street families shattered and in pain--could raise hundreds of billions of dollars every year to rebuild our hurting nation.

nor would it put us at a competitive disadvantage. more than 15 nations in the world, including great britain, have a financial transaction tax on major speculative activity--as we did in the united states until 1966--and the european union is close to adopting a continentwide tax.

if goldman-sachs, wells fargo, bank of america and the other financial giants that put us in such economic peril can get bailouts and bonuses, shouldn't they start taking care of main street families as well?

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/tax-wall-street/content?oid=3570893

mewilmot · Sep 12, 2011

http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S980-2011

Please let's start calling our legislators and senators. We can't afford this!