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	<title>IdeasCategory: Budget &#38; Taxes &#124; Ideas &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>IdeasCategory: Budget &#38; Taxes &#124; Ideas &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Liberals Should Worry About the IRS Scandal</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/14/why-liberals-should-worry-about-the-irs-scandal/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/14/why-liberals-should-worry-about-the-irs-scandal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 16:25:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Eric Liu</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill of Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IRS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[patriots]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tea party]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=32436</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It turns out that the Tea Party activists who’ve been ranting about IRS abuses of power were on to something. The taxman was engaged in ideological profiling. Conservatives are apoplectic. And their outrage, even if exaggerated for political effect, is justified. Liberals, though, should also be outraged. First, this kind of profiling is indefensible and even dangerous. Second, the scandal plays into some of the worst stereotypes about government – that it’s overweening, prying, ham-handed, untrustworthy. As right-wingers now relish pointing out, the IRS is the agency responsible for enforcing key parts of the Affordable Care Act. If you’re a fan of Obamacare, the timing is terrible. But the main reason liberals should be outraged – indeed, embarrassed – is that the scandal reveals just how much ground they’ve lost in American politics in recent decades. Most of the media coverage has focused on the fact that IRS officials used “Tea Party” and “patriot” as their search terms of choice in targeting political groups over their non-profit status. Overlooked are some of the other shortcuts, phrases like “making America a better place to live” or “criticizing how the country is being run” or “educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” It’s bad enough for progressives that the word “patriot” in 2013 so obviously signifies “conservative.” But it’s downright damning that talk of social and economic reform and of the Constitution itself can now also be considered right-wing. (MORE: The Real IRS Scandal) Things got this way because from Reagan to Gingrich to Fox News and the Tea Party, right-wingers have systematically and relentlessly adopted the language and iconography of American patriotism. They’ve claimed the flag and the history of the founding of the Republic as their own. During that time, left-wingers responded too often by walking away from the contest. They laughed off the shameless jingoism of conservatives. They made patriotism ironic, the way Colbert’s giant eagle and giant flag are meant to be ridiculous. When the Tea Party first came on the scene, progressives rolled their eyes at<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=32436&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Budget &amp; Taxes</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/budget-taxes/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/200569412-001.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Close up of American flag pin on lapel</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Why Austerity Is a Dangerous Idea</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/18/why-austerity-is-a-dangerous-idea/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/18/why-austerity-is-a-dangerous-idea/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:45:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Blyth</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[austerity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[austerity is dangerous]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[budget cuts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Euro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Greece]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Keynesian]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=31386</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The current debt and deficit panic is nothing new. It’s been a staple of American politics since the Republic’s inception. But this season it has taken a new turn. Congress, the fiscal arm of the government, is engaged in asymmetric siege warfare. On one side the Republicans want only cuts, on the other the Democrats want both cuts and tax increases. Both agree however that cuts are absolutely necessary; the only question is the timing and magnitude involved. Unfortunately, budget cuts are exactly the wrong thing to do at this moment. And before anyone throws up their hands and says &#8220;Keynesian claptrap,&#8221; there is nothing necessarily Keynesian in what I am about to say. Simple logic and arithmetic will suffice. (MORE: America&#8217;s Forgotten Economic Challenge) Austerity, the policy of cutting state spending to solve debt and growth problems, sells itself to us through a strange combination of morality and seduction. Its moral claim lies in the love of parsimony over prodigality that characterizes economic thought from Adam Smith onward. In this morality play, saving leads to investment, and investment leads to growth. Spending, in contrast, leads to consumption, and consumption leads to debt, especially when the government is involved. What we see in Greece therefore is simply the most egregious example of a secular trend toward overspending. We must cut to restore ourselves and not become Greece. So the story goes. Austerity suggests that you can have your cake and eat it too, but only when you cut the cake first. Cuts are seen to be growth enhancing, not growth retarding. They restore that all-important &#8220;business confidence&#8221; necessary for the economy to function. There is however a rather big problem with this line of thinking. The first is that for people to save, they need to have income from which to save. So if you are, for example, a state in the euro zone today, and every similar state saves at the same time by cutting spending, the result is the shrinkage of everyone’s economy since they are one another&#8217;s<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=31386&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Europe</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/world/europe/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/160949027.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">160949027</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>America&#8217;s Forgotten Economic Challenge</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/26/americas-forgotten-economic-challenge/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/26/americas-forgotten-economic-challenge/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:24:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Louis A. Ferleger and Jacob M. Magid</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[banking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[investment banks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[joblessness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[unemployment]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=30107</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The U.S. economy, many believe, is turning a corner. Maybe so, but for much of the country, what lies around the corner is a dead end. In far too many places, high levels of unemployment still exist, and joblessness has been the norm for years. Unless we try something different, these places will once again be left behind as more prosperous areas recover. In over 200 metropolitan and micropolitan areas, the jobs crisis dominates everyday life, but these communities were experiencing high levels of unemployment long before the Great Recession. They are “distressed areas,” which we define as areas where the unemployment rate has been at least two percentage points higher than the national average for at least five years — in some places, for over 20 years. In distressed areas, such as, Yakima, Wash., Rockford, Ill., and Danville, Va., government aid provides nearly one-third of residents’ incomes, compared to 17% nationwide. Upwards of 40% of the population in these areas lives on $30,000 a year or less, and the workforces there have low educational-achievement rates, with more than half possessing just a high-school degree or less. Most jobs are in low-end service industries, especially prisons, casinos, nursing homes, and retail. Such jobs offer few chances for upward mobility or skill enhancement. (MORE: Special Report: 10 Big Ideas That Make a Difference) One approach that might bring about job growth is to expand access to startup capital for small businesses. Distressed areas lack the capacity to support new businesses, and existing businesses are unlikely to expand into distressed areas. While local financing might exist, the costs of borrowing, paperwork, and administration associated with loan-making at these institutions are often a serious obstacle for small enterprises. We need an alternative — a simplified and standardized loan process. Here is where a new partnership between public and private interests could make a real difference. We could develop regional national investment banks. These banks would make funds available to local financial institutions that could then make loans for new ventures with the full understanding that<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=30107&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Economy</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/business-tech/economy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/unemployment.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">unemployment</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>How Not to Compromise</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/26/how-not-to-compromise/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/26/how-not-to-compromise/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:00:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Eric Liu</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[compromise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Emory University]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal showdown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=28650</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As high-stakes fiscal showdowns have become a constant feature of our national politics, calls for compromise have come from every corner and are growing louder. But political compromise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, is a bit like the weather: while everyone talks about it, no one does anything about it. Maybe that’s because we’re confused about how we should compromise. It’s certainly true that we live in an overly polarized political culture and that governing requires more than the base-pleasing demonization and posturing that feeds campaigns. What we need now, though, is not compromise for its own sake; it’s smarter compromise. And that means two things: finding a real middle in negotiations (it’s not where Washington thinks it is) and getting politicians to yield on matters of principle. (MORE: Will He Fight or Compromise?) Many pundits presume that compromise means splitting the difference between extremes. But to find the real middle, we have to distinguish between mean and median. The mean is what we usually call the average: add up all the points along a spectrum and divide by the number of points. Modern politics, unfortunately, has become about chasing the mean, which means that if one side’s outliers becomes far more extreme than the other’s, then over time what counts as average (or centrist) drifts in that direction. This is what happened when the Tea Party pulled the GOP rightward — and many Democrats allowed the center to be reset accordingly. The median, by contrast, is the point on the spectrum at which half the people can be found on one side and half on the other. It yields a very different result — one less distorted by outlier opinions, more truly representative of the middle and thus a more democratic basis for compromise. Following the median is what our politics could use more of. The median public view on responsible gun laws, for instance, is further to the left than the mean is. The same is true for cutting entitlement programs, as President Obama is quite aware. But the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=28650&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Budget &amp; Taxes</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/budget-taxes/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/compromise.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Political compromise</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>The Baby Boom and Financial Doom</title>
		<link>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2131536,00.html</link>
		<comments>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2131536,00.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:40:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Fareed Zakaria</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=26460</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=26460&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Budget &amp; Taxes</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/budget-taxes/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>The Making of a Cliffhanger</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/13/the-making-of-a-cliffhanger/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/13/the-making-of-a-cliffhanger/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:09:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ruth Davis Konigsberg</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ben Bernanke]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Bloomberg]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=26445</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In the last month, we&#8217;ve learned a lot about the fiscal cliff. That it&#8217;s not as bad as it sounds (it&#8217;s a slope, not a precipice.) That negotiations are more complicated than we think. But one question that hasn&#8217;t been fully addressed is, why are we calling it a fiscal cliff to begin with? (MORE: Why Fiscal Cliff Negotiations Are More Complicated Than We Think) It all started on February 29th, 2012, when Ben Bernanke warned the House Financial Services Committee that there was a &#8220;massive fiscal cliff&#8221; in our future. As TIME&#8217;s Adam Sorensen reported that day, the language of the usually subdued Fed Chairman seemed to have been inspired by genuine fear that &#8220;spending cuts and tax hikes could strangle the recovery in its crib.&#8221; “Under current law, on January 1, 2013, there’s going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases,” he said in reference to the expiring Bush tax cuts and $1.2 trillion in spending reduction, set in motion by last year’s debt ceiling deal. “I hope that Congress will look at that and figure out ways to achieve the same long-run fiscal improvement without having it all happen at one date.” (MORE: Ben Bernanke Warns Congress In Its Own Language) Others have since argued that the term &#8220;fiscal cliff&#8221;—which has now been shortened to simply &#8220;the cliff&#8221;—is inappropriately geological. Derek Thompson, for example, wrote &#8220;It&#8217;s the wrong metaphor. There is no ledge. There is no plunge.&#8221; Instead, Thompson suggested, we should reach for the more familiar new year&#8217;s theme of weight loss and think of the tax hikes and spending cuts as &#8220;the mother of all fiscal diet plans.&#8221; So has Bernanke backtracked from his coinage? Not at all. Yesterday at a press conference he reiterated that things would indeed be as dire as he had warned and in fact said that the economy was already suffering because of the stalemate in budget negotiations. And he seemed okay with abandoning the &#8220;fiscal&#8221; modifier. The way things are going, he said, &#8220;I think the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=26445&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Obama Administration</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/politics/obama-administration/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/bernanke.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Holds Monetary Policy News Conference</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">ruthdaviskonigsberg</media:title>
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		<title>Why the Fiscal Cliff Negotiations Are More Complicated than We Think</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/12/why-fiscal-cliff-negotiations-are-more-complicated-than-we-think/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/12/why-fiscal-cliff-negotiations-are-more-complicated-than-we-think/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:26:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Hal Movius</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Presidency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Psychology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inside-out problem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[multi-party negotiation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negotiations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roger Fisher]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=26358</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The fiscal cliff negotiations have the feel of a major sporting event. The media largely describe the cliff as a two-party conflict, with each side having a fighter in the ring. What House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama say — and don’t say — is decoded and analyzed, interpreted as posturing and signaling, punching and counterpunching. Who has leverage? Who doesn’t? Who will win? Who will lose? In fact, what&#8217;s going on is quite different, and more like an obstacle course for which Boehner and Obama are leading fractious teams. Because the parties, particularly the GOP, are divided internally, negotiations within each party are apt to be at least as difficult and time consuming as those across the aisle. Leaders on both sides will have to persuade majorities to live with trades that deliver something important in exchange for concessions on other issues (trading tax increases for a commitment to entitlement reform, for example). Roger Fisher, author of the famous Getting to Yes, called this the &#8220;inside out&#8221; problem of negotiations. (MORE: Entitlement Cuts Loom as Obstacle to Fiscal Cliff Deal) Within each party there are not just two but multiple divisions, so negotiators face what&#8217;s called a multiparty context, which requires a particular strategy: analyzing which groups they might win over on the basis of diverse goals. On the right, some members of Congress care most about the size of government, others want to reduce and simplify taxes, and still others advocate maintaining a strong defense. On the left, some seek more-progressive taxes, others focus on protecting the poor, and still others defend current entitlement programs. (Of course, not everyone can be neatly pigeonholed into a group, which only adds to the difficulty of the analysis.) And the complexity of the issues under negotiation — tax rates and deductions, entitlement programs, defense and discretionary spending — make it hard for legislators to know exactly what they are committing to until they see a bill drafted. In order to tackle the inside-out problem, negotiators must solve the representation riddle. Who actually speaks for each<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=26358&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>U.S.</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/fiscalcliff.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">image: Speaker John Boehner listens to President Barack Obama speak before a budget meeting at the White House with other cabinet members in Washington, D.C. Nov. 16, 2012.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>It&#8217;s Time To Make Taxes Nontoxic</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/27/its-time-to-make-taxes-non-toxic/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/27/its-time-to-make-taxes-non-toxic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:00:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Eric Liu</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[C-Span]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[government spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Grover Norquist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Warren Buffett]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=25720</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The drama surrounding the so-called “fiscal cliff” is like a soap opera for wonks: policymaking by suicide pact that makes for terrible governance but suspenseful viewing. And it seems the role of citizens, besides suffering endless cliff puns by the pundits, is simply to tune into the contrived crisis as anxious spectators. That’s how Grover Norquist wants it. The grand enforcer of right-wing anti-tax orthodoxy recently proposed that every moment of negotiations be aired live on C-SPAN — not just the floor debates and votes that are already televised. Railing against backroom conspiracies and secret pacts (and pointing out, correctly, that President Obama once promised such transparency), he’s calculating that most politicians are loath to be captured on camera raising taxes. (MORE: The Rich Haven&#8217;t Always Hated Taxes) He may be right — but for the wrong reasons. Norquist thinks taxes are inherently bad and that no elected official wants to be caught doing something bad. The reality, though, is that taxes aren’t inherently bad; they’re only inherently unpopular. And they’re unpopular in part because people like him have relentlessly demonized taxation, converting taxes from a necessary evil — “the price we pay for a civilized society,” as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. put it — into something both unnecessary and evil. They’ve detached taxpaying from citizenship, and made the t-word toxic. Conducting complicated, high-stakes budget negotiations on live television is a terrible idea — it’ll lead to preening and posturing and push negotiators toward oversimplified fixed positions rather than nuance or compromise. But the deeper problem is that it incentivizes negotiators to propose only safe and popular ideas, allowing both politicians and the people to shirk their core responsibilities. The job of elected representatives is to make the hard calls and strike the difficult deals that their constituents may neither like nor fully understand, and that can&#8217;t be easily constructed in a reality-TV performance. Representation is for taxation. That is, we the people choose representatives so that they can do the complex work of, well, taxing us and running a<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=25720&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Budget &amp; Taxes</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/budget-taxes/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/taxes.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Image: Taxes</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>The Rich Haven&#8217;t Always Hated Taxes</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/18/the-rich-havent-always-hated-taxes/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/18/the-rich-havent-always-hated-taxes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:30:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Shamus Khan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[estate taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John D. Rockefeller]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxes for the rich]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Warren Buffett]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=22054</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mitt Romney has proclaimed, “I pay all the taxes that are legally required, not a dollar more.” While most Americans may not agree with his tax rate (14%), few would disagree with his sentiment. Almost no one willingly pays more taxes than required. Yet there was a time when elites willingly acknowledged that they should pay far higher rates than others. In fact, when the income tax was first regularly put into place in 1913, the well-off were the only ones required to pay it. Before that time, our government relied upon a system of tariffs for revenue. But as the nation grew in population and economic prowess, it required public works like more efficient transportation to grease the wheels of capital, public goods like schools to create more skilled workers, and public protections to help those who the market failed. Our leaders — many of whom came from the wealthy elite — turned to the idea of an income tax. In 1909, Republican president Teddy Roosevelt argued in favor of income and inheritance taxes, as they would promote, “equality of opportunity.”  The programs required a constitutional amendment, and by 1913, 88% of states agreed that it was time to tax the income of its citizens. But not all its citizens — instead the income tax burden fell solely on couples who made over $4,000 (in today’s terms, around $88,000). If you made less, you paid nothing. And the more you made, the more you paid. (MORE: One Nation, on Welfare: Living Your Life on the Dole) For the next 60 years Americans lived under a progressive tax structure. And while elites were not overjoyed to pay higher taxes than other Americans (and some sought ways to avoid them), most understood their tax burden as their civic duty. Franklin Delano Roosevelt argued that, “Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.” Supreme Court Justice (and Boston Brahmin) Oliver Wendell Holmes was known to “enjoy” his taxes. According to Felix Frankfurter&#8217;s book Mr. Justice Holmes and the Supreme<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=22054&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Budget &amp; Taxes</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/budget-taxes/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/ap310302124.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Oliver Wendell Holmes,</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">erinleighskarda</media:title>
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		<title>Behind the Chicago Teachers&#8217; Strike: Why Talks Must Be Made Public</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/10/chicago-teachers-strike-why-negotiations-must-be-open-to-the-public/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/10/chicago-teachers-strike-why-negotiations-must-be-open-to-the-public/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Sep 2012 18:07:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[American Cities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[State & Local Governments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chicago]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chicago public schools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chicago teachers strike]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chicago teachers union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[collective bargaining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[douglas county]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[karen lewis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[louis brandeis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Maggie Gyllenhaal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rahm emanuel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sunshine act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teachers unions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[won't back down]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=21982</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Spoiler alert: when Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new feature film, Won’t Back Down, hits theaters later this month, its plot hinges on the forcing of school officials to make big decisions in front of parents rather than behind closed doors. The film is fictional, but raging against backroom power politics is not. Teachers&#8217; unions and district officials almost always negotiate privately, so when those negotiations reach a deal or an impasse — or lead to a strike, as they did in Chicago yesterday — the public gets to hear only part of the story as families scramble to figure out what to do with their kids. Chicago, whose 400,000 students make it the U.S.’s third largest school district, today offered safe havens for kids in dozens of public libraries and churches and, for a four-hour stretch this morning, in nearly 150 public schools staffed with nonunion workers. (MORE: Chicago Teachers Strike: What They&#8217;re Fighting For) At issue in the Chicago strike — the first by the city’s teachers in 25 years — are clashes between the union and Mayor Rahm Emanuel on how to handle teacher pay, evaluations, benefits and layoffs. In public, the Chicago Teachers Union uses generalities to describe its demands, with the union president, Karen Lewis, saying the teachers want a “fair contract.” But according to one senior Chicago official with direct knowledge of the negotiations with the union reps, “Their public rhetoric has almost nothing to do with what’s happening at the table.” Media accounts indicate that the city’s latest offer was to raise teacher pay 16% over the next four years, but the senior city official and other sources with knowledge of the negotiations say the union demanded raises that would amount to at least a 35% salary increase over three years as well as guaranteed jobs for any teachers who get laid off as Chicago’s schools downsize. The city does not have that kind of money, and other changes the union is demanding would essentially render meaningless a new law in Illinois that mandates improved teacher<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=21982&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/2100_unionchicago_0910.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Chicago Schools Strike</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>Forget Wisconsin. The Unions&#8217; Biggest Loss Was in California</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/06/forget-wisconsin-the-unions-biggest-loss-was-in-california/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/06/forget-wisconsin-the-unions-biggest-loss-was-in-california/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2012 18:35:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew J. Rotherham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[American Cities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School of Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pension reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[retirement costs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[San Jose]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teachers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teachers unions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wisconsin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=16976</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Bad news for teachers and other public-sector employees: America is more than ready to cut your pensions and benefits. While most politicos had been focusing this week on the Wisconsin recall, an election 2,100 miles away in San Jose, Calif., may be a bigger harbinger of the kind of austerity voters are developing a taste for. In this city of about a million residents an hour south of San Francisco, voters on Tuesday approved arguably the country’s boldest pension cuts. San Jose’s Democratic mayor, Chuck Reed, has been grappling with ballooning pension costs that have increased from $73 million to $245 million in the last decade. Retirement costs already consume more than 20% of the city’s general fund, which helps explain why Reed was pushing San Jose to pass Measure B, which would give voters the power to approve increases in pension benefits and give the city the power to suspend automatic 3% annual raises during a fiscal crisis. The measure would also make workers contribute half the cost of their pensions; employees currently pay $3 for every $8 the city contributes, and the city is financially responsible for any shortfalls. Also included are provisions to curb the abuse of disability benefits. It’s a tough package — and will certainly be challenged in court because it changes benefits not only for future workers, something everyone agrees is legal, but for current ones as well. Nonetheless, voters passed it by a stunning margin of 69.5% in favor, 30.4% opposed. A pension reform measure also passed in San Diego. (MORE: Why Scott Walker Survived His Recall) These results matter for teachers, whose pensions and benefits are facing scrutiny and who should realize from Tuesday’s results that their unions are not invincible. Collectively the votes in Wisconsin, where Walker survived a recall after cutting benefits and curtailing collective bargaining for public sector workers, and in these California cities are a big wake-up call. These cuts are being made not in red states but in some of the country’s most progressive territory. If public-employee unions<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=16976&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>School of Thought</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/school-of-thought/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/san-jose-elections.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">San Jose Elections</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">julierawe</media:title>
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		<title>Why Voluntary Taxation is a Bad Idea</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/17/why-voluntary-taxation-is-a-bad-idea/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/17/why-voluntary-taxation-is-a-bad-idea/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:30:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Sally Kohn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[barack obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Buffett Rule]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tax day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tax rates]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxes on the rich]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Warren Buffett]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=13558</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In response to President Obama&#8217;s proposal that millionaires and billionaires pay at least the same tax rate as middle class families, the conservative Super PAC American Crossroads released an online petition that reads: &#8221;President Obama and Warren Buffett are deeply troubled by how low their taxes are. Nothing is stopping them from paying more in taxes voluntarily. Sign the petition to encourage Obama and Buffett to put their money where their mouths are when it comes to the &#8216;Buffett Rule.&#8217;&#8221; This weekend on Fox News Sunday, anchor Chris Wallace asked President Obama&#8217;s senior adviser David Axelrod, &#8220;If the president feels so strongly about tax fairness, is he going to contribute money to the Treasury?&#8221; On its face, the idea seems sensible enough: Want to raise taxes? Then voluntarily pay higher taxes. Of course, even if every one of the 138 millionaires calling for higher taxes on the rich wrote a million dollar check to the government, that&#8217;s nothing compared to the $47 billion the Buffett Rule would generate in additional tax revenue. But the larger point is that our Founding Fathers made taxes compulsory — not voluntary — for a reason. (MORE: The Buffett Rule Returns: Why President Obama Wants to Talk to You About Your Taxes) In Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, government is expressly granted the right to tax its citizens in service of the general welfare. Subsequently, in his farewell address as our nation&#8217;s first president, George Washington said, &#8220;It is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.&#8221; In other words, our founders knew what we have always known — no one really wants to pay taxes, but we all need and benefit from that which our taxes fund. If we relied on voluntary taxes, donors would begin insisting that they could earmark their donations—say, to the military or to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=13558&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Budget &amp; Taxes</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/budget-taxes/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/a107811249.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">US government 1040 tax form</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">erinleighskarda</media:title>
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		<title>The Tragic Death of the Temporary Tax Cut</title>
		<link>http://moneyland.time.com/2011/12/01/the-tragic-death-of-the-temporary-tax-cut/</link>
		<comments>http://moneyland.time.com/2011/12/01/the-tragic-death-of-the-temporary-tax-cut/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:17:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dennis Wong</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=4931</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=4931&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Budget &amp; Taxes</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/budget-taxes/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
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		<title>Joel Stein Speaks for the 1%</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2011/10/20/joel-stein-speaks-for-the-1/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2011/10/20/joel-stein-speaks-for-the-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:35:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TIME Staff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[1%]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joel Stein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the 99%]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=2202</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This week in TIME, columnist Joel Stein speaks for the 1%: I’ve met some of the top 1%, and on average, they’re interesting, generous and charming. You know who is in the top 1%? Tom Hanks. You know who is in the bottom 99%? Not Tom Hanks. It’s not just that we admire the 1%. We need them. The 1% started Time Inc., creating my job. They founded Stanford, where I went to college. They funded Facebook and my mortgage &#8230; No one has ever woken up early to gather around a TV to watch a wedding of two 99 percenters. Read on to find out why Stein thinks the 99%&#8217;s &#8220;techno-bling dream&#8221; caused the recession.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=2202&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>U.S.</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/u-s/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timeadmin</media:title>
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		<title>Herman Cain&#8217;s 9-9-9 Plan: Not So Crazy</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2011/10/20/herman-cains-9-9-9-plan-not-so-crazy/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2011/10/20/herman-cains-9-9-9-plan-not-so-crazy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:34:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TIME Staff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budget & Taxes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Presidency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[9-9-9 plan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[election 2012]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[herman cain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=2188</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In this week&#8217;s issue of TIME, editor-at-large Fareed Zakaria defends the basic idea of Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain&#8217;s infamous &#8220;9-9-9&#8243; tax plan: His plan is sloppy and, in parts, bizarre. But the impetus behind it—tax simplification and reform—is not. The first 9 is a 9% income tax to replace the current tax code. Most Americans believe that the federal tax code is highly complex and fundamentally corrupt. They are right&#8230;Complexity equals corruption. Read the column and learn about what Zakaria calls his own &#8220;9-18-27-18-9-50 plan.&#8221;<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=2188&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Politics</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/politics/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timeadmin</media:title>
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