(This whole "poor little rich people" attitude copped by politicians like Ricky Perry sucking up for campaign funds has gotten sickeningly old. If you have been fortunate enough to have become a billionaire, then part of the burden of funding society's continuing progress falls to you, you greedy assholes! Billionaire Warren Buffet understands it. Billionaire Mark Cuban gets it. But not greedy and sinister weasels like the Koch Brothers with their corporate lobbying groups ALEC and the US Chamber of Commerce. They don't create jobs, they offshore them to countries with exploitable cheap labor; they don't pay their share of taxes, they hide their profits in tax havens overseas; and they screw poor and middle class people so they can increase their profits by a mere fraction of a decimal point--reaping millions of dollars which mean nothing to a billionaire, but would mean so much spread out over a poverty stricken neighborhood.
History has proven that when the uber wealthy have paid higher taxes, the economy has flourished--direct correlation. And when they pull their robber baron "fuck the little man" bit, they destroy a generation's growth and progress. They don't care one little bit about the exponential damage they do.
History has proven that when the uber wealthy have paid higher taxes, the economy has flourished--direct correlation. And when they pull their robber baron "fuck the little man" bit, they destroy a generation's growth and progress. They don't care one little bit about the exponential damage they do.
See, these lovely douchebags consider themselves the "royalty" of this modern age. They think--no, they KNOW they are better than you, me, our families, our friends, and they don't mind that we suffer when they gamble huge fortunes and lose OR gamble against us and win. We lost our savings, our homes, our jobs--all of which wound up as an insignificant line of black ink on some ledger or spreadsheet. And if some of us little people have to suffer or worse for them to profit, then such is our cost for them to play their game. Can't make an omelet--or better yet, a "cake" without breaking some eggs, right?
I heard a nationally syndicated radio talkshow host say this is 1984 and "the answer to 1984 is 1776." Well, that's neat and patriotic, I suppose. But--and everyone loves to dog the French--I say we answer "1984 with 1789." Here's our symbol, they can choke on their cake.
We can do this peacefully--it's how things should be done--but when these billionaire fake monarchs start playing rough, we do to them just like the French peasants did starting in 1789 to the exact same kind of rich people, and for the next 10 years. Those wealthy idiots underestimated the poor and middle class to the point of mocking them. Their heads filled many, many baskets when it was all said and done.
Like I said, a peaceful, bloodless revolution is our best chance to dethrone these kings and queens of nothing. But you have to have a plan B. Oh, and millionaires aren't considered by the billionaires to be in the same class as the billionaires, so the millionaires better not think they aren't going to be handled just like we will be.
If I wasn't on a watchlist, I sure am now. EAT THE RICH! --jef)
Like I said, a peaceful, bloodless revolution is our best chance to dethrone these kings and queens of nothing. But you have to have a plan B. Oh, and millionaires aren't considered by the billionaires to be in the same class as the billionaires, so the millionaires better not think they aren't going to be handled just like we will be.
If I wasn't on a watchlist, I sure am now. EAT THE RICH! --jef)
"We're dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don't even pay any income tax."
-Texas Gov. Rick Perry, presidential announcement speech, Aug. 13, 2011.
Washington - Really? Of all the ills in the world, of all the problems with the economy, all the difficulties with the tax code, this is the one that Perry chooses to lament?
Perry's statement conjures visions of America as Slacker Nation, where the overburdened wagon-pullers drag an increasingly heavy burden of freeloaders. His number is correct but, like other conservatives who have seized on the statistic, Perry draws from it a dangerously misleading lesson.
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that 46.4 percent of households will owe no federal income tax in 2011. This is, for the most part, not because people have chosen to loaf. It's because they are working but simply don't earn enough to owe income taxes, based on the progressive structure of the tax code and provisions designed to help the working poor and lower-income seniors.
As the Tax Policy Center's Roberton Williams explains, "a couple with two children earning less than $26,400 will pay no federal income tax this year because their $11,600 standard deduction and four exemptions of $3,700 each reduce their taxable income to zero. The basic structure of the income tax simply exempts subsistence levels of income from tax."
Does Perry truly see this as an "injustice"? Does he believe his "dismay" should be alleviated by raising the tax burden on these households?
Consider: Of those households who do not owe income taxes, about a third earn $10,000 a year and a slightly smaller share earn between $10,000 and $20,000. More than three-fourths earn $30,000 or less.
In addition, the notion that these households pay no taxes is flat-out wrong. They pay -- leaving aside state and local sales, income and property taxes -- federal gasoline and other excise taxes and, most significantly, payroll taxes on every dollar they earn. These taxes are regressive. Everyone pays the same share, regardless of income, so they hit the poor hardest, and counterbalance the progressivity of the income tax code.
Indeed, factoring in payroll taxes alone, the Slacker Nation picture looks very different. Two-thirds of the households that pay no federal income tax still ante up for payroll taxes. Fewer than one in five -- 18 percent of all households -- pay neither income nor payroll taxes. Nearly all of these are elderly (10 percent) or have incomes below $20,000 (7 percent.)
Assuming Perry isn't worked up about Slacker Grandmas, the relevant "slacker share" -- people who are supposedly comfortably ensconced on that wagon the rest of us are pulling -- is in single digits rather than "nearly half."
And, of course, they pay other taxes. An analysis by the Congressional Budge Office, taking into account all federal taxes, found that in 2007 even the poorest one-fifth of households, with average income (including government benefits) of $18,400, paid 4 percent of their income in federal taxes. By contrast, the middle fifth (average income $64,500) paid 14 percent of income and the top fifth (average income $264,700) 25 percent.
In short, the wealthy pay a greater share of their income in taxes -- but the poor don't, as Perry implies, pay nothing.
About those rich people. Perry seems to believe it is wrong to ask more of them. "'Spreading the wealth' punishes success while setting America on course for greater dependency on government," he said.
Perry needn't worry. In the last several decades the wealth hasn't been spread so much as concentrated -- at the top. The share of total income going to the top 1 percent of income earners more than doubled from 9 percent in 1970 to 23.5 percent in 2007. (The Great Recession has since narrowed the gap.)
And while, as noted above, the rich pay a greater proportion of their income in taxes, the share of total taxes paid by the richest Americans is commensurate with their share of national wealth.
Examining the total tax burden -- state, federal and local -- Citizens for Tax Justice calculated that the top 1 percent of households (average income $1.3 million) earned 20.3 percent of income and paid 21.5 percent of taxes in 2010.
The tax code is studded with a costly bevy of deductions and preferences -- mortgage interest, employer-sponsored health insurance, retirement savings -- that benefit wealthier taxpayers over those with modest incomes. If Perry wants to go after injustice in the tax code, he'll find ample targets. Failing to tax poor people enough isn't among them.
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