Richest 400 Taxpayers See Incomes Double, Tax Rates Halved
For Democrats wavering in their resolve to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, shocking new data from the IRS should hopefully stiffen their backbones. Between 2001 and 2007, the 400 richest taxpayers doubled their annual incomes to an average of $345 million, while their effective tax rate plummeted to only 16.6% from 29.4% in 1993.
Following recent analyses confirming that income inequality in the United States has reached record levels, noted tax journalist David Cay Johnston summed up the new data, "The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low. The numbers tell the tale of the widening chasm between the rich and everyone else:
In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16...
Adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars, the top 400 enjoyed a 27 percent increase in their income, or nine times the rate of increase for the bottom 90 percent...Since 1992, the bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen their incomes rise by 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with an increase of 399 percent for the top 400.
Unsurprisingly, the public disclosure of the top 400 report first introduced by the Clinton administration was halted by President Bush (only to be reinstituted by the Obama White House last year). Unsurprising that is, because the sheer size of the massive windfall for America's rich due to the Bush tax cuts would make a Warren Buffet blush.
As the Center for American Progress noted, the Bush tax cuts delivered a third of their total benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. And to be sure, their payday was staggering. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities detailed that by 2007, millionaires on average pocketed $120,000 from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Those in the top 1% stashed an extra $45,000 a year. As a result, millionaires saw their after-tax incomes rise by 7.6%, while the gains for the middle quintile and bottom 20% of Americans were a paltry 2.3% and 0.4%, respectively. (Other CBPP studies demonstrated that the Bush tax cuts accounted for half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure in the White House and will continue to do so over the next decade.)
And as the New York Times uncovered in 2006, the 2003 Bush dividend and capital gains tax cuts offered almost nothing to taxpayers earning below $100,000 a year. Instead, those windfalls reduced taxes "on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000." As the Times revealed in a jaw-dropping chart, "the top 2 percent of taxpayers, those making more than $200,000, received more than 70% of the increased tax savings from those cuts in investment income." So it should come as no surprise that the income share of the 400 richest Americans doubled over the past decade.
And yet, the usual suspects among the Republican Party (and some quislings among the Democrats) are pleading that the rich should be spared even as their share of the national wealth reaches stratospheric levels. Arguing in the Wall Street Journal that the upper bracket tax rates should not be restored to their Clinton-era rates, Ari Fleischer insisted that the top 10% of taxpayers are "supporting virtually everyone and everything" and "their burden keeps getting heavier." Fleischer added, "It's also what's called redistribution of income, and it is getting out of hand."
Oh, it's gotten out of hand all right, just not in the direction Fleischer claims.
But as ThinkProgress detailed, failing to restore upper bracket tax rates to their Clinton-era levels of 39.6% from 35% not only won't help spur economic recovery, it will blow a gaping hole through the federal budget even as it needlessly lines the pockets of the wealthiest Americans:
In an era when everyone seems to be running around screaming about the deficit, there's absolutely no reason to extend these cuts, which this year will give millionaires more in tax breaks than 90 percent of Americans will earn in income. The Bush tax cuts have delivered $715 billion to the wealthiest one percent of the country over the last ten years, and extending the cuts would give households in that one percent $60,000 in additional breaks per year, with millionaires receiving a $150,000 annual break. Over ten years, that amounts to another $1.2 trillion in lost revenue.
Last August, the always excellent David Leonhardt of the New York Times described the toll that the Bush recession had taken on the coffers of the richest Americans. "Over the last two years, they have become poorer," he wrote, "And many may not return to their old levels of wealth and income anytime soon." But the last time they paid a 39% income tax rate, the United States enjoyed a booming economy, rising incomes, low unemployment and expanding budget surpluses.
It may not have been quite as good a deal for the Bush 400, but it worked pretty well for almost everybody else.
(This piece also appears at Perrspectives/a>.)
places of business, or homes. But I don't have a plane, and I don't think a
94'87 Nissan Sentra would do much damage. Now, if we all got together with our junk cars, we might accomplish something. Don't ask me what.You mean the IRS????
luxury compound is a rather nice mental picture. And somehow I don't think 100 Secret Service and a couple of hundred Blackwater/XE
mercenariesterrorists could stop them all.Get my tagless, uninsured, house-painted, reject Ranger in that line, with two in the front, another half dozen or so in the camper shell, and a couple more (gun turrets, anyone?) each on top and on the hood.
Remind everyone that Warren Buffett admitted that his secretary pays more taxes than he does.
Keep it up with the grafts. Nothing like a pretty picture to show the American public an ugly reality.
Jeanne
watching the deleted scene from 1776 to see why the american people will not be up in arms at these stats
when St Ronnie stepped into the WH.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
He "saved" money for California by closing Mental Hospitals, cutting services to the poor & elderly, cutting funds to schools, and on and on. Like all Conservatives, his policies did not CREATE wealth, they just -ah- "saved" it. For the Rich to keep.
photografts!
http://www.vetsurgerycentral.com/images/skin/...
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
The word is GRAPH....a graft is a horticultural term.
You are absolutely correct. But it can also mean corruption or gain by dishonesty.
Jeanne
I got the pun!
Thesaurus
graph
noun
use graphs to analyze your data chart, diagram; bar chart, pie chart, histogram, scatter diagram.
verb
we graphed the new prices plot, trace, draw up, delineate.
graft 1
noun
1 grafts may die from lack of water scion, cutting, shoot, offshoot, bud, sprout, sprig.
2 a skin graft transplant, implant.
verb
1 graft a bud onto the stem affix, join, insert, splice.
2 tissue is grafted on to the cornea transplant, implant.
3 a mansion grafted on to a farmhouse attach, add, join.
graft 2
noun
sweeping measures to curb official graft corruption, bribery, dishonesty, deceit, fraud, unlawful practices, illegal means, payola; informal palm-greasing, hush money, kickbacks, crookedness. antonym honesty.
"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative.”
- John Stuart Mill
The young in this group are living on the dividends of the wealth that has been given to them. Living on the dividends. My daughter has three jobs and is going to college full time and her peers in the wealthy group party at the colleges they go to and live on their dividends. It makes me sick.
Jeanne
Class war fare...
And the rich are winning it.
How the Obama and the democratic party can't make hay with these seeds is beyond comprehension.
Bush and neo-con traitors have bankrupt the Treasury to line the pockets of the very fewest of the few. ALL the data show. Everyone knows it. Yet, it still goes on.
Obama's lack of strong action and rhetoric are letting neo-con tea partiers set the agenda and lay the blame on him.
The tea party acolytes of Grover Norquist like to insist that the answer is No Government - an Ayn Randian distortion of "Every man for himself".
It is way past time for the Democratic Party to stand up, as Roosevelt did, as call them out. The vast majority of citizens are getting the proverbial RAW DEAL. Everything the Bush neo-con cabal did was to tilt the economic playing field in favor of the few. So much for an even break.
The nation is predicated on "We, the people". The Constitution plainly states that the government is all about COMMON INTEREST above individual gain. While individual liberty is protected, the need for individuals to act in common interest is fundamental.
When the most powerful and privileged refuse to contribute to the common good at rates GREATER than the average citizen, they must be compelled to.
A nation divided cannot stand.
...why people fly single engine planes into buildings. My sympathies to the ones who were affected by this tragedy but at times you can understand the frustration. Hey little guy, here's my foot on your neck, now pay up.
is intended to be a factual statement
He wasn't frustrated, he was mad & upset at being caught and punished for his crime. So he did what many criminals do: Blamed the persons and the Agency who caught him.
Sorry, he wasn't mine. I didn't own him either. Didn't have to go all Jackie Chan.
is intended to be a factual statement
He owned a 1/4 million dollar home and an airplane.
The a$$hole didn't seem to have a problem leaving his wife and child homeless.
and the peons just keep getting trickled down upon...
Only when the last tree has died
and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught
will we realize we cannot eat money.
it's just piss.
me-oww!
therein is the almost immoveable obstacle to fixing this conundrum...
I have been telling my students for some months now that we are experiencing what I call 'radical income inequity' and that this inequity is predictably the end result of years of capitalism, coupled with our species' rampant hedonism.
Because so many of us poor, disenfranchised peons actually buy the wealth carrot meme, it's unlikely we'll see meaningful change until the oppression reaches levels similar to those in France just before the guillotine became the great equalizer.
It's time to eat the rich!
me-oww!
Get 'em while hunting 'em is still sporting.
I suggest bow and arrow or crossbow for the faster ones.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
They think it's raining...
Only when the last tree has died
and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught
will we realize we cannot eat money.
Reminds me of what Enron did to all those poor people in California when they were jacking their rates up and laughing their asses off about it. We live in a sick society and not enough people are doing enough about it to make it stop.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Enron and Worldcom were just for practice.
The Securitization Swindle of the Banksters thereafter was the real deal.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Just love Repugnant Thuglicans, don't you?
...the yearly median income for the rest of the country actually fell (from approximately fifty-two thousand dollars to fifty thousand dollars) during the same period while costs for just about everything -- oil, food, health care, health insurance, higher education, etc. -- went up.
So why didn't the wealth "trickle down" like it was supposed to...hmmm?
If you ask me, something was "trickling down" on us, all right...but if appearances are anything to go on, it had nothing to do with money! I have my opinion, of course, on what it was...but I have a feeling that the moderator would ban me if I mentioned it by name. I'll only say this much...what's been falling on my boots sure as hell wasn't rain!!!
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
or just the word Trickle. As in ". . . (a liquid) to flow in a small stream, a 'drip, dribble, leak, or a small group or number of people or things moving slowly"
So, unless you are dying of need, a trickle isn't adequate to your needs, let alone "A Lot". Remember, one of our Pundits said $250K "isn't very much money".
Robert Frank WSJ: High Unemployment? Not for the Affluent here
The same theme more elaborately dealt with at Calculated Risk here
Dean Baker Welfare for Banksters here
Joseph Stiglitz, Socialism for the Rich here
Michael Hudson: The Financial Parasites Have Killed the American Economy, and They Are Sucking as Much Money Out as They Can Before Jumping Ship here
Warren Buffet: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” here
William K Black: The Banksters will be back here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
The elite are not liberals, the elite are stinking rich. Lesson to all the dimwits who hate liberals.
True liberals/progressives don't simply critique the elite, we actually fight them and win.
...that by and large, despite their attendance at charity events, it's actually not the uber-wealthy who donate the most to charity even though they're the ones with the most money. No...based what I've read, it's been the middle class who've been donating the most to charity, so they've been getting it in the neck from both sides. The folks who run the show keep expecting us to pay more even though we're getting less, and many of the less fortunate are dependending on us to some extent as well.
And then people wonder why the middle class is disappearing? Take a freakin' wild guess, Sherlock...
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
to charity, especially disasters like Haiti & the Tsunami. The amount may be smaller, just as the amount of taxes they pay are smaller, but the Percentage of Income is much higher than middle class or rich people.
I'm not saying that you're wrong...I'm simply saying that what you've said contradicts just about everything I've read on this issue.
When you think about it, it makes a certain degree of sense that the poor and middle class would be the ones contributing more to charity -- the poor because they know firsthand what it's like, and the middle class because many of them have either managed to work their way into the middle class from poverty or are at least capable of perceiving what poverty might be like. How can someone who was born into a wealthy family possibly have any idea what it's like?
Many years ago, while I was dong temporary work, I spent a week or two filling in as the personal assistant to a member of the uber-wealthy. I won't name names...I'll only say that she belongs to a very well-known family whose wealth goes back for generations. The office in which I spent my day was in her apartment...and I couldn't help thinking based on what I saw that there was absolutely no way in Hell that this woman could ever relate to the experiences of an ordinary person (such as, for example, the full-time servants she employed).
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/05/27/new-...
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/nationa...
I haven't scanned them for truth in advertising; I just used the Googles.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Why is this a surprise to anyone? It's simply the status quo of the rich getting richer. The more one has, the more one wants. When does greed end? What is their definition of "rich?" I'm betting my definition is a lot different from their's.
Not me. But seeing the proof of their perfidy is pretty disgusting, and calls for extensive commenting and snarking on C&L.
. . . on George W. Bush.
The Bush tax cuts hit their peak right now, in 2010. The inheritance tax is now zero.
Democrats have had control of Congress for quite some time, and reconciliation is a perfectly appropriate remedy. But they've done nothing whatsoever.
'Cause it's all Bush's fault.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
(plus the tax-cuts are due to end soon). He was responsible for 2 Wars, unending corruption and cronyism, Union wrecking, Gasoline price fixing. Not to mention 9/11, Anthrax murders, Torture policies, etc. etc. on infinitum.
Now, if our Dem congress renews the tax-cuts it is time to start building a guillotine. But Repugs will be in the packed trundle, too. No doubt picking the Dems pockets while loudly calling the Dems thieves. Deeeep Sigh.
. . . of Congress could have eliminated them. Every one. And it only needed 50 votes in the Senate.
But the Democrats kept the tax cuts.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
and boosted the minimum wage, and helped average Homeowners with their bloated mortgages, and forbidden Wall Street Charlatans to award themselves millions in 'performance' bonuses. They did not. And the Democratic base is raising Hell with them.
Just the same, not instantly fixing a problem (assuming you really can) does NOT make you responsible for the problem's creation. Our Party is responsible NOW, but they did not create the chaos, Bush & Cheney did.
Unlike conservatives & Repugs, Democratic voters are working to MAKE our Congress & President do the right thing. OTOH conservatives are blaming Bush's policies & the results on Democrats.
How about not even trying to fix a problem, any problem, for years?
They've had congressional majorities since the '06 elections. They've had huge majorities in Congress and have held the White House since the '08 elections.
It's 2010 now.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Including me, I might add. Unfortunately, what's the alternative? Voting Republican???? Please...don't make me vomit. Voting Green? I suppose it functions as a token protest...but in the final analysis, it does no good because the Democrats and Republicans have the political market more or less cornered. Not voting? [sarcasm]Oh, yeah...that'll work.[/sarcasm]
Sadly, it appears that a particularly memorable sentence from a Rolling Stone article regarding the 1988 election is still just as true today as it was then:
"Vote Republican and you'll be robbed blind. Vote Democrat, and you'll be too poor to be worth robbing."
*Sigh*...
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
...for the candidate (repiglickants and dreamocraps excluded of course)
with the least amount of corporate donations...
and the least amount of mainstream news coverage.
(and the most amount of internet popularity)
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
That would be me.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
you are going to throw your hat through a ring?
...and give stumped speeches and stuff like that?
what do you think will happen when the religious right finds out your not a creationist?
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
I've been saying this a lot recently, but working-class liberals and conservatives need to come together and acknowledge the horrific class war in this country. The divisions that divide liberals and conservatives are either superficial or unimportant relative to the glaring elephant in the room: this country is run by a power-hungry elite that feeds off of the backs of working Americans. We don't need big business, we don't need a big government, we don't need the mainstream media, we don't need political parties, and we don't need leaders. Another world is possible. There are thousands of books on this topic, there are real-world examples to inspire us, and we are at a moment in our history when things have taken a big turn for the worse.
Stop hoping that the Democrats will one day abandon their self-interests, stop hoping that Obama is still only "pretending" to be a moderate conservative, stop hoping that we only need a few reforms, or a little more regulation, or a different president to set our country on the right path. The system has failed, and it's time to mobilize in support of a participatory society in which we each have a direct role in the decision-making process. The country is ripe for a revolution. I say we take action now.
Do not be so hard, on those poor soulless misers. Even though you life may suck, you are probably somewhat satisfied with much of your life.
Those poor rich folks are never satisfied.
They can never have enough. They purchase joy, yet it is free for anyone.
Often the wealthier they become, the more infallible the think they are.
At some point they feel they can act with impunity. The truth is what they decide it is. And reality is of their own making. All rich folks do not act this way at all. Just way too many to count.
that they can act with impunity. Rove & Cheney go unpunished for being party to breaches of national security. Bill O'Reilly & Glenn Beck incite people to murder and yet are not held accountable. Crooks on Wall Street bankrupt the government and people's life savings to fill their coffers and escape punishment. The question is how do we as ordinary citizens reverse this trend and put power back into the hands of the People.
sorry but we are late on this... time for the robin hood movement.
our English friends have started a very smart movement check it out http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/
...will be collecting that "tiny little tax"?
...who the hell is gonna collect money from the international banks?
p.s. If (like the website says) ..."Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel (the German Chancellor) and Nicolas Sarkozy (the French President) have all spoken out in support of a tax on financial transactions"
...then there is something real fishy about it!
(if Gordon "warmonger" Brown wants it...it's gotta be bad)
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
they see the tax line going so firmly into the red that its just a matter of political survival... and really when the EU gave billions like the US to banks, its not really a push to think that pragmatic government would ask for a payback. isn't it time?
Yes, the Dems had control of since Jan 2007. And they could have passed a tax increasse (or cancel existing cuts) with a simple majority in both chambers. HOWEVER, its a foregone conclusion that Bush would have vetoed that effort. Sadly, it is also a foregone conclusion the the Dems didn't have the cojones to even try.
More importantly,Dems could have sunset the Bush tax cuts a year earlier - justifying it as needed given the massive deficits that Obama was looking at. For that, yes, you can hold them respnsible.
Personally, I'm not that surprised they didn't try and would rather take the easy/coward's way out by letting the Bush tax cuts expire of their own accord in 2011. OTOH, if the Dems actually vote (and Obama signs) an extension to those same tax cuts ...
I'm having a stiff drink after that last thought. Night y'all.
Everyone knows this stuff to be true; and everyone is appalled by it; yet NOTHING is done about it.
Republicans can make something out of nothing; Dems talk issues to death then invent new ways to squander the opportunities they have.
'should hopefully stiffen their backbones'
Again, bwahahahahahaha!!!
You do know, don't you, that those very 400 OWN the US government. That some of those same 400 ARE PART OF the US government.
You do know and/or realize that, don't you?
This so-called US Empire will collapse onto itself. It is simply not sustainable. You can only have so many people, so many times, flaunt their wealth and arrogance into an increasingly impoverished base.
No, this IRS-enraged guy flying his plane...I mean, GET IT??? This guy OWNED A PLANE!! (And he was worried about a piano??? Seriously, something seriously wrong with that dude!!)
I'm not a Tea-Partier - but I understand their anger. The Left ought to be able to tap into that anger the same way. I wish they would. They would draw so so many people away from this Tea Party shit.
Just say (AND DO!!!) that the Financial Industry is no longer able to do what they've done - strict rules now apply, oversight is in place and enforced. How difficult is that????
Well, I guess less difficult if you take out the lobbyists and the contributions to members of Congress.
Also, I have to say.
At some point, say those over 75 years old - they should just leave Congress. Right now we have another 86-year old, stuck in the hospital, not able to do a damn thing, yet still 'an active member of Congress' and still taking in his salary.
How many jobs have YOU been in where you can be out sick for months, if not years, at a time and still keep your job????!!!
For eff's sake - let's be real!!
Tax the rich for the oxygen in the air they breathe.
Tax the rich for the people they've exploited. One buck each should suffice.
Tax the rich that laid off the worker, then gave themselves congratulatory bonuses of ginormous proportions
Tax the rich for food and wine for dinner that costs a weeks pay for the server.
Tax the rich on any car they would not freely relinquish if asked nicely.
Tax the rich if they do not hire anyone that has good potential. It is of value to give him/her work.
The ratio of the lowest paid worker to the CEO shall be 1/300 basic pay.
Bonus ratios shall be 1/100. If the CEO gets a bonus the lowest paid worker gets 1% of the amount of the CEO's bonus for performance and productivity.
Tax the rich on empty property,if occupied for $1 will have a huge deduction
Do not tax the rich where they are, tax them where they go, by the day and by the mile, and by the expense.
Just enough for them to buy lobbyists. legislators, and Congressmen. Tax them more, and I'll bet my tiny but gratefully accepted paycheck that they will still refuse to pass single payer, still refuse to allow workers the same right to organize that the rich have, and that they simply will purchase more lobbyists, media companies, ad nauseum.
If corporations can make the minimum wage the maximum, for the majority of employees (and lay them off or fire them once they've been employed a year--McJobs), then a ratio-based wage cap, and no bonuses, sounds reasonable.
This is so sickening and disgusting - it boils my blood!
Just WTF was so awful about these handful of greedy rich bastards having to live on $46 million freaking dollars a year? Well boo freaking hoo!!!
Nope, can't tax the super rich bastards. Let's just eliminate another 10,000,000 middle class families instead!
And the moron tea baggers - along with the republican idiot base, support these greedy evil SOB's, even as they take their homes and everything else they had; because these GOP dupes are so busy hating some minority group that hasn't done a damned thing to them, that they can't take note of the SOB's who really f**ked them over - conservative republicans!
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
well good for them they are only doing what the system allows them to do.
greed must be regulated always.
now americans love affair with capitalism will end but not until the middle class becomes the lower class in large numbers.
the system's influence on human behaviour and the problems it causes is huge like 90% and until americans see the fallacy of capitalism as an economic system based in survival of the fittest this will continue.
the capitalists want you blaming and judging indiviudals and not look at the system.
they now have the supreme court, media, universities in their pockets along with congress white house and the war machine. they are ten times smarter than you that is why they have most of the wealth.
this is a class struggle and will always be a class struggle. the christian devil itself could have not designed a more corrupt system than capitalism.
do you americans have any idea of the suffering you cause around the world with your wars for profits. ie vietnam, iraq, afghan, etc.
720 military bases around the world says it all about the american mentality of selfishness and greed and war mongering.
pre existing conditions to refuse medical insurance to adults and children to enhance profits of the capitalists. national shame and you call yourselves the greatest of nations. fools.
and the support of other capitalist systems in other countries. the cia is designed by the capitalists to ensure their capitalistic agenda's in third world countries.
you think you are the good guys in the world but then so did germany.
americans killed one million vietnamese men women and children in that war for corp profits and few americans felt shame the protests were over the lost american soldiers.
jane fonda needed to be treated as a national hero and instead called a traitor or worst. you fools complete fools the traitors were those supporting the wars and fighting in your wars for corp profits.
you are being had americans and you dont have a clue why but keep up the love affair with capitalism while it robs you and your children blind and creates suffering around the world and now more and more within your own country.
now define "capitalism"
One of the real stories here is how totalitarian Bush was easily able to suppress all this information in a purported "democracy." Like, what are we defending? The teabaggers don't seem to realize that W went all Stalin on them with suppression of information in what they probably still think is a "free" society. But I'd like to roll the tape of the 2000 debates when Gore was laughed at and mocked for correctly pointing out that Bush's proposals only benefited the wealthiest one percent. Bush used his s*** sandwich as bait, and many Americans swallowed it hook, line and sinker, and have been taking willing bites from that sandwich for years... We have collectively lost the courage to defend our democracy, the courage that formed this country..
This is where the Dems should be out on the stump showing them what conservative policies have done to the middle class over the last 30 years, totally screwed the middle/working class in this country. These rich folks have no shame either.
If I were a rich man, I would be shoring up the gates in my gated community about now. Desperate people with the freedom of having nothing left to lose will eventually vent their frustration.
You are absolutely right. But it can also mean corruption.
Jeanne
If the Democrats, armed with this wealth of justification about income inequality, pussy out on ending these outrageous tax cuts for our bloated millionaire class then they are beyond any hope as a progressive, and reality based, political party.
Here's some quick math based on this article's quoted amounts. If you look at the table for people that are making more than 10M, it shows that they are paying 500K less to the government. That's 5% less. While I agree that there's no reason to have them pay less, let's now look at what this all means if this were to be turned around. Let's take the 400 richest people making an average of 356M for a total of 142T. Their rates have reduced by 12% for a total of 42B less to the government. There are 137M taxpayers according to the graph at the top of the article so let's spread the 42B out over the 136M people and see what each of them would get. It turns out to be $1039. Not bad, but it ain't gonna save the poor. What I conclude from this math session is that this push against the rich is that it is purely political to gain favor with the majority of the population or the 99% of people that are not considered rich. Think about how many people this one issue caters to. That's a huge political move. 99%?! Pretty sly. I think that if people would actually run through the numbers and realize that it's only 1K/year that they're losing, I'm not sure that this would be such a huge deal. Plus, to be honest, do you really think that the gubment is going to give 100% or even 50% of the savings to the bottom 99% of taxpayers? I guarantee you that if these tax cuts stop, the money will stop flowing at the white house. In other words, we 99% are not going to see a dime of it. Let me be clear that I think that the rich can certainly afford to lose their 12% so that they would go from 356M to 313M per year average income. I'm sure that isn't going to hurt them any. As far as the economy goes though, this money is circulating no matter what. The rich or the poor will spend this money and one could make a convincing argument that the money could be more efficient at helping causes in the hands of the rich as they donate MUCH more to causes than the poor combined. Take a look at how the majority of scholarships are funded or United Way or ... It's not the 99% of us. It's the super wealthy.
I'd like to make another point. "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" or "pearls to a swine" are quotes that come to mind regarding the income trend of 99% of the people in this country. My opinion is that the income of the majority of population in this country has gone down because of work ethic and education. It would be interesting to look at the race distribution of that statistic. I bet that the income of Asian and Indian immigrants has actually gone up (for full disclosure, I'm a white middle-aged male). It's easy to complain about something when you don't actually look into what the causes may be. It's also easy to always blame the government. Neither you nor I fall into the 1%, so I'm not sure that this really affects us, but it's good conversation.
Here's one last thing to comment on. This is straight out of the article:
"In an era when everyone seems to be running around screaming about the deficit, there's absolutely no reason to extend these cuts, which this year will give millionaires more in tax breaks than 90 percent of Americans will earn in income. The Bush tax cuts have delivered $715 billion to the wealthiest one percent of the country over the last ten years, and extending the cuts would give households in that one percent $60,000 in additional breaks per year, with millionaires receiving a $150,000 annual break. Over ten years, that amounts to another $1.2 trillion in lost revenue. "
Compare his numbers to mine. WTF over? It's just plain lying! This infuriates me. Again 99% of our population won't even take the time to check the math so any politician can say anything and we're all gullible and lazy enough to just believe them. Therein lies the problem.
You suck at math.
Your math is really bad.
356,000,000 x 400= 142,400,000,000 (That's billions, not trillions). Everything after that is you jumping up and down, waving your arms and shouting out random numbers.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I did make a typo "T" instead of "B", but the math still works out to $1039/year per taxpayer and the 42B less to the government per year is actually 356M x 400 x 0.12 = 17B. Even less than my previous statement. So yeah, I did screw that calc up. Sorry about that. My points still stand and the math error supports my argument further.
Again, full disclosure here. I'm a working stiff that paid my way through school etc... I'm not a rich guy trying to convince everyone here that the Democrats are evil. I'm trying to take an objective viewpoint here with an ever-critical eye on what the government (Dems and Reps) is trying to pull.
My bigger-picture point is that we should ALL question the numbers that are being fed to us and check stuff out for ourselves. It's pure fallacy to believe everything at face value. My secondary point is that the 90% of people (the not rich) have every opportunity to get there if that's what they want. The government shouldn't be expected to hand it out. Hard work and education are paramount to succeeding. The 400 people at the top have most likely given up a lot to be where they are. Of course this is a general statement, but when I look at people like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates or ..., the statement is corroborated.
Comments are closed on this entry