Republican Abundance: The Scapegoating of the Poor
[First two paragraphs updated and edited for clarity and additional detail]
At the height of the dreadful debt-ceiling debate, Pastor Rick Warren said this: tweeted this before removing it and apologizing to me for how mean-spirited it sounded:
Yes, it did sound mean-spirited, but it isn't any different than what Fox talkers say all the time. Here's a particularly illustrative clip:
Fox viewers and yes, even Pastor Warren might be forgiven for having the perception that half the country is shirking their patriotic duty, except that the entire construct is invalid to begin with.
With the tax reform debate about to heat up in Washington DC, this recent New York Times editorial struck me as particularly appropriate:
Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, and several senators have made similar arguments, variations of the idea expressed earlier by Senator Dan Coats of Indiana that “everyone needs to have some skin in the game.”
This is factually wrong, economically wrong and morally wrong. First, the facts: a vast majority of Americans have skin in the tax game. Even if they earn too little to qualify for the income tax, they pay payroll taxes (which Republicans want to raise), gasoline excise taxes and state and local taxes. Only 14 percent of households pay neither income nor payroll taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution. The poorest fifth paid an average of 16.3 percent of income in taxes in 2010.
Economically, reducing the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit — which would be required if everyone paid income taxes — makes no sense at a time of high unemployment. The credits, which only go to working people, have always been a strong incentive to work, as even some conservative economists say, and have increased the labor force while reducing the welfare rolls.




