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Reply With QuoteThe WSJ is notorious when it comes to their inherent corporatist bias. It's not surprising that News Corporation eventually bought them.
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Secretary of Defense
It's easy to see where the uninformed get their so-called facts about issues, they simply buy into the GOP publications and drink the Kool-Ade.
Jeffrey Sachs: How the Wall Street Journal Distorts the Truth About Taxes
The Wall Street Journal is the leading mouthpiece for cutting taxes for the rich. The Journal editorial board is fully in the service of that cause. An editorial at the start of this week ("Where the Tax Money Is," April 18, 2011) is a vivid case in point. The Journal claims that IRS data prove the "fiscal futility of raising rates on the top 2%, or even the top 5% or 10% of taxpayers to close the deficit." The IRS data in fact prove exactly the opposite of what the Journal claims.
I direct readers to the The Tax Foundation - Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data presented by the Tax Foundation, October 6, 2010, No. 249. There the reader will find the data they need to discover how the Journal has gotten it all wrong.
Consider the top 1% of taxpayers. Even in a year that the Wall Street Journal acknowledges "was a bad year for the economy and thus for tax receipts," the top 1% reported to the IRS an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $1,685 billion dollars, amounting to 20% of the total reported household income that year, and around 12 percent of GDP. On this sum they paid $392 billion in taxes, an average tax rate of 23%.
The Journal writes that it is impossible to get enough income out of the top 1% to close the deficit, and invites us to undertake the "thought experiment" of taxing all of the income this group. In other words, the Journal claims that even the total income of the richest taxpayers wouldn't close the deficit. This claim is nonsense.
If the tax rate were 100% rather than 23% (and assuming in the Journal illustration an unchanged AGI), the extra revenues would be $1,300 billion, or 9 percent of GDP. Even allowing for other taxes already paid by the richest 1%, the incremental federal tax revenues would be at least 6 percent of GDP. Since every baseline scenario by the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget shows a deficit between 2013 and 2021 that is less than 6 percent of GDP, the total income of the top 1% would close the budget deficit entirely.
With great bravado, the Journal claims that even the income of the top 10% of the taxpayers wouldn't close the deficit. The top 10% reported $3,856 billion in AGI, equal to 46% of total reported income in the United States, almost 27 percent of GDP. On that, they paid $721 billion in personal federal income taxes, or an average of 18.7% of income. If the remaining 81% of income were paid in federal income taxes, the increment in tax revenues would be more than $3,100 billion, or roughly 21% of GDP. The budget deficit would obviously be closed many times over.
The real point is obvious. The money received by the richest households is vast, and higher taxes on the rich will make a major contribution to closing the deficit. Nobody says that the rich should carry the entire tax burden or that spending cuts shouldn't play a role. The waste in military spending alone is so large that we can and should save at least 2 percent of GDP per year from the defense budget alone.
America's richest households have enjoyed quite a ride in recent decades as they've accumulated a mountain of wealth unprecedented in human history, at a time when much of the rest of society has been suffering. The average income tax rate paid by the top 1% has declined from 34.5% in 1980 to just 23.27% in 2008. During this period, the share of total income accruing to the richest 1% has soared from 8.5% in 1980 to 20% in 2008. The share of total AGI accruing to the top 10% of taxpayers has similarly risen from 32% in 1980 to 46% of income in 2008.
It's really hard to understand what the Journal was thinking in writing its flawed editorial. Whatever that might have been, they have done us a huge service by drawing attention to the astonishing incomes received by America's richest taxpayers, coupled with the declining rates of average personal income taxation paid by this group.
Despite the media machine of the corporate sector and the relentless messaging conveyed by some of the world's richest people, including the Journal's owner Rupert Murdoch and his ally David Koch, the American people are coming to understand the outsized incomes and wealth of the richest Americans and the need for them to pay more in taxes to help close the budget deficit.
fiscal conservative, Constitutional Neo-liberal democrat
"I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat," Noted humorist Will Rogers
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Secretary of Defense
The WSJ is notorious when it comes to their inherent corporatist bias. It's not surprising that News Corporation eventually bought them.
Vice President
Last edited by Commodore; 04-20-2011 at 04:15 PM.
President
The fact remains that the most potential revenue exists in the $50K-$500K range, with the most by far in the $100K-200K range. Yeah, you can confiscate most of the income of the rich. Or you can tax the upper middle class more and get a lot more revenue.
The dirty little secret is that the upper middle class has become a rather huge group, and a very important group electorally. So important, that when Democrats talk about raising the SS tax, they want to create a donut that exempts income in the $100K-$250K range.
They just aren't serious, nor are they particularly brave. If Democrats want to raise revenue, have some balls and raise it from a broad base. Promising the public endlessly that we can provide all the services the public demands just by taxing the rich more is a lie.
President
Also, most of the advocates of higher taxation are part of the upper middle class. They know they will be exempt from the higher taxation and continue to live their relatively comfortable lifestyles. Raise their taxes, and they might have to eat out with colleagues at a four-star restaurant instead of a five-star.
Secretary of Defense
Can you provide a source that backs up what you're saying here?Originally Posted by adaher
I'm part of that class and I travel almost exclusively in a circle that includes members of that class.
I can't remember a single time that I've sat down with friends and we were all like, "Fuck yeah!!! Raise those taxes baby! Won't effect us!"
People who insist that "the rich" should be taxed more have a jealous streak through them a mile wide. They don't have what someone else has, and they know they're too fucking lazy to work hard and get it for themselves. They're not interested in "fair". They're interested only in what's fair to them. Period.
The only way to be "fair" is to tax everyone at the same percentage rate. Until then, the left will always whine about being the "have nots"...
Moderator
and I place these facts here once again:
Who pays taxes?
From the CBO…
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/coll...ity_shares.pdf
in 1999 in the grandly remembered Clinton years here is who paid how much of the tax burden:
Lowest Quintile 1.1%
Second Quintile 5.2
Middle Quintile 10.2
Fourth Quintile 17.8
Highest Quintile 65.6
Top 10% 51.0% (so the top 10% paid 51% that’s half for those that are math challenged)
Top 5% 40.2
Top 1% 24.3(and the top 1% paid 24.3% that’s one-quarter of all taxes for those that are math challenged)
Lowest Quintile 0.8 %
Second Quintile 4.4
Middle Quintile 9.2
Fourth Quintile 16.5
Highest Quintile 68.9
Top 10% 55.0% (so the top 10% paid 55% that’s more than half for those that are math challenged… and 4% more than they paid under Clinton)
Top 5% 44.3
Top 1% 28.1 (and the top 1% paid 28.1% that’s more than one-quarter of all taxes for those that are math challenged… and 4% more than they paid under Clinton)
More interesting still is people’s share of individual income tax liabilities. This chart shows the impact of programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit that actually will send back to the person filing more money than they paid in during the year.
Under Clinton:
Lowest Quintile -1.9
Second Quintile 1.3
Middle Quintile 6.1
Fourth Quintile 14.0
Highest Quintile 80.6
Top 10% 66.7%
Top 5% 55.1
Top 1% 35.0
Under Bush
Lowest Quintile -3.0
Second Quintile -0.3
Middle Quintile 4.6
Fourth Quintile 12.7
Highest Quintile 86.0
Top 10% 72.7 % (so the top 10% paid 55% that’s more than half for those that are math challenged… and 4% more than they paid under Clinton)
Top 5% 61.0
Top 1% 39.5% (and the top 1% paid 28.1% that’s more than one-quarter of all taxes for those that are math challenged… and 4% more than they paid under Clinton)
We are taxing the rich… the rich are the only ones being taxed. When the top 10% are paying 72.7% of the individual income tax liabilities you cannot say different.
Vice President
Facts do not matter to Liberals. Remember, to them, "It is not the evidence but the seriousness of the charge."
"No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
-- Patrick Henry
Joint Chiefs of Staff Member
We should be paying a flat tax on all income received. The problem the rich have with this is that in actual dollars, they are paying a lot more but it only makes sense because they make more.
If we all just gave up 25% of our total income to taxes whether you are at the bottom or at the top, if would take a massive chunk out of the deficit. It can be the simplest of tax laws. No write-offs, no refunds, no capital gains, no loopholes, etc. All that is needed is the total amount of income you made in a given year regardless of where you made it or how you made it and then we take 25% from that and that's your tax bill. This would allow us to save money on the IRS because we would not need so many people to get that working.
Vice President
If facts held any importance, the Pub Party would be dead and gone. Like some of the Dems, they live in a world of their own creation. I can see where the Pubs got this Nation. Started in 1980. No coincidence at all.
Moderator
That you can completly ignore the FACTS of who is actually paying... still...
25%? One everyone... every last man, woman and child. This includes people that are not paying anything now and about 20% of filers that are getting back more than they pay in now.
Fine... I'll agree. (it would cost me a bit more... but to get rid of the tax code and the IRS it would be worth it)
YOU get it through Congress. Better still get 'everyone to agree'
Moderator
True enough... and we are having the tax conversation in three threads. I've posted that three times this morning...
NO ONE has been bothered to address it. They just go one like they actually know what they are talking about when the facts show otherwise.
Vice President
Three times? I only saw it twice. Maybe you should add it to your signature in a shortened form.
"No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
-- Patrick Henry
President
I didn't say most upper middle class people favor tax increases. Only that the columnists and talking heads who favor it are. the upper middle class is actually probably the most anti-tax group out there.
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