Figures.
I was on the bus this morning heading back to Ithaca from my Tea Party talk at the Cornell Club in NYC when I spotted on my PDA a post by Ed Morrissey about an AP Fact Check debunking Obama’s claim that secretaries pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires.
The millionaires and billionaires line is not just a line. It is the justification for Obama’s entire fiscal policy, including proposals for $2 trillion in taxes increases on “the rich” which have been announced by Obama in the past week.
My first reaction? Of course it’s false. How could we have a country where approximately 40-45% of people pay no federal income tax, yet millionaires and billionaires pay at a higher lower rate? The whole line smelled, and now it has been exposed.
My second reaction? Damn, I can’t post about this because using the laptop on the bus gets me carsick. So posting about the nauseating fiscal policy from the bus would have been a double dose of nausea. It could have gotten ugly.
When I finally landed, the story was pretty well covered all around.
But … has anyone trotted out Bill Clinton’s Iraq war “fairy tale” line and used it as to Obama’s “secretaries versus millionaires” fiscal policy?
“This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”
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Comments
Talking abour “fairy tales, this from somebody who is no conservative …
Just wait till they start wanting to “opt out.”
I want the option to opt out.
I believe that “secretaries” do pay a higher percentage of taxes than some “millionares” when you count the highly regressive taxes like property taxes and payroll taxes. However the problem is not that rich people keep too much of their own money, the problem is that government on every level spends too much and taxes are too high for the middle class. Public employee unions and the coercive education cartels are responsible for the greatest share of the high property tax burden. The next most burdensome taxes on the middle class are the payroll taxes which pay for the multigenerational wealth transfer disaster. Since previous generations have been payed more than their fair share, both public employees pension holders and social security beneficiaries, the burden on each subsequent generation of taxpayers will increase as their potential benefits from the system decreases. The problem can’t be solved by taxing the rich. The newest regressive “tax” is the green boot. As the tyrannous regulatory boot strangles the industries on which the average American relies to take care of their families, our standard of living erodes more. So yes Warren Buffet is correct, the secretary does pay more taxes, just not for the reasons that he thinks.
Just as a brief note, FICA (payroll taxes) are not regressive. It’s actually properly categorized as flat tax with a partial cap.
7.65% paid by employee & 7.65% paid by employee by the employer in the form of lower wages capped on the first $106,800 in wages, plus an unlimited 1.45% paid by employee & 1.45% paid by employee by the employer in the form of lower wages.
A truly regressive tax would be one where the more money you made, the less ACTUAL dollars you would pay. In terms of actual dollars paid, those who make more money will ALWAYS pay a higher tax amount.
Question: Why do you consider property taxes regressive? Anyone who lives in a dwelling pays them, either in the form of direct taxes or subsumed taxes into higher rent payments based on the value of the property.
Planning to tax the “rich” is like planning to have sex with Angelina Jolie. Theoretically possible, lovely to fantasize about, but very, very unlikely to ever actually happen. Total waste of time.
Buffett’s secretary could be one of them thar’s Millionaires…..
Apparently, Buffett pays his secretary very well, as one would expect. According to the 2011 Federal Tax Rates, in order to be in the 33% tax rate your income has to be between:
Single: $174,400 to $379,000; Obama Millionaire Threshold $200,000
Joint : $212,300 to $379,150; Obama Millionaire Threshold $250,000
….and that’s taxable income, not gross.
It is good to know that Obama could have her paying her fair share as well…………..
I didn’t see Obama speech (thank god), but apparently this was framed as a replacement for the old AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax), which has been slowly creeping into the tax returns of so many folks that it was never meant too, that every year for about the last decade, Congress has had to “band-aid” of the tax code to avoid being run down by angry taxpayers.
you wrote:
How could we have a country where approximately 40-45% of people pay no federal income tax, yet millionaires and billionaires pay at a higher rate?
but you mean:
yet millionaires and billionaires pay at a LOWER rate?
Yes, thanks, fixed
🙂
U R GREAT!
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And, do you remember what happened to Bill “the first black president” after he made that speech? Of course you do…….. 😀 He was called a “racist” – and Hillary was labeled a “racist” – by those same fairy-tale-creating newsies, faux reporters/writers, the MSM. I am sure they were doing the Rahmbo-communique, JournOListing coordination of attacks back then, too.
Sometimes I wonder, when I let my mind wander, what deal was cut by the Obama team with Bill and Hillary to keep them from taking down this narcissist Obama. I am sure Bill was more than hacked off when his fawning media worshipers turned on Hillary – and him. Hillary went into the convention with a bloc of voters and the potential to split the votes; but she didn’t. Was it more than just being offered the Sec. of St. and paying off her campaign debt? Or, were they just letting the failure unfold, as they were certain would come?
Because, as the old adage goes (was it Sun Tsu who said it?), “Never intervene when your enemy is destroying himself.” This video clip alone shows how clearly Bill knew – KNEW! – that Obama was a failure, and that the MSM was creating a mythical image – but their messiah-emperor had no clothes.
Expert Alinsky-ites and “third way” battle-scarred warriors like Billary would have been that shrewd, to let the man fail miserably. Although Bill has always been close by, he has been very critical in an almost bumbling, gee-whiz, I dunno kinda way. So it would not look intentional, of course; but it was, and he meant to expose the fraud.
So, this time, will Bill bail him out? I doubt it. I don’t think Bill would even try.