The Rich Don't Pay Enough? Walter E. Williams Exposes the Obama Lie!!!
If you listen to America's political hacks, mainstream media talking
heads and their socialist allies, you can't help but reach the
conclusion that the nation's tax burden is borne by the poor and
middleclass while the rich get off scot-free.
Stephen Moore,
senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal, and I'm proud to
say former GMU economics student, wrote "The U.S. Tax System: Who Really
Pays?" in the Manhattan Institute's Issue 2012 (8/12). Let's see
whether the rich are paying their "fair" share.
According to IRS
2007 data, the richest 1 percent of Americans earned 22 percent of
national personal income but paid 40 percent of all personal income
taxes. The top 5 percent earned 37 percent and paid 61 percent of
personal income tax. The top 10 percent earned 48 percent and paid 71
percent of all personal income taxes. The bottom 50 percent earned 12
percent of personal income but paid just 3 percent of income tax
revenues.
Some argue that these observations are misleading
because there are other federal taxes the bottom 50 percenters pay such
as Social Security and excise taxes. Moore presents data from the Tax
Policy Center, run by the liberal Urban Institute and the Brookings
Institution, that takes into account payroll and income taxes paid by
different income groups. Because of the earned income tax credit, most
of America's poor pay little or nothing. What the Tax Policy Center
calls working class pay 3 percent of all federal taxes, middle class 11
percent, upper middle class 19 percent and wealthy 67 percent.
President
Obama and the Democratic Party harp about tax fairness. Here's my
fairness question to you: What standard of fairness dictates that the
top 10 percent of income earners pay 71 percent of the federal income
tax burden while 47 percent of Americans pay absolutely nothing?
President
Obama and his political allies are fully aware of IRS data that shows
who pays what. Their tax demagoguery knowingly exploits American
ignorance about taxes. A complicit news media is only happy to assist.
We might ask ourselves what's to be said about the decency of people who
knowingly mislead the public about taxes. Of course, I might be all
wrong, and true tax fairness dictates that the top 10 percent pay all
federal income taxes.
Aside from the fairness issue, 47 percent of
taxpayers having no federal income tax liability is dangerous for our
nation. These people become natural constituents for big-spending,
budget-wrecking, debt-creating politicians. After all, if you have no
income tax liability, what do you care about either raising or lowering
taxes? That might explain why the so-called Bush tax cuts were not more
popular. If you're not paying income taxes, why should you be happy
about an income tax cut? Instead, you might view tax cuts as a threat to
various handout programs that nearly 50 percent of Americans enjoy.
Tax
demagoguery is useful for politicians who prey on the politics of envy
to get re-elected, but is it good for Americans? We're witnessing the
disastrous effects of massive spending in Greece, Italy, Ireland,
Portugal and other European countries where a greater number of people
live off of government welfare programs than pay taxes. Government debt
in Greece is 160 percent of gross domestic product, 120 percent in
Italy, 104 in Ireland and 106 in Portugal.
Here's the question
for us: Is the U.S. moving toward or away from the troubled EU nations?
It turns out that our national debt to GDP ratio in the 1970s was 35
percent; now it's 106 percent of GDP. If you think we're immune from the
economic chaos in some of the EU countries, you're whistling Dixie. And
when economic chaos comes, whom do you think will be more affected by
it: rich people or poor people?
Some douf remarked that people couldn't afford to eat enough without confiscatory taxes and redistribution of wealth. This is because redistribution has created masses of people who can earn a living, but don't, simply because it is much easier to mooch than find or make work in an emaciated economy. For 200 years, people took care of each other without the government's help, but suddenly all will end if the government stops doing it. No, what would happen is that people who had been paying the government to be charitable on their behalf with massive wastefulness hindering the charity could be truly charitable themselves, and more of their money would actually go toward important things like food and shelter instead of giving government "workers" a salary that is 50-1...
Some douf remarked that people couldn't afford to eat enough without confiscatory taxes and redistribution of wealth. This is because redistribution has created masses of people who can earn a living, but don't, simply because it is much easier to mooch than find or make work in an emaciated economy. For 200 years, people took care of each other without the government's help, but suddenly all will end if the government stops doing it. No, what would happen is that people who had been paying the government to be charitable on their behalf with massive wastefulness hindering the charity could be truly charitable themselves, and more of their money would actually go toward important things like food and shelter instead of giving government "workers" a salary that is 50-100% higher than the average wage in their community. Those with means would also have incentive to invest and create jobs, which would allow those who were lazy and didn't really need help to get back to work and reclaim their dignity.
Somehow that never enters the mind of these Robin Hood government types.
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." -- Benjamin Franklin
I fear we are approaching the time that Ben Franklin warned of.
NO, THEY DO NOT.
End of question.
When a guy making $20 million a year pays a lower effective tax rate than a guy earning $85k/yr - it's crystal clear that the wealthy have the ways and means of screwing the country. Thanks to their bought-and-paid-for GOP legislators.
And now - the GOP wants to give them more?! And the idiots here want to help them do it?
How stupid can they be....
http://www.americanthinker.co...
"President Obama's statements were made on April 16, 2008, at the Democratic Party presidential debate which was broadcast by ABC News and moderated by ABC's Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. The transcript of the debate states:
GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent. But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people ...
http://www.americanthinker.co...
"President Obama's statements were made on April 16, 2008, at the Democratic Party presidential debate which was broadcast by ABC News and moderated by ABC's Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. The transcript of the debate states:
GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent. But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?
OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness."
Simply put, Obama wants to punish the rich, not help the nation's economy, and it seems you agree with that goal.
http://www.americanthinker.co...
"President Obama's statements were made on April 16, 2008, at the Democratic Party presidential debate which was broadcast by ABC News and moderated by ABC's Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. The transcript of the debate states:
GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent. But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?
OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look...
http://www.americanthinker.co...
"President Obama's statements were made on April 16, 2008, at the Democratic Party presidential debate which was broadcast by ABC News and moderated by ABC's Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. The transcript of the debate states:
GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent. But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?
OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness."
Simply put, Obama wants to punish the rich, not help the nation's economy, and it seems you agree with that goal.
you're wasting your time posting poop from obscure blogs written by RWNJ's living in their mom's basement.
2) there is no empirical evidence in support of - and no economists of ANY stature who buy into - tinkle-down, Voodoo economics. None. Zero.
americanthinker.com guys in mom's basement? Yep. They'll write you a blog that supports trickle-down. All day. Bonafide econ professors at major universities? Not a chance.
While Charlie Gibson may be your source for economic data - he is not mine.
Come back if/when you have data from a half-way credible source.
Your words, verbatim: "there is no empirical evidence in support of - and no economists of ANY stature who buy into - tinkle-down, Voodoo economics. None. Zero."
You just revealed your abject ignorance as well as a shallow mind incapable of understanding concepts beyond the Third Grade level. First, it isn't "tinkle down" or "trickle down" as Alinskyites attempt to ridicule it - it is known as "supply-side" economics and insofar as empirical evidence goes, it has worked each and every time it has been used.
Certainly Prof. Walter E. Williams, John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Thomas Sowell, the Rose and Milton Friedman Distinguished Scholar at the Hoover Institute of Stanford University, and economist Arthur Laffer all support supply-side economics because it works.
Supply side economics worked when Calvin Coolidge tried it at the outset of the 1920s and gave us the "roaring twenties," it worked when JFK tried it in the 1960s and gave us the "go-go sixties," and it most certainly worked in the 1980s when it gave us "twenty years of economic growth, low unemployment and low inflation." ("The Turning Point," The Economist, September 22, 2007, p. 35)
But....they did. The robber barons have taken ALL of the gains in productivity over the past 30 years into their W-2's and stock option exercises - CRATERING the middle class, and thereby the middle class' ability to pay taxes. The progressive tax rate - which the numbers here are about - is a finger plugging one hole in a dike riddled with huge holes.
Until Williams (and his ilk) recognize - and work toward solving - the robber baroning evidenced by the charts below - statements like his - and yours by reference - are both intellectually and morally bankrupt.
And if you believe THAT, I got 100 acres of swampland in Arizona, cheap!
Dr Thomas Sowell has column out from last week and it is scary. I'll see if I can find it and post a question. If anyone finds it first, go for it.
And I always thought that, if I ever got to be President, I would name Walter E. Williams as head of the Council of Economic Advisers.