In their desperation to ensure that taxes are not raised on their corporate sponsors, Republicans have been successful in convincing their followers, as well as their poodles in the corporate media, that only the rich — not the poor and middle class — pay taxes.
That is not just a lie — it is a big lie. Via Andrew Sullivan:
Except they’re dead wrong. Michael Linden, at the Center for American Progress, crunched the numbers.
In the past 60 years, job growth has actually been greater in years when the top income tax rate was much higher than it is now.
For instance, in years when the top marginal rate was more than 90 percent, the average annual growth in total payroll employment was 2 percent. In years when the top marginal rate was 35 percent or less—which it is now—employment grew by an average of just 0.4 percent.
And there’s no cherry-picking here. Pick any threshold. When the marginal tax rate was 50 percent or above, annual employment growth averaged 2.3 percent, and when the rate was under 50, growth was half that.
In fact, if you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher. The top 10 years would share marginal tax rates at 50 percent or higher. The two worst years, on the other hand, were 2008 and 2009, when the top marginal tax rate was 35 percent. In the 13 years that the top marginal tax rate has been at its current level or lower, only one year even cracks the top 20 in overall job creation.
Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s constituents showed they are much smarter than he thinks they are. They aren’t buying the latest iteration of trickle-down, voodoo economics. And when he persisted in trying to get them to see it his way, they booed him. Let this be a warning to other tea bag Republicans who underestimate us. You need to throw out new red meat. We aren’t swallowing the old stuff.
Just in time for tax day, the White House provides this interesting little widget to make us feel better about whatever our tax return said.
On my own receipt, I’d like to see more than $20 toward science and space programs, and way less toward agricultural subsidies. Recent visits to the grocery store checkout line do not convince me of the need to prop up agribusiness, which seems to be doing all right for itself.
It’s also funny to see that I’m paying more than three times as much toward Social Security benefits as I am toward Medicare, in light of the fact that Republicans want to ax the latter.
Check it out for yourself and see how much you’re spending where.
In his campaign for governor last year, Gov. Jerry Brown promised to put that question on a ballot measure so that California voters could make the decision. Brown won in November with a 13 point margin.
Voters like the idea. A Field Poll released last week found that 61 percent of registered voters favor putting the measure on the ballot.
And, really, who would oppose such a small-d democratic move?
One of the first things Ronald Reagan did upon becoming governor of California in 1967 was ram a $1 billion tax increase — about $5.5 billion today — through the state legislature. The additional revenue was needed to balance Reagan’s first state budget, which included a deficit as well as a huge increase in government spending.
At the time, Reagan’s tax increase was the largest ever levied by a state — and it hit Californians right in the middle class:
Reagan campaigned in 1966 on cutting government, but his first budget exceeded [his predecessor Democratic Gov.] Pat Brown’s by half a billion dollars. “Taxes should hurt,” Reagan said, and they certainly did – especially for the middle class. The billion dollar tax increase to pay for that big increase in government spending was sweeping: the sales tax jumped from three cents to five; bank, corporation and inheritance taxes went up half a percentage point to six percent; liquor taxes rose from $1.50 a gallon to $2; cigarette taxes leaped from three cents a pack to 10; and the maximum income tax rose from seven to 10 percent.
In 1968, Democrats were able to stop another Reagan tax increase — this one on food, utility bills and services like haircuts. In 1971, he raised taxes on banks and corporations.
Despite the current mythology about Reagan, he was even more tax happy as president, raising taxes at least seven times during his eight years in office, including the largest corporate tax hike then to date.
It’s not just those lazy poor people on welfare and former ACORN workers calling for an end to the Bush tax cuts for millionaires. A group of millionaires is actually petitioning Congress to raise their taxes.
Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength are asking that the line be drawn at the $1,000,000 mark, which is probably where it should have been put all along. It’s much easier politically for Democrats to defend restoring taxes for the 375,000 true millionaires than for the “wealthiest Americans.” Just ask these folks.
We have done very well over the last several years…We don’t need more tax cuts, and we understand that cutting our taxes will increase the deficit and the debt burden carried by other taxpayers.
Even more interesting is this recap of the tax rate for millionaires. You won’t hear these numbers quoted in Republican arguments for keeping the Bush tax cuts.
During the Great Depression, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 68%
In 1963, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 91%
In 1976, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 70%
Today, millionaires have a top marginal tax rate of 35%
The group of about 50 original signers of the petition contains some of the usual suspects, like ambient musician Moby, and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s fame. Less well-known are Peter Norvig, an artificial intelligence and computer scientist; Rochelle Kaplan, former president of the National Council of Jewish Women Utah Section; and Robert S. Bowditch Jr., a real estate property manager.
You don’t have to be a millionaire to sign the letter.
Tea baggers like to say their group’s name stands for “Taxed Enough Already.” But as is the case with just about everything related to this corporate-funded, astroturfed protest mob phenomenon, even the name is wrong:
Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman’s presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.
Some conservative political movements such as the “Tea Party” have criticized federal spending as being out of control. While spending is up, taxes have fallen to exceptionally low levels.
Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2 percent of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12 percent for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8. percent of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.
From Trump’s “stolen election” lies, we can’t get no relief,
He carps on about stolen votes, but he never names the thief.
Somebody needs to tell this guy
Americans aren’t buying his lies,
And that he’s turned us into the United States of Disbelief.
