Posted by
Kel-C on Monday, July 21, 2008 1:05:33 PM
This weekend at the Defending the American Dream Summit, John Fund from the Wall Street Journal previewed a piece that is available in today's edition.
You already know what it says. There are three big headlines I'd like to point out.
1) In 2006, the richest 1%, those who reported earnings over $388,806, are paying the biggest share of taxes they have ever paid in American history -- 40%. They only report 22% of the income. And this is three years after Bush's evil tax CUTS. The quote at the end of the article says it all:
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The way to soak the rich is with low tax rates. |
2) Obama intends to raise taxes on this group as well as many others in the top 5%. That group paid 60% of the taxes, while earning 39% of the income (this data is from 2005, so it is probably more in 2006 if the 1% trend holds). How much more does he expect them to pay? In the 1970's when rates were similar to what Obama is proposing, the top 1% only paid 19% because they worked less and put their money in tax shelters instead of letting it work in the economy building businesses and creating jobs.
3) The Bush tax cuts doubled the number of people who reported AGI over $1 million from 2003 to 2006, over 354,000 new millionaire earners. This group paid $274 billion in taxes. That's an average of almost three-quarters of a million dollars per person! $774,000 each in TAXES! They helped reduce the deficit in terms of GDP from 3.5% in 2003 to 1.9% in 2006. Yea, they don't pay enough.
What's not specifically covered here is the effect of the tax credits which effectively give income to lower-income people, especially those with children. I'm not sure how that affects these numbers, but I sure would like to know.
I think it is clear that in this recessing economy that any further tax hikes on those who create jobs will lead to further mysery. Obama clearly wants a dependent constituencey who see only the government as their salvation. The only way they will be happy is when those 50% below the median income level pay 0% of overall taxes as opposed to the oppressive 2.9% they pay now.