I know I write about this stuff a lot, but it just blows my mind. The 2007 tax year data has been analyzed by the IRS and The Tax Foundation has put out a press release detailing some of the findings.
In 2007, the top 1% (income in excess of $410,000) paid 40.4% of the income tax burden, and the bottom 95% paid 39.4%. Some additional perspective:
--There are 1.4 million taxpayers in the top 1%. There are 134 million in the bottom 95%
--The cries of the Bush tax cuts benefiting the rich disproportionately are bunk. Since the tax cuts, the top 1 percent’s share increased 2 points while the bottom 95% share decreased 5 percentage points.
--The bottom 40% of taxpayers pay NO income tax--in fact, most get money from the government in the form of a check.
Don't believe the rhetoric. We have a phenomenally "progressive" tax system in which the rich in our country bear a heavier burden than the rich in most European countries. That 4 in 10 of our workers pay nothing toward the daily operations of the Federal government is a scandal.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
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3 comments:
I fault the Bush administration and GoP leadership in general for not making this point as eloquently and simply years ago as you have here today. Of course, they lacked a press corps who was nudging each other out of the way to be the willing mouthpiece that this administration so enjoys.
Yet, somehow, I would rather be in the top 1%.
bbauer - not me. i'm not willing to take the risks, exert the energy, lose the sleep, sacrifice "life" etc that many of these people have done to get where they are. the guy for whom i work is well into that margin. and today he has, what is by all appearances, one heck of a comfortable life. good on him because i know that he worked his ass off to get there. i'm not willing to do that...and most people who know me think i'm a workaholic so it's not as if i shy away from hard work. i'm just not willing to work THAT hard for
THAT long with THAT much risk and THAT much cost on the outside chance that it will all pay off. That it will all pay off, that is, until the Federal Government comes knocking at your door with a pitchfork wielding mob behind them to take more and more of what you justly earned. Nope. Not me. And not most Americans either. If so, we would have a lot more wealthy
Americans.
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