Liberal Think Tank Inadvertently Undermines Media Spin: Almost All Millionaires Pay Higher Percentage Taxes Than Lower Earners
While most of the media continue to obsess about millionaires supposedly not paying their "fair share" of taxes, the liberal Brookings Institution has let the cat out of the bag concerning just how absurd this whole thing is.
According to the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, he discussed this issue with Brookings' William Gale, and disclosed his findings to Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday (video follows with transcript and commentary):
DANA MILBANK, WASHINGTON POST: I think the interesting thing about this is you see Obama talking about the “Buffett Rule” and the millionaire tax.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: I like the “Buffett Rule.”
MILBANK: How many people are going to be affected by this? I asked an expert at Brookings. A few thousand, maybe as few as 1,000 people in the country would be affected by this.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Who pay a lower tax rate than the poor people.
MILBANK: Than their secretaries or the equivalent to that.
Milbank was referring to his Wednesday column at the Post (emphasis added):
“It’s a good example of the murkiness of what we mean by small business and the connection to jobs,” William Gale, co-director of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution’s Tax Policy Center, told me...That’s even more so with Obama’s “Buffett Rule,” under which millionaires would have to pay a higher tax rate than a typical middle-class worker. As a practical matter, most already do. Gale said the rule would raise the taxes on only a few thousand people, perhaps as few as 1,000.
Most already do? That's putting it mildly.
According to the Internal Revenue Service, almost 237,000 people filed returns in 2009 with adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more.
If Brookings is right, that means that as little as 0.4 percent of these folks paid less percentage tax than "their secretaries or the equivalent to that." That means as much as 99.6 percent paid more, which of course goes hand-in-hand with what NewsBusters reported Monday.
With this in mind, the President is making an Everest-sized mountain out of the tiniest molehill ever observed in nature, and the media have largely been assisting him in stoking a populist rage based on practically nothing.
But let's give the current White House resident credit for naming this new tax the "Buffett Rule" as the Oracle of Omaha appears to be one of a select few it would affect if enacted.
Maybe the President should give him another Medal of Freedom.
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Comments
Good info.
Submitted by GregE on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:02pm.
Unfortunately, liberals decide the discussion. Sure, their number is way off, this time. But what if it was right? What if millionaires, on average, did pay less than their secretaries because the main portion of their income is capital gains? SO WHAT?!?!?
We are having the wrong argument. Just like Republicans all saying we should not be raising taxes "in a recession" as the reason they are against tax increases. Sure, that's A reason, but it's not THE reason. It's a sideshow. Conservatives are against tax increases...............because they are tax increases. Every American should be against those increases.
I don't give a rats arse whether the economy is in the tank, or booming. Right now it's in the tank, and to make the argument Republicans are currently making, implies that they'll be ok with tax increases in a good economy. BS. When the federal government reduces to it's enumerated powers, then I'll consider all tax increase proposals, based on the reason and Constitutionality of the proposal. Cut the waste and the BS, then come talk to me about tax increases. Until then, I'm against all of them and would hope every conservative would be as well, for the right reasons, not the "Reason of the Day."
exactly
Submitted by kata on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:11pm.
I've been perusing 2008 campaign ads today and I have to say that, without a doubt, Republicans have been pretty consistently awful about pursuing the wrong argument.
Maybe
Submitted by GregE on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:21pm.
.........in the old days one could get away with it. It still would be the wrong argument. But today, not a chance. All those saying we should not be raising taxes in a down economy have their words forever digitized to be pulled out later, with the click of a mouse (or touch of a screen) when they are against tax increases that come up during a booming economy.
Bingo!
Submitted by WhoIsJohnGalt on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 9:04am.
Precisely my argument when some Katty lib claims that "we all know that taxes HAVE to go up...they just HAVE to!"
"No representation without taxation" © CO2Maker
Submitted by CO2Maker on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:20pm.
That's my copyrighted slogan. If you don't pay taxes, you don't get a vote. That probably won't get past the anal Consitutionalistas out there, so I'll modify it:
Everyone gets one vote (per Constitution). Every taxpayer—that means, everyone who paid taxes, per their official tax return—gets a 2d vote. The IRS will issue certification cards, which the taxpayer will present to the local election board to qualify for a 2d vote.
I think alot of people have...
Submitted by GregE on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:29pm.
.....thought at some level about that situation, conceptually. And welfare recipients. Living on the public dole, you vote when you get off that dole.
A problem with no representation without taxation would be amount. Someone who never pays anything would say ok this year I paid $1, I'm voting.
Not just paying
Submitted by CO2Maker on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:38pm.
I should have been more exact. (Twitter effect: Not much complexity in 140 characters!)
If you pay $1000 but received $1001 in defined cash transfers, so your tax return zeroes out, you only get one vote. If you earn $40000 and manage to deduct enough so that your tax obligation is zero, that's only one vote, too.
But if you pay taxes above the amount of financial transfers you receive, then you get the bonus vote. Even if your tax is $1.
We're almost to the point where non-tax payers are the majority. Then it will be Katy-bar-the-door. If taxpaying voters get a second vote, then the critical mass of non-payers will rise to 66% before their vote can overrule the votes of taxpayers.
Like the 2/3 rule for
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 7:09am.
Like the 2/3 rule for counting slaves?
Nap
Submitted by Boudin on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:41pm.
It should be based on their salary. That way, folks who would not normally be required to pay, can opt to vote. On the w2 form there should be a box asking, you wanna vote? Checking it will take say 15-18% of their pay for taxes.
I like this alternative better
Submitted by MPH on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 11:54pm.
We're all supposed to be equal under the law. We all should bear the burden of government equally. The only way to do that is for taxes to be a per person fixed fee. Every citizen pays the same. Parents are responsible for their children's taxes until the year they turn 18 (or it could be 21, as long as it is the same for all). Anyone can pay anyone else's taxes without penalty to either party. Now everyone has "skin in the game".
As for "the rich", I'd rather they buy another car, boat, house, airplane, etc., helping the workers in those industries stay employed, than have the government waste it on studying dope smoking menstruating monkeys.
As for changing how we vote, Heinlein had an interesting idea expressed in Starship Troopers. One can only vote AFTER volunteering to serve a term of federal service, which is a minimum of two years, and can last until the government releases you.
MPH, the federal service idea
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 7:17am.
MPH, the federal service idea is good but can you imagine what would qualify for service under the lib interpretation? And by service Heinlein meant military service. Good idea but like all good ideas get screwed up in translation.
The cost of
Submitted by Boudin on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 7:59am.
Supporting a military that large would be a tad much no? And would not be nearly as good as the all volunteer one we currently have.
I for one am against forced service of any kind.
So, let's go ask the Source
Submitted by ThisnThat on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:44pm.
Buffet. He started this with the statement "I shouldn't be paying a lower tax rate than my Secretary. No one should. We need to be taxed more". Is Buffet really that dumb, that he can't even calculate his tax rate? Frankly, that might actually be true. He owes millions in un or underpaid taxes, after all.
Or did he do this to try to influence the economy or an election? I strongly believe this is the case.
My other question -- why does CNBC continue to interview Soros, Barney Frank, and Buffet? Frank and Soros were interviewed today. These three people have been proven over and over again to be major destructors of our economy. And CNBC continues to promote them. Disgusting.
__________
“Didn't win the Medal of Honor? Didn't even serve? Then lie about it. We'll support you." — 9th Circuit Court
Buffet. Now Opie.
Submitted by CO2Maker on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:47pm.
They want the gummint to raise their taxes. Why don't they just send in a bigger check and designate it for national debt (there is a way to do that)? They can even get a tax write-off for it, if they're in that frame of mind (sort of like driving with your foot on the brake and the accelerator at the same time.)
No. What they want to do is to gin up the envy and jealousy so that lawmakers change the tax rates. The Opie-Buffet Taxes of Evil want the Gummint to force people to pay more. They want coercive giving, more gumming muscle.
After decades of environmental activism, first with DDT and alar and then with global warming, many big companies have gone green—or at least they're saying so in their ads. Why not start a push for companies to brag about their fiscally ethical salaries and corporate giving, you know, "fiscal justice" to go along with "social justice" and "greenness"? Make *voluntary* corporate and executive philanthropy and tax-generosity become a laudable practice, something attractive, something to be shouted from news releases and commercials? No compulsory higher taxes, just high and noble donations.
Well
Submitted by KornKing on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 10:28pm.
Oops
Meet me at the mission at midnight
Buffett, you fat assed
Submitted by jdhawk on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 10:50pm.
Buffett, you fat assed turkey, here is the address where you can send your money to pay down the national debt:
Bureau of the Public Debt
Department G
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 2610-2188
Make your check to the "Bureau of the Public Debt."
The is just in case your "secretary" was too busy paying her taxes to look up where to make your contribution.
Oh! Wait. You owe nearly a billion to the IRS in back taxes. What a deadbeat.
We do the sacrificing and O'bozo and his friends like Buffett do the sharing.
What wasn't said and needed to be
Submitted by TheHistorian on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 6:28am.
What wasn't said, but needed to be, is that the last time liberals tried to play a "tax fairness" game, they wrote the Alternative Minimum Tax rules. That "millionaire" tax would now affect anyone over $100K dramatically if they did not rewrite the rule yearly. That the liberals insist on rewriting the rule yearly rather than getting rid of their stupidity in trying to make a tax code social engineering rather than fund a government is demonstration on their whole agenda.
Liberals, taxes are for funding the government. Tax code should be only for that purpose. If you want to be fair to all, you would not allow 1/2 of this country to pay no income taxes, and another 1/4 to actually get money back from taxes that they never paid. You would understand that it is folly to fund the government more than 90% from the top 50% of earners, as that gives the bottom 50% no skin in the game. You cannot be "fair" over only 1/2 of the income spectrum. Further, every time a liberal defines fair, it appears that this country suffers while a small group benefits.
Finally, a note to Warren Buffet and all liberals. If your conscience hurts you so much, then pay more taxes. Mr. Buffett, you are fighting with paying roughly $1billion in taxes. This is far less than 30% of your wealth; pay it as your grateful contribution to your country. Same with all of you medial liberals. If you want to pay more, whip out your checkbook and write a check.
Dennis Prager
Oh boy...
Submitted by pcnav on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 10:51am.
Looking at Buffet in that photo I have to ask... What good is receiving a medal when you had to buy it? Idi Amin decorated himself as well and it still meant nothing.
Hey!
Submitted by HockeyKid on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 7:19am.
That medal is every bit as valid and valuable as Obysmal's Nobel Prize.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me