Because honesty is extinct in Washington politics, I offer the following factual responses to president Obama's ridiculous assertions from his address to Congress the other night.
Excerpts:
Obama: "A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future."
Soapster says: According to Internal Revenue Statistics for 2005, the top 1% of earners (annual income of $390,000 or more) hold 22% of all the income in the Country. And yet, they pay 40% of the taxes!!
Additionally, be it known that the top 1% of earners pay as much in taxes as the bottom 95% of earners!!
The top 5% of eaners (annual income of $154,000 or more) hold 37% of the wealth in the Country. And yet, they pay 60% of the taxes!!!
The top 10% of earners (annual income of $108,000 or more) pay 70% of the taxes. And lest we forget, since 2005 these figures have gone up!
These numbers simply do not comport with a transer of wealth to the wealthy. A Tax Foundation Study from 2004 asserted as much.
“America’s lowest-earning one-fifth of households received roughly $8.21 in government spending for each dollar of taxes paid in 2004. Households with middle-incomes received $1.30 per tax dollar (nearly breaking even), while America’s highest-earning households received a mere $.41 in government spending to their tax dollar.” The report further found that “government spending targeted at the lowest-earning 60% of U.S. households is larger than what they paid in federal, state, and local taxes.” Case in point, the wealthy are subsidizing the poor and, as the report indicates, to an estimated tune of between $1.03 and $1.53 trillion dollars (that’s right I said TRILLION) which was redistributed from the two highest income quintiles to the three lowest.
Obama: Not because I'm not mindful of the massive debt we've "inherited" [emphasis is mine]
Soapster says: The public debt Obama inherited was around 37% of GDP. Comparatively, our public debt after WWII was about 102% of GDP.
When Bush left office the annual budget deficit was $455 Billion (indeed a sad state of affairs). Since Obama's taken office, he and the Democrats have ballooned it to $2 Trillion vis-a'-vis their "stimulus" package.
16 comments:
Soap,
Lets be honest...you are using federal income tax numbers and not including payroll taxes.
We also need to realize that the 'bottom' group starts at zero income and realistically, if we claim a poverty level then should we not subtract out the people below poverty?
If you do that then you realize that the numbers are skewed by the fact that those under the poverty level get even a higher percentage of the funds.
But you cannot say, looking at wages that there has not been a transfer of wealth. Annual wages is NOT a measurement of wealth.
If I derive all my income from interest and I earned 40,000 a year in interest that is taxed at 15% of if it is dividend income it would be taxed at 10%. That may be my income for the year BUT IT IS not a measurement of my wealth.
Tax policy is one of my greatest political interests TAO. I've seen enough studies, reports, and data. So much that you'll never convince of the fact that the wealthiest among us shoulder the burden overwhelmingly.
That's point enough for me.
WELL, then we can claim that we have a progressive tax policy!!!
What is more fairer than that? :)
Personally, I see nothing wrong with me paying more taxes than someone who has less income than I do...
Then on principle I gather you'd have no compunction with paying more for a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, a house, a car or any other such item because..well you can afford to.
Well of course richer people can afford more expensive cars and houses, BUT they get to choose what they want to spend more money on and what they will spend little or nothing on. When it comes to taxes, which are spent on things many of us know to be unconstitutional, then we have no choice where our money goes, and its frustrating as hell.
Tao, if you feel strongly that you should help people who can't afford their homes stay in them, then you set up a fund or foundation to help them, some of us do not like to reward irresponsibility, but you are welcome to do it with your money if you wish. That is how it should work! Not forced wealth redistribution through taxes.
This is not to mention how all the "special projects" that got thrown into the huge spending bill which are a waste of our tax dollars.
Our tax dollars should be small, because the role of the federal government is suppose to be small.
Does anyone think Pres. Obama has ever read the actual Constitution??
What gets me as well is that we pay more in taxes to the Federal Government only to then have legislators clamor for earmarks to bring those tax dollars back to their state.
Seems to me that citizens of a state would be far better served being given the option of voting on a referendum to fund this that or the other thing within their state without it funneling through the hands of Washington bureaucrats who shave whatever portion off to pay off their special interests in their quest for reelection.
Not only that Soapie but last night Glenn was pointing out on his show that people in states with no state income tax cry that they need the federal government to fund projects in their state and he was like, if people in your own state don't want to pay for certain projects, why should I?
AND it is because of those legislators needing to clamor for funds for their state that constituents are more likely to re-elect incumbents because they figure they need someone with seniority who can get the damn special project monies for their state. It backasswards thinking in my opinion.
I recently read a report about the housing bubble. 7.7% of folks were behind on payments. Some free market geniuses figured they could 'bundle' these mortgages and sell them at a higher rate, since the risk/return was higher. So brilliant was this, that 'bundles' were 'rebundled', leveraged and resold at even higher rates..until
we see cubed CDOs of worthless paper being bandied about by our
Wall Street experts. Oh, the 7.7%?
..peanuts, the bankers lost 60%.
Laizzes Faire...invitation to the stupid to loose the $$$ of the even more stupid...and a colossal redistribution of wealth..down the sewer. Leverage..anybody ever read about 1929?
soap...i love this post. why doen't anyone listen? we are already taxed more, much more. there is already wealth re-distribution.
i went to one of the tea parties last Friday (have you heard of teem?) i think you would have loved the key note speaker. he said to call it what it is tyranny. he also asked us to consider if we are wiling to take on the phrase "give me liberty or give me death"
you can see a video and a post about the tea party on my blog.
kw
Thanks for the kind words Kris. It's pretty amazing this class warfare isn't it. I can't quite get over this notion that people think the wealthy got wealthy merely by screwing the little guy. Of course there are instances where this is probably true (Ken Lay comes to mind as does Madoff) but I don't believe these scenarios to be the norm but rather I believe them to be the exception.
And yes, with respect to the proclamations of a one Patrick Henry "Give me Liberty or give me Death.", I've been willing for quite some time. Because you see, it is my firmly held belief that without liberty, life simply isn't worth living.
soap, sorry for all o0f the typos. i got a new eee pc for my b-day and it has a REAL small keyboard.
kw
Don't worry about it Kris. I'll have my secretary take care of those. ;-)
There hasn't been honesty and truth coming from our government since our founding fathers.
Stock tip - Vaseline - we're all gonna be using a lot of it for the next for years!
i feel as though the stats on the actual tax burden for the rich falls on deaf ears.
also, the less money the 'rich' have, the less they will spend and this effects a WIDE range on luxury industries
why are we so stupid? shy do we insist on kicking ourselves when we are down? why is this man our president?..i still can't believe it
What I can't believe is why Republicans still want to adopt some watered down versions of his policies.
We've got problems and big ones. A revolt should come soon.
" opportunity to invest in our future."
That is Obama's code-word for overtaxing the ruled in order to enrich the rulers.
Beth: Obama can't be bothered to read the stuff Congress sends him to sign. And his statement about "bitter" people clinging to their 1st and 2nd amendment rights indicates his contempt for the Bill of Rights.
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