Say Todd, what percent of taxes did that 1 percent pay?

Statitics don’t lie, but liars use statistics.

Posted by: jones at August 13, 2004 04:40 PM

Roughly a third.

Posted by: Lakhim at August 13, 2004 04:44 PM

If Social Security, Medicare and other federal levies are excluded, the rich are paying a higher share of income taxes this year than they would have paid with no tax changes, the CBO found. If none of the tax cuts had passed, the top 20 percent would pay 78.4 percent of income taxes this year. Instead, they will pay 82.1 percent. In contrast, the middle-class share of income taxes dropped to 5.4 percent, from 6.4 percent if no tax cuts had passed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61178-2004Aug12_2.html

Posted by: wafflestomper at August 13, 2004 05:01 PM

the democrats should have not factored in social security in their requested study. a guy making $90k and one making $900k pay the same social security tax - $5,394 in 2003.

when the entire population has their income increased, only those making less than $87.9k pay more in soc sec. without any tax changes in a growing economy, you would anticipate that the wealthy pay a smaller proportion as defined in the article every year because of the limit on ss.

in other words, it was nothing that bush did or proposed…

Posted by: wafflestomper at August 13, 2004 05:57 PM

Are people really so bad at math that they think the CBO has a better argument than Waffle Stomper/Washington Post???

And I thought the phrase was, “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure”?

Posted by: TBox at August 13, 2004 05:59 PM

If Social Security, Medicare and other federal levies are excluded

So, if you take away the taxes that working people actualy pay, and compare that against taxes paid on investment income, which the top 20 percent rely on for a disproportionate share of their income, then . . .

Who is doing this brilliant “analysis”?

Republican aides on Capitol Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the tax cuts actually made federal income taxes — as opposed to total taxes — more equitable.

Statitics don’t lie, but liars use statistics.

Yes, if you torture statistics long enough they will confess to anything.

Posted by: Todd at August 13, 2004 06:01 PM

And yet I never hear for a call to lower SS, Medicare, or other “federal levies.” No, everyone wants to muck about with income taxes.

Posted by: TBox at August 13, 2004 06:08 PM

I will gladly stop paying my SS and Medicare taxes, too, if that makes everyone happy.

And I believe the expression is:

“Women may lie about their figures, but liars? Go figure!”

Posted by: DWC at August 13, 2004 06:31 PM

TBOX,

I have heard both.

Teresa/TERAAAAAASA kind of thing.

Posted by: jones at August 13, 2004 06:31 PM

you understand that social security is an entitlement, todd? it isn’t the same as an income or sales tax. that money is meant to be paid back to those who paid in. it’s limited because the pay out is limited.

leave medicare in. or not. whatever. it’s not the one driving the point of the story. it’s a flat tax. everyone pays 1.45%. the only way that the wealthy pay a lower proportion due to medicare would be if the wealthy weren’t making income gains as strong as the poor. didn’t you, todd, post an article recently suggesting that the separation between the wealthy and poor was widening?

federal levies? i pay few federal levies directly, so i can’t give a good common example. so i consider the state. you think that property tax should be based on what the person’s income is or the value of the land? should the registration fee on your 1973 ford pinto increase when you win the lottery? these are fixed fees or costs, like medicare, on a transaction.

So, if you take away the taxes that working people actualy pay, and compare that against taxes paid on investment income, which the top 20 percent rely on for a disproportionate share of their income, then . . .

you’re using a change in the proportion as a means to bash bush when the fact that everybody pays less taxes as a whole gets little mention??? oh cry me a river.

Posted by: wafflestomper at August 13, 2004 06:33 PM

and then i forget the big ones.

todd wants the rich man to pay more in gasoline tax because now the man isn’t paying 63% of all gas taxes collected.

and the man isn’t paying paying 63% of alcohol taxes.

and the man isn’t paying 63% of tobacco tax.

when the total funds collected dropped because income tax dropped, these taxes became a larger proportion of everyone’s total taxes.

if the wealthy get any decrease in there income taxes - even the slightest 0.1% reduction, their proportion of the total taxes will decline because the poor pay nothing in income taxes and no changes have been made in these other taxes.

the only way to maintain the proportion is to not have any flat taxes. is this what you are favoring?

Posted by: wafflestomper at August 13, 2004 06:55 PM

why am i constantly becoming logged out here? is it type key or something i’m doing?

Posted by: wafflestomper at August 13, 2004 06:57 PM

Bushes tax cuts aren’t “skewed” in any way whatsoever; they are across the board rate cuts. But since Reagan left office, the Democrats in Congress have managed to skew the income tax itself so heavily toward higher income earners that it’s impossible to cut marginal tax rates by the same amount for everyone without it being “a tax cut for the rich.”

Which of course it’s not. The government doesn’t tax wealth, it taxes income, which means if you are a struggling screenwriter making $15k a year washing dishes and then get lucky one year and sell one of your screenplays for $200k, the government is going to help itself to most of it, even if you, your wife and kids have $100k in debt and live in the back of a car.

The income tax on individuals and businesses is simply immoral. Complaining about this tax cut vs. that tax cut is a little like reaching into a bucket of shit, pulling out a couple of turds and then complaining that one smells worse than the other.

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at August 13, 2004 07:04 PM

WS:

Yes, I personally would favor a flat tax rate because, being in the top 20%, I would most likely benefit from a reduction in my effective tax rate.

But I think you are chasing a rabbit down a hole of your own making. I am not suggesting all taxes should be progressive. I was suggesting that you can’t just subtract out the taxes actual taxes that the bottom 80% pay and say “see, it isn’t so bad.” There is a way to account for what you are suggesting, but the annonymous republican staffers (not the WaPo) didn’t do that. They said excluded not proportionately accounted for, which I believe was your point regarding Social Security.

Posted by: Todd at August 13, 2004 07:17 PM

I was suggesting that you can’t just subtract out the taxes actual taxes that the bottom 80% pay and say “see, it isn’t so bad.”

no - these apply to 100% of income brackets. but at any rate, do people really think that the dollar that they’re saving is no good if someone else saves two?

bush proposed and congress passed income tax cuts. now, the uneducated might read such an article as you have posted and think that the middle class pays a bigger share of the nation’s income taxes than before, which is untrue. the same cbo (not the aide) that gave the reapportionment stats announce that the rich are paying a higher proportion of the income taxes. from the anonymous republican aide:

“Are the rich paying their fair share?” asked one GOP aide. “Yeah. They’re paying more.”

‘more equitable’ in the context of the quote you pulled meant the rich pay more. (poor choice of words imo, but nonetheless its meaning)

look at the nyt’s headline which you more or less used for this article - tax cuts favor the wealthy. i think i have shown it clear enough that this does not mean proportionally. the nyt is suggesting tax cuts favor the wealthy because the magnitude of the tax reduction is larger. well i’ll be. a dog bit a man. who’d’a thunk. the poor could’ve had a 100% reduction in income tax, the wealthy 0.1%, and the tax cut still favors the wealthy by the definitions of the nyt.

The new estimates confirm what independent tax analysts have long said: that Mr. Bush’s tax cuts have been heavily skewed to the very wealthiest taxpayers.

this is what the analysts were talking about? the super wealthy got a larger tax break as measured in dollars? who are these geniuses? did they really need a study by the cbo to confirm this statement? i could have saved them 3 months time and hit all the doubters on the head with a baseball bat. you’d think that there would be more to their suggestions than the absolute value of the tax break.

The dems wanted the cbo:
to estimate the distribution of the tax cuts among income levels, and compare that to tax levels if none of the cuts were passed.

and the answer is that the wealthy pay an even bigger percentage of the national income tax now as a result of the changes. nyt slant be damned.

now if the data were to suggest that the middle classes were paying a greater share, this story has legs. that’s what the dems were thinking it was going to show - not this. some dems are flaunting numbers that suggest this - when they include the regressive taxes and entitlements, which turns this into another ‘dog bites man’ story. do i need to explain again why it is retarded to include these numbers into this comparison?

They said ‘excluded’ not ‘proportionately accounted for’,…
i’m not following - can you provide an example of how you proportionally account for social security, medicare, gasoline tax…? in my mind, there is no middle ground between including and not including these elements.

Posted by: wafflestomper at August 13, 2004 11:49 PM

..top 20% pay 83% of the tax paid in, but only get 66% of the tax cut.. go figure..
http://forum.hunting.net/asppg/tm.asp?m=709073

Posted by: Rob_NC at August 14, 2004 02:32 AM

..top 20% pay 83% of the tax paid in, but only get 66% of the tax cut.. go figure..
http://forum.hunting.net/asppg/tm.asp?m=709073

Posted by: Rob_NC at August 14, 2004 02:33 AM

I realized after reading a Hardball transcript last night that all Todd is doing is recycling Paul Krugman’s talking points. C’mon Todd, surely you can do better than that!

Chads

Posted by: Chads at August 14, 2004 10:15 AM

Also, people like to bitch about the Dividend tax.

One year about 4 years ago my brother in law got a very signifigant bonus as he had met some high sales quotas for his company. The Bonus was taxed as dividends instead of regular earnings at, can’t remember exactly, about a 46% rate! Is that fair?

Chads

Posted by: Chads at August 14, 2004 10:18 AM

A survey done a while back showed that most people think that the “rich” ought to pay about 25% of their income in Federal taxes. That was considred “fair”.

So according to the “average” American the “rich” are over taxed.

Plus we have not even considered the Subchapter S Corp. which is taxed at individual rates rather than corporate rates. Taxing them more heavily reduces the growth of small business. Small businesses are the main job creators.

So raising income taxes reduces job growth.

Is that really what Todd et. al. want. To kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs. I fail to see the wisdom in that, however I’m no “progressive” so maybe one of them can explain it to me.

The deal is raising taxes lowers economic growth. Which lowers the # of jobs available to the less well off. Requiring more government handouts which reduce productivity. Because people on the dole don’t produce.

France and Germany have been running such a system for years. Their unemployment has been stuck at around 10% for over ten years. Why that is a good idea escapes me but then I’m no longer a “progressive” (translation - socialist bordering on communist).

Posted by: M. Simon at August 15, 2004 01:05 AM

M. Simon The difference being the former is BigBrother whilst the latter is BegREDBrother.

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at August 15, 2004 08:03 AM

..this is something imo that realy should be looked at…
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/sketch.html

Posted by: Rob_NC at August 15, 2004 10:01 AM

The democrats and statistics abusers won’t stop until only Bill Gates pays ALL the fricken taxes, and he decides to move to Tahiti and let the poor democrats starve!! ha ha ha I like the flip flopping of the dems on the issues….it reminds me of those two women Senators from California…and how quick they changed their tune when they figured out that North Korea had missiles that could ONLY reach California and no other state!! ha ha ha
Weakness and appeasement will cause their deaths too…keep it up you dumb libs!

Posted by: dickmr at August 16, 2004 12:48 AM

I’m more interested, Rob, in studies on the economic effects of a transaction tax being used to fund the whole Federal Gov’t.

Posted by: TBox at August 16, 2004 07:36 AM

Such as at www.apttax.com

Posted by: TBox at August 16, 2004 07:39 AM

We need to drop the phrase The Wealthy from the current political lexicon. It smacks Far too much of (dread) Class Warfare being waged against them.

The current term should now be the “Have-Mores.” They are Dubya’s Base.

Posted by: Don at August 16, 2004 11:29 AM

Yes Don, then let’s stop calling people poor. Let’s call them the Have Enoughs.

Sound good?

Posted by: skip at August 16, 2004 12:06 PM

Give it your best shot — see if it plays well Out There.

Remember, that Out There does not equate to You.

Posted by: Don at August 16, 2004 01:16 PM

have more than whom, Don?

Posted by: skip at August 16, 2004 02:36 PM

Guys, if you check the actual report, you’ll find out two things:

First, the amounts are estimated based on some pretty simplistic models, since they assume that no one modifies their behavior to match the new rules, and that the economic growth is linear.

Second, they cherry-picked the tables: 2004 has the upper quintile paying “just” 63.5 percent of total taxes, down from 64 percent in 2003 — but up to 64.5 percent in 2005. If they hadn’t picked just those years to make the story good, the upper quintile appears to be paying a larger share than previous years or with the previous tax code.

(See page 23 of the actual CBO report.)

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at August 16, 2004 03:37 PM

Don: “The current term should now be the “Have-Mores.” They are Dubya’s Base.”

Oh? And whose base is Soros? Kennedy? Edwards? Heinz? Lear? Spielberg? Springsteen? etc? Last time I checked, they are “Have-More-then-most-Have-Mores” No?

Posted by: v at August 16, 2004 05:59 PM

Skip: Damifino. It was Dubya’s phrase — ask Him what it means.

v: It was Dubya himself who called the “Have Mores” his base. If you think it’s a misnomer, you should contact the RNC and tell them that he should stop saying such stupid things.

Posted by: Don at August 16, 2004 06:23 PM

http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_luskin/luskin200408170858.asp

“This week I spoke with several senior staff members at the Congressional Budget Office. “Stunned” is how they feel about what the media has done with their report. “Frustrated” is how they feel about the media’s utter lack of willingness to let the report’s authors tell the story about what the report really says. “

Posted by: jones at August 17, 2004 09:17 AM

Yes, Luskin does a very good job of refuting the news stories about the CBO report. A very good job indeed.

The perfidy of the press is simply stunning.

How’s that for alliteration this early in morning? Eat your heart out Don.

Posted by: skip at August 17, 2004 10:05 AM

Don: “It was Dubya himself who called the “Have Mores” his base. If you think it’s a misnomer, you should contact the RNC and tell them that he should stop saying such stupid things.”

Dubya indeed says a LOT of stupid things. If it wasn’t for his gaffes, Doonesbury would be out of business. However, if you can get past the language barrier, the intent of the message is always cler and consistent. BTW, I am google-challenged, so would you please help me locate his “Have-More” gaffe.

Posted by: v at August 17, 2004 11:09 AM

V,

It was a quip in passing to a group of supporters. Squidward can’t take a joke. Just like he can’t disprove the SH/ Ansar al Islam connection he is hiding from.

Posted by: jones at August 17, 2004 11:34 AM

I’m liking the buzz about radically changing the tax code. I like the consumption tax idea and I’d love to see it get some traction this cycle.

What I like best about it is that it can pull the rug out from under the Democrats class warfare tactics.

Wouldn’t that be nice? No more BS about the rich getting more of a tax break. don’t buy, don’t pay tax. I’m liking it a lot.

Posted by: skip at August 17, 2004 11:35 AM

As someone above said, they highlighted the 2004 data and they’re NOT giving out the whole story. I posted on this a couple of days ago, analyzing the report briefly (I referenced the Post article, though). Here’s the climax:

What about that mean old 5th quintile? Those greedy money-makers that—as WaPo points out—had their burden lowered by BushTax in 2004? Well, if you’ve managed to get this far (and God bless you if you have), you already know what the answer is.

That six-tenths decrease in 2004 lasts exactly…one year. In 2005, it becomes a three-tenths INCREASE which climbs to eight-tenths in 2010. (which is pretty strong evidence that these cuts do not benefit the rich…at least not for more than one year). Let’s just take a second to look at that again…

Except for 2004, the richest 20% of households have a HIGHER tax burden under BushTax!

here’s the link:
http://fearbotulism.blogspot.com/2004/08/this-stuff-always-pisses-me-off.html

Posted by: Dead Serious at August 18, 2004 04:08 AM

Also, keep in mind the the CBO uses “households” instead of “taxpayers” which causes problems. They also don’t use the Adjusted Gross Income (what you report on your tax form) figure, they add other things to it, resulting in inflated figures.

Posted by: Dead Serious at August 18, 2004 04:18 AM

If you are serious about needed tax reform you should examine apttax. Anyone arguing tax policies without checking out the various systems out there are only pushing their own agendas or parties. Our country needs sincere examination and study, not the same sound bites pushed by the dimocrats or repulsivecans who suppress access to the table by Libertarians, Constitution Party and others. Thinkers, do not be spoon fed the gruel the major parties offer.

Posted by: asnoop at October 3, 2004 10:59 PM