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Name: Tompaul
Birthday: 7/30/1976
Gender: Male
Interests: Travel. Writing. Theology. Photography. Movies. Food.
Expertise: Procrastination.
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/18/2004
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| Thanks to tax changes dating back to the late 1970s, the poor pay a significantly higher percentage of their income in taxes than the rich:
Who has benefited the most, in tax terms, from the Tax Revolt the Tea Party zealots are now so fervently seeking to extend?
The answer: The rich have benefited the most. The Tax Revolt that began back in the late 1970s has, in state after state, let the affluent off the tax hook.
In fact, notes the new Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis, “nearly every state and local tax system takes a much greater share of income from middle- and low-income families than from the wealthy.”
In the entire United States, the analysis adds, “only two states require their best-off citizens to pay as much of their incomes in taxes as their very poorest taxpayers must pay, and only one state taxes its wealthiest individuals at a higher effective rate than middle-income families have to pay.”
America’s most affluent 1 percent now pay, on average, just 6.4 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes. But they actually pay even less than that, since they can deduct their state and local taxes from their federal tax bill. The state and local tax burden on America’s rich, after taking this offset into account, drops to 5.2 percent.
Middle-income families — to be precise, those families who make up the middle fifth of America’s income distribution — pay, after the federal offset, 9.4 percent of their incomes in total state and local taxes.
America’s poorest families pay even more. Tax collectors take 10.9 percent of the incomes of households in the nation’s bottom 20 percent, more than double the share they take from the incomes of the nation’s top 1 percent.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy paper, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, covers non-elderly households. Incredibly, the study details, some states “ask their poorest residents — those in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale — to pay up to six times as much of their income in taxes as they ask the wealthy to pay.”
Now you could argue that none of this matters. The Tax Revolters, after all, didn’t claim that their tax cutting and capping would have low- and middle-income people paying taxes at a lower rate than the rich. They claimed, instead, that massive tax cuts, taken as an amorphous whole, would help just about everybody get considerably richer.
That hasn’t happened . . .
Back in the middle of the 20th century, governments in the United States routinely taxed the rich to pay for the programs that built a vibrant middle class. The Tax Revolt that began three decades ago, by demonizing taxes, gave the rich a free ride and gutted those programs.
That demonization today continues, with politicos beholden to that rich cynically fanning the Tea Party flames. They don’t care who gets burned. The rest of us should.
State tax systems need to be reformed so the poor don't get slammed while the rich slide by. With today's incredible squeeze on state--and home--budgets, the time has come. | | |
| Last night's Switchfoot at the Exit/In in Nashville = perhaps the best concert I've ever attended. No supporting act, just the entire new album--which I was glad I hadn't heard yet because it was a sonic blast of joy--plus plenty from the back catalog, with two extended encores. Simply phenomenal, aided by a sold-out crowd that couldn't have been more into it.
Lisa and I first saw Switchfoot ten years ago opening for the late, great Delirious. There were only three in the band back then, and they all looked like high schoolers, but when they tore into "Company Car" I was sold. Over the years, and with the addition of one of my favorite musicians, Jerome Fontamillas (of the late, great Fold Zandura), they've just kept digging deeper. The Beautiful Letdown has long been my favorite album, but Hello Hurricane is definitely fighting for first now in my book. | | |
| I'm in the midst of a whirlwind tour of the Midwest, shooting interviews for an upcoming documentary on the Ultimate Workout. Yesterday took me to Berrien Springs, Michigan; today, Rockford, Illinois; tomorrow, Lincoln, Nebraska; and Friday, Kansas. Then Saturday, I'm buzzing home in time for church. So far the weather's been gloomy but calm, and I'm getting some great stories and quotes.
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| From cnn.com, a 19-year-old avoids criminal charges . . . because his facebook status update placed him elsewhere. | | |
| If Obama wants to avoid being a one-term president, he needs to get American troops out of Afghanistan before the midterm elections.
The Daily Show, in particularly fine form last night, reflected on the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union. Could such a thing ever happen again? They explored the parallels--a once-great empire in economic freefall, a charismatic new leader promising change . . . But, correspondent John Oliver added, all that was compounded by the Soviet Union's disastrous attempt, ten years earlier, to invade and occupy Afghanistan.
We've already been in Afghanistan 8 years. This year's troop increases have only brought more deaths, while helping the Taliban win the propaganda war. As long as America remains in Afghanistan, the region's distorted view of America, democracy, and freedom will only increase. As painful as it is to admit, we must leave Afghanistan to sort out its own problems, knowing that our departure will make that easier, not harder. | | |
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