Tea Parties Rage as Taxes Hit Lowest Level Since 1950

[lame54]

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/taxes-hit-lowest-level-since-1950

Tea Parties Rage as Taxes Hit Lowest Level Since 1950
By Jon Perr Tuesday May 11, 2010 2:30pm

For almost a year and a half, furious Tea Party protesters have been chanting "Taxed Enough Already." But as it turns out, "taxed enough" actually means "at the lowest levels since 1950." That's the word from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which found that Americans paid the smallest overall tax bill since Harry Truman was in the White House. Of course, that inconvenient truth for Tea Baggers is tied to another: their plummeting payments are due in part to the tax relief delivered by President Obama.

USA Today summed up the BEA data debunking yet another right-wing myth:

Federal, state and local taxes -- including income, property, sales and other taxes -- consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.

"The idea that taxes are high right now is pretty much nuts," says Michael Ettlinger, head of economic policy at the liberal Center for American Progress.

That conclusion echoed a similar finding from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities last month. CBPP found

Middle-income Americans are now paying federal taxes at or near historically low levels, according to the latest available data. That's true whether it comes to their federal income taxes or their total federal taxes.

Several factors are fueling the reduced tax bill. For starters...

[edbermac]

1. We all know the TeaBaggers real problem.

They don't like taking it black.

[Scuba]

3. Secretly....

...they have or want black lovers.

[butterfly77]

23. Exactly...

[Vinca]

2. Teabaggers haven't got time to learn the facts before

stapling Lipton to their hats and making fools of themselves.

[old mark]

4. "Pretty much nuts" describes the 'baggers, too.....nt

[redqueen]

5. So... is it just trolls unreccing this, or what?

:rofl:

[SpiralHawk]

11. Republicons pay clods to come here and mess around

It one of their many occult activities....

[Rex]

6. 'Baggers prove that what they are doing is all smoke and mirrors.

Just a huge group of circle-jerkers imo.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. A Democrat won the presidency and the family living in the WH is BLACK

That's all there is to this nonsense. The right wing tried the same crap when Clinton was elected. They ALWAYS act like complete sore loser assholes when a Democrat wins the presidency. It's worse now because an African American family is sleeping in the White House.

[Dappleganger]

8. He's gonna...He's gonna...He's gonna...He's gonna...

What? We're still waiting for the sky to fall and it hasn't!

[maxsolomon]

9. wait till the bush tax cuts expire

then it will be SO UNFAIR! waaaaaah, i'm a little baby who can't be bothered to find out if my income tax will go up 3%!

[SpiralHawk]

Teabagging Republicons are THE Latter Day Pharisees

just further proof.

[Renegades of Funk]

10. WE ARE AGAINST THIS SORT OF THING!

[HughMoran]

12. Lol - just as I go to rec this, Ed Shultz is about to do a segment on this!

Don't miss it.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Scurrilous]

14. K & R

:thumbsup:

[gratuitous]

15. Isn't it nice?

When we were out protesting the imminent invasion of Iraq, the popular media just couldn’t figure out what in tarnation all the hoo-ha was about. Some people didn’t want to go to war because of the expense; others said it was the wrong solution; still others said we weren’t getting a straight answer out of the Bush administration. For most people, it was a combination of reasons which made it just too hard to figure out for the talking chuckleheads. But here, we have a picture of a guy in a rainbow fright wig – isn’t he funny? All those hippies are just funny, aren’t they? Nobody knows why they’re demonstrating, and there aren’t nearly as many out there as the organizers claim.

But the Tea Baggers come along, boy oh boy do the popular media have them figured out. No footage of goofballs in tea bags. No clips of misspelled signs warning us to “Keep Guvermint Out of Medicair!” And in the cacophony of voices, one coherent, rational narrative always comes through, loud and clear: Lower taxes! Cut spending! And the paltry turnout is really representative of several times as many people, so they’re really serious.

Of course, there’s no follow up: Your taxes are already the lowest in 50 years. What spending should be cut? The biggest expenditure in the federal budget is defense and two ongoing foreign occupations: Should that be cut? Nope, none of those uncomfortable (if obvious) questions ever gets posed. You might wonder why, but the media won’t tell you.

[Faryn Balyncd]

16. It is foolish to pretend that "only half" of the 15.3% payroll tax is paid by employees.....

The rise in the regressive payroll tax to 15.3% from the first dollar (to $97,500)has far more impact on everyday Americans than the income tax.

Yet it is routinely ignored, not only by radio demagogues (as when Rush Limbaugh repeatedly ignores payroll taxes when discussing federal taxes), but in this very study. The 12.4% FICA tax and the 2.9% Medicare tax are to be paid 50% by the employee and 50% by the employer. But the reality is that this is all money that is a tax consequence of the work done by a worker, which the employee does not receive, and which prevents the employee from receiving the wage he/she would otherwise receive. It is, in reality, a regressive tax on the employee, with a feeble attempt to use accounting terminology to disguise this reality.

This is important because since 1950 (the year mentioned in the study) there has been a decrease in both corporate and personal income tax (which has been a huge benefit to the most wealthy), which has been counterbalanced by a huge increase in the regressive payroll tax. When the FULL payroll tax (15.3) is properly credited to those workers who are counted as employees (and it is just as true that it is from their work and income that the tax comes, just as much as in the case of the self-employed and workers who are considered "independent contractors" who are currently the only ones that are said to be the payers of the full 15.3%) the truth emerges:

The truth that we then see is that taxes are NOT at their lowest level since 1950, but have increased by several % points (Most of the 6.2% "employer paid" FICA tax and all of the 1.45% "employer paid" Medicare tax DID NOT EXIST in 1950, and all of this, in reality, is paid by the employee). Adding this 7.65% in taxes to the working and middle class taxpayers whose income was lowered so that this tax could be paid, in order to finance tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, shows the real picture.

Yes, the tea-baggers got it wrong...... but not in the way they may have thought.

And repeating a MYTH that taxes on working Americans, including the great majority of the middle class "are at their lowest level since 1950" just reinforces a dangerous lie.

We need to correct falsehoods with truth, not twisted propaganda.






:kick:

[noiretextatique]

24. recommend

no one ever talks about payroll taxes.

[dsn]

25. I have only one problem with your writing

The concept that if there was no requirement for employers to pay half of an employee's payroll tax, salaries would go up. That sounds a bit like "if we cut an employer's taxes he will hire more people." No. If I was making $15 per hour at Jones & Co., and tomorrow morning the government decided to eliminate the requirement for an employer to contribute to payroll taxes, I would STILL be making $15 per hour.

[Kablooie]

17. They don't care about their OWN taxes. They want the super wealthy taxes decreased.

They are perfectly delighted to give up their own salary so the rich get more tax breaks.
They are caring, generous people, these teabaggers.

[malaise]

19. 100% correct

They work for the rich -Dick Armey's army.

[ck4829]

18. K&R

[lame54]

20. .

[marmar]

21. As Bill Maher says of Teabaggers: "Just admit that you're a bunch of racist sore losers."

nt

[femrap]

22. Selfish, greedy

baggers.

[KillCapitalism]

26. A 0.01% tax rate would be too much for these idiots.

They want to pay NOTHING, but they have no problems reaping the benefits of our tax system like SS & Medicare.

Ship 'em all to Somalia...no taxes, no government there, you'd think they'd see Somalia as a utopian paradise.