Working poor and "tax rage"

[Wiregrass Willie]

This is a quote from an old article, but it sheds a of of light on the way the GOP thinks about taxes for the poor.

Get Lucky
by Jonathan Chait
Post date 12.17.02


"...For instance, the editorial considers the example of a worker who earns $12,000 per year, and, after noting bitterly that he pays less than 4 percent in income taxes, concludes, "It ain't peanuts, but not enough to get his or her blood boiling with tax rage." In other words, the (Wall Street) Journal wants to raise taxes on the working poor so that they will have more "tax rage" and thus vote for Republicans...."

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021223&s=diarist122302

[Double T]

1. rethugs can be ranked: dumb, dumber, dumbest

[Warren DeMontague]

2. Certainly- but those taxes levied on folks making 12K a year DO perform a real budgetary function...

See, once most of the people have been reduced to a barely substinence existence on shitty minimum wage jobs, and the folks at the top are paying no taxes at all, that's where all the tax revenue is going to have to come FROM.

[Deja Q]

4. Are America's leaders going to ask amnesty from the world when D-Day comes?

D=Default because we can no longer pay back the debt, encouraged by frivolous spenders and their special interests who get exempted from paying their just dues?



(Edited: replaced 'off' with 'exempted')

[jwirr]

3. $12,000 a year? Most people making that much do not pay income

taxes - they are eligible for Earned Income Credits, aren't they?

[Jed Dilligan]

5. Earned ka-what?

When I made about 9,000 a year I regularly owed money on 4/15. It isn't worth shit if you aren't breeding for the reich.

[jwirr]

6. I take it that you are single. I have never made more that $12,000

a year and have never had to pay in. Also because I have taken care of a child my entire working life I had one dependent and could collect earned income credit.

[hfojvt]

7. the tax liability at $9,500 is $135

the earned income credit is $170 (yes, for somebody with no children - if you have a child, it jumps to $2,662).

I need to check form 8880, but I figure that at $11,300 income I will need an IRA contribution of $525 (okay, I just checked) to reduce my income taxes to zero, and I will get an EIC of $33.

The standard deductions and personal exemptions have gone up with time and so has the EIC. What the article ignores, of course, is that a person making $10,000 pays $1,530 in FICA taxes (including their employer contribution), which are currently being used to finance the Iraq war.