Santorum just repeated the "50% don't pay taxes" lie on Hardball.

[rusty charly]

Matthews let it slide:

"When headlines scream "Nearly half of Americans pay no taxes," pundits smell blood in the water. Stories on a recent report from the Tax Policy Center finding that 47 percent of Americans owe no federal income tax said exactly that, leading to a spate of blogs and columns decrying a tax code that could allow such a miscarriage of financial justice.

Upon closer inspection, the report proved much less incendiary than reported by the Associated Press and various right-wing blogs. As the New York Times' David Leonhardt noted: "The 47 percent number is not wrong. But the modifiers here — federal and income — are important. Income taxes aren’t the only kind of federal taxes that people pay. There are also payroll taxes and investment taxes, among others. And, of course, people pay state and local taxes, too."

Leonhardt went on to succinctly summarize the rationale behind wealthy Americans having a significantly higher tax rate:

"There is no question that the wealthy pay a higher overall tax rate than any other group. That is an American tradition. But there is also no question that their tax rates have fallen more than any other group’s over the last three decades. The only reason they are paying more taxes than in the past is that their pretax incomes have risen so rapidly — which hardly seems a great rationale for a further tax cut."

http://tinyurl.com/426od9r

[jenmito]

1. He said "income taxes." n/t