The Shameless Republican Race to Cut Rich People's Taxes

[stockholmer]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Shameless-Republican-Race-atlantic-899267927.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode=


Republican presidential candidates are falling over themselves promising to cut your taxes. Well, probably not your taxes. Somebody else's taxes. Somebody rich. First there was Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan, which would replace all of our current taxes with a 9 national sales tax, a 9 percent "business tax" and a 9 percent tax on income. Now Rick Perry says that his 20 percent "flat tax" is even better. Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/28/michele-bachmann-rick-perry-taxes_n_1063693.html says Perry stole her idea. But let's be clear: These are massive tax cuts for the rich, not for most of us.


The Cain 9-9-9 plan is breathtaking. http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=3222&DocTypeID=2 The poorest Americans would see their effective tax rate increase from about 5 percent to 18 percent. The typical household would pay $4,000 more than today. But the top 0.1 percent would get an average tax cut of $1.4 million and would pay an effective tax rate of 18 percent--lower than any other income group. That a plan so insane could be proposed by a leading presidential candidate just shows how crazy our political system has become. Although Perry's flat tax http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/how-rick-perrys-tax-plan-would-affect-you/ preserves the tax code for most families, he offers a special tax cut for the rich. A retired couple making $700,000 would be $75,000 richer under his plan. (To see a very tall graphical representation of Perry and Cain's tax plans, see Derek Thompson's charts.) http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/rick-perrys-tax-cut-for-the-rich-in-a-very-very-tall-graph/247635/

Poll after poll says that most Americans want to raise taxes on the rich. In one recent survey, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-10/cain-pulls-even-with-romney-on-economy-for-republican-supporters-in-poll.html more than two-thirds of respondents -- and even a majority of Republicans! -- favored higher taxes on households making more than $250,000 per year. Why are people who want to be elected president proposing the exact opposite of what the people want?

The most charitable answer is that they think lower taxes are good for the country. Reducing taxes on the rich would make them work harder, save more, and promote economic growth. This is the theory George H.W. Bush once called "voodoo economics," and 30 years later, he's still right.


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[valerief]

1. Rich people pay taxes? But Leona Helmsley told us only little people pay taxes.

(Meaning, of course, useless eaters, not people of short stature.)