CHART OF THE DAY: These Are The 47 Percent Brian Beutler | October 14, 2011, 5:45AM
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/chart-of-the-day-these-are-the-47-percent.php?ref=fpa If the left and the right are proxies in a class war, then they're currently fighting to win a battle of public perception. Each side wants the public to see them as on the side of the beleaguered many against the powerful few. Democrats are vying for victory by supporting tax increases on millionaires and the "Buffett Rule," which posits that all millionaires should pay at least the same effective tax rates as the middle class. The Occupy Wall Street protesters have turned "We Are The 99 Percent" into a rallying cry. How do you argue against that? By obscuring what the fight's really about, and perpetuating the sense that hundreds of millions of people are gaming the system. To do this, conservatives and Republican elected officials are citing recent data to create the impression that a small majority of people in the country pay all the taxes, and nearly half (a large minority) pay nothing at all. It's a false impression, and when you break down who comprises this now-famous "47 percent" -- the poor, the disabled, and the elderly -- it makes you wonder why anybody thought it was a good idea to pick a public fight with them. What's really going on here is that about 47 percent of households paid no federal income tax in 2009. Either they owed nothing, or they got as much back from the federal government as they paid -- or more. This ignores payroll taxes, state and local taxes, gas taxes, excise taxes and much more. But to hear conservatives talk about it, you'd think these people's entire tax burden was $0.00. In April, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), citing similar data, claimed "According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 49 percent of households are paying 100 percent of taxes coming in to the federal government." Notice the absence of the key qualifier, "income." And Grassley's far from alone. As Benjy Sarlin explained at length the Republican answer to this problem, remarkably, is that Congress should raise these people's taxes. So who are these people? This chart, courtesy of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, explains just about everything you need to know. CHART _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
