Class Warfare and Math
Obama's speech this morning, outlining his economic plan, from CBS.com:
Taking a defiant tone against Republicans unwilling to raise taxes in order to close the deficit, President Obama today unveiled a $3 trillion long-term deficit reduction plan that relies heavily on raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
"This is not class warfare -- it's math," Mr. Obama said, addressing GOP critiques of his plan head on.
"The money has to come from some place," he continued. "If we're not willing to ask those who have done extraordinarily well [to do a little more], the math says everybody else has to do a lot more. We have to put the entire burden on the middle class and the poor."
The core of Mr. Obama's deficit reduction plan is $1.5 trillion in new taxes. About $800 billion comes from repealing the Bush-era tax rates for couples making more than $250,000. The plan also closes certain corporate tax loopholes and limits certain tax deductions.
The president is also putting forward a measure he's calling the "Buffet Rule" -- named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett -- to raise taxes on those making $1 million or more a year in income. Taxpayers making $1 million or more often make their fortune through investment income, which is taxed at 15 percent, compared with the top tax bracket of 35 percent.
So that's what he's got: raise taxes on "millionaires and billionaires." And probably the rest of us, too. On the other hand, the problem with his brand of "not class warfare" seems a lot like class warfare. But as the graph shows -- thanks to Jason Fichtner, hat tip to @AndrewStilesNRO -- that class warfare is a double-edged sword. There is a segment of Americans that isn't paying its fair share. But it's not on the left hand side of the graph. It's on the right.
What happens when American voters take a good hard look at who actually pays for the federal government and who doesn't?
Talk about class warfare.
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Comments:
Feb '11
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Also: there are plenty of people in the top 1% who DO pay considerable income taxes...but whose income and status flows from the government, directly or indirectly, and who hence have an incentive to support bigger and more intrusive government even though it will raise their taxes. See my post paying higher taxes can be very profitable.
Jul '11
Re: Class Warfare and Math
I've caught several clips from this speech and I am left with one thought, "What a load of bollocks!" How many times have we heard this President say, "You don't raise taxes during a recession" just minutes before he proposes raising taxes! If the top 50% are paying for everything in this country and the bottom 50% pay nothing, then how are we not paying our fair share! Why can't the bottom 50% pay 10% of their income? Our poor people have multiple cars, cell phones, flat screens and A/C, there is something wrong with this.
This just drives me crazy. Where are the intelligent people denouncing, screaming 'You lie' every time he shows up somewhere? I know it wouldn't be civilized and it would degrade the office of the President, but It is time to stop cow-towing to this dangerously insane man. [Sorry, I'm having a bad day.]
Sep '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
The Democrats had absolute legislative authority for this clown's first two years in office. They decided not to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires.
Oct '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
He must have taken one of those multicultural math classes that focuses on the contribution of transgendered mathematicians if that's what the math is telling him.
Jun '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Punishing the wealthy and rewarding the impoverished is bad incentive policy.
If the President and Congress really cared about stirring economic activity and eliminated the deficit as a result, they could do something actually effective, like repealing all laws administered by the Employment Prevention Agency, the Consumer Products Safety Commission,, the National Labor Relations Board and many others.Go back to the level of government interference in the economy that cause us to recover from the Great Depression of 1920-21.
It is simple. But hard.
Jul '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Byron York asks on twitter what percentage of the total income taxes paid are form those making 1 million or more. That's a question that isn't easy to answer. According to the tax foundation's figures, the top 1% of income earners begins at 380k. They pay 38% of all income taxes paid. The top .1% begins at 1.8m and they pay around 18% of all income taxes paid. Since this isn't a linear function it is impossible to accurately interpolate between those two data points, but I will anyway and guess that those making 1 million (or more) pay about 25% of all income taxes paid. What do ya'll think? Is that about right?
Dec '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Be careful. The top 50% pays 97.3% of income tax. They also pay most of the other taxes, but these are not insignificant and the bottom 50% pays a more substantial share (sorry don't have any numbers handy).
Edited on September 19, 2011 at 6:31pmMar '11
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Unexpectedly! - Mr Obama wants to tax and spend and redistribute - who could have seen that coming? - Joe the Plumber?
I prefer Mr Cain's math, as outlined on Fox News Sunday - the 999 plan.
Oh, and Mr Cain is actually a mathematician, and understands regression analysis (elementary math). Hopefully a suitable position can be found for him in the new administration.
Edited on September 19, 2011 at 6:43pmAug '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Sterling silver bullets for millionaires, silverplate for those making up to $250,000 and lead for the rest.
It's the pomo o plata equation for los Estados. This is the first time I remember a news dump on a Monday from this administration.Most of their news has been so bad, it's like Friday night straight to video down the memory hole.
Now they're chumming on Monday, trying to see whether the press army will remember how to march in lockstep. Funny that Corporal Carney has the whistle and the mace.
Jan '11
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Math doesn't compromise
Sep '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
I guess you and Obama have something in common you both seem to be ardent users of class warfare rhetoric. I would like to see you tell a hard working mother who pays only 15% of her earnings in pay roll tax because she does not earn enough to pay personal income tax whose son just lost his life in Iraq she is not paying her fair share. Percentage wise there are far more families who do not make enough to pay income tax making these kinds of sacrifices. I do not find it appropriate when Obama uses this type of rhetoric, nor do I find it attractive when conservative use it. I thought the problem was spending. Now I find out it is that the poorer among us are not paying enough. What an enlightened position that is.
Apr '11
Re: Class Warfare and Math
The state of Maryland, led by another committed class warrior, had the bright idea of raising $100m in extra tax revenues by implementing a higher tax bracket for $1m earners. The effects (documented in the WSJ, link below) were to *reduce* overall receipts by $100m from where they started, as the number of 'millionaires' declined by a third. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329282377252471.html I wonder if Obama has actually convinced himself that this approach will be an effective treatment for our economic ills, or whether he's moved on to simply figuring that if he's going down, he may as well drag the 'rich' down with him
Jun '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Capitalism requires capital. Take away capital to feed big government and you diminish the private sector. Diminish the private sector and you get less employment, prosperity, and ultimately, revenue to feed the government.
This isn't complicated stuff but somehow it eludes our super-smart president.
Jun '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
liberal jim
I guess you and Obama have something in common you both seem to be ardent users of class warfare rhetoric. I would like to see you tell a hard working mother who pays only 15% of her earnings in pay roll tax because she does not earn enough to pay personal income tax whose son just lost his life in Iraq she is not paying her fair share. Percentage wise there are far more families who do not make enough to pay income tax making these kinds of sacrifices. I do not find it appropriate when Obama uses this type of rhetoric, nor do I find it attractive when conservative use it. I thought the problem was spending. Now I find out it is that the poorer among us are not paying enough. What an enlightened position that is. ยท Sep 19 at 9:43am
Actually, she pays half that. Her employer pays the other half.
Sep '11
Re: Class Warfare and Math
I don't believe framing the discussion this way helps our cause. Of course the rich pay the vast majority of taxes. Half of the country is perfectly OK with that. And hey, despite how much they pay, they still have mansions. They still have private jets. Make them pay more!
I think the more convincing argument is simply that even if you rob the rich of every dime the make...not tax them on income earned this year, but confiscate all of their wealth, you cannot cover half of President Obama's YEARLY budget deficit. You in fact have to obliterate almost all private industry and capital in order to make it through a year of present spending levels.
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/feed-your-family-on-10-billion-a-day.html
When put in this context I see even my most liberal friends begin to backpedal.
Aug '11
Re: Class Warfare and Math
I suspect this approach is a bit of a non-starter. A lot of people would look at that and say "Good! They're rich so they should be paying 97.3%! They should be paying 100%!"
What we need to communicate to the bottom 50% is why this isn't a Good Thingโข.
Which candidate is up to that?
May '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Foxman hints at this, and Liberal Jim hits it on the head. The "optics" of this are a problem for our side. We understand it, because we have at least a rudimentary understanding of economics.
Liberal Jim's working mom knows nothing whatever about economics- nor do most educated lefties. Rob's post does a bait-and switch between what Obama said and the chart posted above from NRO.
Gang, the reason Obama is going after capital gains is because it is a place where his simple slogans are easy to understand and the truth of the economic engine is more complicated- and takes more time and work to understand.
Payroll taxes are real taxes- on income, yet- and they take up a meaningful chunk of the pay of lower income people. If we are going to avoid the Marie Antoinette letthemeatcake syndrome, we must show an understanding of that situation and address it.
We have it right economically. But if we don't address the whole problem, we will blow it politically. You cannot prevent envy and class warfare by the perpetually aggrieved and lazy.
But we do need to support the (non-union or otherwise sensible) working class.
Jul '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Duane Oyen:
Payroll taxes are real taxes- on income, yet- and they take up a meaningful chunk of the pay of lower income people.
Payroll taxes are contributions to social insurance programs that disproportionately benefit the poor in terms of the amount of contribution versus the amounts eventually paid in benefits. To lump them in with income taxes (of which the poor do not pay any significant portion) is misleading.
Oct '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
Frank actually hits it on the head. As Thatcher said, the problem is that eventually you run out of other people's money. The money is simply not there. Whenever this comes up I'm always reminded of the story about a man who asks Nelson Rockefeller how much money is enough to satisfy a man. He answered,"just a little bit more." I think if we were to ask a liberal what is a fair share we'd get the same answer.
Jul '10
Re: Class Warfare and Math
The only long term fix for the situation that deTocqueville and others foresaw and which is coming to fruition is to restrict the vote to those who actually pay income taxes. There is, after all, no constitutional right to vote in a federal election.
But it may already be too late. We have become a nation in which the electorate has discovered that it may "vote itself largesse" from the federal treasury. This is what too much "democracy" and not enough "republic" inexorably leads to.