I decided to hold off on this cross-post from Rational Resistance because there was so much other good content here this week. I think it's still relevant.
A favorite theme with conservatives is that rich people are overtaxed. You know, 47% of people pay no taxes (false), the percentage of income tax that rich people pay is too high, blah, blah, blah.
Courtesy of David Corn we have a chart that dispatches these claims handily.
I think we now know why most people, including a lot of teabaggers think they're taxed fairly: it's because they are.
Thanks, Jack! Of course, you’ll get the occasional idiot who glances at it and indignantly concludes that some people are being taxed more than they earn!
I think it may be time to re-think the idea of a flat tax.
If we had a simple flat tax that included basic social security, medicare, and health care as well as covering the rest of the budget we may wind up with a fairer situation than we have now.
If we took that chart and added in the cost of health care on a per-capita basis we will see a different picture. This one would go a long way to explaining why it is so hard to pass real health care reform in this country.
People at the higher end of the spectrum pay a minimal percentage of their income toward health insurance. For people from upper middle class on down, the amount of income that is forgone or paid for health coverage is a large percentage of their total income.
Norm