(The following makes an interesting companion to Sue’s tale about income related justice.)
Nicholas Kristof often travels to banana republics as part of his New York Times reporting. In his column this past Sunday he pointed out what to some hopefully will be a troublesome characteristic the US now shares with those plutocracies.
The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.
C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.
Well,how’s everyone else doing?
In the past three years US households lost 17percent of their wealth which according to the Federal Reserve is more than $10 trillion. Nearly one in ten Americans are unemployed and one in six now receive food stamps, jobless benefits or some form of government assistance
But enough of that. Can’t we do more for those who have it all?
Washington — how far to extend the Bush tax cuts to the most affluent 2 percent of Americans. Both parties agree on extending tax cuts on the first $250,000 of incomes, even for billionaires. Republicans would also cut taxes above that.
The richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut of $61,000 from President Obama. They would get $370,000 from Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. And that provides only a modest economic stimulus, because the rich are less likely to spend their tax savings.
Those repubs are off to a great start reducing the deficit and dems should be ashamed of themselves. No sense till campaign reform!
That’s more than the average income of the Vermont teaching jobs that the GOP wants to cut.
http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/…
“Non-partisan” organizations like NTU and “fair and balanced” news networks will often site statistics which show that the 38-39% of federal personal income tax revenue comes from top 1% of income earners. When you put it that way, it’s easy to see why my grandfather (a big fan of O’Reilly, Limbaugh and Beck) advocates for some relief for these people so they can start putting that money into businesses which will create jobs and stimulate the economy. Right?
This is a misleading number. Of course people with an adjusted gross income over $350K pay most of the income taxes. They are taxed at a higher rate and have a lot more income to tax. The stat makes it sound like these folks are paying 38% of the income they earn, when really it just means that of the trillion dollars the government gets in annual personal income tax revenue (which only accounts for 40-50% of total revenue each year) 38% comes from the richest of the rich. Thanks for pitching in guys.
Here’s an analysis of the annual snapshot the IRS does of top 400 income tax payers. (Adjusted gross income average for 2007 was about $344 million).
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2…
Most of the income from these folks is not earned income from wages or salaries. THe highest rate capital gains are taxed at is 15%, not 35% like earned income. There is already plenty of incentive for people to invest their earned dollars in America’s companies folks. It’s time my grandfather turned off Fox News and started thanking Democrats for Medicare.
…from the right has confused a lot of people about taxation and has made it sound as if the “big government” is robbing from the rich and giving to the poor.
I’m still thinking about my grandfather, who considers himself wealthy because at the time of his retirement he made six figures. Just making $100K or $200K per year doesn’t make an American a part of the class that truly benefits from our system of taxation.
If you listen to AM talk radio all day like Grandpa you’re one day likely to march down to Washington and demand that the liberals stop taxing and spending you to death and while they are at it they can keep their G.D. government hands off your Medicare.
So where (besides GMD) is the outrage? How do we shine a light on the taxation truth in a way that people will see it? After reading my own comment I can see most of my apolitical friends’ eyes glazing over reading this. Then they reach for the remote and switch from Tosh.0 to The Jersey Shore.
What’s in it for ME?!