Monday, July 16, 2012

Lies, Damn Lies and FactCheck.org

Americans can afford to pay more in taxes, say liberals, after the Congressional Budget Office released a report that shows that for 2009 “federal tax rates had fallen to the lowest in 30 years,” at 17.4 percent of income according to FactCheck.org – just in time to correspond with President Barack Obama being sworn in.

The Scarecrow couldn’t make the waters recede, begin to heal the earth or make the Red Sea part, but he apparently fixed the tax tables for us while we were sleeping.   
 
And FactCheck then reminds us- breathlessly- that taxes “fell again in his first year in office,” even though those darned Republicans lied about the Scarecrow 

Whoa!


“Despite Republican criticisms, and Obama’s own campaign promise to raise taxes on upper-income households, the new president was a tax cutter in 2009,” says HackCheck.
There are many ways to describe the Scarecrow and President King, but as a tax-cutter?
In a disclaimer buried in the bottom of the “fact check,”- which is selflessly brought to us by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania through a generous grant of tax dollars- they say that, of course, “we offer no opinion on whether taxes are too high or too low, or just right. That’s a matter of intense national debate.”
Of  course, they don’t offer any opinion.
They don’t have to.
Their liberal friends have already taken up the Battle Cry of Taxes:
Tax rates paid in 2009 lowest in 30 years, says the San Francisco Chronicle;
Fact: tax rates are at a 30-year low under Obama, says the web site Death and Taxes;
CBO: Fed tax rates hit historic low, says Politico; In 2009, Americans Paid Lowest Tax Rates In 30 Years To Federal Government, says the Huffington Post.

The message is clear: Selfish Americans are just not paying their fair share to a starving federal government.

But, as these charts from our friends at Political Calculations show, regardless of tax policy, federal tax receipts have remained stable at about 18 percent of our GDP since 1946. When rates have been above the average, it’s been during times of economic expansion- highlighted in green; and when rates have been below the average, it’s been because of recessions- highlighted in orange.    
[max-income-tax-rate-and-federal-tax-receipts-1946-2014.PNG]
You want higher federal receipts? Then raise GDP, not the marginal tax rates on people.

Because, while Obama fiddles about taxes and fairness, the economy, which is the real engine of tax “fairness,” continues to burn.  

And even as those in the top one-percent of earners have seen their tax rates go up from 28.3 percent of income, to 28.9 percent of income, the top earners now account for a smaller percentage of total tax revenue because they make less money to tax.
Thus, everyone else pays a larger share.

News flash to the economists at FactCheck: Tax rates have gone down because we suffer from an economic malaise that’s now one-third of the way into its second decade.
Obama’s done nothing but accelerate the downward trajectory of GDP growth.
That’s one way of making sure we no longer have a “bubble” economy.
Thank goodness Obama’s made this No-Growth economy “built to last.”
Or is that “built to be last?”  Never really clear about that.

A progressive tax scheme, which was built to take into account a certain percentage of income in each income quintile and tax income at higher rates in the higher levels, will certainly collect revenue at a much lower rate when incomes begin to shrink and less money is concentrated in the top two quintiles.

That’s why the whole tax the rich rhetoric is wrong.

Let’s forget for a moment the fact that out of control spending and unfunded future government commitments are the real drag on the economy. You know? Small commitments like Social Security, Medicaid, Obamacare, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, all real estate holdings, student loans, the Entire Known Banking System, plus any Finance Companies Owned by Alien Life Forms- just as soon as Obama signs the executive order authorizing the take over of Little Green Banks.

The real issue is that as income levels go down, the government will have to dig deeper and deeper into the middle class to raise income tax revenue or they will have to impose some sort of Value Added, or sales tax.

Already this is happening. The CBO report demonstrates that the portion of tax revenue paid by the middle class is going up.  

But the solution to that tax problem isn’t to sock it to the rich. The solution is in creating a healthy economy; an economy that grows.

Because here’s the picture dear friends: When the country has boom times again- and we will- everyone will admire those one percenters who invented the wonder drugs, or the new type digital device that makes life easier or happier or more fun.

We'll take pictures of them and read their books and admire their success.
That’s how it should be.

We will then all pay lower taxes while making more money.
Note to liberals: More money is good.
Even for the rich. 

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