(July 26, 2007) – Like I was sayin…. some things never change.
I guess when you are so behind in the polls, you need to do something to try to earn votes. Today, John Edwards decided to play the age old class warfare card. To paraphase “Vote for me and I will take money away from rich people”. That is how we got into this income tax disaster in the first place. (For those of you that don’t know, income tax was outlawed by the Constitution until 1913 when an admentment let the govenment take money away from you as you earned it. If you are interested, I will write about it one day).
Anyway, in a story today Edwards goes on to say “It should not be in America that the middle class carries the tax burden, and that’s exactly what’s happening.” Really? Where did he get those facts?
This chart is pretty telling. I looked at the CBO’s reports, but it doesn’t break down the numbers in such a way so this will have to do. The top 1% (incomes over $328k or more) pay about 37% of the income tax. I am not sure what Edwards calls the middle class, but lets assume that its not the top 25% of earners. The top 25% of earners (earning $60k or more) pay almost 85% of the income taxes. That leaves about 15% for anybody else to pay. With the top 25% paying 85% of the taxes, just where does the tax burden sit?
There was a great opinion piece in the WSJ earlier this year that really lays out a good case that everything that Edwards is saying isn’t correct.
So what does bringing fairness back mean? Having more people paying no taxes and some people paying more and more? There is an old saying that goes something like “… a democracy can only last until the citizens relize that they can vote themselves money from the treasury”. Good thing for now we live in a representative republic huh? However, we are approaching the point where less than 50% of the earners pay tax.
Yes, some people shouldn’t have to pay taxes due to the fact that they are poor. But does than mean that less than half of us should have to pay it all?
Posted by smrtas1 