Persecuted Job Creators

[rhoenix]

We have heard so very much about mean this country is to rich folks. They are so very considerate of the rest of us, keeping our economy going and investing and spending, instead of just sinking Manhattan and fleeing into space in that Red Bull hot-air balloon. The wealthy folks keep us going, the story goes, and how do we repay them? WITH HIGHER TAXES.

It’s terrible! We punish success, we really do, by suggesting that maybe the wealthy can afford to pay a higher proportion of their income than poor people. It’s disgusting. So if you heard a think tank just put out a report that included a graph of average taxes levied by states for the various income brackets, you would expect the end with the rich people to be SO HIGH, right?

You would think, but actually, it’s exactly the opposite!

Indeed — the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy has put together estimations based on income, property, and sales/consumption taxes, and made pretty graphs like this one:



Look at that thing! Look at the percentages! The nation’s top 1 percent pay, on average, half the proportion that the bottom 20 percent pays! How socialist.

That’s what the report says, right? That the American tax system nurtures a culture of dependence, and rewards being a bum?

The main finding of this report is that virtually every state’s tax system is fundamentally unfair, taking a much greater share of income from middle- and low-income families than from wealthy families.

Oh. Well what about awesome states like Florida, which doesn’t even have an income tax?

Sales and excise taxes are the most regressive, with poor families paying eight times more of their income in these taxes than wealthy families, and middle income families paying five times more.

Wait, you mean replacing a state’s income tax revenue with a flat consumption tax affects people who have to spend every dime more than people who make gobs of money?

Startlingly, yes! And systems like that also result in wildly regressive tax ratios on the state level — including, yup, Florida.

According to the report, the poorest 20 percent of Floridians pay about 13.2 percent of their income on state taxes — the richest 1 percent pay a 2.3-percent rate, likely due to their awesome system where there is no income tax but it costs like $40,000 to register your car.

And they are not even the worst ones:



It’s their own fault, really. If people want to pay a smaller proportion of their income in taxes, they should just have more money. They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps — but not before paying the sales tax on those straps — nice try, freeloader.

... *sigh*

[General Havoc]

Is there some population of supply-side plutocrats on this forum for whom this was intended? Or are we once more making arguments against phantoms instead of actual people?

[frigidmagi]

He could be just providing information to the rest of us Havoc, some of us like getting extra data. Not everything is a call to action or an attempt to pick a fight man.

[rhoenix]

Is there some population of supply-side plutocrats on this forum for whom this was intended? Or are we once more making arguments against phantoms instead of actual people?

I'm yelling at clouds.

Don't judge me.

Shut up.

I posted it because I found it numerically interesting, less so for the snark.

[Norseman]

Why is it that whenever I hear about US politics it sounds like some sort of bad parody of what our socialist parties say capitalism is like?

[General Havoc]

Why is it that whenever I hear about US politics it sounds like some sort of bad parody of what our socialist parties say capitalism is like?

Perhaps because you only ever hear about it here.

[Dark Silver]

Admittedly the board, despite housing several conservatives, tends to have a liberal political slant - and we tend to b snarky and unforgiving to the political side (to be fair, we tend to do it to both sides, but mostly to the conservative side).

Should we as a board try to be more Fair and Balanced(tm)? Eh....

[LadyTevar]

The Conservatives on our Board are all well-informed folk and not TeaParty follwoers

[General Havoc]

The Conservatives on our Board are all well-informed folk and not TeaParty follwoers

Which is why I question why this was apparently the place to post a rebuttal to an argument nobody here was making. Information is one thing, but this is a borderline strawman, submitted to refute stupid arguments that nobody here wanted to make. I have no doubt that there are people who make such arguments, but none of them read these forums.

I mean... I'm in no position to tell someone they can't post whatever they want here. But if a thing is put up for public comment, I reserve the right to comment upon it.

[rhoenix]

I posted it mainly not because I was looking to have a debate about it, but because it provided some numbers to back up a few arguments and debates I've had recently. Since I found those numbers from that article useful as a starting point for hard numbers to bring up in debate, I felt others might find them useful as well.