Sunday, November 4, 2012

A Talking-Point Reduced to Whopper

If you only listened to people like President Obama, you'd think that there are scores of folks out there who are currently paying a lower effective tax-rate than Mr. Romney. Fortunately, in a free society, the citizens have a myriad of options as to where they get there information. For instance, William McBride from the Tax Foundation recently crunched the numbers on this and found that 90-95% of the American people paid a lower effective tax rate than the 13.9% that Romney paid in 2011 and that 95-97% of them paid a lower effective rate than the 15.1% that he paid in 2010. Yep, that's right, folks, when you figure in all of the exemptions, deductions, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, most Americans already pay a lower rate than Romney and this whole Buffett Rule thing that the President has been peddling amounts to little more than a couple of days worth of cruise missiles.

5 comments:

dmarks said...

Its like the whopper about the Bush middle class tax cut where they call it "Bush tax cuts for the rich".

But when you look at it, no matter how you slice it, if one must summarize it by class, it would be more accurate to call it "Bush tax cuts for the middle class".

Why?

1) Of the total amount of money involved (more money being kept by taxpayers), most is kept by middle-class taxpayers.

2) Of the total # of taxpayers involved, the vast majority are middle-class

dmarks said...

Honesty and consistency has been completely lacking in the whole attack on Romney's taxes, and it amounts to nothing more than a mindless grunt of appeal to the worst instincts of people: jealousy.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

One could obviously debate the merits of the Bush tax cuts. But on this here topic, you're right, 300 out of the 370 billion per year went to the bottom 97-98%.

BB-Idaho said...

Speaking for the 'bottom 97-98% bottom, the standard form folk don't have the assets for asset protection schemes like Romney's
charitable remainder unitrust

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

He still paid a higher effective tax rate than 90-95% (in 2011) and 95-97% (in 2010) of Americans.