A good column recently came from Jim Hightower regarding the famously idiotic editorial board of the Wall Street Journal:
They singled out a poor, hypothetical schmoe who's making $12,000 a year and is in the lowest tax bracket. This person, the editors complained, "pays a little less than four percent of income in taxes." The editors dubbed such people, "lucky duckies."
This was part of their argument as to why taxes need to be increased on the poor, so that they can join the rich in complaining about taxes, so they can see what it feels like to have high taxes. What a riot. It reminds me of people who complain about affirmative action. You know what? If you've got a problem with some minority kid getting a few extra points on his application to some University ... if that kid is just lucky because of his skin color or whatever ... would you switch places with that kid?
Say I had a potion that would turn you, right now, into an African American. Nothing else about your past would change, but in the future, people would treat you as though you've always been a minority. How much money would I have to pay you to take it? Would you do it for, say, a million dollars? Think about a price while you consider how "lucky" are those people who get the benefits of affirmative action.
Hightower goes on about one of the biggest misconceptions about taxes (the one detail rarely reported by the media in stories about this):
Plus, when they talk about who pays the most taxes, they're referring only to federal income taxes, leaving out the thoroughly regressive burdens of our payroll taxes, state and local taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, fees, and a host of other assessments. Add these in and we slobs at the bottom are paying the same rates or higher than the swells at the top. For example, state and local governments sock the poor with taxes that are more than 11 percent of their paltry income. But they let the rich skate by with half as much.
You don't hear about the total tax burden in the liberal media. Instead you hear things like the richest 5% pay 20% of federal taxes or what have you. Well, yeah, if you want to even the burden out a bit, federal taxes will be progressive, but if you compare the total tax burdens, you find that it is generally still regressive. If you care enough to explore, there's lots of good articles on file at the web site of the Citizens for Tax Justice.
They have references to the appropriate federal, state and local tax burdens, etc. Basically, very boring reading instead of some pie-in-the-sky conservative bullshit about "lucky duckies". Of course, most people in their right mind wouldn't dream of going to all the trouble to look up the facts. Understandable, but in that case, you end up having to trust someone to tell you the truth.
If you are trusting conservatives like the WSJ guys, you will simply hear misleading facts or outright lies. If you are trusting the so-called liberal media, you aren't going to hear the whole story. The real trick is finding a source you can trust to give you all the facts in a concise way so you can make an informed decision, if you want to be an informed voter. Let me know if you find one. Best I can do is read *lots* of different news sources and decide for myself which has the most credibility.
Posted by Observer at February 19, 2003 09:39 AMComments on entries can only be made in pop-up windows while those entries are still on the main index page. Sorry for the inconvenience this causes, but this blocks about 99.99% of the spam the blog receives.
Obviously you have to pay attention to the sources, but the whole tax justice crap drives me crazy.
First, just using the terms progressive and regressive is inflamatory and pretty well states one's position.
Sure I pay less percentage of my income in gas tax than someone making minimum wage. However, gas tax is a usage based tax, and mostly goes to maintaining the roads, which wear down based on usage as well. You can CHOOSE to take a bus or drive a gas-hog SUV or ride a bike. If someone chooses to drive a gas hog and thus pay a lot of gas tax, that's not unfair.
At least in my state, there is no sales tax on food, so we're not sticking it to the poor.
Property taxes are one tax that is fair, based on how much your home is worth.
I am firmly for a flat national income tax, with a single exception of zero tax on the first say $20k. If you are a citizen, and you make above the minimum, each dollar earned should be taxed like everyone else.
As for affirmative action, I don't call those kids who get in undeserved lucky, I pity the kid who did better than they did in high school and doing better on the college exams yet DIDN'T get a spot at the University. He worked harder and got screwed.
Posted by: Humbaba on February 19, 2003 10:17 AMMaybe the kid who got *slightly* better grades but lost out due to a small affirmative action correction did get screwed. Whether that will be as devastating an effect on his/her life as being a member of a minority is another question. Still, I'll accept that affirmative action has negatives. I just think the positives outweigh the negatives.
I also think that someone like Bush, who got a legacy admission to Yale (affirmative action for rich white folks) is a complete hypocrite who ought to at the very least acknowledge this instead of pretending there is no relationship between his past and the issue. Same thing about his super harsh penalties for drug use when he was governor. If he had been subjected to those penalties when he was 25, he'd probably still be in jail. It's this systematic privilege combined with a complete lack of respect (in the form of policy) for those of less fortunate circumstance that stokes the fires of anger in hearts like mine.
As for taxes, it is very complicated. I imagine that if you set some high level of exemption, say $20k or even $40k, then do a flat rate from there (with maybe exemptions for kids but keep it VERY VERY simple with no loopholes), it would work out fine in my book, because it would be sufficiently progressive. I don't use "progressive" in the rhetorical sense but rather in the mathematical or economic sense. Regressive is not meant to be perjorative, just a description of a system that takes a higher percentage of income from those at the bottom end, while progressive does the opposite.
As for gas taxes being based on usage ... I don't think that's a good argument. I think those who can better afford to pay for the roads should pay for a bigger share, regardless of usage, because everyone benefits from the roads. It's like property taxes for schools. What if people who didn't have kids currently in school just said, "Screw it, I'm not paying property tax because I don't use the schools." We don't do that because everyone realizes it is good for everyone to share in the cost to better our society and make the taxes affordable. In fact, we give various tax *breaks* to people with kids for that very reason.
The biggest problem is corporate taxes, loopholes, tax shelters and so on. It is outrageous that corporations can make money in America and then hide their headquarters in Bermuda et al to avoid taxes. Even worse that a lot of the people responsible for this sort of thing (if it matters, I can look up a list of names) are now IN THIS ADMINISTRATION making policy instead of being thrown in jail or pursued by the IRS for malfeasance. This is where the rich really screw over the poor in terms of tax burdens.
Posted by: Observer on February 19, 2003 01:16 PMIn terms of tax burdens, I don't care about the rich screwing over the poor. The poor basically don't pay taxes. It's the rich screwing over the middle class that pisses me off.
Legacy admission seems an easy whipping boy at first glance, but thinking about it, it makes sense. First, it's only at private schools that I know of. Private schools have to think of their funding, and a lot of that comes from rich alumni. Legacy admission keeps that revenue stream running. Effectively that makes Yale more affordable (laughable I know at their rates, but it's probably half what it could be without donations) to those who do get in based on grades.
Posted by: Humbaba on February 19, 2003 01:29 PMSaying "the poor don't pay taxes" is true depending on your definition of "poor" and "taxes". Gas taxes, state taxes, sales taxes, property taxes (even if indirectly paid as rent), FICA, Medicare, license and registration fees. If you mean the poor don't pay *income* taxes, then ok, I'll buy that in some cases.
The gummint do take a bite, don't she?
Posted by: Observer on February 19, 2003 01:40 PM>What if people who didn't have kids currently in school just said, "Screw it, >I'm not paying property tax because I don't use the schools."
School funding in communities with a large elderly population is a problem. If their grandchildren don't live in the district, they don't want to pay for it.
California's experience with Proposition 13 is one example. Homeowners at that time (1971?) got a permanent lifetime tax break--once you turn 55 you somehow take your property tax break with you when you move--and the schools declined. Other extreme examples are in communities in Arizona where the voters are all geezers and the kids are all the children of immigrants.
If you think about it, since everyone under 18 is disenfranchised by law, the average voter is much older than the average citizen even if all age groups choose to vote with identical frequency. Thus the pandering is skewed toward the concerns of the elderly--the only group with a guaranteed minimum income and health care, among other benefits.
Posted by: Shamhat on February 19, 2003 03:07 PMActually, any family with 2 kids and a mortgage and a salary of under $60K pays VERY LITTLE in taxes compared to a hard-working soul making $250K and paying AMT!
What's annoying is joe-sixpack making $50K with two kids and a mortgage deduction STILL COMPLAINS ABOUT TAXES.
Posted by: Robert on March 25, 2004 02:18 PMActually, what I find annoying is Joe-CellPhone who thinks that he works hard compared to Joe-Sixpack and complains that just because he can't afford steak 3 nights per week it's so unfair that he pays 4 times the taxes that Joe-Sixpack is paying. You might also note that the mortgage deduction on $50k house is just a *smidge* smaller than the mortgage deduction on a $500k house.
The question still holds. You going to volunteer to trade spots with him?
Posted by: Seattle Astronomer on March 25, 2004 03:57 PM