Bruce Bartlett says no:
I've got to agree that with tax cuts in the past thirty years, effective tax rates are lower. The rich have inordinately benefitted from the Bush tax cuts, and taxes on unearned income are much lower.A typical middle-class family, on the other hand, is paying less in federal taxes than it has since 1967. Its marginal rate is also down substantially since it peaked in 1982 at 31.7 percent. The well-to-do family, too, has seen its average and marginal tax rates decline substantially.Of course, these data do not prove that taxes are not too high. That is a subjective judgment related to issues of fairness and the value that people assign to the government benefits they receive in return. Many in the Tea Party talk as if the value of government is zero; consequently, they would probably complain about any tax level above zero.
Nevertheless, it is clear that federal taxes have not been rising and are, at least in historical terms, lower for most taxpayers than they have been since the 1960s. Those who assert that taxes are rising or are at confiscatory levels simply do not know what they are talking about.
Dear Farmer Marx. How much more burden would you propose? Instead of bitching try embracing the opportunities that only America possesses. Its ideologue’s like yourself that are dead set on unwinding the American dream for future generations. Open your eyes to reality, quit suckling off the rest of us with your farm subsidies and take a minute to read the Federalist Papers so you might understand why this country is so great.
ReplyDelete"According to the IRS, the top 1 percent of income earners paid 38 percent of all federal income taxes in 2008, while the bottom half paid only 3 percent. Forty-nine percent of U.S. households paid no federal income tax at all."
The vast majority of people pay 7.65% of their income in federal payroll taxes. The top 1% of income earners are paying far less in income tax than they did at any point in the last 50 years. I have read the Federalist Papers, and I don't see any reason why taxes can not return to the levels seen from 1946-1982. Don't worry, most years I pay a good bit of taxes, but because of the stupid Bush tax cuts, I pay a lot less than I did in the past. The fools who have less than $1,000,000 in assets, but still vote Republican are the ones who are unwinding the American dream. Turn off Fox News, don't read the Wall Street Journal editorial page and don't listen to Rush Limbaugh, they are all propaganda organs.
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