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A Facebook “Friend” of mine (who is also a true friend of mine; most of my Faceplant “Friends” are either sorry they “Friended” me in the first place or discontinued updating my posts a long time ago) posted this little speech to his Facebook page this morning.
“What sort of person thinks there is nothing wrong with asking the folks tasked with teaching our children to take a 20% cut on a $50,000 annual salary, but thinks it’s a terrible idea to ask millionaires to pay an additional 3% more in taxes?”
I responded with the following:
“Good question, T. I don’t know what sort of person would believe both those things either (since I don’t know of anyone who is actually making those demands, or even suggesting them). I have a few questions of my own, though, if you don’t mind my asking. If you do mind, and since this is your Faceplant, feel free to delete anything I post (or ‘unFriend’ me, or whatever).
Question 1: Who is “asking” millionaires (last I checked, tax rates are not optional, they are forced) to pay only 3% more in income taxes (according to liberals I’ve asked, they think millionaires’ income tax rates should be increased much more than merely 3%) while at the same time “thinking there is nothing wrong” with government school teachers being forced to take 20% pay cuts? If you know who the people are who believe these two things (simultaneously), please let me know so I can ask them why they do.
Question 2: While I could be mistaken, your post seems to suggest that millionaires do not pay their “fair” share of income taxes. Are you suggesting they do not?
Question 3 (a, b & c): What is the definition of “fair” regarding income tax rates and Who should decide what that definition is? If the rest of us can decide what millionaires should pay in taxes, can millionaires decide what the rest of us pay in taxes? Wouldn’t that be “fair?”
Question 4: Is it “fair” for the top 5% of all income earners (in the U.S.) to already pay almost 60% of all income taxes? Is it “fair” for the top 10% of all income earners to already pay over 70% of all income taxes?
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_indincometax_irssummary-2009-20111019-6.pdf
and…
Question 5: What would be the already-known-and-observed consequences of raising income taxes on millionaires to even higher levels?
Obama’s Tax Hikes on High-Income Earners Will Hurt the Poor—and Everyone Else http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2010/pdf/bg2490.pdf
and…
More Giving, Less Taxing President Obama’s tax plan will hurt the very people he’s trying to help.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=83327
and…
The Millionaire Tax: Yet Another Job-Killing Tax Hike
http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2011/pdf/wm3389.pdf
and…
Obama’s Folly: Why Taxing the Rich Is No Solution
http://www.american.com/archive/2011/august/obamasfollytaxingtherich
and…
The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/1996/07/BG1086nbsp-The-Historical-Lessons-of-Lower-Tax
If you decide you keep my questions posted on your Faceplant, T, I congratulate you on your open-mindedness. If you decide to respond to these questions with actual data (as I have done in asking them), I congratulate you as well on your willingness to research before making conclusions and forming opinions. Looking forward to your replies.”
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Do higher taxes slow economic growth?
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Higher taxes penalize working wives
http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=A092BE0A-55B6-11E2-B41B-002128040CF6
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Increasing Tax Rates Does Not Necessarily Lead to Higher Income Tax Receipts
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“President Obama’s phrase that everyone should “pay our fair share of taxes” has become something of a political mantra. He has used the expression in dozens of speeches.”
[Yet…]
“The top 10 percent income earners pay about 70 percent of federal income taxes… [while] The bottom 50 percent of tax filers… pay about 3 percent of federal income taxes. Close to a hundred billion [dollars] in checks sent out by the IRS (go) to folks who have no tax liability. So the IRS is becoming a spending agency.”
[This is not brain surgery, people. “Fair,” you see (clearly conservatives cannot), can only exist if the bottom 50% of income earners are paid even more than they already are for the privilege of not paying any income taxes, with the top 10% of income earners being taxed even more than they already are to cover that redistribution.]
[Conservatives cannot see this because conservatives are morons.]
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The “Top 1%” in the U.S.:
The top 1% of income earnes in the U.S. pay TWENTY TIMES their “fair” share of federal income taxes.
http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43373-06-11-HouseholdIncomeandFedTaxes.pdf
and…
The Top 1% Pays More in Taxes than the Bottom 90%
https://taxfoundation.org/top-1-percent-pays-more-taxes-bottom-90-percent
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Top 10 State Tax Trends in Recession and Recovery, 2008 to 2012
http://taxfoundation.org/top-10-state-tax-trends-recession-and-recovery-2008-2012
[ASND wonders when several consecutive years worth of 8%+ unemployment became classifiable as a “recovery.“]
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Americans Paying More in Taxes than for Food, Clothing, and Shelter
http://taxfoundation.org/publications/show/28196.html
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“This group of [U.S.] income earners earned this shared of all income and paid this share of federal income taxes [2009].“
http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/top10-percent-income-earners
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Nearly Half of All Americans Don’t Pay Income Taxes
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U.S. Taxes Really Are Unusually Progressive
and…
The U.S. tax code is more progressive and European than you think.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/16/taxation-american-style
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Guess Who Really Pays the Taxes
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Percent of Taxpayers with Zero or Negative Income Tax Rate (1976-2011)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/obamas_debt-solving_plan_tax_the_rich_not_the_rest.html
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“… the first fact ignored by the tax-increasing crowd is that upper-income-earners pay both more federal taxes than lower-income Americans. This is true both for the percentage of income taxed and as a percentage of the total federal taxes paid to the IRS. This has been the case for decades.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/tax_reality_vs_liberal_propaganda.html
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“… the top 10 percent of U.S. taxpayers pay a larger share of the tax burden than do their counterparts in any other industrialized. And low-income Americans have the lowest income taxes of any OECD county.”
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/20/taxes-and-elections/print/
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Bush Tax Cuts:
“Clearly, the post-2001 fiscal deterioration had comparatively little to do with the 2001/03 tax cuts.”
http://www.economics21.org/commentary/how-did-federal-surpluses-become-huge-deficits
and…
“… the drop in federal revenue after 2007 had nothing to do with the Bush ‘tax cuts’ and everything to do with the destruction of wealth that coincidentally occurred after Democrats took over both houses of Congress.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/the_bush_tax_cuts_threat_or_menace.html
and…
What End of Bush Tax Cuts Means for You
Unless Congress takes action, it’s not just the “rich” who will see higher tax bills
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/what-end-of-bush-tax-cuts-means-for-you.html
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Tax Demagogues Are Lying Liars, in One Graph
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/tax_demagogues_are_lying_liars_in_one_graph.html
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“When both of these taxes are added together, along with state-level taxes, the U.S. currently has the fourth-highest overall tax rate on dividend income among the leading economies at 52.1 percent, according to the OECD.”
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/27934.html
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“By all accounts, our current tax system is undermining the nation’s prosperity and long-term growth.”
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/ff286.pdf
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The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/08/the-historical-lessons-of-lower-tax-rates
and…
The Effect of Fairness on Tax Revenues
“There have been, since the implementation of the income tax, four major tax rate reductions. Every one of them has been followed by increased tax revenues.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/the_effect_of_fairness_on_tax_revenues.html
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1920s Income Tax Cuts Sparked Economic Growth and Raised Federal Revenues
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3015
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IRS Data Show Most Millionaires Pay Taxes at Higher Rate Than Middle Class
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Ever-increasing tax breaks for U.S. families eclipse benefits for special interests
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Conservatives & Taxes:
Do Republicans Ideas Lead to Job Growth?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/do_republicans_ideas_lead_to_job_growth.html
and…
The ‘Forgotten 15′ GOP Jobs Bills
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/08/the-%e2%80%9cforgotten-15%e2%80%9d-gop-jobs-bills/print/
[“Forgotten?” Don’t you mean “ignored?”]
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State Taxes:
“[California’s ] over-reliance on taxing the rich has been a disaster during bad times”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap-buffet-20110922,0,5846608,print.column
and…
The Great California Exodus: A Closer Look
“Most of the destination states favored by Californians have lower taxes. States that have gained the most at California’s expense are rated as having better business climates. The data suggest that many cost drivers—taxes, regulations, the high price of housing and commercial real estate, costly electricity, union power, and high labor costs—are prompting businesses to locate outside California, thus helping to drive the exodus… [and] chronically out-of-balance budgets can be seen as [additional] tax hikes waiting to happen.”
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_71.htm#.UGwy0VHhc2k
and…
People Are Leaving California for Texas in a Big Way
and…
It’s official: Tax happy Illinois now has the lowest rated state debt
and…
Tax Exodus: 5 States That Residents Are Fleeing
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Estate Taxes:
The Estate Tax: Even Worse Than Republicans Say
http://taxfoundation.org/article/estate-tax-even-worse-republicans-say
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Taxing Our Way to Prosperity [?]
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1793
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How Taxes Drive Down Home Values
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/284537
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Social Security Trustee: Obama’s Tax Plan Could ‘End Social Security as We Know It’
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Taxes per Household Have Risen Dramatically
http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/taxes-per-household
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Flat Tax:
The New Flat Tax: Easy as One, Two, Three
https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2011/pdf/bg2631.pdf
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“… 18-19% of total reportable income is not properly reported to the IRS.”
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/econ/archive/wp2011-1.pdf
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Payroll Taxes:
GOP wants year-long payroll [tax cut] extension, won’t settle for two months
That’s interesting, considering the advice one pundit, based on the equations of one economist, has for the GOP:
“… from this moment until Election Day, congressional Republicans must be on their guard for, and do everything in their power to prevent the enactment of, any temporary measures designed artificially to skoosh the growth numbers up just high enough, and just long enough, to get Obama through the election, after which the economy slows again… So if the Democrats propose extending the payroll tax past Election Day, Republicans should at the very lease oppose it.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/will_we_have_a_fair_election_in_2012.html
[From the “Truth is always stranger than Fiction” department, the irony here is that the GOP is doing, yet again, exactly that which will most hurt their chances for electoral success.]
[And some people still wonder why I am not a Republican.]
and…
How Not to Make Public Policy: The Payroll Tax Cut
http://www.economics21.org/commentary/how-not-make-public-policy-payroll-tax-cut
and…
The ‘$40 Per Paycheck’ and Other Payroll Tax Cut Fibs
http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-40-per-paycheck-and-other-payroll-tax-cut-fibs/?print=1
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Obama’s Dividend Assault
A plan to triple the tax rate would hurt all shareholders.
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The Dark Side of the Payroll Tax Cut
The left wants to bail out Social Security with income redistribution.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/109216
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The Dangers of Raising Taxes on Investment Income
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ir_5.htm
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“Our tax code not only takes too much of our money — it also takes too much of our time. Americans spend more than 7.6 billion hours each year complying with our tax code. That’s the equivalent of more than 3.8 million full-time workers.“
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“Tax policies can significantly affect decisions about whether to start a new business or to expand an existing firm…”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/cbo-regulations-taxes-can-hurt-small-businesses
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“Even the left-leaning Tax Policy Center has admitted that households making $1 million dollars last year paid 29.1% of their income in federal taxes, while households making between $50-75,000 only paid at a 15% rate.”
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HOW TAX EXPENDITURES HURT THE ECONOMY — AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/ir_9.pdf
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Reform:
10 Golden Rules of Effective Taxation
Paving the Way to Prosperity
Policies for Growth
http://www.alec.org/docs/RSPS_5th_Edition.pdf
and…
The Hybrid Tax Reform Plan
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/the_hybrid_tax_reform_plan.html
and…
Tax Reform That Is Simple, Transparent, Fair
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/tax_reform_that_is_simple_transparent_fair.html
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High-Taxing Empire State Loses 3.4 Million Residents in 10 Years
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“We have more professional tax preparers in the United States than law enforcement officers (765,000) and professional firefighters (310,400) combined.”
http://www.facethefactsusa.org/facts/when-tax-complexity-puts-dinner-on-the-table/
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“Adjustments based upon spending cuts are much less costly in terms of output losses than tax-based ones. Spending-based adjustments have been associated with mild and short-lived recessions, in many cases with no recession at all. Tax-based adjustments have been associated with prolonged and deep recessions.”
http://papers.nber.org/papers/w18336
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“[Liberal] Politicians employ gimmicks to hide tax increases from voters. In this paper, we discuss four types of gimmicks.”
http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/TaxGimmicks_Davies_v1-0_1.pdf
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Illinois Tax Hikes, Two Years Later: A Failure
http://pjmedia.com/blog/illinois-tax-hikes-two-years-later-a-failure/?print=1
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Another Slow News Day 