The actual AP article “Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax” is slightly more informative than the usual RW-shouter suspects would like you to believe. But Jim Newell at Wonkette has the best short-form rebuttal for those emails from the low-information voters among your friends and loved ones:
The right — and yes, the Heritage Foundation has its insightful quotes all over this — love to take this data and claim, “half the country pays no taxes.” They pay their payroll taxes, and state taxes, and local taxes, and mortgage payments ,and insurance premiums, and whatever else that other people CAN AFFORD WITH ALL OF THEIR MONEY. How much do people primarily earning from large capital gains pay in federal income tax, btw?
__
All that this statistic shows — and yes, deductions and credits may be over the top at the moment, but it’s a fucking great depression is why — is how wide the wealth gap has become here, because 50% of the country absolutely needs most every cent to maintain the basic consumption levels required to keep this economy propelling forward. Want to spread the tax base more broadly? Spread the wealth, baby!
__
If we could just find useful jobs for people to do instead of telling them to drain the equity for their homes every year, maybe some of these wacky wacky statistics would resolve themselves.
Attack <del>of</del> on the ‘Lucky Duckies’Post + Comments (238)