While the left celebrates her justification for higher taxes on the rich, there are a few questions she doesn’t answer:
- 47% of the country is currently paying nothing in taxes. What percentage of the country does she think shouldn’t be paying taxes?
- America already has the most progressive tax system in the world. Just how much does the left think our top earners should be paying for?
- Since the wealthy already can shift their means of income, isn’t this just a call for more stealth taxes on the middle class?
- Isn’t their idea to suddenly start indexing income by localized cost of living even more blatant vote pandering?
Does she agree with Obama that raising taxes is worth it if government income from the tax lowers – “for purposes of fairness”?
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There is no one… no one… in the U.S. that pays “nothing” in taxes.
The people who pay nothing in *federal income tax* spend a much larger portion of their income on payroll taxes, sales taxes, car registration taxes, property taxes, gasoline taxes, etc. than those who do have to write Uncle Sam a check for federal income tax each year.
Okay, I’ll certainly grant you that we’ve placed large burdens on our society in hidden taxes such as payroll, corporate taxes, and such – as you mention, and that everyone pays those. The real suck with all of those taxes is that many of them burden our economy much more than the income government actually gets from them.
While 47% get 100% of their income tax returned, it is certainly a much smaller percentage that gets an amount equal to the other taxes. I don’t think you can say it’s 0% though.
Elizabeth’s statements were still blatant class warfare, based on a backwards view of economics and society.