Rethugs, many trained by Newt Gingrich, have mastered the art of Orwellian double-speak. ‘Death Tax’, ‘Reaganomics’, and the like. They have used these terms in large part to turn the tax code on its head through Kemp/Roth and the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy while misleading the public with verbal sleight-of-hand.
President Obama, starting tonight, is likely to call for steps to rebalance tax inequity. You can be assured that the lemmings of the right will have their talking points ready to go, and that “…the President is waging class warfare” will be Numero Uno on their list.
Let El Somnambulo give you a taste of what class warfare is really all about. It’s been going on for over 20 years.
For those with ADD, the Beast Who Slumbers will provide you with some choice nuggets from the linked Christian Science Monitor article:
“As recent IRS data show, these elites are paying less in taxes – much less – than their deep-pocket counterparts used to pay. In 2006, the 400 highest-income Americans together reported $105 billion in income, an average of $263 million each.
Having trouble visualizing that? To pocket $263 million a year, you would have to take home over $60,000 an hour – and work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for an entire 12 months. Sounds tiring, doesn’t it? But most of the top 400 make their fortunes buying and selling assets, everything from stocks and bonds to the exotic paper that helped inflate the housing bubble.
Uncle Sam taxes income from those assets – whether that income be capital gains or dividends – at a much lower rate than income from work.
The current top tax rate on “ordinary” work income sits at 35 percent. But dividends and capital gains from the buying and selling of most assets face only a 15 percent top rate. That’s why in 2006, America’s top 400 paid just 17.2 percent of their $263 million average incomes in federal tax.
Millions of middle-class American families, once you tally income and payroll taxes, pay far more of their incomes in tax. One particularly striking example from billionaire investor Warren Buffett: In 2006, he paid 17.7 percent of his income in total taxes. His secretary, who made $60,000, paid 30 percent of hers.”
So the next time El Burrito Junior and the other silverspoonistas scream ‘class warfare’, ask them what they have done to level the playing field since the days of the Gipper. Class warfare is what they’re all about, and they’ve been winning b/c the dice have been loaded. Time for some new dice.