WHO ARE THE 47%?
In a secretly taped talk, presented by the Republican hopeful, Mitt Romney, to a $50G per plate dinner of well-heeled Republicans in a Boca Raton mansion in Florida in May of this year, the candidate, speaking ”off the cuff”, smeared nearly one-half of the American population who do not make enough money to "pay income taxes". These are the people modern Republicans, who glibly divide their black-and-white-world into ”makers” and ”takers”, apparently think of as "moochers". They are not members of the ”productive class”. They are not wealthy, therefore, in Romney’s elitist world they are of lesser ”worth” than the so called ”job creators" (but please remember these wealthy "job creators” create jobs overseas in China, India and Taiwan. They are those entrepreneurs who in-our-days routinely shift American jobs overseas--denying meaningful work to our middle class, whom they then denigrate for being lazy. The job shift increases their profits but depauperates their nation. Then they hide these profits in Switzerland or the Caymans so that they do not have to pay taxes on their wealth.)
I've heard this notion regarding the ”makers and takers” over and over again. It begins with some well-dressed guy with gold cuff links, whining that "half the population do not pay taxes". Their self-serving syllogism proceeds thus: ”I belong to the half that does pay taxes. Therefore, I am the productive element of the system. But the government wants to penalize me--’a job creator’ by taking money from me and redistributing it to the non-productive."
Other statements often heard revolve around the tax base. They want to "broaden the tax base". In other words they want to reduce taxes on the upper income earners (now taxed at the lowest levels in our recent history) and increase taxes on the lower quintiles of income earners. (But see below, on whom they would raise taxes.)
Their idea seems rational,at first glance. But let's look it more closely. It turns out that the so-called ”job creators” have experienced happy decades of increasing accumulation of wealth. Their net worth, and incomes have surged during the period of the junior Bush administration- a time when top income tax rates were slashed, giving the super wealthy a windfall. The policy also had the (intentional) effect of starving the government of needed funds. (Bush’s unstated intention all along) funds that would have been devoted to needed infrastructure, education, health and development. (It's worth mentioning here that during the Eisenhower Administration the top nominal rate was 91%. We had rich folks then too. The Romney's, and their ilk did well then too...but so did the little guy.)
As a result wealth and income inequality in the US is presently the highest since the late 1920s. So where’s the trickle down? Where are the jobs? The oligarchs and corporatists have sent them overseas.
Then let's look into the question of who these people are that make up the ”other” half. Those that do not pay income taxes (of course do not forget, almost all of these people pay payroll taxes, social security, FDIC, and state and local sales taxes.)
According the Washington Post’s Wonkblog.com, posted on or about September 17,2012, entitled: "Who does not pay taxes in eight charts”. The 46.4% of the population who do not pay federal income taxes is composed of the following categories:
In a secretly taped talk, presented by the Republican hopeful, Mitt Romney, to a $50G per plate dinner of well-heeled Republicans in a Boca Raton mansion in Florida in May of this year, the candidate, speaking ”off the cuff”, smeared nearly one-half of the American population who do not make enough money to "pay income taxes". These are the people modern Republicans, who glibly divide their black-and-white-world into ”makers” and ”takers”, apparently think of as "moochers". They are not members of the ”productive class”. They are not wealthy, therefore, in Romney’s elitist world they are of lesser ”worth” than the so called ”job creators" (but please remember these wealthy "job creators” create jobs overseas in China, India and Taiwan. They are those entrepreneurs who in-our-days routinely shift American jobs overseas--denying meaningful work to our middle class, whom they then denigrate for being lazy. The job shift increases their profits but depauperates their nation. Then they hide these profits in Switzerland or the Caymans so that they do not have to pay taxes on their wealth.)
I've heard this notion regarding the ”makers and takers” over and over again. It begins with some well-dressed guy with gold cuff links, whining that "half the population do not pay taxes". Their self-serving syllogism proceeds thus: ”I belong to the half that does pay taxes. Therefore, I am the productive element of the system. But the government wants to penalize me--’a job creator’ by taking money from me and redistributing it to the non-productive."
Other statements often heard revolve around the tax base. They want to "broaden the tax base". In other words they want to reduce taxes on the upper income earners (now taxed at the lowest levels in our recent history) and increase taxes on the lower quintiles of income earners. (But see below, on whom they would raise taxes.)
Their idea seems rational,at first glance. But let's look it more closely. It turns out that the so-called ”job creators” have experienced happy decades of increasing accumulation of wealth. Their net worth, and incomes have surged during the period of the junior Bush administration- a time when top income tax rates were slashed, giving the super wealthy a windfall. The policy also had the (intentional) effect of starving the government of needed funds. (Bush’s unstated intention all along) funds that would have been devoted to needed infrastructure, education, health and development. (It's worth mentioning here that during the Eisenhower Administration the top nominal rate was 91%. We had rich folks then too. The Romney's, and their ilk did well then too...but so did the little guy.)
As a result wealth and income inequality in the US is presently the highest since the late 1920s. So where’s the trickle down? Where are the jobs? The oligarchs and corporatists have sent them overseas.
Then let's look into the question of who these people are that make up the ”other” half. Those that do not pay income taxes (of course do not forget, almost all of these people pay payroll taxes, social security, FDIC, and state and local sales taxes.)
According the Washington Post’s Wonkblog.com, posted on or about September 17,2012, entitled: "Who does not pay taxes in eight charts”. The 46.4% of the population who do not pay federal income taxes is composed of the following categories:
Unemployed. About 8% are comprised of the unemployed, students, disabled veterans (such as Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans) and the very poor who are working, but earn less than about $9,500 annually.
Elderly. Another category is the very elderly. These who have no significant incomes comprise about 10%. Think of your grandmother or great aunty.
Retired. Finally there are the retired. This group, composed of about 22% have worked all their lives, paid all their payroll taxes too, and are now living precariously on their small pensions, annuities, and/or social security. They do not earn enough to pay income taxes. This total accounts for about 40% of the class of Americans denigrated by Romney.
Wealthy. The last 7% are those who do not file, or are the wealthy who hide their incomes in the Cayman Islands, or Switzerland, and are the real moochers.
Thus aside from the real moochers that Romney was unaware of, these are the Americans that Romney has castigated and smeared as less than desirable sycophants who, according to him are ”victims” begging the government for "food, housing and all manner of other stuff.”
So when you hear someone with wealth whine about the fact that half the population doesn't pay taxes....keep these people in mind: think of yourself as a student; think of that frail grandma of yours who lives alone; your brother who lost his job and has been unemployed for too many months now to remember; and that uncle who fought in Vietnam and lost a leg; that distant relative with Down’s syndrome; the quiet retired couple who live next door like field mice in the small bungalow; and a hundred fifty million other unfortunate Americans just like them. They are not any less American for their position on the age curve, or for having past their most productive years, or for sacrifices made for their country in war, or their misfortune.
What would our nation be like, and how would we look ourselves in the mirror each day if we--as Romney and his social Darwinist, reactionary elitists would have us do---dump these people on the ash heap and leave them there to rot?
If these 47% can not pay their way, those in the 53%, particularly those with plenty to spare should be taxed fairly to,(yes) REDISTRIBUTE their excess wealth to the needy. For it is in fact this privileged class who are the real moochers, the takers, who use our nation and its infrastructure, its militarily well-protected platform, its laws and its capitalist sponsoring benefits as a spawning ground for their enterprises and then try to claim, that ”I built that--all on my own!" and you-all had nothing to do with it. So now that I am a success I am going to put all my assets in the Caymans and pay as little taxes as I can.
It seems that today we are living through a time that Karl Marx predicted in the 19th century. Marx theorized that the end result of unbridled capitalism, the capitalism of Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand and Willard Romney the capitalism ”red in tooth and claw”, would be the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few. Those few then would not only control the production of manufactured goods, fuel and food, they would also control ideas. (Perhaps this is the simple reason why so many of the poor, and poorly-educated and ill-informed continue to vote against their own best financial and other interests and support those who have no remote intention to improve their lot or well being.) In modern America the ideas in the ”marketplace of ideas” is too much in control of the oligarchs, corporatists, and the ”one percenters” who outright purchase the likes of Murdock and Rush Limbaugh to make their case in print and on the airways of this topsy-turfy world.
If these 47% can not pay their way, those in the 53%, particularly those with plenty to spare should be taxed fairly to,(yes) REDISTRIBUTE their excess wealth to the needy. For it is in fact this privileged class who are the real moochers, the takers, who use our nation and its infrastructure, its militarily well-protected platform, its laws and its capitalist sponsoring benefits as a spawning ground for their enterprises and then try to claim, that ”I built that--all on my own!" and you-all had nothing to do with it. So now that I am a success I am going to put all my assets in the Caymans and pay as little taxes as I can.
It seems that today we are living through a time that Karl Marx predicted in the 19th century. Marx theorized that the end result of unbridled capitalism, the capitalism of Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand and Willard Romney the capitalism ”red in tooth and claw”, would be the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few. Those few then would not only control the production of manufactured goods, fuel and food, they would also control ideas. (Perhaps this is the simple reason why so many of the poor, and poorly-educated and ill-informed continue to vote against their own best financial and other interests and support those who have no remote intention to improve their lot or well being.) In modern America the ideas in the ”marketplace of ideas” is too much in control of the oligarchs, corporatists, and the ”one percenters” who outright purchase the likes of Murdock and Rush Limbaugh to make their case in print and on the airways of this topsy-turfy world.
Get the picture?
rjk
Sent with Writer.
Sent with Writer.
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