Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum"Romney’s theory of the “taker class,” and why it matters" by Ezra Klein at WP
Romneys theory of the taker class, and why it mattersby Ezra Klein at WP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/romneys-theory-of-the-taker-class-and-why-it-matters/
"SNIP.............................................
So 83 percent of those not paying federal income taxes are either working and paying payroll taxes or theyre elderly and Romney is promising to protect their benefits. The remainder, by and large, arent paying federal income or payroll taxes because theyre unemployed. But thats a small fraction of the country.
But this argument is, in a way, a very clever policy two-step thats less about who pays taxes now and more about who is going to pay to reduce the deficit in the coming years. Heres how it works.
Part of the reason so many Americans dont pay federal income taxes is that Republicans have passed a series of very large tax cuts that wiped out the income-tax liability for many Americans. Thats why, when you look at graphs of the percent of Americans who dont pay income taxes, you see huge jumps after Ronald Reagans 1986 tax reform and George W. Bushs 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. So whenever you hear that half of Americans dont pay federal income taxes, remember: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush helped build that.
Some of those tax cuts for the poor were there to make the tax cuts for the rich more politically palatable. Do you think we wanted to include a welfare payment to people who dont pay taxes and call it a tax cut? A top Bush administration official once asked me. No. But thats what we needed to do to get it done.
..............................................SNIP"
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
3 replies, 1405 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (9)
ReplyReply to this post
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
"Romney’s theory of the “taker class,” and why it matters" by Ezra Klein at WP (Original Post)
applegrove
Sep 2012
OP
That is what psychopaths do. They cause something to happen resulting in some behaviour,
applegrove
Sep 2012
#2
BeyondGeography
(39,375 posts)1. The gist of it
So notice what happened here: Republicans have become outraged over the predictable effect of tax cuts they passed and are using that outrage as the justification for an agenda that further cuts taxes on the rich and pays for it by cutting social services for the non-rich.
applegrove
(118,696 posts)2. That is what psychopaths do. They cause something to happen resulting in some behaviour,
then they get people to judge that inevitable behavioural outcome and see the victim of the psychopath's actions as bad.
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)3. Great Discussion of Why the 47% Number Is Used - Common RW Talking Point...
... that the wealthy use to argue that they are being oppressed.
However, as Ezra Klein points out, this does not include payroll taxes, thus even the 47% of Americans who many not pay income tax because the incomes are low do pay payroll tax at a higher effective rate than Mitt Romney's 13.9%.