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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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To: Steve Lokness who wrote (169558)	8/19/2011 11:00:15 PM
From: wonk	Read Replies (2) of 543619

...but it is crazy to think that most Americans are paying more than their share - when they are paying NOTHING! So about half of the people in America who pay NO INCOME TAX are getting a free ride.... Steve, the truth is this – the people who pay little, or even no income tax are NOT getting a free ride. That talking point has been debunked so many times on this thread I’m not going to pull all the links again. Many don’t pay income tax, but they pay all the other taxes, and those other taxes cannot be avoided, and the taxes they pay are a far larger percentage of their disposable income that the income taxes that wealthier people pay. As our moderator has said upteen million times, we are entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. Yours is a faith-based argument, which is directly contrary to fact. You may state wholeheartedly and with absolute conviction that the world is flat – but it is not true. I have zero sympathy for the randian/reagan idea that income taxes are too high. First the data tells us that they are the lowest they’ve been as a % of GDP in 60 years. That is fact. Second, the long term trendline for income taxes as percentage of gdp has had a downward slope for 60 years, the downward slope accelerating for the last 30 years. That is a fact. Finally, no one has any right to complain about their income taxes, unless they are willing to swap places with someone else. My support staff pays less dollar income taxes than I do. Do I expect sympathy from them? I’m not going to get it because they’d gladly swap my salary for theirs and pay the extra. That’s just common sense. My boss pays a whole heck of a lot more in income taxes than I do. I’ll swap with him in a heartbeat. That’s common sense too. The constant drumbeat for lower income taxes for those who have a lot is the real free ride: just another example of the masterful application of the propaganda technique of projection and reversal.

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