shock and awe
13 Aug 2004The WP covers some startling news from the CBO:
Since 2001, President Bush’s tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign.
…
The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.
Over that same period, taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase. Households earning around $75,600 saw their tax burden jump the most, from 18.7 percent of all taxes to 19.5 percent.
Shocked! I am SHOCKED! However, Republicans don’t agree, of course:
They point to a different set of numbers within the CBO study that show that the rich are actually paying more in individual federal income taxes. If Social Security, Medicare and other federal levies are excluded, the rich are paying a higher share of income taxes this year than they would have paid with no tax changes, the CBO found.
Yes, if you eliminate entirely from consideration the taxes that fall heaviest on the lower and middle class, they are hardly paying anything! Those cheapskates! This is no surprise, since it’s well-known that the lower class is actually extremely lazy, doing practically nothing all day, if you exclude their jobs.