Would You Like Some Reality With Your Tea?
A recent CBS/New York Times Poll Reveals Most Americans Don't Know They Got a Tax Cut
Of people who support the grassroots, "Tea Party" movement, only 2% think taxes have been decreased, 46% say taxes are the same, and a whopping 44% say they believe taxes have gone up. Interesting, since this is a movement supposedly obsessed with taxes. Perhaps, they should shift their obsession from taxes to education and research. Those answers must frustrate the president who has highlighted his tax cuts for the middle class in almost every speech.
As Obama has said:
"Now, let me repeat: We cut taxes,-- We cut taxes for 95 % of working families.
-- We cut taxes for small businesses.
-- We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers.
-- We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children.
-- We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college."
Then again, it appears that nothing the president does will placate the Tea Party.
Of people who support the grassroots, "Tea Party" movement, only 2% think taxes have been decreased, 46% say taxes are the same, and a whopping 44% say they believe taxes have gone up. Interesting, since this is a movement supposedly obsessed with taxes. Perhaps, they should shift their obsession from taxes to education and research. Those answers must frustrate the president who has highlighted his tax cuts for the middle class in almost every speech.
As Obama has said:
"Now, let me repeat: We cut taxes,-- We cut taxes for 95 % of working families.
-- We cut taxes for small businesses.
-- We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers.
-- We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children.
-- We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college."
Then again, it appears that nothing the president does will placate the Tea Party.
Listen To This Man. He Left With A Surplus.
President Clinton explains Mitt Romney's $5 trillion tax cut and how middle class families with children will get an average tax increase of $2,000 to pay for $250,000 in tax cuts for multi-millionaires.
As President Clinton shares:
"In the first debate, Governor Romney said that he wasn't really going to cut taxes on upper income people—he only wanted to cut taxes for middle class people. That's not true."
As President Clinton shares:
"In the first debate, Governor Romney said that he wasn't really going to cut taxes on upper income people—he only wanted to cut taxes for middle class people. That's not true."
Compare Clinton's Policies to Bush's Policies.
If tax cuts really created jobs and grew the economy, why didn’t we see huge job growth after a decade of tax cuts under Bush? In fact, we saw just the opposite. This graph compares what happened in the 7 years after Clinton’s modest tax increases in 1993 to what happened after Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Clinton created 18 million jobs; Bush created only 6 million before giving them all back and then some in the Great Recession of 2008; The Clinton era saw GDP growth of 26%; Bush era saw only 16% before we gave some of that back in 2008, too. Under Clinton, median income went up 14.7%; with Bush, a meager 1.6%. Why, in the name of all that is fiscally responsible, would we even consider continuing to pursue policies that not only busted the budget but also failed miserably?
Illustration and commentary courtesy of Connect the Dots USA
Illustration and commentary courtesy of Connect the Dots USA
Arithmetic.
Romney claims that his proposed 20% across-the-board income tax rate cut won't cost $5 Trillion (over 10 years) because he is going to get rid of enough tax deductions to pay for it — what he euphemistically refers to as "broadening the tax base" by making more income taxable. He won't tell us which deductions he will eliminate or restrict (he'll work all that out with Congress later), but he promises that the middle class and working families won't pay more.
This graph shows how Mitt's promise is mathematically impossible. Here are the Top 20 federal tax deductions and exclusions for individuals. These twenty account for 90% of the lost revenue due to "tax expenditures" or about $1.1 Trillion (= $1,100 Billion). To pay for Romney's 20% tax rate cut, you would have to eliminate $465 Billion for fiscal year 2014. What would you get rid of — the big ones like the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance? Exclusion of pension or 401k contributions? The mortgage-interest deduction? Voting for Mitt's tax plan, which is the heart of his jobs plan, is like signing a loan document where all you know is the rate, but the loan amount and your payments will be filled in later. It's a sucker's bet.
According to Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, the 20% rate cut on just people making over $200,000 results in $250 Billion/year of lost revenue. Eliminating all their deductions only gets you $160 Billion back. You are already short $90 Billion just to pay for Mitt's rate cut on the top 2%.
The only ones Romney says are off the table are the special 15% rate on investment income, so there's $85.4 Billion you can't touch because that would mean Romney and his one-percenter buddies would be paying more than double what they now pay in taxes. We certainly can't ask rich people to sacrifice anything. So you have 18 deductions left... give it a try. And, for extra credit, if you want to actually pay for the budget-busting Bush tax cuts, which Romney will continue, you've got to eliminate about another $370 Billion.
As a pragmatic progressive who understands separation of powers, I don't expect a President to achieve all his/her campaign promises, especially when there is unified Republican obstruction in Congress. I just expect them to be clear about what those promises are and to fight for them. Mitt Flop has made promises on every side of every issue, and he makes mathematically impossible promises that only a wizard could keep. The only thing I'm certain of is that Mitt will fight hard for the .01%.
Illustration and commentary courtesy of Connect the Dots USA
This graph shows how Mitt's promise is mathematically impossible. Here are the Top 20 federal tax deductions and exclusions for individuals. These twenty account for 90% of the lost revenue due to "tax expenditures" or about $1.1 Trillion (= $1,100 Billion). To pay for Romney's 20% tax rate cut, you would have to eliminate $465 Billion for fiscal year 2014. What would you get rid of — the big ones like the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance? Exclusion of pension or 401k contributions? The mortgage-interest deduction? Voting for Mitt's tax plan, which is the heart of his jobs plan, is like signing a loan document where all you know is the rate, but the loan amount and your payments will be filled in later. It's a sucker's bet.
According to Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, the 20% rate cut on just people making over $200,000 results in $250 Billion/year of lost revenue. Eliminating all their deductions only gets you $160 Billion back. You are already short $90 Billion just to pay for Mitt's rate cut on the top 2%.
The only ones Romney says are off the table are the special 15% rate on investment income, so there's $85.4 Billion you can't touch because that would mean Romney and his one-percenter buddies would be paying more than double what they now pay in taxes. We certainly can't ask rich people to sacrifice anything. So you have 18 deductions left... give it a try. And, for extra credit, if you want to actually pay for the budget-busting Bush tax cuts, which Romney will continue, you've got to eliminate about another $370 Billion.
As a pragmatic progressive who understands separation of powers, I don't expect a President to achieve all his/her campaign promises, especially when there is unified Republican obstruction in Congress. I just expect them to be clear about what those promises are and to fight for them. Mitt Flop has made promises on every side of every issue, and he makes mathematically impossible promises that only a wizard could keep. The only thing I'm certain of is that Mitt will fight hard for the .01%.
Illustration and commentary courtesy of Connect the Dots USA
Arithmetic Done On Romney's Tax Plan By Intelligent, Credible People.
- Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Winning Economist : Culture of Fraud
- Matt Taibbi, contributing editor to Rolling Stone: Biden was Right to Laugh
- Larry Summers, Harvard economist : Romney Tax Plan The Equivalent of a Hamburgers and Ice Cream Diet
- The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank: Guess Who Pays for Romney's Tax Cuts for the Wealthy: The Middle Class
- Josh Barro, Bloomberg View columnist: The Final Word on Mitt Romney's Tax Plan
- Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics: The Arithmetic Doesn't Work
- Ezra Klein, Washington Post columnist: Romney Tax Plan on Table. Debt Collapses Table
- David Frum, contributing editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast: Romney's Tax Plan Won't Work
- Catherine Rampell, economics reporter at The New York Times: The Math on the Romney-Ryan Tax Plan
Pay Attention. You'll Need Some Time to Understand This.
VP candidate Paul Ryan recently said that he doesn't have time to go into all the math — it would take him too long and everyone would start changing the channel. Well, we love math here at Connect The Dots USA, so we'll give you all the time you need Mr. Ryan. Perhaps the real reason is you want to sell us on the yummy cookies (a 20% across-the-board rate cut) but don't want to tell us about the yucky part — all the deductions you'll need to eliminate so what counts as "taxable income" goes up dramatically.
Good luck getting Congress or the American people to give up or severely restrict the mortgage interest deduction, the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance, the charitable deduction, the Earned Income Tax Credit, or the child credit. Because that's what it would take to pay for Romney's proposed across-the-board 20% rate cut and make it "revenue neutral." More income would have to be made taxable by eliminating popular deductions. That's what Romney euphemistically refers to as "broadening the tax base."
The net effect would be a huge tax cut for high-income households paid for with a tax increase for everyone else. It's deja vu on voodoo economics. How many times are we going to fall for this Big Con?
In case you don't quite understand how our "bracket" tax system works, here's a quick primer. This graph shows the income tax brackets passed under Bush in 2003 and extended until the end of 2012 by Obama. You can also see the Clinton rates and the proposed Romney rates. The important thing to remember is that no matter how much total income a household has, the taxable income (after deductions) that falls in each bracket is taxed at the same rate for everyone.
So, for example, even Oprah pays only 10% on her first $8,500 of taxable income, 15% on the amount between $8,500 and $34,500, and so forth. And if she married Stedman, they’d use the brackets on the left for married couples. Super-rich people are fixated on the top bracket because that’s where most of their income falls. And Wall Streeters like Mitt Romney really care about the special 15% rate that gives preferential tax treatment to income off money over income off sweat.
The rest of us should really only concern ourselves with the lower brackets because, while our last dollars may tip into the 25% or the 28% brackets, most of our income falls in the lower 10% and 15% brackets. And we should care about which of our deductions are being eliminated/restricted and what counts as taxable income.
Illustration and commentary courtesy of Connect the Dots USA
Good luck getting Congress or the American people to give up or severely restrict the mortgage interest deduction, the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance, the charitable deduction, the Earned Income Tax Credit, or the child credit. Because that's what it would take to pay for Romney's proposed across-the-board 20% rate cut and make it "revenue neutral." More income would have to be made taxable by eliminating popular deductions. That's what Romney euphemistically refers to as "broadening the tax base."
The net effect would be a huge tax cut for high-income households paid for with a tax increase for everyone else. It's deja vu on voodoo economics. How many times are we going to fall for this Big Con?
In case you don't quite understand how our "bracket" tax system works, here's a quick primer. This graph shows the income tax brackets passed under Bush in 2003 and extended until the end of 2012 by Obama. You can also see the Clinton rates and the proposed Romney rates. The important thing to remember is that no matter how much total income a household has, the taxable income (after deductions) that falls in each bracket is taxed at the same rate for everyone.
So, for example, even Oprah pays only 10% on her first $8,500 of taxable income, 15% on the amount between $8,500 and $34,500, and so forth. And if she married Stedman, they’d use the brackets on the left for married couples. Super-rich people are fixated on the top bracket because that’s where most of their income falls. And Wall Streeters like Mitt Romney really care about the special 15% rate that gives preferential tax treatment to income off money over income off sweat.
The rest of us should really only concern ourselves with the lower brackets because, while our last dollars may tip into the 25% or the 28% brackets, most of our income falls in the lower 10% and 15% brackets. And we should care about which of our deductions are being eliminated/restricted and what counts as taxable income.
Illustration and commentary courtesy of Connect the Dots USA
Mitt Romney Is Not The Face Of MormonisimWhat he doesn't realize is that 83% of "those people" are retired seniors or they have a job and pay payroll taxes (at a much higher rate than Romney does). The remaining 7% includes veterans and the disabled. Not to mention these folks pay state and local taxes, sales taxes and property taxes. Romney also doesn't recognize that many of those seniors, lower-income workers and unemployed make up the voting base of the GOP because they often vote against their own economic self-interest. For all his self-proclaimed business savvy, Romney is not very good with numbers.
Did Mitt just slam you? On Form 1040 of your 2011 tax return, look at your "total tax" number on line 61 (be sure to subtract any amount on line 56 for self-employment payroll tax). If the result is 0 or less, you are part of the moocher 47% according to Mitt. Perhaps you'll think twice about voting for Mr. Richie Rich who regards you with such disdain. Turns out there are also quite a few one-percenters who don't pay any federal income tax either. In 2011, that included 27,000 filers with incomes between $533,000 and $2.2 million. Perhaps that's why Romney won't reveal more tax returns — maybe we'll discover he's part of his own moocher class. Illustration and commentary courtesy of Connect the Dots USA |
The Irony of the "47 Percent"What's ironic about Mitt's pompous, assumptive statement is that the majority of the people Mitt categorized as the 47% reside in Republican dominated states. In this statement (for which he admitted he was "completely wrong") he essentially blasted the majority of his potential voting base.
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