Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Soaking the Rich

One of the myths surrounding the Bush tax cuts is that because of them the rich pay less in income taxes. But that is not true. They pay lower TAX RATES not lower taxes. Actually as tax rates were lowered the rich paid more in taxes. Check out this chart.



If you are confused why this happened (and it happened under Reagan as well) then take Economics 101 again.

Populist ideology says the rich are getting away with murder, but hey, ideology has never been known to be moved by facts. I'm jujst sayin'.

3 comments:

Michael Kruse said...

Bingo!

#Debi said...

You know, even if the rich did pay less with lower taxes (along with the rest of us), the less rich would still benefit from that. The "rich" are the ones who own business, factories, etc., that employ the not-so-rich. If they pay less in taxes, at least some of that "windfall" (one of my pet-peeve words) would be used to expand those business, employ more people, and bring everyone's boat up higher. Even if a "rich" spent all of the money garnered from lower taxes, they spend those on goods and services made by the "less rich". Still increases the general welfare of everyone.

Sorry, you pushed a button there. /rant :)

Magotty Man said...

#debi - not always true. Example: A recent study has shown that in Canada, total wealth has risen dramatically since the 80's. Yet the middle class has stagnated in real terms and the lower classes are poorer. Thus.... the rich are richer. But the truely rich are a very small portion of the population.