Repubs (O'Reilly) caught lying about taxes by Media Matters.

[AP]

This issue is one of the most important today. Here's a good summary of how desperate Republicans are lying about it in effort to stop time from moving forward.


FOX News Channel host Bill O'Reilly labeled as "socialist" a proposal to reform the New Jersey property tax system and attempted to discredit it by misrepresenting how the current system works. On the May 20 edition of O'Reilly's nationally syndicated radio program, The Radio Factor With Bill O'Reilly, O'Reilly spoke disparagingly of a proposal by New Jersey Governor James McGreevey to increase state income taxes on households earning over $500,000 and use the money to give property tax rebates to 2 million low-income, middle-income, and elderly residents. Arguing against the proposal, O'Reilly misleadingly claimed that upper-income New Jerseyans already pay a larger percentage of their income than lower-income residents.

O'Reilly criticized the tax proposal, calling it quasi-socialist, communism, and socialism and labeling it a "deviation" from the wishes of the Founding Fathers -- and then he added that Democrats favor the proposal:


O'REILLY: All right, so it's income redistribution. It's basically slapping more tax -- and remember, if you were earning $500,000 or more, you're paying your property tax already. You're paying a federal income tax. You're paying a state income tax. You're paying all the other taxes that come along.

Now, is this good? Is this what we should be doing here in America? Now, remember -- remember how the country was founded. So this is a deviation, because the Founding Fathers didn't want any federal income tax at all. That only happened around the turn of the 20th century. And they said OK, leave it to the -- leave it to the locals to tax and take what they need.

...

http://mediamatters.org/items/200405210005

[physioex]

1. UHHHHHHHHHH...

O'Reilly is a liar??...STOP THE PRESS!!

[AP]

2. Here's the truth about NJ taxes:

The truth is that lower- and middle-income New Jerseyans pay a larger portion of their income in property taxes than do upper-income residents. According to a report by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, the poorest 20 percent of New Jerseyans paid out 5.6 percent of their annual income in property taxes, while the richest 20 percent paid out about 4 percent. Indeed, the New Jersey tax system as a whole -- including property taxes, state income taxes, and sales and excise taxes -- is similarly regressive, with the poorest 20 percent of residents paying 12.5 percent of income while the richest 20 percent pay about 9.6 percent. Undeterred, O'Reilly continued to criticize the proposal and used the discussion as an opportunity to praise President George W. Bush:

[keithyboy]

5. And don't forget NJ's almost tripled highway tolls...commuters are paying

through their asses if they live in NJ and commute to Phila. or Delaware to work. These are the kind of taxes you can't escape and eat as much from your wages as some income taxes...and their is not write-off for the gasoline tax.

[AP]

6. And McGreevey is really committed to doing something to make the tax bur-

den more fairly distributed.

Thus, O'Reilly has to bend over backwards, contorting himself in order to propagandize against him.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Dear God...

Please deliver us from that lying moron. A flood, a lightening bolt, a plague of frogs. Anything that works.

[Egalitarian Zetetic]

4. Didn't o'liely make 10 million in 2003 <nt>

[Geo55]

7. taxation

O'REILLY: So they basically are saying look, if you're making a lot of money, we're going to take as much as we can and give it to people who aren't making that much money. So do you think that's fair? It's a very, very simple question. Do you? ... Because Bush doesn't.<B> Bush basically says all Americans are entitled to be treated the same when it comes to taxation.</B>

Ya just wanna squeeze that pimple on his shoulders till it pops when he says this crap.

[KharmaTrain]

8. Let's Do Some Checking.

First, the IRS and the Federal Tax system were the lovechild of William Howard Taft and the right wing Repugnicans of 100 years ago.

Now, while I don't earn over 500,000 a year, I sure know the difference how taxes bit when I was making 20k a year and today. It's too easy to remember looking at those payroll checks and seeing all those taxes taken out; and then under the laws of Raygun, I still had to pay more in April. AND, I was paying property taxes, state taxes, local taxes...no one is exempt. Today, I definitely pay more, since I earn more, but I feel it a hell of a lot less. And I know that I'm paying for a good school system (a major reason I live in this area), streets, sanitation, parks, the senior center, the health club (probably most of these wingnut morons are members) and so on.

O'Reilly should take his own advice and "shut up" when talking taxes and incomes if he wants to keep pretending he's "the voice of the regular guy". He's more like Archie Bunker...and at least we all knew that Caroll O'Connor was 180 degrees opposite of the bigot he played on TV. O'Reilly is the real deal.

BTW...doesn't Mr. O'Reilly happen to LIVE in New Jersey? Just wonderin'...

[Yupster]

9. None of the quotes listed

show O'Reilly saying anything close to

"upper-income New Jerseyans already pay a larger percentage of their income than lower-income residents."

Did he say this?

You'd think they would have quoted it if he did.

[AP]

11. Yes it does. Read the article again.

Here's the quote:

HILL: But the argument is that -- that -- that you -- that the wealthiest pay less percentage-wise.

O'REILLY: But they don't. I pay a lot more than you would -- Look. At one time in my life, I was making $150 a week in Scranton, Pennsylvania. OK? I was paying maybe 12% of my income. Now I'm paying about 35% after all the deductions that I don't even want to take, by the way...

And you can listen to the show if you still don't believe he said it:

http://www.billoreilly.com/pg/jsp/general/genericpage.jsp?JSESSIONID=ArDouthz6fw45qzCrWm6ne72eZJGhZtl6CZpuK8s4lQlD1MVFqey!-381257719&pageID=113

[Yupster]

12. In that quote, it seems Oreilly

is talking about the income tax. Surely he didn't mean he was paying 35 % of his income in property taxes.

[AP]

13. What he's doing is the typical right wing trick of clouding the difference

between the actual percentage of total, unadjusted gross income you pay in taxes and the absolute amount one pays in taxes.

A rich person pays more in absolute sense, but if a rich person pays a lower percentage of their income (or even the same percentage of their income) that a poor person pays, it's grossly unfair.

O'Reilly is trying to confuse his viewers. He's not confused, but what he says is carefully calculated to confuse people.

Incidentally, he must be talking about his entire tax burden, state, local and federal, amounting to 35% because that might be slightly higher than his top rate on earned income, and he, as he admits, has many deductions (including probably mortgage interest deduction).

[AP]

14. Just curious...how did you get this wrong?

Did you read the article?

You sure were quick to jump in and defend O'Reilly.

[AP]

15. kick

[Eric J in MN]

10. O'Reilly ranting and raving.

To call progressive taxation "communism" is ranting and raving.