More Limbaugh lies

[Fixated]

Now, if you visit Rush's site, you'll notice the pie chart at the bottom of the page about how the top 50% of wage earners pay 96.03% of the taxes. Now, I smelled bullshit, so it took me about five minutes to hunt this down:

Add up those numbers and you'll see Rush's lie. The page that picture is from, http://www.inequality.org/facts2.html is awesome. Just throwing that in there. Anyway, this is all part of my crusade to prove dumb people wrong.

[joefree1]

1. good for you, flush Rush

[pnb]

2. Uh, where is that proof that he is wrong

Say what you want about Limbaugh but your pie chart has nothing to do with his statistic...you're comparing wealth distribution to income taxes paid. What exactly have you proven?

[Fixated]

3. wow....

If the top fifty percent earn about 97% of the money in the country, it would make sense that they pay 96% or so of the taxes...wouldn't it now?

[Fixated]

4. Oh, I see what you mean

I take back my lie comment, his chart is merely misleading and half of the truth.

[GayboyBilly]

8. not to change the subject

If you want to see something funny about Rush? go here.

<http://williamhking.net/id8.html>

[PretzelWarrior]

6. not really. lots of families making 20K/year may pay no taxes

if they have enough child deductions.

lots of people in my income bracket pay 35% taxes which is more than a large group who pay much lower rate if they are in the 30K realm.

not defending Rush. I'd say his argument about 50% of people raises more questions about WHY HALF this country earns so little that they aren't at a level to pay fed tax.

better question would be to add up payroll tax and other taxes that go to fed and then find out how things stack up.

[DieboldMustDie]

11. A family making $20K per year...

pays $1530 in FICA, plus sales and excise taxes.

[RobertSeattle]

7. And you are conveniently dropping "Federal Income"

as a modifier in front of "taxes", a standard Republican ploy. Since the rich primarily pay FEDERAL INCOME taxes, that is why they contort FEDERAL INCOME taxes into just TAXES - conveniently skipping social security, medicare, sales, sin, etc TAXES that the vast majority pay.

[pnb]

15. And you seem to have missed my point...

You conviently disregard the fact that I was pointing out a faulty comparison just so you could go on a little rant about Republican ploys.

[Fixated]

17. ...

The comparison wasn't faulty. Income relates to taxes. If you can't grasp this, I recommend you read a book.

[pnb]

18. Income certainly does relate to taxes..

...but that wasn't the comparison you made. You compared income and wealth which are two totally separate things. The amount of money one earns in one year has nothing to do with their net worth.

If you understand that, perhaps you should check out one of those books.

[NewGuy]

23. The top fifty percent do not earn 97% of the income.

The top fifty percent control 96% of the wealth in the nation. Wealth is current value income is what comes in this year. Thus A person may have no income at all but control vast amounts of wealth. We have an income tax rather than a wealth tax. We may want to switch to a wealth tax, but until we do the chart here has nothing to do with taxes at all.

[NewGuy]

5. Not sure I get the connection here

I'm not a Rush supporter by any means but a chart showing net worth has nothing to do with either income or taxes. We may need a wealth tax to get some of the money that people have sitting around back in circulation, but that wouldn't be taxed under income. That top 1% is people like Bill Gates that have billions. During a slowdown like we are currently in he may actually have a losing year and pay no income tax at all.

[Fixated]

12. ...

OK, a chart showing income is related to taxes, because taxes are related to income. The idea is that Rush portrays it as an offense to the rich that they pay so much of the taxes in this country, when in fact it's proportional, and now (after the Bush cuts) leans towards unfair for the poor.

Also, I'm deeply irritated by anyone who says that there is anyone who is buying anything or getting a check anywhere and doesn't pay taxes. I have a part time job (I'm 18) and I might earn about 4000 a year, but I pay taxes in it (Social Security, Medicare....state taxes).

[Terwilliger]

13. 10% have 70% of the wealth

this is not some fringe issue. It goes DIRECTLY to the situation we all find ourselves in...including taxes.

I believe Ralph Nader was talking about these disparities in 2000

[dwillison]

14. Wouldn't a wealth tax be taxing the same money over and

over again? If my family had a wealth of one million dollars and
it were taxed every year, would my family eventually be broke? Is that the desired result?

[Fixated]

16. ...

What? Are you kidding? Do you disagree with taxes altogether or are you missing some huge part of this simple puzzle. Obviously, that family has some source of income. But if they just have a set amount of money, then that won't be taxed more than once (unless they inherited from a rich uncle, in which case, thanks to some Repuke bullshit, it won't be taxed at all).

[NewGuy]

24. If the tax is progressive...

at some point that wealth would no longer be taxed. I'm not sure I am an advocate of wealth taxes, I was just pointing out that the two assertions are not mutually exclusive.

[thom1102]

9. Took me a minute to put things together in my mind too.

But I figured it out. Thanks for the info.

[Terwilliger]

10. Holy Cow! The top 10% own 75% of the wealth!

I think Ralph Nader was saying something about these disparities in 2000.

[TreasonousBastard]

19. OK, but...

As has beenn noted, this is wealth, not income, and income is much more related to taxpaying.

Try this page for income related numbers:

http://www.inequality.org/facts3fr.htm

[Fixated]

20. ...

Ok, point taken, but what I'm referring to is the issue of fair taxation, which I see as corresponding more to wealth.

[TreasonousBastard]

21. Chicken and Egg

There are a number of things at work here. Income, wealth, and taxes are all related, and tax equality can be looked at from a number of angles.

The original statement was that high income people pay most of the taxes. That can be argued in many ways, and I would argue in this specific case that the median household income is around $50,000, which means that of the half that make less than $50,000 many are low wage and pay little or no income taxes. They do, of course, pay all those other taxes, like FICA, Medicare local real estate taxes, etc., but Limburger and his ilk prefer to ignore regressive taxation, and falsely insist that "higher" incomes pay "all" the taxes.

Adding wealth into the discussion changes things drastically. Many of the truly wealthy pay little or no income taxes at all, unless they are caught in the alternative minimum tax. Because of the way they are able to engineer their income, they will rarely pay a rate significantly above the rest of us hoi polloi. Warren Buffett himself obseved that his tax rate was about the same as his secretary's, and he admitted that that was disgraceful. He does pay lots of taxes, but he admits that the fact he pays millions a year in taxes is only a raw number, and his actual tax rate is really low.

Wealth and income are related, but there have to be some distinctions made. Someone making $250,000 a year may have a high income, but not be wealthy, and pay a lot in taxes. Someone inheriting $12,000,000 in real estate with limited income, stocks paying low dividends, and non-coupon bonds may be wealthy, but not have that high an income, and may pay little in taxes.

Ultimately, the more money you have, the more you benefit from loopholes and exemptions.

[Festivito]

22. That statistic Rush uses came from a .gov website that...

... had disclaimers:
1. It was "unpublished" which I did not understand except to think that someone just put it together without or avoiding peer review.

2. It discluded something concerning returns that had no tax liability or something about zero. This I took as the statistic discluding people whose losses on paper outweighed their incomes, and this statistic was probably timely since many people lost a lot of paper wealth during the 2000 election cycle -- plumeting when Bush was the certain winner.

I'm not sure what problems the statistic might have, but, I'm certain I've never heard Rush or read any article that included disclaimers alongside the statistic's use.