Oh, those darn rich people who don't pay anything in taxes and don't pay their "fair share." Look again:

"President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, paid $187,768 in federal income taxes for the 2005 on total income of $618,694, the White House said on Friday. Whic is almost 30%.

"Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, reported taxable income for 2005 that was more than three times that of the Bushes, $1,961,157, on which they owe $529,636 in federal taxes.

The Cheneys' adjusted gross income in 2005 was $8,819,006, which his office said was largely the result of the exercise by an independent gift administrator of stock options that had been irrevocably set aside in 2001 for charity."


"The Cheneys had donated $6,869,655 to charity in 2005."

"The White House said Bush and Mrs. Bush contributed $75,560 to churches and charitable organizations, including the American Red Cross' hurricane 2005 relief, the Salvation Army's hurricane relief fund and Pakistan earthquake relief, among other organizations."

Wonder what the Dem leaders donated in 2005?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060414/...ney_taxes_dc_1

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

I cannot understand why you think that pointing out the financial reports of the First Families are accurate representations of everyone "rich".

This is Bush and Cheney. They're at the top of the government. I don't know if you noticed this, but they're under a microscope pretty much 110% of the time. So to say that they might just skip certain tax reductions in the name of looking generous is, by a large margin, the most obvious thing I would assume to happen.


Hey, let's not forget that the average rich person actually pays for things like food, shelter and personal protection.

We, the taxpayers, pay for *everything* from Air Force One to the presidential toilet paper.

I'm fairly sure, while you're president, you don't have to worry about things like the mortgage or electricity bill.


Am I actually explaining this? My eyes don't rolls wide enough at this moment.

Clearly you thought this was proof that "rich people" pay their fair share and play by the rules.

I'd like to dedicate this post to:

Enron
WorldCom
ImClone
Tyco

conservatives are very selective in their analysis of taxes, because if they are not it would be pretty obvious just how narrowly class based their policies are. I will give a few of the obvious examples below.

First when they talk about taxes they are very careful to not draw attention to how much of the total income in the US upper income groups earn and they restrict their analysis exclusively to one and only one tax, the federal income tax and no others. Thus they will argue that the percent of total income taxes paid by upper income groups went up after 1980 entirely ignoring that this occured in large, or entirely, because the percent of income earned by top income groups went way up after 1980.

For example say in 1980 the top two percent earned 40 percent of US income and paid 50 percent tax rates (which they did not but its for ease of example). Thus they would pay 20 percent of the GDP in taxes. The rest of the public earned 60 percent and pay 16 percent rates, they pay 10 percent of GDP in taxes. Then in 2005 at 50 percent tax rate the elites earned 60 percent of total US income. They would pay now 30 percent of gdp in taxes. The public at the same 1/6 would pay about 7 percent. The ratio of money paid by the two groups would be much higher but it would be exclusively because of changes in the percent of the economy earned by elites.

Similarly, consider a 40 percent tax rate for elites at the later period. Now they would pay 24 percent, the rest 7 percent still. The ratio paid by elites is still higher than the earlier ratio but its because their percent of the economy went up again. Not the tax rate changes.

Second income taxes are one of only many taxes paid by the public - they simply are one of the few that are progressive which is why conservatives exclusively focus on them. Federal exise taxes and most state taxes are highly regressive, that is you pay a higher percent of your income as your income goes down. This is one example from the conservative darling, the consumption tax.

I am Joe Rich guy. I earn a million a year (not that much these days for many of the super wealthy). I spend 10 percent of my income on consumption (which is likely high for required consumption expenses). 10 percent of that is taxes. I pay 1 percent of my total income in taxes.

I am Joe Doe. I earn 30 thousand a year. I spend 20 thousand of that on required consumption expenses (things like housing, clothes, food etc that are not discretionary). This is a very low number of what actually would be spent by such an income earner but I do it to give the consumption tax types a decent break. I pay ten percent of that 20k in consumption taxes 2000 dollars. I pay 6.6 percent roughly of my total income in taxes far more than Joe Rich guy.

But the reality is even worse. The real bit from taxes is not on total income but on discretionary income that which you dont need to survive. Joe Rich guy has 900,000 he does not have to spend (even with very generous definitions of that term which assumes he "needs" to have very fancy digs, cars etc compared to others). Only about 1 percent of that is touched by taxes. Joe Doe has 10k in discretionary spending (which is way high for real Americans who need to spend most of their income to get by these days). He pays 20 percent of his discretionary income in taxes. Many state and federal exise taxes are done exactly this way now (as are local taxes).

Somehow conservatives never get around to that type of analysis. Its fasinating how they focus nearly exclusively on taxes that hit high income groups such as income or estate taxes and never get around to discuss the other taxes (which are equally if not more prevalent than income taxes) which have the opposite effect.

Quite a concidence n'est ce pas mes amis?

Actually, a local business columnist pointed out some time ago that when you come payroll taxes, sales taxes and income taxes, we already have the "flat tax" that so many push for.

is that when one counts all state, local, and federal taxes (including social security) we likely have a highly regressive tax system.

>> "The Cheneys had donated $6,869,655 to charity in 2005."

6.8 millions, that's a lot of money! Personally, I think Cheney should donate them ALL to those soldiers who died in Iraq their families. $10,000 to accidental shooting research will be nice.

What country are you talking about?

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/03inrate.pdf

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Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. - Theodore Roosevelt

...would be required to pay $5 million in taxes.

You don't pay it, if you don't make it, and I agree we should take as much of the profit money those evil businesses make so that they can shut down.

The only jobs the poor provide in the United States are, hookers, pimps, thieves, and drug dealers.

Not to give business a total pass, many are corrupt, and bailing them out by the US government is absolutely pathetic, but then, most of the political leaders are corrupt.

Not a perfect system, but so far the best on the planet.

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Cheney is the second executive officer to shoot someone in the face and chest. Clinton was the first.

Roughly half of all wage earnes pay zero federal income taxes. Zero. Half the wage earners pay nothing in federal income taxes. The top 10% wage earners pay roughly one-third of all income taxes.

If it's fairness you seek, then might I suggest all wage earners pay federal income taxes? In other words, the only fair thing to do is increase taxes on the poor.

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"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
Winston Churchill

conservatives immediately (and exclusively) focus on income taxes as if they were the only tax which they are not. Their are federal exise and other taxes and state and local taxes which take a bigger share of income than the income tax and which are heavily regressive. As a minor aside the 50 percent not paying federal income tax is total nonsense. Even the ultra conservative Heritage puts it a 40 percent. My income is not much above the median and I pay it. You pay income tax on income over about 12 thousand dollars (those are the base exemptions).

that says a lot about the values of the posters. The extreme adulation of the right for the wealthy is unique in the modern world.... Its remarkable coming so son after the sixties and seventies when egalitarian sentiments were quite strong in the US.