{"id":4620,"date":"2011-04-19T02:41:13","date_gmt":"2011-04-19T09:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4620"},"modified":"2011-04-19T02:41:13","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T09:41:13","slug":"details-of-class-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/19\/details-of-class-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"Details of Class Warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somehow, Republicans believe that instead of funding jobs programs to improve the lot of Main Street America, they should gut Main Street while providing huge tax cuts for billionaires.  Someone with a $1 billion income gets a $100,000 million tax cut under the Ryan budget.  They justify it with the lie that the very rich pay a disproportionately high share of the taxes.  The latest data discredits their lie.<\/font><\/p>\n

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New data released by the IRS<\/a> reveals that, over a period of 12 years, tax rates for the richest 400 Americans were effectively cut in half<\/strong>. In 1995, the richest 400 Americans paid, on average, 29.93% of their income in federal taxes. In 2007, the last year for which the IRS has released data, the richest 400 Americans paid just 16.63%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"19chart1\"<\/p>\n

In 1995, just 12 of the 400 richest Americans paid an effective tax rat of between zero and 15%. By 2007, that number skyrocketed to over 150. The massive reduction is due to both Bush-era tax reductions for the wealthy and the aggressive exploitation of tax dodges and shelters. (For details, check out this report<\/a> from BusinessWeek.) <\/p>\n

As their tax rates plummeted, the total income of the richest 400 Americans skyrocketed. In 1995, the combined income of the richest 400 was just over $6 billion. By 2007, the combined income of the richest 400 was almost $23 billion<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

\"19chart3\"<\/p>\n

If the richest 400 Americans simply paid the same effective rate in 2007 as they did in 1995, the government would have collected over $3 billion in additional revenue\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

Now you tell me, how can it be anything other than class warfare when income of the super rich almost quadruples, but their tax rate is almost cut in half, during a time when middle class earnings stagnated?<\/font><\/p>\n

I am in the lowest tax bracket, so a return to 1995 rates would increase my taxes by 50%.  It would cause me real pain, but I\u2019d gladly endure it if the rates were also raised on the super rich and their loopholes eliminated.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somehow, Republicans believe that instead of funding jobs programs to improve the lot of Main Street America, they should gut Main Street while providing huge tax cuts for billionaires.  Someone with a $1 billion income gets a $100,000 million tax cut under the Ryan budget.  They justify it with the lie that the very rich […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}