Wednesday, September 21, 2011

I've Already Paid My Fair Share. . . Jerk

“This is not class warfare, this is math,” said Obama about his latest attack on the rich. And in so saying, Obama proved to us that not only is he a horrible president, but he’s bad at math too. Let’s see who really pays what in the way of taxes.

President Fail and his winged monkeys keep saying the rich need to “pay their fair share.” Chief winged monkey is the Crony Cornhusker Warren Buffett. Buffett, for those who don’t know, is a disaster profiteer, having made several billion during the financial crisis by loaning money to Goldman Sachs and General Electric (both of whom are heavily connected to the White House). Those loans, by the way, were guaranteed by we peons with TARP funds.

To thank Obama for adding to his $50 billion fortune, Buffett is now running around asking that his taxes be raised. And to back up his demand, he’s claiming that his middle class secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does. Clearly, a billionaire should not be paying a lower tax rate than someone in the middle class right? Hence, we need a tax on everyone making more than $250,000 a year. . . I’ll leave you to figure out how $250,000 equates to being a billionaire.

But is what Buffett says true?

Buffett claims he only pays 17% in taxes, which he implies is typical for millionaires and billionaires. But according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center (using IRS data), millionaires and billionaires actually pay on average 29% of their income as federal taxes. By comparison, middle class earners ($50,000 - $75,000) pay on average 15%, and the lowest income earners ($20,000 to $30,000) pay on average 5.7%.

So Buffett isn’t typical. In fact, he’s underpaying the average by 43%. Which means he shouldn’t be complaining about tax rates, he should be complaining about all those great deductions he’s using to keep his taxes low. According to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, there are about one trillion dollars in deductions, exemptions and credits taken each year. No doubt, Warren uses a lot of those. He also probably lowers his rate by keeping much of his money overseas. Why don’t we eliminate those things first before we start attacking “the rich” (i.e. anyone earning $250,000 a year). Want to bet that Warren would squeal like a stuck pig if we did that?

And while we’re at it, what is a “fair share” anyway? 236,000 Americans made more than $1 million in income last year. As a group, they paid 20% of all federal income taxes. Is that fair? Is it fair that 46% of Americans pay NO federal income tax? Is it fair that 52% of Americans receive a check from the government? Not in my book.

Maybe the “fair” thing to do would be to pay back what each of us took from the federal government. All I’ve really gotten is military protection and crappy roads. So in my book, I’ve already more than covered my tab. I doubt Obama or Buffett can say the same.

But let’s put some perspective on this. Where did all the money go?

Obama spent it.

In 2007, the federal government took in $2.568 trillion and spent $2.728 trillion, giving us a deficit of $160 billion. In 2011, the federal government will take in $2.23 trillion and will spend $3.629 trillion, giving us a deficit of $1.4 trillion -- 8.75 times the deficit we had just four years before.

What caused this?

Social Security and Medicare went up $162 billion and $119 billion. Lost tax revenues cost another $338 billion. But that’s only $619 billion. Where did the other $621 billion come from? That’s spending.

That’s the remnants of Obama’s stimulus bill, which is still wreaking havoc in the system. Says former CBO chief Douglas Holtz-Eakin, “it was essentially a down payment on the Obama domestic agenda. . . it’s spread all through the budget.” Essentially, it raised baselines and kicked off new spending that now continues unabated. That’s Obama’s legacy. Over ten years he’ll cost us $6.2 trillion in new spending. . . double that once you factor in the automatic increases. That’s why we’re broke. And that’s why anyone who tells you we’ve started an “austerity program” is lying.

So before Obama starts whining about other people paying their fair share, maybe Obama and his friends better figure out some way to cover that tab themselves, because it's only fair that they pay that back. Maybe it’s time for a “union employee surcharge”? Maybe it’s time for a “green subsidies refund charge”? Maybe Team Obama better start washing the country's dishes.

36 comments:

StanH said...

Warren Buffett is arguably the king of crony-capitalism. In just the last few years from TARP, Stimulus, Barrycare, etc. like the venture vulture that he is, has purchased banks at pennies on the dollar, hoping to move healthcare of his 200,000 employees to the taxpayer (yet to be determined), enhanced his stock position in Goldman-Sachs etc. This kindly old man would cut your gonads off for a great bottom line, make no mistake, with Buffett you must ask, what’s in it for him? Thankfully with the new media his lying bullcrap does not go unchallenged, and most people who look know that his own company Berkshire/Hathaway is in arrears on his own taxes going back to 2002, in the billions of dollars…jerk. This millionaires billionaires crap is really pissing me off. Be certain, small Sub-Chapter S, and LLC’s doing $200,000 to a $5,000,000 a year, are the real jobs generators in this country, invariably this obscene tax policy (talking point) is directed at these incredibly hard working people, 60 to a 100 hrs. a week as the norm. Not at Warren Buffett aka. millionaires and billionaires , they’ll simply shelter their cash in other ways, God I hate these people!

This is why I want the “Fair Tax.” This uproots the tax code permanently closing down K-Street and making the Warren Buffett’s of the world, and societal freeloaders pay their fair share- - too use that $hitty little Marxist phrase in reverse!

I’ll stop there this crap makes me want to scream at people!

Tennessee Jed said...

Here is what I consider to be the real "money" statistics (from our good friends at Center of Tax Policy (left leaning Brookings Institute, no less):

Joint returns of +>$250,000 and single filers who are making => $125,000 are 3.1% of households. They make 27% of ALL personal income, but pay 47.9% of ALL personal federal income tax in 2009.

I had always wondered about it because I never was able to find this specific stat. Here is what it allows you to do. When a liberal says, yeah the rich pay the biggest share of taxes, but they also make the biggest share of income, you can pull out this stat 47.9% vs. only 27% while giving them a well deserved middle finger!!!

I am a member of that particular club. I am happy I wasn't born to be a Taliban female in Afghanistan. But I worked hard my entire adult life, and do not feel like I was a member of the "lucky sperm club" and happily offer a friendly FU to guys who say I don't pay my fair share. (sorry for the rant, but I get really pissed about this.)

Tennessee Jed said...

In case you just want to go strictly with over $250K, by the way, the numbers are 2% of all households, only 24.1% of total taxable income and 43.6% of total federal personal taxes.

T-Rav said...

There you go again, Andrew, with your math and your logic and your figures...haven't you learned by now, it's about doing what's right?

Seriously, if the AP is calling bullcrap on your talking points, you're in way over your head.

rlaWTX said...

OT: got this in an email today and had to share...
Electile Dysfunction: the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for President put forth by either party in the 2012 election year.

Now back to the regularly scheduled programming...

AndrewPrice said...

Stan, I can see you feel passionately about this. I actually do to. It really pisses me off that these guys are getting rich using our government to take out tax dollars to support their investments and then using regulations to protect themselves from everyone else. We end up picking up the tab over and over and over with these jerks.

And you're right about Buffett. The guy is the King of the Cronies. If you look at what he owns, none of it doesn't make money off the government in one way or another. And during the financial crisis he made a fortune -- some have said $6 billion -- "lending" money to organizations on incredible terms, which were then paid back with TARP funds. We paid him that money.

I'm sick of it frankly and I think we should pass a one line tax bill in his case -- 100% tax on assets and income of Warren Buffett.

Unknown said...

Andrew: Government by envy is exactly what the Founders were trying to avoid. That's why they had no income tax in the Constitution in the first place. "Fair share" is in the eye of the beholder, and when we have socialist rabid egalitarians in charge of the government, we all know where that leads. We'll all be equally poor, except for the political elite who have to be well-compensated for producing the Great Leveling.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, That is indeed the "money statistic." There is no way for liberals to claim that those people are not paying their "fair share", especially when half of Americans pay nothing in taxes. That's 150 million people. If you want more tax revenue, that's where you need to get it.

But you know that once you raise that, liberals will change the debate and will fall back on their favorite "wealth" statistic, where they claim that 1% of Americans own some huge percentage of the nation's wealth (I've seen any numbers from 40% to 98%). That's what they'll fall back on because that makes it sound even worse and in their minds that justifies shifting almost all the tax burden on them.

What I still find so infuriating is this idea that somehow you're right if you make $250,000. If you own a small business, you can make that one year and make nothing the prior 4-5 years getting there. But suddenly you're rich, even though you've only made $50,000 a year. It's ridiculous.

BevfromNYC said...

They just don't get...they can't just throw random nonsense out as "truth" and get away with it.


Note to Obama Re-Election Campaign Headquarters: WE ARE NOT STUPID AND WE SHARE INFORMATION NOW.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, Well, if the AP says that I'm an evil conservative and we should ignore these very facts which even the leftist "think tanks" have agreed with, then who am I to argue. Let's do what feels good.

Frankly, what feels good to me would be selling the internal organs of Democrats to pay off the debts they incurred!

AndrewPrice said...

P.S. T-Rav, As an aside, have you noticed a dramatic increase in the number of AP writers lately and an utter crash in their already low quality? I've seen articles lately that look like they were put together by high schoolers. It's pathetic.

AndrewPrice said...

rlaWTX, LOL! That's great. It also sadly explains how a great many Republicans are feeling right now.

Fortunately, Obama is like angry-Viagra and I think we'll all turn out to get rid of him, no matter who the Republicans nominate.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, Sadly, government by envy is exactly what we've got. I think the only solution frankly is to deny the vote to anyone who gets money from the government. That's the only way to take the self interest out of it.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, "we share information now"! LOL!

Very true, though Team Obama still doesn't get it. They're betting that enough people will blindly follow what they are told by the MSM and will trust that Obama wouldn't lie to them.

Sadly for them (and good for us) those days are over. We can all look up the information for ourselves now and we can spread the word on the internet and the radio and sometimes even on television on Fox. The days of the MSM controlling what we know are over.

DUQ said...

Andrew, Nice breakdown. I would love to see union employee surcharge! I would also like to see Obama have to wash dishes.

I saw this morning that Warren Buffett is now openly campaigning for his buddy Barrack. I hope he gets flushed with Obama in 2012.

BevfromNYC said...

***Dateline NYC - Wall Street area*** - The children of the children of the '60's radicals (that mean YOU, LawHawk), are now occupying Zucotti Park across the street from my office building. They will shut down those evil Wall Street people if they have to stay there for weeks/months/years (or until Mommy and Daddy's money runs out...)

Viva la Revolution!!

The police may try to move them out by force. I say, let them stay. It's a public park and as long as they aren't violent or committing any crimes or harrassing people, they should be allowed to stay. This is America!

Ed said...

I'm not in the rich category, but I want to be some day and it this whole class warfare things really ticks me off. This is appealing to the worst instincts of lazy, jealous, lousy free-riding people who don't deserve a damn penny and yet are making a living off the government. This honestly outrages me.

Unknown said...

Bev: I had my epiphany at just the right time. My kids are very sensible, and my grandkids would probably launch a counter-demonstration if they were in NYC right now. My son is a big investor, and made his first million at age 25. He says he's taxed enough, thank you very much. LOL

AndrewPrice said...

DUQ, Thanks! I'd like to see taxes targeted at Democratic supporters too! :-)

On Buffett, I'm not surprised. He's been supporting of Obama throughout his whole administration.

Unknown said...

I don't know who said it first, but I'm going to steal the phrase "crony socialism" and use it from here on out. It perfectly describes the situation with the gazillionaires who support Obama, and leaves genuine capitalism out of the argument. Crony socialism describes the situation well, and reminds me of the same situation in Germany in the 20s and 30s. Ultimately, it leads to fascism--and worse.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I saw an article about that. Supposedly we're having a week of rage. Ok. Rage on you privileged idiots.

I also saw that apparently this is causing business to boom at various pizza restaurants on Wall Street. Isn't capitalism grand?

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, I think it angers a lot of people. I am personally offended by it because I've paid way more in taxes than I'll ever get back. Indeed, the government does nothing for me except molest my paycheck.

I also know that any "fix" they come up with for these made up unfairnesses will be at my expense. So it's like getting punched coming and going.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I'm glad to hear you raised your son right! :-)

I love that term -- "crony socialism"! Talk about a perfect description of what is going on.

T-Rav said...

Andrew, I honestly quit going to the AP for news some time ago; I quit trusting them. I don't remember why, it was probably a lot of things. But it's no secret that they suck.

Yeah, the problem liberals have when they try to make a moral issue out of this is the arbitrary tax brackets that are set up. When the debate over repealing the Bush tax cuts was going on back in December, I asked my liberal friends, "Can someone explain to me how it is that someone who makes $251,000 a year doesn't deserve that money, but someone who makes $249,000 a year does?" It was, of course, an unanswerable question, and most of them didn't even try.

Stuff like this is why we need a drastic reformation of the tax code, and preferably a flat tax.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, The AP actually got away from giving straight news and started advocating a couple years back. They claimed that it made more sense not to present the news uncritically. Yeah, except they were supposed to be the providers of unbiased news. Since that time, the AP has become entirely untrustworthy.

Sadly, using logic with liberals doesn't work because they are immune to logic -- they feel their way through policy.

I would love to see a flat tax, but you know that would be "unfair."

Ed said...

molest my paycheck - Lol!

BevfromNYC said...

***dateline: New York Wall Street***
So you know that protest that I told you about earlier? we have been getting hourly progress/safety reports from our building management. Of course I was thinking there must be hundreds or thousands of protesters. Well, I went outside for lunch and turns out that there are only about, maybe 40 protesters and about 100+ cops. The cops are now moving in slowly inch by inch. The protesters seem oblivious (oh, and some are naked, but not the ones you want to be naked...). I just hope no one gets hurt. They seem well meaning, but they ARE on private property.

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, That's what it feels like. What's worse, since I work for myself, I get to pay self employment tax on top of everything else. So they really work over my paycheck.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Nice reporting!

It's horrible when the wrong people get naked. :(

Unknown said...

Bev: The San Francisco TV news reporters do that all the time. Back at the height of the Iraq antiwar protests, what I'd seen on TV looked entirely different from what I'd see when I walked out of my office directly across Market Street from the demonstrators. Frequently, the crews would stand right next to the demonstrators to film them. A good way to make fifteen people look like hundreds. When you stood across the street by my office doors, it was terrifically obvious that the demonstration was a complete dud. I made myself particularly unpopular with ABC and NBC by joining the demonstrators and shouting "there are twenty of us--count us--twenty!" I guess the old trouble-making radical is still lurking inside me.

They do the same thing with demonstrations at UC Berkeley. When I was organizing back in the 60s, we'd fill the entire area of Sproul Plaza (it's big). Today, they can barely fill the steps of Sproul Hall. But with the correct camera perspective, they make it look like hundreds instead of the low dozens.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, That's brilliant! "There are twenty of us!" LOL!

I thought for a moment you were going to say that you used to protest naked at Berkeley.

Unknown said...

Andrew: When I got naked at Berkeley, it was everyone near me who was protesting. The most common sound heard was "yuck!"

BevfromNYC said...

Andrew: There are just some things that we don't need to know about Lawhawk...'kay? LOL!

AndrewPrice said...

Bev and Lawhawk, Yeah, that's probably more info than we wanted! LOL!


Bev, Did everyone in your building make it past all the naked protestors or are you trapped in the building by a wall of naked rage?

BevfromNYC said...

Well, I did make it through somehow the coffee table length wall of protesters. Sadly for our intrepid "Wall of Ragers" it will be raining very hard for the rest of the week, so I think they will be going underground. I don't think the Poe-leese had to get out their water cannons or rubber bullets or anything. But I do believe it was about 3 cops to every 1 W.O.R.'er.

See we TP'ers have learned to pick up our trash and go home at the end of a good rage. It's just so much more relaxing that way.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I'm glad you survived! LOL! I think it's hilarious that this is all the people they could muster. So much for "the people" turning on capitalism.

It's funny too that leftists, who claim to be about peace and people and environmentalism never clean up after themselves.

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