My apologies if this is a repost. Article is from October 2008 but given the increase in taxes, especially on the so-called "wealthy", I think it's safe to assume the situation has only worsened.
Barack Obama's admission that his policies would "spread the wealth around" has ignited a nationwide discussion of how progressive the tax system should be and how it should be used to redistribute income among Americans. Obama has been very successful in bolstering the conventional wisdom that the U.S. tax system does not place a significant enough burden on wealthier households and places too much of a burden on the "middle class."
But a new study on inequality by researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris reveals that when it comes to household taxes (income taxes and employee social security contributions) the U.S. "has the most progressive tax system and collects the largest share of taxes from the richest 10% of the population." As Column 1 in the table below shows, the U.S. tax system is far more progressivemeaning pro-poorthan similar systems in countries most Americans identify with high taxes, such as France and Sweden.
Even after accounting for the fact that the top 10 percent of households in the U.S. have one of the highest shares of market income among OECD nations, our tax system is second only to Ireland in terms of its progressivity for households.
The table also shows that the U.S. collects more household tax revenue from the top 10 percent of households than any other country and extracts the most from that income group relative to their share of the nation's income.
#2
Two factors...
First, Social Security is not only regressive, if it's taken into account, it would affect the overall "progressiveness" of the system. Second, I understand that the Bush tax cuts had a strongly net progressive effect.
Then again that is if you ignore that businesses don't pay taxes, they just collect them and pass them on.
Spengler is back
...I've been screaming about this for more than two years: Obama is the loyal son of a left-wing anthropologist mother who sought to expiate her white guilt by going to bed with Muslim Third World men. He is a Third World anthropologist studying us, learning our culture and our customs the better to neutralize what he considers to be a malignant American influence in world affairs.
#2
Who needs Israel when we can have good, trustworthy friends like the Palestinians, Syrians, and (if we're really nice) Iranians. We've already mended our evil ways and made nice with Venezuela, Russia, and China. It is easier, after all, to join the axis of evil rather than spend all of the time and effort fighting them, right?
#3
Koch thought Obama would be good for Israel. He confesses error here.
But oddly he chose Huffpo to do so. Koch might not not have realized that the majority of Huffpo commentators are anti Israel. Time for another confession.
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/14/2010 10:02 Comments ||
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#4
Koch thought Obama would be good for Israel.
A lot of people really need to be reminded how bloody stupid they were to believe the media hype about Obama, The Democrats, and the whole Left. The Left only succeeds at all because it has so much influence over the media. (Mediums which it generally kills over time.)
#5
#$@*
Nope. Koch isn't that dumb. Wright? Samantha Power?
Nope. Koch knew Obama would be an enemy of Israel long ago.
Question is what was in it for him to pretend otherwise? Until it was too late.
"Oh, dearie me. I was misled. Whatever shall I do?"
Not buying it.
Want to know who bought Koch and for how much.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
04/14/2010 13:52 Comments ||
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#6
Well, 78% of the Jewish voters bought the Obama deal too.
#7
I must admit there is some irony in this situation where folks who voted for Obama are disappointed in his predeictable behavior. My question would be to American Jewish voters who supported Obama: What did you really expected from a person who had no track record of supporting Israel or backing any initatives against unruly Arab states?
But don't feel bad Jewish supporters of Obamam eventually most supporters will be disappointed; the question will then be 'how bad will America (and Israel) be damage as Obama is eventually pushed from office?'
#8
JohnQC.
Yeah, 78% did. But most of them were dumb enough, or self-deluded enough, to actually believe.
Koch is/was neither.
He did this with his eyes open.
My question is how much it cost to buy him.
For most of the 78%, I expect, voting against whatever they think conservative Christians want is good enough.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
04/14/2010 19:22 Comments ||
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#9
President Reaqan did about the best of modern day conservative presidents with the Jewish vote: link Presidential Voting Patterns There seems to be a historic progressive/liberal tendency with American Jewish voters. During Lincoln's time, they tended towards him with greater numbers. Maybe this will be the year the trend deviates. I don't know why Koch has come out against BO; lately he has been writing articles which go against BO's policies and directions. That is a good thing. Maybe they realize the harm that can come to the country fromm this embracing of way left policies.
It seems the last straw for the mayor was the treatment of Prime Minister Netanyahu: first the lambasting by Secretary of State Clinton followed by the dinner he wasn't invited to. Mayor Koch's first editorial in the Huffington Post was printed a few days after that dinner.
Then there's this, at the top of Drudge tonight and the New York Times front page tomorrow:
Obama administration says support of Israel to be 'balanced against other interests'...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
