Verbatim

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Politics Blog

Posted by Dale Hansen on Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 2:15 PM

47% of American taxpayers pay no taxes

Republicans like to tout that 47% of American taxpayers pay no taxes. This number is from a report by the Tax Policy Center. What I don't understand is why they think this is an important number.

It runs counter to their belief in trickle down economics since this percentage was mainly stagnant until the Bush tax cuts were enacted and the number moved from 25.2% in 2000 to 46.9% in 2009. The rich have never been richer and taxes have never been lower, which is the exact cocktail required for trickle down economics to work. Yet the economy remains weak and the disparity between the wealthy and the poor keeps growing ever larger.

Having said that, there is plenty of better data working against trickle down economics and I'm really more interested in the 47% number. The first issue is that the federal income tax is not the only tax we pay, obviously. Many of the people who don't pay federal income tax do pay Social Security and Medicare taxes as well as gas and sales taxes. These taxes tend to favor the rich, since a higher percentage of a poor person's income goes to pay these taxes.

Let's focus on who makes up the 47%. There are around 135 million tax filing units currently. Of the 135 million, 21 million people receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and around 19 million elderly pay no taxes. The EITC was a policy of the Nixon Administration and expanded by Ronald Regan and George W. Bush. Reagan and Bush expanded the program as part of the tax cuts they wanted to enact. This is also true of the recent tax cuts by President Obama.

So on one hand you have Republicans calling for tax cuts and then on the other they lament the fact that thanks to their tax cuts fewer people pay federal income tax.

Similarly nearly half of all elderly don't pay federal income tax. They too have tax breaks that help limit their burden. According to the Tax Policy report, the elderly make up the second largest portion of Americans who pay no taxes, only slightly behind Americans between the ages of 18-24. Is the hope of Republicans to raise taxes on the poor, the young, and the elderly to offset the tax cuts for the rich?

One item that I have not heard when talking about the 47% of Americans who don't pay taxes is how many of them are the rich and super rich. The answer is 1.5% of American taxpayers making over one million dollars a year don't pay any taxes. This is also true of 2% of Americans making between $200,000 and $1 million and 3.5% of Americans making between $100,000 and $200,000. If it is unfair that some of the poor, the young, and the elderly don't pay taxes, then it must certainly be unfair that portions of the rich and super rich do not either.

The response that I most often get from Republicans on tax rates is that no one should pay taxes or that we should use a fair tax. I'm fine with debating those ideas as well, however, neither of those arguments is represented in the talking point that is the 47%. It is a statistic that proves nothing, supports no position and indicates no tax policy preference.

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Better get used to it

For all of the North Texans bitching that TxDOT doesn't have snow plows in the Dallas area, and thus was unable to immediately clear the roads...

I wonder what the whiners will say next year when TxDOT is operating with a 25% smaller workforce and on a budget that won't even pay for pothole repair... much less snow plows.

All these years of fiscal conservatism and family values have produced some interesting results.

Just saying...

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The U.S. has no lock on whackjobs and homophobes

It was a little over a year ago, shortly after Haiti was ravaged by a massive earthquake, that Pat Robertson pronounced that god was responsible, and that the devastation was god's way of settling an old score.

Now the land of OZ is experiencing natural phenomena unlike any before. Last year the State of Victoria was all but decimated by a hell-storm of brushfires. Last month the floods in Queensland drowned an area larger than all of Texas. Before the Aussies had even the briefest of respite, they are hit with a category 5 cyclone. God must be very angry with Australia.

Weather events are, after all, simply "acts of god," are they not? Pat Robertson obviously thinks that way, so god must have had something to do with the terrible events in Australia, and he must have been angry about something... or at someone ... right?

I feel sure that Brother Robertson would be real proud of this religious kook from Down Under, who blames all of the above on Australia's gay, green, atheist PM, Julia Gillard.

"It is very sad that this dark chapter in Australia’s history is led by an atheist Prime Minister in Julia Gillard and an openly homosexual Greens leader... both who have no regard for God nor prayer."

We need to get this Dr. Nalliah together with Robertson, Fred Phelps and Terry Jones. That would be a group of which even Frank Schaeffer might be proud.

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HT Hemant

Verbatim

BUSINESS INSIDER | The Wire

HELLO AMERICA:
Glenn Beck Posts Biggest Ratings Drop Of Any Cable News Show In January

Glynnis MacNicol
Feb. 2, 2011, 1:52 PM

January cable news ratings came out yesterday and contained a few notable surprises.

Perhaps the most notable was this.

Despite the continued dominance of Fox News, the fourth most-watched cable channel in Primetime -- that's cable channel not cable news channel -- Glenn Beck's ratings slipped in January.

A lot.

Year over year he posted the biggest loss of any cable news show averaging 1.8 million viewers, down 39% from January 2010. In 25-54 demo he dropped 48%, to 397,000.

Beck's ratings have been struggling all month. And by struggling we mean he as been consistently below the 2 million total viewers mark. A first.

Last April a big deal was made when Beck's ratings tumbled from 2.9 in January to 2.1 in April. They rebounded over the summer (as evidenced by his well-attended rally) but dropped again in October when he slipped behind Bret Baier for the first time.

Still, 1.9 is a drop from his October average of 2.9 million.

So what's behind this drop? It's entirely possible viewers are simply tiring of the chalkboard and the high rhetoric, which has been notably higher of late. And needless to say Beck is not the phenom he was a year ago, merely by dint of the country becoming more familiar with him.

But it's probably also worth noting, just in the context of this January, that the month was dominated by hard news, in the form of the Giffords shooting.

Glenn Beck is many things but he is not hard news (nor does he generally attempt to be). And considering the nature of the news, perhaps it's not entirely surprising that viewers were clicking away for a while. Sometimes it's nice to be told the world is not ending.

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Something not right here

Super Bowl XLV is this weekend. The Packers and the Stealers came to town a couple days ago only to be greeted by record cold weather. It is currently warmer in both Green Bay and Pittsburgh than in Fort Worth.

Something about that just isn't right.

The 20 degrees mentioned by the reporter was the high that day, and again on Wednesday. With a little Sun peeking through the clouds some of the ice melted into slush, but refroze overnight. We don't have many plows around here, and sand trucks were limited to major arteries and overheads. The roads haven't had much of a chance to recover.

Folks around here aren't accustomed to single-digit cold, and we're especially not accustomed to extended cold weather events with temperatures such as these. With single-digit overnight temps and daytime highs barely peeking out of the teens, I've stayed indoors as much as I can.

Not everyone stays home, and the Texan's infamous inability to drive in these conditions becomes apparent. Fort Worth police reported over 200 accidents the first few hours of Tuesday morning. Dallas was similar in number. This continued into yesterday and considering wrecks in the burbs, there were likely in excess of a thousand autos damaged over the past two days. News coverage has shown automobile carcasses and various body parts littering the highway shoulders.

Seldom a good idea to contest the Laws of Physics. Combine the effects of inertia with a low coefficient of friction, and the results are inevitable.

I can think of better places to be than in a snow drift on the side of the road.

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I figured there'd be trouble

For many years the Dallas Cowboys were known as God's Team.

Probably nobody would call them that today, because in early 1989 a hillbilly hick from Arkansas bought the team from Clint Murchison ... the only owner the Cowboys had ever known.

It was the flush heard round the world, and when I learned about it, I figured there might be trouble.

When the hick fired legendary Cowboy coach Tom Landry he did it on live, national television. The whole world learned of Tom's fate before the hillbilly actually told Tom …

After that I knew there would be trouble.

The hick’s choice for Tom's replacement was Jimmy Johnson ... a coach barely competent enough to shine Tom's shoes.

Johnson actually took the team to a couple of Super Bowls … but it was a team Tom built, and as the Landry influence ebbed and Tom's talented players moved on or retired, success became elusive.

So the hick fired Johnson, replacing him with disgraced OU Sooner coach Barry Switzer. He barely made three seasons.

Subsequent hires found success just as elusive and job security nonexistent. Hillbilly has hired and fired six since 1996, but to no avail. The plowboys just keep on losing.

God’s own team hasn’t made a Super Bowl appearance in 16 years ... perhaps because for the past 26 years the team has suffered under the clueless guidance of a bumbling fool from Little Rock ... an arrogant clod who won't get out of the way and let professionals run the show.

... but at least while at Tom's House in Irving, God had a premium seat ...

... which lasted until 2010 when our good ol’ hillbilly demolished the venerable edifice that had seen Tom’s teams go to 27 post-season playoffs, win 18 NFC East championships, appear in ten Super Bowls, and take home five Lombardi trophies.

Tom Landry died 12 years almost to the day from when Jerry Jones humiliated him on national television. Texas Stadium is gone. Jerry Jones has no talent and even less class, but he won't leave.

The hick tore down God's Stadium and built one with a lid on it. The team moved this season to that gawdawful Chrome Cockroach in Arlington ... and they're still losing.


Now the Super Bowl is in town, but God lost his front row seat, and he apparently ain't happy about it.

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Verbatim

Souvenir condoms rolled out for UK royal wedding

LONDON (AFP) – While Britain has a public holiday to celebratePrince William'swedding, one company is taking the party one step further with souvenir condoms that urge lovers to "lie back and think of England".

Crown Jewels Condoms of Distinction is producing special celebration packs that bear the slogan: "Like a royal wedding, intercourse with a loved one is an unforgettable occasion".

Critics have dismissed the novelty condoms as "tasteless".

Military helicopter pilot William, second in line to the throne, is to marry his university sweetheart Kate Middleton on April 29 at London's Westminster Abbey.

All manner of predictable unofficial souvenirs such as tea towels, chinaware and postcards have been rushed out by manufacturers, with condoms now joining the ranks.

Hugh Pomfret, a spokesman for Crown Jewels Condoms of Distinction, insisted they were "a unique way to remember this great British occasion".

"In years to come, they will be a timeless memento of a magical wedding day."

Presented in regal-looking purple and gold, each pack bears a picture of the couple gazing into each other's eyes, saying it contains a "triumvirate of regal prophylactics", which are "lavishly lubed" and "regally ribbed".

"England boasts some of the finest lovemaking in the world, with a tradition of coitus going back generations," lovers are told.

"Combining the strength of a prince with the yielding sensitivity of a princess-to-be, Crown Jewels condoms promise a royal union of pleasure."

It also includes a drawing of the couple "as they might appear on their wedding day", produced by an "acclaimed international artist", who is not named. The facial resemblance is not overwhelming but the pose and outfits seem styled on the official engagement photographs.

The manufacturers stress that they are not supplied to or approved by William, his fiancee or the royal family.

Ingrid Seward, editor of the royal-watching Majesty magazine, told The Sun newspaper: "This is completely tasteless and really rather hurtful. Prince William has a great sense of humour but this is a step too far. This is a cheap swipe to make money."

Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

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