yang- i have a question for you. Meg Whitman recently said that 50% of taxes in CA are paid by 1%. How can one find out what percentage of total personal income in CA is earned by those 1%?I don't know how Meg Whitman got her numbers or how comprehensive it is. It's easy to calculate the payment shares of income taxes, but not so easy for things like sales taxes and such. The congressional report shows that the top 1% pay 39% of all income taxes, so Whitman's numbers seems kind of high.
But let's suppose that Whitman has the right number, there are a couple things to think about. First of all, a good chunk of that top 1% used to be the bottom 10% at some point in their lives. Madonna the billionaire obviously paid a lot more in taxes than Madonna the waitress, but they are simply the same person at different stages of life. So using this as "proof" that 99% of the population are basically welfare queens, as the conservatives are wont to do, ignores the fact there is a trajectory to the basic human earnings life cycle.
Secondly, I'm not sure this is a good stat to brag about. The tax share of the top 1% goes up if unemployment rate doubles- now you have a bunch of jobless people filing tax returns who have no money to pay taxes but are filing out tax forms to get all their tax withholdings back.
7 comments:
Tell me this then
I just wana know who I should laze my scornful eye at. To whom should I show my disdain by wagging my pointy finger of doom. To whom should I gaze upon and just know... just KNOOoooow!!!.. from the bottomless pit of my infinitesimal immaterial soul .. Yeah!, YEAH!!!! There, THERE, for the grace of GOD, Almighty is The WANKER who caused this!!!!
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering WANKER; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! And since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned WANKER! Thus, I give up the spear!
I demand satisfaction, I demand SATISFACTION...
Just saying....
Pitchforks and torches for everyone!
You should start a newspaper column!! This post sounds just like one.
Paul Krugman already has that taken care off. And he's up one Nobel Prize on me :-)
Shhhhhhhh, be vewy vewy quiet; We’re hunting WANKERS...
http://tinyurl.com/aelmgy
All we need now is a fistful of BoomsticK!
I'm surprised they didn't put Killenger, my old WaMu, CEO on the list.
Oh, and don't worry about the Nobel Prize... they're nothing more than a popularity contest anyways.
Besides you look horrendous in a Brazilian two piece.
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