Overall taxation lowest in sixty years

[Verily]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-05-10-taxes_N.htm

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"But our taxes are too high!"

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

yup

[Lief 🗽]

Yes, but until the rich are paying the same flat and low tax rates as the toiling poor, they'll convince idiot redneck middle class white people to shout that their taxes are too high and vote for tax cuts for the rich.

[Torie]

I have trouble believing this. Government spends about 40% of income or something. Maybe that is a median or average figure or something. I wish there was more detail to figure it out.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Well, I seem to pay a lot more than 9.2%, but I'm not some dumb teabagger.

[Bo]

This is good for the poor and middle class, but the rich's taxes could be way higher. We have an enormous budget deficit, after all.

[Beet]

I found this hard to believe at first also, but it seems to be cyclical:

"Why the tax bite has eased:

• Stimulus law. One-third of last year's $862 billion economic stimulus went for tax cuts. Biggest reduction: The Making Work Pay tax credit reduced income taxes $800 for married couples earning up to $150,000.

• Progressive tax rates. Presidents Clinton and Bush pushed through a series of tax changes — credits, lower rates, higher exemptions — that slashed income taxes for poor and middle-class families. A drop in income now can trigger big tax breaks and sharply lower rates, sometimes falling to zero.

• Sales tax. Consumers cut spending sharply in this downturn, thereby paying less in sales taxes.

A Gallup Poll last month found that 48% thought taxes were "too high" and 45% thought they were "about right." Those saying taxes are "too high" remain near a 50-year low."

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I think it's interesting how the tax income as a share of GDP pretty much tracks the deficit/surplus. People tend to focus only on the spending side of the equation when looking at the deficit, and there is insufficient discussion of the revenue side. That is less to say that taxes should go up than that a growing economy is one of the most important indicators of what the deficit will be, so pro-growth policies are also pro-budget policies.

[opebo]

I have trouble believing this. Government spends about 40% of income or something. Maybe that is a median or average figure or something. I wish there was more detail to figure it out.

Your perceptions are wildly off due to your class and the general propaganda one receives continuously from the right-wing media.  In fact of course modern america is a relative paradise for the wealthy, with low taxes and far less redistribution than took place as a matter of course in the 1940s through the 1970s.

[cannonia]

The article is contradictory.

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but:

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But the details are not as important as the thesis of the piece:

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I agree to some extent.  What drove the "decrease in rate" was a progressive income tax cut combined with a decline in income, pushing the liability for many to zero or below.  And of course, it is pretty much nuts to have half the population paying no (or negative!) income tax.  So the article is disingenuous, masking real tax rates.  It would be interesting to know what rates actual taxpayers are, you know, paying.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

So the Bush tax cuts worked?

[Torie]

I have trouble believing this. Government spends about 40% of income or something. Maybe that is a median or average figure or something. I wish there was more detail to figure it out.

Your perceptions are wildly off due to your class and the general propaganda one receives continuously from the right-wing media.  In fact of course modern america is a relative paradise for the wealthy, with low taxes and far less redistribution than took place as a matter of course in the 1940s through the 1970s.

Yes, indeed, my mind is imprisoned in a gilded cage.

[memphis]

So the Bush tax cuts worked?

If by "worked" you mean bankrupted the country, sure.