FACT CHECK: Are rich taxed less than secretaries?

[Henry Hawk]

As if it is any of your business....I am salary, and I work WAY more than forty hours a week and I also do a great deal of work from my home.... I rarely take a lunch break nor do I demand breaks through out the day.  I am extremely productive at what I do.  I actually have a job that I enjoy and I EARN every penny I make....unlike many UAW employees.

and btw, it was a democrat congress that spent that money and created the deficit.  Reagan was not perfect, but he DID put forth policies that stimulated our economy, unemployment dropped, inflation rate dropped, and he strengthend our military and to boot, we had the longest recorded era of peacetime prosperity WITHOUT a recession.

[Exterminator]

As if it is any of your business....I am salary, and I work WAY more than forty hours a week and I also do a great deal of work from my home.... I rarely take a lunch break nor do I demand breaks through out the day.  I am extremely productive at what I do.  I actually have a job that I enjoy and I EARN every penny I make....unlike many UAW employees.

Methinks thou doth protest too loudly.

and btw, it was a democrat congress that spent that money and created the deficit.  Reagan was not perfect, but he DID put forth policies that stimulated our economy, unemployment dropped, inflation rate dropped, and he strengthend our military and to boot, we had the longest recorded era of peacetime prosperity WITHOUT a recession.

The only thing that Reagan accomplished was to start what has now been a three decades long trend of low tax rates on the rich which have resulted only in concentrating America's wealth at the very top and leaving everyone else worse off.  I'm sure that make him a hero in your mind. 

[Henry Hawk]

Me, you notice how this thread kind of got hijacked and turned around?...........the bottom line is the rich pay a great deal more than secretaries, by percentage.....there is plenty of proof to support it too........this is nothing more than MORE SCRARE TACTICS by Obama and playing politics....he is getting worried and desperate and the lies are spewing.

that is the bottom line about this ... getting people like the Troll to get angry.  It is pure propaganda....and millions of sheep will believe it.

here are some "opinions" by others:

AP:

President Barack Obama makes it sound as if there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries. . . . The data tell a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government. ABC News:

Treasury Secretary Geithner yesterday declined to answer a key question about the president's proposed 'Buffett Rule': How many millionaires and billionaires pay lower tax rates than middle-income families? The answer appears to be this: not many. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has crunched the numbers and found that Warren Buffett and his secretary are the exception to the rule. For the most part, the wealthy pay a significantly higher percentage of their income in taxes than middle-income workers. The Wall Street Journal:

There's one small problem: The entire Buffett Rule premise is false . . . . [N]early all millionaires still paid a rate that is more than twice the 8.9% average rate paid by those earning between $50,000 and $100,000, and more than three times the 7.2% average rate paid by those earning less than $50,000. The larger point is that the claim that CEOs are routinely paying lower tax rates than their secretaries is Omaha hokum. And the WSJ calls it what it really is:

We rehearse all of this because it shows that the real point of Mr. Obama's Buffett Rule and his latest deficit proposal isn't tax justice or good tax policy. It is all about re-election politics.

Even NBC is on to the game:

With some 14 months until Election Day 2012, Obama's speech yesterday essentially marked the end of the governing season and the beginning of the campaign. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer admitted as much to the New York Times. 'The popular narrative is that we sought compromise in a quixotic quest for independent votes. We sought out compromise because a failure to get funding of the government last spring and then an extension of the debt ceiling in August would have been very bad for the economy and for the country.' Pfeiffer added, 'We were in a position of legislative compromise by necessity. That phase is behind us.

[Exterminator]

If you just want to talk to someone else who is as delusional about his/her understanding of how things work as you are, why don't the two of you simply email each other?  If, on the other hand, you come here and publicly post bullshit, you should expect people to challenge you on it.

So about that article...is the "leftist, main stream media" only wrong when they don't agree with you?

Similarly, a lot of your complaints about the current administration revolve around spending money we don't have.  As disingenuous as it is, you dismiss questions about the previous administration doing the same thing by claiming that you weren't much of a supporter of his either.  However misguided, clearly you are a huge Reagan fan and he spent money we didn't have...lots of it...what gives?

[Henry Hawk]

If you just want to talk to someone else who is as delusional about his/her understanding of how things work as you are, why don't the two of you simply email each other?  If, on the other hand, you come here and publicly post bullshit, you should expect people to challenge you on it.

So about that article...is the "leftist, main stream media" only wrong when they don't agree with you?

Similarly, a lot of your complaints about the current administration revolve around spending money we don't have.  As disingenuous as it is, you dismiss questions about the previous administration doing the same thing by claiming that you weren't much of a supporter of his either.  However misguided, clearly you are a huge Reagan fan and he spent money we didn't have...lots of it...what gives?

I have never dismissed the previous admin for over spending.......go back and look.  Bush SUCKED on several things, and I always stated so.  He allowed WAY too much spending.  Yes, Reagan too allowed it.  I happen to think he did many, many great things aside from that.

Politicians SPEND money, that is what they do best....Repubs, Dems, all of them.............I am NOW interested in someone who is going to start doing the right things.......and there will probably not be anyone to step up.  I'm almost positive there won't be.

Challange AWAY my friend.........I have been here since 2006 and I'm still here....by choice.  There are plenty of other forums I could go that agree with me on almost everything.......but, I have zero interest in that.  to be honest, I don't have a great deal of interest in staying here, but yet I do.  Hard one to figure out.......You and Troll have a great deal of hatred towards me, yet I still kind of like you two, and I cannot quite put my finger on it.  Troll, is a good guy, who worked hard and has a great sense of humor.

YOU on the other hand, a MOSTLY a prick and arrogant...but you kind of remind me of my brother, who is just as cocky, but has a great heart......I have picked on many things with you over the years and think deep down you are a 1/2 way decent person...I don't always disagree with you, you make good points....but, overall I have confidence in my opinions and what I believe to be best for this country and my family.

btw, there is NOTHING disingenuous about the obnoxious spending by this administration....NOTHING.

[Exterminator]

I asked about your hero, Reagan's, spending and about whether or not his 50% tax rate was fair.

[Exterminator]

And what you see as me being an arrogant prick is really nothing more than your frustration over not being able to answer the most fundamental question relating to your assertion that letting wealthy people keep more of their money creates jobs.  The wealthy have been doing very well for years now; when is this money going to magically rain down on the rest of us?

[Henry Hawk]

I asked about your hero, Reagan's, spending and about whether or not his 50% tax rate was fair.

first of all, show me where you asked that....

I missed it.

and you ARE an arrogant prick, well because you are.....it has NOTHING to do with your knowledge of anything it is just that you are a prick and full of yourself...AT LEAST THAT IS MY OPINION. 

[Henry Hawk]

And what you see as me being an arrogant prick is really nothing more than your frustration over not being able to answer the most fundamental question relating to your assertion that letting wealthy people keep more of their money creates jobs.  The wealthy have been doing very well for years now; when is this money going to magically rain down on the rest of us?

and you think if we raise the tax rates back to where the were, it WILL magically rain wealth on us?  and jobs will be created?

[Exterminator]

and you think if we raise the tax rates back to where the were, it WILL magically rain wealth on us?  and jobs will be created?

Nope but it'll lower the deficit!  Conversely, lowering taxes has proven to be of no benefit whatsoever.  Your ilk would have us believe that even corporate taxes are too high but the reality is that if Apple's corporate taxes were halved tomorrow, it would not encourage them to suddenly want to build a manufacturing plant in the U.S., thereby creating jobs.  They would still build their iPads and iPhones in China or wherever and the execs would all give themselves fat raises at the rest of our expense.

Your way doesn't work.

[Henry Hawk]

Nope but it'll lower the deficit!  Your way doesn't work.

So you think we can tax our way into prosperity?....What makes you so certain, that the very folks who are responsible for spending trillions of $$ we do not have, will apply any money raised from these taxes to paying towards teh deficit?  Don't you think cutting expenses is first and foremost?  And would it NOT make more sense to somehow, get the private sector to once again, INVEST into America, to create jobs, thusly increasing the federal revenue?
THAT is the only way we can truly turn things around.....JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.

[me]

Nope but it'll lower the deficit!  Conversely, lowering taxes has proven to be of no benefit whatsoever.  Your ilk would have us believe that even corporate taxes are too high but the reality is that if Apple's corporate taxes were halved tomorrow, it would not encourage them to suddenly want to build a manufacturing plant in the U.S., thereby creating jobs.  They would still build their iPads and iPhones in China or wherever and the execs would all give themselves fat raises at the rest of our expense.

Your way doesn't work.

What you and a lot of others seem to be overlooking in all this is the fact that if the companies move or can't sell their product because the economy is in the dumpers because there are no jobs their won't be any incoming revenue from taxes because there won't be anyone left to pay them, they will be out of business.  All the figures on that little piece of paper mean nothing unless it actually happens period.

[The Troll]

So you think we can tax our way into prosperity?....What makes you so certain, that the very folks who are responsible for spending trillions of $$ we do not have, will apply any money raised from these taxes to paying towards teh deficit?  Don't you think cutting expenses is first and foremost?  And would it NOT make more sense to somehow, get the private sector to once again, INVEST into America, to create jobs, thusly increasing the federal revenue?
THAT is the only way we can truly turn things around.....JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.

  Raising taxes will reduce the deficit.  The rich has really had a ball for the last 10 years making money hand over fist and they haven't created one job here in America, paying the lowest tax rate since World II.

  But boy oh boy have they increased JOBS in China,  Mexico, India, Canada and other over seas companies.  You can't buy American shoes, clothes, plumbing goods and so many other goods and all of the foreign cars that almost put our auto manufacturing out of business.  When in hell are you going  to wake up Hawk. <--- Hawk 

  At one time the tax rate on the rich was 90% and American businesses soared.  So did some space alien came down and zapped you in to thinking that only the rich built this country.  It was the American workers and we did when the Union, the trade unions were strong and working conditions were good.  You not only have your head up your ass you have your shoulder in too.     what a dufass.

[Henry Hawk]

  Raising taxes will reduce the deficit. 

I will ask YOU this....How will it reduce the deficit, IF those bozo's don't quit spending?..........and that is both dems and repubs.

How much do you want it raised?...........there are NOT THAT many billionaires to where it will make THAT big a difference...

YOU can not TAX your way into prosperity...........why is this hard to digest?

and unless YOU are talking about the super rich...........taxing the $250,000 folks is going to CRUSH this economy........EVEN Obama said this much just a few months ago..........is THAT what he wants?.....you call repubs stupid, but stop and think about it.

[me]

I will ask YOU this....How will it reduce the deficit, IF those bozo's don't quit spending?..........and that is both dems and repubs.

How much do you want it raised?...........there are NOT THAT many billionaires to where it will make THAT big a difference...

YOU can not TAX your way into prosperity...........why is this hard to digest?

and unless YOU are talking about the super rich...........taxing the $250,000 folks is going to CRUSH this economy........EVEN Obama said this much just a few months ago..........is THAT what he wants?.....you call repubs stupid, but stop and think about it.

The whole problem is they haven't stopped to think that the powers that be aren't going to pass anything that hurts them, either party, and they definitely aren't going to pass something that will harm their contributors.  Only the smaller businesses will be hurt and they will be taken over by the larger corporations which will get some more TARP then the government will start running them and we'll all be working for the government and handing them our money, or most of it, for the "free" everyone has to be equal programs.  Ya, I could'a sat here and wrote out a big college type explanation of how that works but if ya ain't smart enough to see what's comin' ya wouldn't understand it anyway.