Given the Republican Party's hyper-orthodoxy on taxes, and the Tea Party activists' cries that they are "Taxed Enough Already," it might be tempting to think the far-right enmity was driven by soaring tax rates that became so oppressive, they created an intense public backlash.
Congressional Budget Office
A nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report released yesterday reminds us that the opposite is true: Americans' federal tax burden keeps shrinking.
Americans paid the lowest tax rates in 30 years to the federal government in 2009, in part because of tax cuts President Obama sought to combat the Great Recession, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday. [...]
[A]t the very moment anti-tax protesters were emerging as the most powerful force in American politics, handing Republicans landslide control of the U.S. House, the data show that people were sending the smallest portion of their income to the federal government since 1979.
During Obama's first year in office, the average tax rate paid by all households fell to 17.4 percent, down from 19.9 percent in 2007, according to the CBO. The 2009 rate was significantly lower than the previous low of 19.4 percent in 2003 and well below the 30-year average of 21 percent.
The tax burden -- which includes all forms of federal levies, including income, payroll and corporate taxes -- lightened for households across the board, the result in part of Obama's signature "Making Work Pay" tax credit and other tax cuts passed as part of the 2009 economic stimulus package, the CBO said.
Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement late yesterday, "However much Republicans try to perpetuate false claims, the facts speak for themselves: tax rates have never been lower than under President Obama."
I suspect most Republican voters -- indeed, perhaps a significant chunk of voters overall -- are convinced that their federal taxes went up after Obama took office. The facts, however, are stubborn.
Just a little tidbit to keep in mind as the campaign rhetoric strays from reality.
Leave a Comment:
The reason we have big deficits is not due to huge out-of-control spending by President Obama as I hear many people claim. (I get mad and yell at the TV and scare the cat.)
Revenues dropped off a cliff and outlays increased. Big source of increase was in Mandatory spending (unemployment, Medicaid, other "Income Security" categories) and the ARRA (stimulus - a chunk of which was tax cuts).
Historical Budget Data—January 2012 Baseline
The link is to a web-page where you can download an Excel file with all the data.
The CBO report described in this post is part of the reason revenues dropped (tax rates are lower).
Maphi, you may not think a $1 trillion+ deficit is "huge out of control spending", but a lot of us do. The deficits are bigger than all the Fed income tax collected for all the people, all the year. (Good link)
Meanwhile, you've heard of bracket creep, yes? This is bracket regression. The exact same phenomenon in reverse. You'll note that in the chart above, Obama's SS rate cut isn't reflected yet. So obviously the reduced tax rates aren't Obama's to claim.
@Shooter
In case you come back here...
When the economy crashed and Revenue fell off the cliff, Outlays could not just be slashed. It doesn't work that way!
"Huge out of control spending" implies new spending above what was already committed.
That's like saying you can just stop paying your mortgage, or car payments if you lose your job.
Discretionary spending (which includes Defense) couldn't be cut.
Mandatory spending is - well - mandatory! This includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment, SNAP (Food Stamps). When more people qualify, by law, spending must increase.
Yes - The ARRA (Stimulus) was a new program. But that wasn't Trillions.
Many studies on the relationship between belief and reality have shown that belief trumps facts, that people accept facts that are in accord with their beliefs and either reject as false or distort to accord with their beliefs any facts that contradict those beliefs. This phenomenon is in full display with the present situation where, despite black and white proof to the contrary, the faith based community rejects the fact that their taxes have decreased.
While this psychological failing affects everyone, not just the right wing, it is much, much more prevalent and more difficult to overcome in people whose whole being and existence is based on faith (right wing religionists). For those based in reality, while they don't always base their reactions on reality (witness the religious fervor against GMO which they conflate with Monsanto's business model), they are much more likely to change when facts contradict their beliefs than the right wing is. Many years ago university scientists were about evenly divided between republicans and democrats, but now the ratio is almost completely tipped towards democrats. This is because people whose lives are based on analyzing data and reality can no longer accept the faith based dogma of the right wing.
"In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." -Carl Sagan
You can't say that because University professors are democrats that republicans do not analyze data. Perhaps like any other profession, there are pockets or cultures created. Maybe those who live on government grants for research projects to be published and continue academic careers (ie, professors) tend to be democrat because democrats in general endorse more government spending. Also, physicians tend to embrace facts, analyze data and live in reality ... but they are predominantly republican and religious.
All of this data is questionable to me, also. The average federal tax rate in percentage for all households does not adequately tell the story. It doesn't mean that the average individual income tax is 9% as depicted, which is obvious since the lowest tax bracket is 10%. What it says is there are a LOT of households who end up paying 0% individual income tax, with a smaller number of households paying very large percentages (up to 35+%). If you have 100 people paying 0% and 15 paying 35% the average is 5.25% even though most people are paying nothing. If that's not analytical enough, you could make 10 pay 35, 8 pay 30, 6 pay 25, 4 pay 20, 2 pay 15, 2 pay 10, 68 pay 0. You get an average of 8.7% - surprisingly close to the graph above. So most people aren't paying anything, but the ones who are are giving up almost a third of their income. Maybe that's why they feel slighted? Maybe the reason the number is going down is because there are more and more people paying nothing and living off of the government, and fewer paying larger portions of their income to sustain them. Is that too analytical for you?
Hilarious - now I'm looking at some talking head on MSNBC just push this graph to democrats. "send it to four of your conservative friends" ... this is the same thing they constantly accuse Fox of doing - taking some small factoid or graph and twisting it to fit their own beliefs. Which makes me agree with the author of this post ... beliefs trump facts, and if not, beliefs will distort the facts. Surprising that everyone on here is down on Fox for doing this, but refuse to see MSNBC doing the same thing.
Folks don't know that individual tax burdens are the lowest since the 1950's because corporate media, fueled by conservative corporate advertising revenue, chooses not to inform America. American corporate media is bought and paid for by corporate America and Wall Street $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. The whole deal is a sham and a set up designed to bilk the average american. Modern media figures and pundits, including MSNBC, are a class apart and above and distant and aloof and entitled and narcissistically oriented.
The tea party pretends to be a backlash against soaring, oppressive taxation, and a lot of the useful idiots in it might even be dumb enough to believe that, but the truth is, it was created to put downward pressure on the taxes of the top 5%, which the very rich apparently didn't feel were dropping fast enough to stop that terrible, "oppressed" feeling that they always seem to have.
The robber barons are primordial beasts of prey. They don't consider ethical or moral parameters when they feed. They just feed and they are voracious and insatiable. The Tea Party fools are simply incoherent and delusional to the point of being incompetent, and they will never know the difference.
The "tea party" is a revolution of rising expectations: the plutocrats are so near their ultimate goal of absolute, unchallenged power that they can practically taste it. So, naturally, the increased push toward the goal.
Taxed enough by teatards already! Seriously.. And the stupid, and the racists and the sociopathic fox news parrots..
Yeah, and everybody paying attention knows this. The question is why and how can it be that and Republicans and the Fox-educated wingnuts can still keep saying and believing their nonsense. It's because there hasn't been sustained pushback.
The Democrats need to learn rational contemptuous indignation and moral outrage, not tempered, measured rationality. People respond emotionally to emotion and intellect, but Democrats don't understand the proper mix. The goofs controlling Democratic messaging are clueless.
You are correct that Dems do not know how to message. They need a Frank Luntz to get the Dems on board with the same talking points. If Dems keep emphasizing the low tax rates, Republicans are going to have a difficult time selling their BS. It is time for Dems to stop allowing Republicans to spread the lies and Dems need to challenge every single lie with facts. When Dems speak in unison, people will hear the message. Too many Dems are more interested in their own elections and care little or nothing about the party as a whole.
Typical of the Maddow Blog, idiotic at best but tends tobe willfully deceitful, the reason for this is due to people being out of jobs and falling into lower tax brackets. Yet again the Maddow Blog takes stories out of context and when you read the actual story you she her untruthfulness. Yes Obama has been forced to keep lower taxes rates but he has admitted his goal is to raise them for fairness whether it hurts the economy or not. Refer to his comments on capital gains taxes during the Democratic presidential primary!
The problem isn't the tax rates...
It's the fact that there are 20-25% of the workforce unemployed or under employed.
and what Maddow and her buddies are proposing is NOT creating an economy where these people can get jobs but increasing the tax burden on those who still have a job.
With the Supreme Court upholding Obamacare and Taxmaggedon on the horizon, tax rates are going to be a lot higher. And, it is never wise to raise taxes during a recession.
Republican dogma also holds that it is never wise to raise taxes when times are flush, so it's a pretty mindless policy position and does not need to be taken seriously.