47% of Tea Baggers dont pay federal taxes hypocrisy insues

Yay! more non sense from the people who want "less government" but want to have the gov control us even more.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/04/47-of-tea-partiers-pay-no-federal-income-taxes/38924/

Apr 14 2010, 12:30 PM ET
Taxed Enough Already? Or not taxed at all?

One of the striking ironies of Fox News running with the statistic that 47% of Americans might not owe federal income taxes is that Fox News also moonlights as the unofficial station of the Tea Party movement, which clamors for lower taxes. You might ask: half of the country pays no income tax, how much lower do you want? Here's a more troubling point: if the Tea Party movement has a similar share of Americans making under $50,000 as the broader population (as a recent Gallup poll suggests), then why is this movement rallying under the banner "Taxed Enough Already!" when half of them aren't taxed at all?

Forty-five percent of self-identified "Tea Partiers" make less than $50,000 per year, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll. Similarly, 50% of the total population makes less than $50,000 in the same poll. Despite this author's lack of direct access to the tax returns of the Tea Party movement, it seems safe to assume that if about half the country avoids federal income taxes, a similar percentage of the Tea Party movement gets away with the same even as they march and scream about their tax burden.

This is a gotcha point. But it's a gotcha point worth making, if only to shine light on the sad intellectual bankruptcy of the Tea Party, a political movement that has taken over the news cycle like a particularly aggressive strain of ragweed. Tea Partiers want lower income taxes. But many of them probably don't pay income taxes. If we listen to them and bring even more Americans into the zero-income tax pool, we would only concentrate more of the tax burden on wealthy earners ... which conservatives are against. Tea Party apologists on TV will explain that what they're really asking for is lower rates and a broader tax base to diffuse America's tax responsibility. But if half the Tea Party doesn't pay income taxes today, a broader tax base -- even with minuscule rates -- would raise many of their taxes!

The party's labyrinthine position on tax policy isn't worth untangling any further. It's a Gordian Knot that deserves a guillotine. When liberals and conservatives in Congress and think tanks and conference rooms debate tax policy in the coming months, they should consider a wide buffet of reform options -- but hold the tea.

because proposed taxes like VAT hit everyone. There are places in this nation that pay over 10% sales tax already. Add gasoline taxes, income taxes, alcohol taxes, tolls, property taxes, mandatory health care premiums...and those are just off the top of my head...you and i both know that if you want to so much as fish there are taxes involved.

The point of this post is that people are complaining who shouldnt be complaining. What other agendas are there with this 47% of tea baggers. The whole ideal of the so called "movement" at its root is selfishness, why should i share my things to benefit other when i can have all my things for myself.Being selfish is not patriotic. These taxes arent going to put you in the red by leaps and bounds. I live in a state where my cigarettes cost 7 dollars a pack which is very high compared to other states but i dont mind because my tax dollar is going to help schools and services. Taxes are there for a reason. Bush had a 71.9% increase in the national debt, we are all paying for that too and im not complaining.

ThatGuy113 said:

Yay! more non sense from the people who want "less government" but want to have the gov control us even more.

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Perhaps you should conduct a bit more research before you regurgitate the ramblings of a rabid liberal.
How about some real numbers from the CBO? I'll save you reading the entire article (s) as that obviously didn't go too well on your first go round.

"Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes."

GreatwhiteNorth said:

Perhaps you should conduct a bit more research before you regurgitate the ramblings of a rabid liberal.
How about some real numbers from the CBO? I'll save you reading the entire article (s) as that obviously didn't go too well on your first go round.

"Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes."

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That specific line that you quoted was directed at the ideals that the government should ban abortion and regulate marriage making the gap between church and state shrink and shrink. So much for being for the constitution

10% of the population im sure is more then the amount of tea party members several times over. 18% of Americans say they support the tea party but that is based on individuals and not households. 47% of tea baggers could EASILY fall into ten percent.

The real big deal is the fact that surveys released today say that 52% of tea parties think the taxes they will pay are fair. So either they are using the endless amounts of news coverage to fear monger for underlying agendas or they telling lies at the rallies. If so they need to change their name because the majority of supporters dont believe they are being over taxed. (CBS)
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002487-503544.html

Obviously there is a problem when even Sean Hannity calls tea baggers Timothy Mcveigh wannabes

Ok now that i am out of class, good job you got me yes you have a valid point about the 10%. That still doesn't dispute the quote the GreatWhiteNorth used from me. What i am right about is the fact about 52% of tea baggers think that their taxes are fair. So if a majority of a group is ok with their taxes then there is no need to whine about said political issue.

ThatGuy113 said:

That specific line that you quoted was directed at the ideals that the government should ban abortion and regulate marriage

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Really? I reread the article and there is absolutely no mention of Abortion nor Marriage. How about pointing out where it is in the article, or you might simply concede that the 47% # is misconstrued and used out of context.
Further, you will note by the authors comments at the end of the article that he is clearly bashing persons that want lower taxation - so it appears that a Lib is refuting the very numbers your post is built upon.


"By DAVID LEONHARDTPublished: April 13, 2010
About three-quarters of households pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.

That’s the portion of American households that owe no income tax for 2009. The number is up from 38 percent in 2007, and it has become a popular talking point on cable television and talk radio. With Tax Day coming on Thursday, 47 percent has become shorthand for the notion that the wealthy face a much higher tax burden than they once did while growing numbers of Americans are effectively on the dole. Neither one of those ideas is true. They rely on a cleverly selective reading of the facts. So does the 47 percent number.
Given that taxes are likely to be one of the big political issues of the next few years — and maybe the biggest one — it’s worth understanding who really pays what in taxes. Once you do, you can get a sense for our country’s fiscal options. How, in other words, will we be able to close the huge looming gap between the taxes we are scheduled to pay and the services we are scheduled to receive?
The answer is that tax rates almost certainly have to rise more on the affluent than on other groups. Over the last 30 years, rates have fallen more for the wealthy, and especially the very wealthy, than for any other group. At the same time, their incomes have soared, and the incomes of most workers have grown only moderately faster than inflation.
So a much greater share of income is now concentrated at the top of distribution, while each dollar there is taxed less than it once was. It’s true that raising taxes on the rich alone can’t come close to solving the long-term budget problem. The deficit is simply too big. But if taxes are not increased for the wealthy, the country will be left with two options.
It will have to raise taxes even more than it otherwise would on everybody else. Or it will have to find deep cuts in Medicare, Social Security, military spending and the other large (generally popular) federal programs.
All the attention being showered on “47 percent” is ultimately a distraction from that reality.
The 47 percent number is not wrong. The stimulus programs of the last two years — the first one signed by President George W. Bush, the second and larger one by President Obama — have increased the number of households that receive enough of a tax credit to wipe out their federal income tax liability.
But the modifiers here — federal and income — are important. Income taxes aren’t the only kind of federal taxes that people pay. There are also payroll taxes and investment taxes, among others. And, of course, people pay state and local taxes, too.
Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Officedata suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes. The number 10 is obviously a lot smaller than 47.
The reason is that poor families generally pay more in payroll taxes than they receive through benefits like the Earned Income Tax Credit. It’s not just poor families for whom the payroll tax is a big deal, either. About three-quarters of all American households pay more in payroll taxes, which go toward Medicare and Social Security, than in income taxes.
Focusing on the statistical middle class — the middle 20 percent of households, as ranked by income — underlines this point. Households in this group made $35,400 to $52,100 in 2006, the last year for which the Congressional Budget Office has released data. That would describe a household with one full-time worker earning about $17 to $25 an hour. Such hourly pay is typical for firefighters, preschool teachers, computer support specialists, farmers, members of the clergy, mail carriers, secretaries and truck drivers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Taking into account both taxes and tax credits, the average household in this group paid a total income tax rate of just 3 percent. A good number of people, in fact, paid no net income taxes. They are among the alleged free riders.
But the picture starts to change when you look not just at income taxes but at all taxes. This average household would have paid 0.8 percent of its income in corporate taxes (through the stocks it owned), 0.9 percent in gas and other federal excise taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. Add these up, and the family’s total federal tax rate was 14.2 percent.
I realize that it’s possible to argue that payroll taxes should be excluded from the discussion because they pay for benefits — Social Security and Medicare — that people receive on the back end. But that argument doesn’t seem very persuasive.
Why? People do not receive benefits equal to the payroll taxes they paid. Those who die at age 70 will receive much less in Social Security and Medicare than they paid in taxes. Those who die at 95 will probably get much more.
The different kinds of federal taxes are really just accounting categories. At the end of the day, the government has to cover the cost of all its operations with revenue from all its taxes. We can’t wish our deficit away by saying that it’s mostly a Medicare and Social Security deficit.
If anything, the government numbers I’m using here exaggerate how much of the tax burden falls on the wealthy. These numbers fail to account for the income that is hidden from tax collectors — a practice, research shows, that is more common among affluent families. “Because higher-income people are understating their income,” Joel Slemrod, a tax scholar at the University of Michigan, says, “We’ve been overstating their average tax rates.”
State and local taxes, meanwhile, may actually be regressive. That is, middle-class and poor families may face higher tax rates than the wealthy. As Kim Rueben of the Tax Policy Center notes, state and local income taxes and property taxes are less progressive than federal taxes, while sales taxes end up being regressive. The typical family pays a lot of state and local taxes, too — almost half as much as in federal taxes.
There is no question that the wealthy pay a higher overall tax rate than any other group. That is an American tradition. But there is also no question that their tax rates have fallen more than any other group’s over the last three decades. The only reason they are paying more taxes than in the past is that their pretax incomes have risen so rapidly — which hardly seems a great rationale for a further tax cut.
So why are those radio and television talk show hosts spending so much time arguing that today’s wealthy are unfairly burdened? Well, it’s hard not to notice that the talk show hosts themselves tend to be among the very wealthy.
No doubt, like the rest of us, they don’t particularly enjoy paying taxes. They are happy with the tax cuts they have received lately. They would prefer if other people had to pick up the bill for Medicare, Social Security and the military — people like, say, firefighters, preschool teachers, computer support specialists, farmers, members of the clergy, mail carriers, secretaries and truck drivers.

And, here's the link to the NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html

ThatGuy113 said:

Ok now that i am out of class, good job you got me yes you have a valid point about the 10%. That still doesn't dispute the quote the GreatWhiteNorth used from me. What i am right about is the fact about 52% of tea baggers think that their taxes are fair. So if a majority of a group is ok with their taxes then there is no need to whine about said political issue.

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Why in God's green Earth would you oppose people that want you to pay less taxes? Have you even considered that they might be on to something? Why is our responsibility to pay more and NOT the government's responsibility to spend less? Don't you see? No matter how much money we feed them...they want MORE. The government never suffers. Only it's subjects do.

Maybe you blindly love Obama because he is black...such is your right...but know that his skin color does not change who he puts into positions of power...not just him but Bush as well...we are getting sold to bankers...and being told that we are the problem. Meanwhile people like Paulson and Geithner are unelected money lords with EVER increasing power...and so few oppose. So very few.

You insult these few by calling them teabaggers...yet they wish no harm to yourself at all. They want to audit the FED. If you ask me the FED needs auditing. We need to know who pulls the strings...how hard they are pulled...and what if any thing can be done about it? Why is that so evil? Why is that deserving of ridicule and scorn? Who cares what your friends think...tell ME...why should the FED not be audited? Why should people like Paulson and Geithner have carte blanc? (did you know that they cannot be held legally accountable for any actions they take? I quadruple dog dare you to prove me wrong...I am not)

The system is failing us all. Not just REpublicans. Not just Democrats. We are all being lied to. It's time to be a TRUE free thinker. Not a parrot of MSNBC or Foxnews. THINK. What harm is there for the citizens of the United States in holding our government's feet to the fire?

ThatGuy113 said:

Yay! more non sense from the people who want "less government" but want to have the gov control us even more.

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It was a blanket statement not just in relation to the article. I was simply pointing out another contradiction of these extreme right wing the party members that dont know the difference between socialism, communism and fascism. These rallies are filled with hatred based on a front about taxes and standing up to oppression like the founding fathers therefore naming themselves after the tea party.

ThatGuy113 said:

It was a blanket statement not just in relation to the article. I was simply pointing out another contradiction of these extreme right wing the party members that dont know the difference between socialism, communism and fascism. These rallies are filled with hatred based on a front about taxes and standing up to oppression like the founding fathers therefore naming themselves after the tea party.

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BullSh*t, Tea stands for "Taxed enough Already"

And as for your numbers of party that think their taxes are fair - how about reading down a paragraph or two?

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.
As Tea Partiers gather for today's rally in Boston, home of the original Tea Party protest in 1773, 42 percent of Tea Party supporters think the amount of income taxes they'll pay this year is unfair, according to a new CBS News/ New York Times poll.
Yet while some say the Tea Party stands for "Taxed Enough Already," most Tea Party supporters - 52 percent - say their taxes are fair, the poll shows. Just under one in five Americans say they support the Tea Party movement.

However, those most active in the Tea Party are less satisfied with the amount of income taxes they will pay. Fifty-five percent of Tea Party activists - those who have attended a rally or donated money - (about 4 percent of Americans overall) say their income taxes are unfair.

Americans overall are more likely than Tea Partiers to describe the income taxes they'll pay this year as fair - 62 percent do, according to the poll, conducted April 5 - 12.

Majorities across all income levels say their income taxes are fair, as do most Republicans and Democrats.

I'm not saying that I am planning on shirking my fair share of tax burden - I don't, and I pay an ass load.
What irks me is its like feeding a hog - the more you dump in, the more it wants. The pig is bloated enough !

Your post serms to try and make the point that people who make under $50,000 a year don't pay taxes. You couldn't be more wrong. FWIW the Tea party movement doesn't have as much to do about taxes as it does about revolutionary action.

I'm only going to say one thing here. . . (the word is "ensues", not "insues"). The Tea Partiers have enough sense to know how important good education is and they also know how important HUMAN freedom is from the chains of the over-reaching U.S. government. Soooo. . . who are you gonna' believe? Ask "Phoenix Rising". . .

I'm just going to sit back, relax, and see what all the Tea Party HATERS have to say about all this in 2 years.

Would it be hypocritical to make a living growing illegally, not pay a dime in local, federal or state income tax and complain about how obama is killing us with his taxes and socialism? Because I'm sure there are a few people like that out there....and also I'm pretty sure they post here.

i have no income and pay no taxes. i think the taxes on cigarettes are ridiculous. i think people who pay federal income taxes are paying for a pointless war for oil. am i a hypocritical tea bagger? if so; ill drop my nuts on your face

HAhaha

What it means is.... the tea party is truly representative of the country....since 47% of the entire country doesn't pay income tax.

Think it through.....

They aren't crackpots....they are the average American...who has bothered to do the arithmetic on the Obama nightmarish future which awaits you all.

THEY are the middle, not Obama and Congress.

tea partiers are a confused bunch of people.

studies showed they thought taxes were gonna be higher this year. they weren't. they were LOWER.

they claim they want smaller government, but don't want to give up medicare OR social security.

they claim they don't want higher taxes, but cringe at the thought of the government taking on debt to pay for obligations.

they want less government spending, when given options, they don't know which to pick.

they believe conspiracy theories involving the POTUS in higher percentages than the rest of the population, particularly the one of him being from Kenya.

these and other reasons is why i don't take the whole tea party thing too seriously....

so if you make under 50k a year you don't pay taxes? Hmm, thats news to me. I seem to remember paying taxes every year back when I was in college working at Circuit city.

The tea patriots have calculators....and actually understand what the numbers mean.... they see the FUTURE being cemented in, and they want BETTER than mediocrity. They want their kids to not be burdened by their spending on the present.

They can add.

Other polls, not connected with the Republican Party in any way, found different but still fairly high percentages of Independents and Democrats making up the Tea Party movement.





Survey: Four in 10 Tea Party members are Democrats or independents


By Sean J. Miller - 04/04/10 03:29 PM ET
Four in 10 Tea Party members are either Democrats or Independents, according to a new national survey.
The findings provide one of the most detailed portraits to date of the grassroots movement that started last year.



The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic, according to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group. Two-thirds of the group call themselves conservative, 26 are moderate and 8 percent say they are liberal.

The Winston Group conducted three national telephone surveys of 1,000 registered voters between December and February. Of those polled, 17 percent – more than 500 people -- said they were “part of the Tea Party movement.”


“It’s a good sample size,” said David Winston, the polling firm’s director. “It will certainly give us an initial base to follow where these folks are.”


The group is united around two issues – the economy/jobs and reducing the deficit. They believe that cutting spending is the key to job creation and favor tax cuts as the best way to stimulate the economy. That said 61 percent of Tea Party members believe infrastructure spending creates jobs. Moreover, given the choice Tea Party members favor 63-32 reducing unemployment to 5 percent over balancing the budget.
It isn’t a “purely homogeneous” group, said Winston.


The group has a favorable view of Republicans generally but that drops from 71 to 57 percent if they’re asked about Congressional Republicans. Congressional Democrats are viewed very unfavorably by 75 percent of Tea Party members – a uniquely strong antipathy. An overwhelming 95 percent said “Democrats are taxing, spending, and borrowing too much.”


The group also vehemently dislikes President Barack Obama – even more so than those who called themselves Republicans in the survey. Over 80 percent of Tea Party members disapprove of the job he’s doing as president, whereas 77 percent of Republican respondents said they disapprove of Obama. The Tea Party members are also strongly opposed to the Democrats’ healthcare plan, with 82 percent saying they oppose it -- only 48 percent of respondents overall were opposed.


Tea Party members are more likely to be male, slightly older and middle income. Almost half the members of the group reported getting their news about national issues from Fox News, 10 percent of respondents said that talk radio is one of their top two sources, which is seven-points higher than the average voter.








It must mostly be those darn Independents and Democrats in the Tea Party movement that are not paying their taxes. They do add up to 41% of the Tea Party in the polls mentioned and over 50% of the entire Tea Party in one or more other polls.



The Tea Party movement is NOT made up of the people, or types of people, that the DemoClown propagandists have done their best to claim Tea Party members to be. They are people of differing political ideologies but share in their dislike for President Obozo and his gang of political clowns. Regardless of the propaganda efforts to claim Tea Party members to be one thing the Tea Party is made up of Republicans and Democrats and Independents and conservatives and moderates and liberals. Their singular connection is a deep dislike for President Obozo and his the political clowns he has surrounded himself with and that he relies on.

abe23 said:

Would it be hypocritical to make a living growing illegally, not pay a dime in local, federal or state income tax and complain about how obama is killing us with his taxes and socialism?

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no. we aren't allowed to pay taxes on black market goods, so that is a non-issue. the usurious taxation needed to keep the welfare state growing is everyone's business. the intrusive control that is inherent in the socialist philosophy is everyone's business. the limiting of anyone's liberty and the confiscation of their property by means of governmental force is everyone's business.

i can understand the compassion that leads some people to believe in government's wasteful social programs. i can even understand the envy that allows them to believe it is perfectly acceptable to penalize the successful for the sake of our society's poor. what i can't understand is the blindness that keeps them from realizing the inefficiency of the public sector and the way we are forced to pay for their excesses. the luxurious appointments and extravagant lifestyles of our representatives, who are in reality our employees, don't seem to faze them at all. while our economy flounders and so many in the private sector struggle, government continues to grow. while retirees find their savings dwindling and the private sector workforce is forced into lower wages if they can find any employment at all, outrageous government pensions remain safe and even furloughs of state workers are fought tooth and nail.

we all understand the necessity of taxation. those funds are needed to keep the wheels of government spinning. that so many within the tea party movement accept the necessity is a testament to that understanding. what is objected to is the way those funds are spent and the overreaching of government without thought to how it effects those who foot the bill. what is being protested is that government seems to consider the wealth of the nation as their personal checkbook, overdrawing it whenever they so desire and demanding the taxpayers pay the fees for their short sightedness and greed. less and less is the nation being thought of as a group of individuals. more and more are we being treated as cogs in the machine.

some may belittle the tea party movement as a bunch of right wing extremists or twist their sentiments to suit an alternate agenda. many may childishly call them tea-baggers and seek ways to undermine their message. the fact remains that there is a call to return to the basic tenets of the constitution, without the entitlements to special interest groups and the nanny-state nonsense that serves only to deny the responsibilities we all should bear. there is no demand that the poor should suffer, only that we understand it is not government's right or duty to relieve that suffering through force and at the expense of others. the demand is that choice return to the people. it doesn't seem too much to ask in a country that prides itself on freedom.