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    The Truth About Taxes


    By amanda zaluckyj, Section News
    Posted on Tue Feb 19, 2008 at 07:58:13 AM EST
    Tags: (all tags)

    The GVSU College Republicans hosted a speaker yesterday from the Tax Foundation.  He debunked a lot of popular myths about the current United States tax system, and even touched on Michigan's tax burden.

    What kinds of myths?

    The Bush tax cuts were for the rich.

    The rich do not pay their fair share of taxes.

    Business taxes get back at corporate greed.

    So, what is the truth....

    First of all, the Bush tax cuts were not for the rich, regardless of how many times Senators Clinton and Obama want to tell us that they were. The truth is, the Bush tax cuts actually made it easier for low wage earners. Beforehand, the very bottom of the scale would pay in the 15% tax bracket. After the Bush tax cuts, the lowest income earners pay in the 10% tax bracket. Additionally, everyone was given a 10% lower tax rate then before. The tax cuts benefited everyone.

    The rich don't pay their fair share of taxes? The top 1% of the wealthiest Americans pay nearly 40% of the federal taxes. 50% of Americans do not even pay taxes! That's half the population of the United States. The poorest people in the US receive $8.21 for every $1 they pay into the system. That comes out to an average $31,000. About $1trillion is redistributed from the wealthiest in America to the poorest.

    Finally, business taxes. 27 states in the US have the highest business taxes in the world. Japan is the only other country in the world that has a (slightly) higher business tax than the US. It is no wonder that businesses are moving to other countries. How can they compete when they have to pay high business taxes? The average American pays $2700 in taxes handed down from businesses to cover their tax. Those taxes just get passed on to the consumers!

    It's a big issue and it would take a lot of time to go into everything. But certainly there is a lot of political language out there that just doesn't make sense. We have to get past the campaign rhetoric and get to the real facts.

    < Tuesday in the Sphere, February 19 | Michigan Democrat Super Delegates: Look For The Union Label! >


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    The Truth (none / 0) (#1)
    by prattleon on Tue Feb 19, 2008 at 10:59:51 AM EST
    The truth is, Bush's measly tax cuts are irrelevant when you consider his enormous increases in spending.  It shouldn't take an economist to understand that spending more than you take in, doesn't work.  

    Okay, great...we get a tax cut, but the budget shortfall has to be compensated somehow.  So we borrow money from China and the Saudis which we, and our children will be paying interest on for years to come.  But we can only borrow so much, so we print the rest.  every fiat dollar that is printed dilutes our money supply since it is not backed by a tangible commodity, and has no intrinsic value.  This inflation of the money supply is no different -- save for it's deceptive nature -- than any other tax.  And it hurt disproportionately the poor and middle class because they are most effected by the resulting price increases and they are typically the last to receive the "freshly printed" currency.  Those who benefit most are typically government contractors and those with close government ties who are first to receive the money before it has trickled down and diluted the money supply.  

    besides the fact that it is a form of hidden taxation, it leads to misallocation of funds in the private sector that would normally (and should) rely on true market interest rates.  What we get is the business cycle, complete with booms and violent busts.  We should be familiar with it, since we're in the middle of a recession cause by a bursting housing bubble.  

    so we can complain about taxes all we want, but until we address spending and monetary policy, our problems will remain.

    No truth here (none / 0) (#5)
    by NoviDemocrat on Tue Feb 19, 2008 at 09:44:12 PM EST
    "50% of Americans do not even pay taxes!"

    That's amazing that 50% of Americans never shop, never buy gas, never use a phone or do anything else that the rest of us do every day where you might have to pay a tax like the gas tax, sales tax or taxes on phone services. Before you troll out the bogus talking points that's supposed to make us all feel sorry for those poor rich folk, work on getting the basic facts right.

    Ed - I agree with you (none / 0) (#16)
    by Dutchsma on Mon Feb 25, 2008 at 01:09:51 PM EST
    We're talking about the same thing but approaching it from different directions.  It is all about the "have-not's" wanting what the "have's" have - without paying for it with their own money.

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