Barack Obama continually calls for the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes, indicating, through his commentary, that somehow they presently don't pay enough of the tax burden. But is that the truth?
According to a CBO (Congressional Budget Office) report based on the numbers paid in 2007, they pay more than their fair share of the total taxes as the top 10% on the income scales, those who make over $394,500 annually, pay 55% of all taxes paid while those who make around $18,400 annually pay 0.8% of the taxes and those in the middle class (those making between $64,500 to $94,100) pay 9.2 % of all taxes paid.
Granted those figures cover all taxed paid in, including corporate taxes and social security taxes. So, let's look at individual taxes paid. Maybe that was what Obama was talking about.
When we look at only the individual taxes paid in by the top 10% of wage earners in this country, we see that they pay 72.7% of all taxes paid while those in the lower income bracket pays in -3% (in other words, they get back 3% more than they pay in) and the middle class pays 4.6% of the total.
From this information we must assume that Obama believes that for 10% of the population to pay almost ¾ of all taxes paid is not enough as there is no disparity in these figures and there is no possibility that these numbers could be misunderstood. However, as Obama is consistently speaking about big corporations getting unfair breaks, let's look at the percentages of the taxes paid by corporations.
Referring back to the CBO report, we see that the top 10% pay 80% of the taxes paid in by corporations with the lower income bracket paying 0.6% of the total and the middle class paying 6.6% of the total. So, once again it appears that the higher wage earners are paying the vast majority of the total taxes.
Since Social Security has been in the news so much lately let's look at those numbers as well. Here we see that the top 10% only pay 25.4% of the total taxes paid in to Social Security while the low income bracket pays in 4.8% and the middle class pays in 16.6%. Still the higher income group pays more but that isn't the whole story because if we then look at the amount paid in by those making over $264,700 paid in 42.9% of the total Social Security taxes paid.
These numbers don't tell the whole story yet though because what isn't here yet is how many households comprise each group. So, let's look at that. The number of households in the top 10% category is 11.9 million while the lower income bracket is around 24.6 million and the middle class is 22.9 million households. Meaning that consistently 11.9 million households pay more taxes across the board than do the 47.5 million in these two groups, and the remaining 57.5 million households.
Yes, they can use loopholes to reduce their taxes, and even though many of them did in 2007 you can see that they still paid in the majority of the taxes. Raising their taxes, as Obama wants, would bring in more money right now but in the long run, as they work to keep their personal incomes stable, and as the corporations fight to keep their profit margin in the black with higher taxes, more jobs will likely be lost as they are forced to choose between employees or getting their products manufactured and distributed, which is the reason many of them aren't presently hiring.
This loss of jobs doesn't just hurt those suffering with less or no income, it also hurts the nation as there is less demand for products, which can result in further cutbacks at companies as their sales go down, and so continues the cycle of the downfall of the American economy.
It seems the simple solution would be what Donald Trump has mentioned—the Flat Tax, which taxes everyone at 10% minus the loopholes—or the well known Fair Tax, which does away with all taxes except a national sales tax of $0.23 on the dollar. Either of these would actually be easier for all involved and still produce taxes for our government to maintain.
The most obvious solution to our government's continual spiral into debt is not to raise taxes on the wealthy, or anyone for that matter, but rather to cut spending. After all, our taxes are presently being used to fund unconstitutional and burdensome organizations like the EPA and the IRS, and to pay for national parks, museums and housing for the low income people. Our taxes also pay the salaries of those we elect to represent us, many for the rest of their lives, while they ignore our wishes and do their own thing. Oh and we can't forget the stimulus plans that don't work and foreign aid to feed other countries while our own falters. We also can't forget the medical care of illegals, education of illegals, and the government entitlement programs 71% of them benefit from without them at any time paying in anything to taxes.
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