I noticed a lack of Ron Paul supporters in this thread. Possibly it's because they don't know he wrote this bill or perhaps it's because they already know he's a crazy person with dangerous ideas and choose to avoid attempts to defend the indefensible. Either way, this should liven it up a bit.

Well I remember a few in this room talking him up however never cared for the guy. A few i do care for.

Rocky anderson ( Quit democratic party cause corruption)- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Anderson

Bernie Sanders -

Elizabeth Warren - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren

I believe that Gary Johnson is a better candidate/politician. 

You know, that graphic actually isn't a "point of fact".

They are using Mitt Romney's effective tax rate, vs a hypothetical School teachers TOP income bracket.  Judging the school teachers bracket as the same as Mitt Romneys and his would be something like 35%.

We have a graduated tax system,.   A schoolteacher making $40,000 a year pays 25% only on income over 34,000. + 4,681.25 (or so, these are 2010 numbers.) 

Giving her an effective tax rate of 15.5%.   Assuming none of her income is untaxable.  Which is ridiculiously unlikely.  Still higher then Mitt's... but not by much.

It's also ignoring the fact that teachers generally get paid retirement benefits which are often completely tax free, and generally assuming that said teacher has no investments taxed at a capital gains tax level, which is somewhat unlikely considering roughly 50% of Americans own stock in the stock market, either directly or through a mutual fund/IRA etc.

It doesn't actually "Swap" vs someone in a realistic level until you get to triple digits.  Which is why Buffet and Obama cite their secrataries, people with menial sounding job descriptions but with triple digit salaries.

There effective tax rates fall around the average person's top tax bracket because said secretaries make... I believe the technical term is.... "Mad bank".

Example in estimating buffets secretaries salary.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2012/01/25/warren-buffetts-secretary-likely-makes-between-200000-and-500000year/

Of course, that's also ignoring things like Payroll tax, state taxs, sales tax, gas taxes and the dozens of other consumption based taxes that exist that are likely regressive in nature.

Medicare too, depending on whether or not you consider that a tax.

Either way, said graphic is laughably inaccurate.

Laughably inaccurate, yes. But there is an underlying truth to the concept that over the past 30 years, the rich have been able to minimize their paid taxes while the burden for the middle class has remained relatively consistent.

But graphs like this are no better than Romney replying to a commenter "all money ends up going to an individual!" On the surface, they're true but they lack the nuance and maturity needed to enter into complex conversations about difficult problems.

Is that so?  I somewhat question it if only because i've never actually seen any REAL data on it and generally when taxes are reduced they are reduced for all groups, and have a higher percentage of drop in the lower brackets.

Of course, as previously stated, the rich people also benefit from the drop in the lower rates as well since it's a graduated system.  Though dependent on the drops, you'd expect they'd get less of a % in savings over your average middle class person.

Really it's a compliacted issue to disect due to current structural changes in our taxbase/society.

Household gini coeffficent is rising, however Individual ginicoeffecent has actually remained unchanged.  Outside a few outliers, the rich have largely been getting richer through marriage... not tax breaks or just getting a bigger piece of the pie indvidually.

This is caused by the (positive) development of women moving higher and higher up in the workforce.  Rich successful people are marrying other rich successful people, at a time where it seems like the poor are more and more splitting up and living in single parent households.

The whole thing makes it rather hard to tell what the hell is going on tax burden wise, and nobody seems interested in studying it because it's not something that liekly would be particularly useful to either side as a number.

I'd have to see actual numbers before i'd be willing to claim that was absolutely the case. 

Honestly i don't think it's so much "The rich have found ways to lower there tax burden" as it is  "How people get rich has shifted towards areas in which tax burdens are lower.".

Way more people in the top .1% now a days are making money through investments because the investment market is huge compaired to say... the 1960s.  Few are making money via owning walmart, or a oppressive oil trust or whatever.

Agreed 100%. But essentially, that's just another way of figuring out how to lower your tax burden. If you have the money, you can move it around to get it where the tax rate is most favorable. I don't blame rich people for doing it but I do blame the system for not compensating and adapting to fit with the times.

I think I might of been slightly unclear.

Say we live in a society that charges 25% tax on people making money off tobacco, and 15% on people who make wheat, because we view the making of wheat more positive then tobacco.

Tobbacco makes more money, so the richest people are Tobbacco buffs.

Now a generation later, nobody wants to smoke, and people really love breadbowl soup.   All the rich people are in the bread industry.

The underlying reasons for why those tax rates exist still remains the same... so why should the system adapt?

I don't think the rich are hiding or moving there money, I just think that people are just getting rich through money in investments, a field generally seen as the most valuable when it comes to the economy.

Hey, I'm here. I didn't know about this act, nor am I going to defend it. Civil rights are (implicitly) protected by the Constitution, no level of Government has the jurisdiction to impede on them, states' rights or not.

I'm just one of those Paul fans who considers him the lesser of the evils, rather than the be-all-and-end-all candidate that some of his fans make him out to be.

Hell, I'd probably vote for Romney if a) I lived in the states and b) I lived in a swing state.