We The People Act or Why Ron Paul is a Crazy Person

[mrstickball]

rocketpig said:

Kasz216 said:

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.

Not true.

Effective federal tax rates among the bottom 50% have dropped 65% since the 1980's. Comparatively, effective federal tax rates among the top 1% have dropped only 30%. The middle and lower class pay a lot less than they have before. The only taxes that have stayed at similar levels are payroll taxes, which are generally mitigated by their other offsets (such as insane deductions and rebates that usually give them back more than they paid in).