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Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Cutting Medicare and Medicaid

53
Achilles Tang4/20/2011 11:50:11 am PDT

re: #41 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

I’m getting tired of that strawman of “Well, if we taxed the rich at 100%, it wouldn’t be enough!,” because nobody’s proposing that the rich pay that much. Hell, the highest I’ve seen suggest so far is going back to the Clinton-era taxes, which is 39.6% for the highest bracket. The highest the top bracket has ever gone was 91%, and it hasn’t been that high since the days of JFK.

As for that “The poor pay not taxes!” bullshit, that’s after they take advantage of all the various deductions and tax credits that the current mess of a tax code provides them. And guess what, the rich do the exact same fraking thing, so give me a fraking break.

There was an analysis of this in the news somewhere. In truth the highest income earners pay a large percentage of Federal Income tax, but they pay a disproportionately small percentage of other related taxes like FICA, so their actual total contribution is around 28%, not 40+.