Welcome, one and all to the most intense nigtly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble
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This is the Flying School Edition Into each life a little plane must fall, I guess.
- WHO PAYS WHAT, AGAIN?: Caught a blast from the Tax Foundation [2], this morning, you’ll be interested in.
Newly released data from the IRS [3]clearly debunks the conventional Beltway rhetoric that the “rich” are not paying their fair share of taxes.Indeed, the IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.
Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.
To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.
And they’re still saying the tax policy isn’t progressive enough…. that we’re not stealing enough from the ‘rich’.
- AND THEN THERE’S REALITY: Despite the huge taxation, and the huge spending, car dealers are concerned [4]that the “Cash for Clunkers” program is falling apart for lack of money. [5] The implications, here are far broader than just the car industry, of course. Drudge [6]links a WCBS/2 report [7]wherein we see a car dealer suggesting that if they can’t administer a comparatively simple “Cash for Clunkers”, we may wanna rethink turning our healthcare over to them. Gee… ya think? Government simply isn’t supposed to be DOING this stuff… and this is why [8].
- Speaking of Healthcare… Melissa Clouthier does her usual excellent job [9]examining what happens when the government gets intot he exam room.
- THE WHITE HOUSE BEER FESTIVAL went off yesterday, as per schedule. A media circus, of course. What we have here is a White House looking for closure on Obama’s overtly racist display. But…. nobody apologized [10]. So it was all for show. You knew that was the case when Biden decided to show up [11]. Something tells me his being there would put the squeeze on any gains that might have been made. Oh.. and instead of calming the field, Obama’s dog and pony show actually added a new group of people annoyed with him… American Beer producers. [12] And that black cop who was in on the arrest… why wasn’t he invited? Gee, I guess his attitide might have something to do with it… [13] Well done, Barry.
- CULTURES AND RESPECT: Phyllis Chesler is still on about the gang rape of an 8 year old [14]in Phoenix, and rightly so. I ask again… as I have so often in the past… On what basis do we claim that all cultures are equal?