Here’s what Warren says about ‘class warfare. Here’s Talking Point Memo with the transcript…
In a video of a recent Warren appearance, posted online by an individual who says he or she is not affiliated with the campaign, Warren answered the charge. “I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever,’” Warren said. “No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody.
“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.
Wait! Elizabeth Warren really nailed the rich here. Obviously, in a non-class warfare-y way.
The rich are ripping us off! They are getting away with free roads, police and fire protection! The rest of us – i.e. the not rich – are paying for these bozos, when all THEY did was build successful companies!
It made me wonder how much the rich DO pay,…
A quick Google search turned up this article…
Here’s a look at individual tax rates and shares by income in 2007, the most recent data available from the Internal Revenue Service:
- The top 1 percent: Americans who earned an adjusted gross income of $410,096 or more accounted for 22.8 percent of all wages. But they paid 40.4 percent of total reported income taxes, an increase from 39.9 percent in 2006, according to the IRS.
- The top 5 percent: Americans who earned $160,041 or more accounted for 37.4 percent of all wages in 2007. But they paid 60.6 percent of the country’s total reported income taxes, up from 60.1 percent a year earlier.
- The top 10 percent: Americans who earned at least $113,018 paid 71.2 percent of the nation’s income taxes, up from 70.8 percent a year earlier.
- The top 25 percent: Americans who earned at least $66,532 paid 86.6 percent of the nation’s income taxes, up from 86.3 percent a year earlier.
- The top 50 percent: Americans who earned at least $32,879 paid 97.1 percent of the nation’s income taxes, up from 97 percent a year earlier.
- The bottom 50 percent: Americans who earned less than $32,879 paid 2.9 percent of the nation’s income taxes, down from 3 percent a year earlier.
I don’t think Warren really wants FAIR taxation. That would mean the poor need to chip in a lot more…you know, for the rest of us.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
But, didn’t the rich pay for all these services, too? Roads, fire, police - all legitimate and part of the real purpose of government, to create a safe and free society where those that have the skill, the drive, the determination and sometimes just the sheer luck to make it big can do it?
And didn’t the rich (or just the middle class guy that put everything he has on the line to chase a dream), while in the process of building that factory and creating those jobs pay even more in taxes, through fees and permit costs and all the other ways that local governments have of sucking every penny they can?
Being just a carpenter myself, one that has been self employed on and off most of my life, I really don’t want to see the rich kicked around too much. I can’t think of the last time a poor guy hired me to work on his house. I’ll never be rich and I don’t care. I just want somebody left that is so I can make a couple bucks here and there. I’m more than happy to live off the scraps.
Wouldn’t it be more just to tax us with sales and excise taxes anyway? Just get rid of this damned immoral income tax that literally robs us of our souls by robbing us of our labor? That would have the added benefit of reducing the size and impact of government, too. And it would make it really hard to avoid taxes by working outside the system.
I agree with you in principle, but it bugs me when people make this argument and leave out the fact that a higher percentage of income growth also went to the top brackets. So yes, the percent they pay went up relative to the other brackets, but the percent they earned also went up.
Here’s the remaining part of your source which you left out:
-quote-
An important side note: While the tax burden on this country’s largest wage-earners has continued to grow since the Bush tax cuts were passed, the impact has been substantially muted.
The income gains made by the wealthiest Americans far outpaced that for the remaining workers, according to an analysis conducted for the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
In fact, two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1 percent of households, the 2009 analysis of IRS data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez showed.
That top 1 percent held a larger share of income in 2007 than at any time since 1928, their analysis found.
-end quote-
Now that we’re telling the whole story and focused on the entirety of the problems, we can begin to look for solutions, of which you and I will agree on a lot.
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