The Congressional Budget Office data relate the top 1 percent of income earners pay 30 percent in federal taxes. When they pay a lower rate, it’s a result of lawful deductions or capital gains and dividends on property acquired with money that has already been taxed.
Corporations pay an income tax rate of 35 percent (highest in the world). This means that the wealthiest pay an effective rate of 50 percent (35 percent corporate plus 15 percent capital gains). Indeed, 99.4 percent of millionaires and billionaires pay far more in taxes than middle- and low-income earners combined. You could take all the money that millionaires and billionaires have and it would not make a dent in the yearly trillion-dollar plus budget deficit.
Obama has spent $5 million for every “renewable energy” job created while waging war on domestic coal, natural gas and oil, which has increased the price of fuel. All federal budgets come from the Democratic-controlled Senate, which has failed to pass a budget in almost three years. We face a $15 trillion debt, 4 million unemployed and millions underemployed; real family incomes declining; and the largest mortgage foreclosures in history.
Democrats and Obama’s solution: more taxes.
Lee Hemen
Vancouver