I hate that Boehner invited Netanyahu - but there's a silver lining

[geek tragedy]

73. So you need to get paid in order to back your claims up and engage

in good faith discussion?

In case folks reading are confused, what happened is that Manny threw out the factoid that over 80% of the Bush tax cuts were made permanent by the fiscal cliff deal of after President Obama won re-election. (The actual number is 82% according to CBO estimates--look I did that for free!)

This much is true. What that deal did was to shift the tax burden onto the top 1%. Virtually all of that 18% tax increase (tax cuts expiring vs tax increase is semantics--either people pay more or they pay the same or they pay less than they did last year) fell on households in the top .7% of income.

Now, but Manny claims, the remaining tax cuts also still benefit the rich more than the poor.

Unfortunately, this is true of any tax cut on lower and middle incomes. Because income tax is assessed at marginal levels, e.g. the first $18,150 of everyone's income is taxed the same way, then the next ~$55,650 for everyone is taxed at the same rate, etc*

Thus, while a tax cut on middle class wage earners will help them, a rich person will benefit from that cut as well. In fact, a rich person will benefit more than a middle class taxpayer, because they will have the maximum amount of income to which that tax cut applies.

So that was what Manny was trying to argue, but unless someone passes a collection plate around we'll never know for sure.

Manny, of course, neglected to mention that part of the deal on taxes was an extension of tax credits for lower earning working people, college tuition tax credits, and a 1 year extension on unemployment benefits. Readers can draw their own conclusions.




*using 2014 IRS tax tables for married, filing jointly