A Tax-the-Rich Lesson Finally Goes Public

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



A Tax-the-Rich Lesson Finally Goes Public
December 4, 2010

The National Archives has just released a once-secret report that helps us understand how incredibly much we today coddle the wealthiest among us.

By Sam Pizzigati


Our political order in the United States, a host of observers have noted over recent years, tends to tilt toward the rich. Last week, that tilting went severe.

On Monday, the White House called for a two-year freeze on all federal civilian workers. The freeze, said the President, would save $28 billion over the next five years. Extending the Bush tax cuts for America’s richest 1 percent will cost the federal treasury, just next year alone, $61 billion.

On Tuesday, federal unemployment insurance aid expired for 2 million jobless Americans, after a House move to extend the benefits fell short. Lawmakers could extend these benefits through the end of 2011 for $56 billion.

On Wednesday, Fed Reserve officials revealed that the nation’s central bank had during the high-finance meltdown handed $3.3 trillion in emergency loans, no strings attached, to America’s wealthiest. The loans, charges Senator Bernie Sanders, essentially provided “free money” to the country’s biggest banks.

On Thursday, Congress gave the green light to legislation that expands the school lunch program. The catch: Lawmakers opted to pay for this overdue expansion by cutting money for Food Stamps. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://toomuchonline.org/a-tax-the-rich-lesson-finally-goes-public/

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. The wealthy are NOT overtaxed.

The newly released 1943 data make for absolutely stunning reading. We have simply never had clearer evidence of just how much America used to expect out of individual wealthy Americans — and just how little, by comparison, we expect out of our wealthy today.

We learn, for instance, that 1941’s top executive at IBM, Thomas Watson, collected $517,221 in compensation that year, about $7.7 million in current dollars. Watson paid 69 percent of his total 1941 income in federal income tax.

Last year, today’s chief exec at IBM, Sam Palmisano, took home $24.3 million for his executive labors. We don’t know how much income above that sum Palmisano reported in 2009, or exactly how much of that total he paid in taxes.

But we do know that the 13,374 Americans who reported incomes over $10 million in 2008, the latest year with IRS stats available, paid an average 24.1 percent of their taxable incomes in federal income tax.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Kicking. n/t