The "I am the 53%" photoshop /caption challenge.

[Erose999]

http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/11055265485/1/tumblr_lsl3efllOw1r4q8eo

You know all about that douche Eric Erickson (editor of RedState.com and CNN contributor) and his assinine "I am the 53%" campaign thats a counter campaign to the 99%'ers

So here's your chance to participate in a stupid counter-response to his stupid counter-response.

1.) Caption / photoshop this photo.
2.) Post to this thread.
3.) Epic lolage ensues
4.) ??????
5.) Profit!

Gentlemen (and women and trans-persons) DO YOUR WORST!!11!!!1

[Erose999]

1. Also: the winner gets a cookie. Or something.

[lunatica]

2. What a fucking idiot!

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. "And by 'I'm subsidizing you' I mean...I...It's...well, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about

I'm gonna need a new sign."

[lunatica]

4. Are they dyslexic? It's at most 35% and they read it as 53%?

That explains a lot.

[Enrique]

5. Erickson's 3 jobs

blow, hand and foot for his corporate paymasters.

[JBoy]

6. You mean like this?

[Erose999]

7. Good one!

[truedelphi]

8. Dumb question - what does the "53%" stand for? Why did the RW decide on

This number?

And good luck to anyone entering the Photo Shop contest.

[Erose999]

12. According to some RW meme only 53% of Americans pay taxes.

Which is complete bullshit. An aggregate number like that probably includes retired people, the disabled, children, stay-at-home moms, etc etc as people who "don't pay taxes".

[truedelphi]

17. Here in California, you are constantly paying taxes -

The tax on anything purchased at a store is over 7 percent.

While the richest of the rich, even entities like the Disney Corporation, pay taxes on the land they own assessed as to its purchase price! So as Disney bought much of its Anaheim land back in the early fifties -that 1950's purchase price is what the Corporation pays to the state as its property tax!

[Sirveri]

34. Prop 13 isn't quite that bad, but I agree that it's bad.

First off it locked their property values at the 1975 levels, not the 1950's levels. And second it allows a 2% increase in property value assessment each year. It's possible Anaheim was dumb and gave them some sort of subsidy deal that locked them into a lower rate however. But given the resulting hotel taxes they gain from the park surroundings they quite likely it's difficult to say if that was a smart or stupid agreement in hindsight, if that's what actually happened.

[truedelphi]

48. Thank you for the corrections. n/t

[truedelphi]

18. Oh and thank you for the response. n/t

[mwooldri]

27. With rounding, 53% voted for Obama in the 2008 election.

I don't know if that was considered when the counter-protester came up with the 53%.

So here's my caption, sorry I can't photoshop...

"I work 3 jobs. I have a house I can't sell. My family insurance costs are outrageous. I am the 53% who voted for change. I can't protest about the corporate takeover of USA because I'm too busy working the 3 jobs."

Sorry a bit lame but still...

Mark.,

[Cid_B]

29. 53% refers to those who pay income taxes...

[EdMaven]

38. gotta source?

[Cid_B]

50. Seems to come from a 2009 study from the Tax Policy Center

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=1001289

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1

http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/30/pf/taxes/who_pays_taxes/index.htm

[EdMaven]

33. the 47% who supposedly don't pay taxes includes some very rich individuals & corporations as well.

but try to put that in a soundbite.

In fact, in 2009, the government collected more money from fica taxes than from corporate taxes, by a wide margin:

858,000 million v. 225,482 million.

http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=102886,00.html

FICA is collected from nearly all wage workers, from the lowly mcdonald's employee to the wall street trainee.


In 2009 there were 144 million individual tax returns.

us population = 307 million.

percent under 18: 24%
percent over 65: 13%

subtotal = 37% = 114 million people.

ok so working age population = 193 million

so 75% of the working age population filed returns.

the 25% we can figure as a combination of the unemployed, students, disabled, non-working spouses, etc.

ok so on those 75% who filed:

if you look at table 1.1 here you find that every income bracket from "zero income" to billionares paid income taxes. every single one.

and that "no income" bracket includes people making money in the form of capital gains & dividends -- it's not all poor people.

THIS 53% IS A MYTH. NO IDEA WHERE THAT NUMBER CAME FROM.

[sce56]

35. 53% Is a BROWN Number!

Because a brown number is a number you pull out of your A$$ when you don't know any-better!

[EdMaven]

37. seriously. i'd really like to track source that number.

[JHB]

54. "53%" is the number going around for what percentage of the population...

...pays federal income tax.

They then call the others "freeloaders" and imply that they don't pay any taxes (e.g., they don't have "skin in the game", etc.)

It's a pretty standard RW tactic of deliberately conflating terms to mislead people. Back in the 80s they they talked about "entitlement spending" to attack Welfare programs. They'd name huge portions of the budget devoted to entitlements and imply it all went to freeloading poor people, when a huge part of their number (90%?) was for Social Security and Medicare (not programs people though of as "Welfare").

The Bushies did a textbook example of it by saying "Saddam" and "9/11" in the same breath as often as possible (while never actually saying Saddam was involved... they left that part to RW pundits and radio mouths).

Of course, the 47% who don't pay income taxes are mostly small families trying to support themselves on minimally-paying jobs, with a smattering of small businessmen whose tax liability was eliminated by losses or other reasons. They still pay FICA taxes on their income (all of it), which the RW ignores because you can't acknowledge that without gutting their own spin.

Not to mention the 47% also pay plenty of other taxes: federal gas tax, all sorts of state and local taxes, fees, etc., which makes the people all worked up about this "53%" even bigger fools.

[EstimatedProphet]

9. OK

[Gidney N Cloyd]

10. Here's mine:

[Quixote1818]

43. Nicely Done! nt

[Gidney N Cloyd]

55. Thanks. Photobucket is shrinking the dimensions on me, though. Need a new site.

[Quixote1818]

44. I think I looked at most of them posted and I think this one does the best

job getting the point across.

[anamandujano]

11. OMR====Occupying My Room

[Erose999]

13. More like OMB - Occupying Mom's Basement

[anamandujano]

14. I thought of that

answering because I had to edit for a spelling error

[Avalux]

15. I hate my life.

Really; that's what his sign tells me.

[Erose999]

16. Here's mine...

[backscatter712]

36. D-FENS!!! n/t

[polly7]

19. Hehe ... I love this stuff

but, have no imagination:( oh well ..... here's mine.

[Fire Walk With Me]

25. "I have a house I can't find..."

Snort! :hi:

[Jack Rabbit]

20. !!

Jack Rabbit creation hosted by imagur.com

[mmonk]

21. Many of his so called 53% are part of the 99%, they just aren't intelligent enough

to know it.

[sce56]

22. I'm one of the 27% since I'm clueless thanks to Fox Noise

to see the poll go here
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/07/do-occupy-wall-street-protests-represent-your-views-economy/?intcmp=trending

Do 'Occupy Wall Street' protesters represent your views about the nation's economic problems?
Maybe. I am not even sure what they want. 2.59% (5,282 votes)

No. They have no idea how jobs are created or how a free-enterprise system works. 26.98% (55,035 votes)

Yes. These folks are right about corporate greed and what's happening to the little guy. 69.62% (142,023 votes)

Other (post a comment). 0.81% (1,646 votes)


Total Votes: 203,986
From Faux Noise a Poll that is actually unbelievably unbiased!

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

23. Here we go....

[sce56]

24. Cut this from your link and the picture will show! &res=medium

the link has to end in .jpg

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

26. Thanks....I think it's okay now.

[Gregorian]

28. Haha

[Fire Walk With Me]

30. "I for one welcome our new $5 per month debit card service fees."

[bleever]

31. Here ya go:

[FarLeftFist]

32. "I work 3 jobs, but don't actually produce anything useful"

[itsallhappening]

39. Here you go.

[itsallhappening]

41. Another:

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

40. Thanks for the laughs!

:)

[EdMaven]

42. A myth.

The 51 percent figure is an anomaly that reflects the unique circumstances of 2009, when the recession greatly swelled the number of Americans with low incomes and when temporary tax cuts created by the 2009 Recovery Act — including the “Making Work Pay” tax credit and an exclusion from tax of the first $2,400 in unemployment benefits — were in effect. Together, these developments removed millions of Americans from the federal income tax rolls. Both of these temporary tax measures have since expired.

The Tax Policy Center has tried to correct Fox News and the right wing media’s misuse of their research. In April 2010, Howard Glickman of the TPC wrote,

Let me explain—repeat actually—what this means: About half of taxpayers paid no federal income tax last year. It does not mean they paid no tax at all. Many shelled out Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. In fact, only 14 percent of Americans didn’t pay either income or payroll taxes. Some paid property taxes and, it is fair to say, just about all of them paid sales taxes of one kind or another. So to say they pay no taxes is flat wrong.

However, this class warfare-like rhetoric plays to a perception that the income tax is a chump tax: Only hard-working folks like us pay it. The welfare queens don’t. The super-rich don’t. It is a powerful emotional argument. It is also flat wrong.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/half-americans-taxes

[moondust]

45. Server overload.

So:

"I'm one of the 53% of morons who support the 1% who became the 1% by not paying you enough to eat, much less pay taxes."

[Tuesday Afternoon]

46. selfish, stupid rat bastard needs to take a math course.

[DLine]

47. My contribution

[Fearless]

49. Caption: It takes the taxes of 53% of Americans to fund OWS?

Close corporate tax loopholes.

[sofa king]

51. Meh.

[JHB]

52. So, pal, you're on the side of the guys who pay you so little...

...that you have to work 3 jobs, who gamed the real estate market until it crashed and left you with a house you can't sell, and who gouge you for insurance but will dither, dicker, and make you jump through hoops to use it (if you can)?


But it's the protesters who bother you. guess what pal. The whiner is you.

(directed at the master of misdirected in the photo)

[scheming daemons]

53. 53% voted for Obama.... yes.... I am th 53%