I’m wondering if this will take away from the (possible) collective influence of the OWS movement (as I talked about here) by pitting the people against themselves (as the elites usually manage to do) or if it will help add to it by lighting a fire under more people.
13th October 2011
Photo with 39 notes
Frank Decker
Constitutional Convervative & Teacher
Vancouver, Washington
13th October 2011
Photo with 10 notes
I am Steve and I am the 53%
13th October 2011
Photo with 89 notes
Where does the 53% figure come from?
“You want to ‘occupy’ something? Occupy a job and start contributing.” - This made me chuckle. I expect to see memes with these types of slogans.
That’s the percentage of people who pay income tax. There’s already news coverage…
i dont know if I like this… basically this whole 53% movement was started by Erick Erickson, a conservative that likes the whole idea of crony capitalism. The 99% people are right in that the current system is screwed up, but they are completely wrong if they think they can change the system through the demands they set up.
They haven’t stopped to wonder that perhaps the main reason we are in the worst mess since the '30s is the fact people who pay their income tax just stay quiet and work. While I can sympathize with the old dictum “Just let us work” the problem is they don’t let us work anymore. Everybody is out to get his cut: the big corporation suit, desperately wanting to push the latest product the market rejected; the bureaucrat, wanting to justify not only his existence, but his continually increasing power; the politician, wanting to show people he’s “tough” and he “cares”; the police chief, who built his career on using violence against non-violent “criminals”; the labor union boss, who wants to bolster his own political power… who do you think has to pay all the bills? A few hippies forming a drum circle? The Chinese? The “rich”?
One of the great victories of the present socio-political system is in the complete political anhilation of the working class, from humble cobblers to well-off medical practicioners. The working class has been tamed and conditioned to think there’s nothing it can do, so it has fallen back on itself: “Just shut up and work”. Sounds more and more like slaves talking among themselves.
While I disagree with the spirit of OWS, you have to admit this is a pretty good meme:
Is the 53% figure correct? Tax-feeders don’t actually pay tax, that’s an accounting trick. The guy in the photo could be a parasite, say a cop, and not “a provider”.
Also excluding wage earners who earn too little to pay income tax is wrong. They probably still have a greater percentage of their earnings taken away in taxes than wealthy people. Sales tax, traffic tickets, municipal fees, vices tax, etc disproportionally hit the poorer people.
I don’t see how that’s possible. If you earn too little to pay income tax, I don’t see how you could survive if 30-50% was taken away. And let’s not forget what kind of a deal these people are actually getting…
As a result of the 2001 tax cuts enacted by a bipartisan Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, the share of taxes paid by the top 10% increased to 72.8% in 2005 from 67.8% in 2001, according to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Contrary to the myth that Mr. Bush cut taxes only for the wealthy, the 2001 tax cut reduced taxes for every income-tax payer in the country. He reduced the bottom tax rate to 10% from 15% and increased the refundable child tax credit to $1,000 from $500 per child, both cuts that President Barack Obama says we should keep. In so doing, millions of lower income taxpayers were removed from the tax rolls, shifting the remaining burden to those at the top, even after their taxes were cut.
According to the CBO, those who made less than $44,300 in 2001 – 60% of the country – paid a paltry 3.3% of all income taxes. By 2005,almost all of them were excused from paying any income tax. They paid less than 1% of the income tax burden. Their share shrank even when taking into account the payroll tax. In 2001, the bottom 60% paid 16.3% of all taxes; by 2005 their share was down to 14.3%. All the while, this large group of voters made 25.8% of the nation’s income.
When you make almost 26% of the income and you pay only 0.6% of the income tax, that’s a good deal, courtesy of those who do pay income taxes. For the bottom 40%, the redistribution deal is even better. In 2001, these 43 million Americans, who earn less than $30,500, made 13.5% of the nation’s income but paid no income tax. Instead, they received checks from their taxpaying neighbors worth $16.3 billion. By 2005, those checks totaled $33.3 billion. [More than double].
-Wall Street Journal, APRIL 13, 2009
So let’s recap…thanks to the “only-for-the-rich Bush tax cuts”, not only does almost 60% of the country pay zero income tax, the bottom 40% actually gets money when the rest of the country pays taxes.
Have a look at the charts:
More than that is taken away.
And of course, you have evidence for this?
Sure I have, I’ll post it as soon as you post evidence for people not paying the income tax not being able to survive if 30-50% is taken away.
I have to assume that means you don’t have any support for your claim that more than that is taken away. Thanks for playing.
If you won’t put work into defending your statement, then where do you get the guile to expect I will put work into defending mine?
Show me how a family of four that earns $50,000 and therefore does not pay income tax can not survive if $15.000-25.000 of that then goes to the state.
That’s the whole point. Those families don’t exist. That’s why you can’t show me a family of four that makes that much and actually ends up with 15k-25k worth of income. Anyone who makes that little in wages to begin with is getting outside assitance, be it from a private shelter, private charity, church, or government assistance. And anyone who makes $50k is not getting taxed at 30%-50% in the first place. Thanks again for playing though.
What is a “Constitutional Convervative & Teacher”
A statist?
Gief like button plz.
Yeah I’ve wanted one of those since I joined here. We’ve got one in the new community forums. Now we just need to get the bugs out and migrate this one over there.
Hurray. I hope it is also equiped with a dislike/troll button? : D
