98% Earn Less

PolitiFactcheckFlorida using statistics from the IRS website found that 137,988,219 tax returns out of 140,494,127 (98.2%) reported adjusted gross income of less than $250,000 a year in 2009 (most recent data available) and said Obama’s statement that “98% of American Families” make less than $250,000 a year is true. Bloomberg BusinessWeek on July 20, 2012 said: Leonard Burman, an economist at Syracuse University in New York, said “The 2%, they’re people who are successful in their professions, but they’re not the absolute rock stars. There’s a big difference between the 99th percentile and the 99.9th.” Obama, who himself is in this group of high earners, said in Ohio July 16 “What we’re saying is for those folks, we can afford to pay a little bit more in taxes by going back to the rates that were paid under Bill Clinton.” The fortunate few who can pay more to help reduce the US budget deficit according to Jon Bakija, an economist at Williams College in Massachusetts, who used tax-return data from 2005 to compile occupational breakdowns for the top 0.1%, the top 1% and the top 5% of taxpayers. Engineers, architects and information-technology workers make up 9.6% of the top 5% of taxpayers which includes managers, financial professionals, lawyers and medical professionals and 4.2% of the top 1% of taxpayers. According to Bakija, the economic evidence is mixed. “There would be some reduction of incomes of top earners if we raise their tax rates, but it’s probably going to be modest. Anybody who claims to have really convincing evidence that this is going to hurt job creation, there just isn’t such convincing evidence.” The administration’s proposal would raise income taxes for 1.3% of households by an average of $35,757 in 2013, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. More than 95% of households in the top 1% of income -- those making more than $596,998 a year -- would pay more. According to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation the Democrats would raise about $68 billion more from a one-year extension than Republicans would ($680 billion over 10 years). The debate over the top 2 tax rates is part of a broader fight in Congress over how to avert the $607 billion fiscal cliff of automatic spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to take effect in 2013. Democrats say higher taxes for top earners must be part of any alternative. Republicans say the current rates should remain for all, shifting the burden of deficit reduction to the spending side of the budget.

People when will you get that the Republicans insist on reducing programs that people need in order in prevent an increase in taxes for 2% of the population? If you want to fairly reduce the deficit – tell your representatives to vote for the tax increase or you’ll vote him or her out.