- Kelly
- Making my way through the ups and downs of life, holding fast to my favorite Bible verse: "For we walk by faith, not by sight." ~2 Corinthians 5:7. I began blogging in earnest at Yahoo360 on October 24, 2005. (briefly using LiveJournal and blog-city prior to that) In June 2008 I moved to Blogger. I'm now at WordPress where I hope to remain.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
OPINION: A real inconvenient truth (about taxes)
I was sent the following editorial piece in an e-mail and thought I would share it here.
OPINION: A real inconvenient truth (about taxes)
Wednesday, Oct 15, 2008
By Warren Stephens
I have never written a column in one of our newspapers and really had no intention of doing so, but after watching the debate last Tuesday night I feel compelled to put some facts to paper so that readers can make an informed decision about this election. Given the dearth of facts in the current debate, this may not be my only foray into writing for publication! I want to make sure I make the proper disclosures about who I support in this Presidential Campaign. I am the co-finance chair for Arkansas for the McCain Campaign and an ardent free market capitalist. I believe social issues are best left to individuals and while I have strong beliefs about them, I will not interject them into my choice of a candidate. Economics and taxes, on the other hand, are NOT subject to interpretation. Supply and demand curves are real and they work. This column is an attempt to put facts in front of you, particularly as they relate to taxes and the "fairness" of our tax code.
Senator Obama is proposing a tax increase for small businesses and the top 5 percent of tax paying Americans. He says that he will give 95 percent of Americans a tax cut and he and Senator Biden say it is fair and the "patriotic duty" of the top 5 percent to pay more. Again, full disclosure, I am in the top 5 percent and probably the top 1 percent. The facts, as to who pays taxes, paint a different picture and, for whatever reason, Senator McCain will not use them. The tables below really say it all:
_______Share of total_________
Top 1 percent Income Taxes Paid
1990 14 percent 25 percent
2000 21 percent 37 percent
2005 21 percent 39 percent
________Share of total________
Top 5 percent Income Taxes Paid
1990 27 percent 44 percent
2000 35 percent 56 percent
2005 36 percent 60 percent
Source: Treasury Department, October 2007
These statistics are from the U.S. Treasury Department and they reveal a startling and seldom talked about FACT. The top 1 percent of wage earners in this country pay 39 percent of the income taxes paid, while the top 5 percent pay 60 percent. That's right, 60 percent of all income taxes are paid by the same people on whom Senators Obama and Biden want to RAISE taxes. What is more, the percentage paid by this group has increased since the so-called Bush tax cuts. This is a real inconvenient truth for the Obama Campaign.
In 2006, the lower 50 percent of wage earners had 12.5 percent of the income and paid 3.0 percent of federal income taxes. The 2006 statistics also reveal that the top 5 percent of U.S. taxpayers paid $616 billion in federal income taxes which was MORE than the remaining 95 percent of taxpayers' total of $408.1 billion. Our system could hardly be more weighted to having the wealthy pay more, yet that is precisely what Senator Obama proposes. I will reluctantly accept (for now) that in our society the top wage earners will pay more (in percentage terms) in taxes, but if Senator Obama wants to raise taxes, he should say so. As The Wall Street Journal has been saying, you cannot give a tax cut to people who do not pay taxes. Senator Obama's plan is a redistribution of income from those who pay taxes to those who do not. It is nothing more than the granddaddy of all welfare plans and voters need to know it. For Senators Obama and Biden to couch this issue as one of fairness and a "patriotic duty" is an attempt to deceive the American public as to the facts.
I am not afraid of Senator Obama becoming President because he is a bad person. Rather I am concerned about his policies and their effect on our economy both in the short and long term. Higher tax rates will discourage investment and capital formation and that is not good for anyone.
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Warren Stephens is president and CEO of Stephens Inc., one of the largest investment companies off Wall Street, and an owner of Stephens Media, which publishes newspapers in nine states, including Arkansas.
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8 comments:
Interesting article. I'm afraid, however, that, due to the tanking economy, too many scared and confused voters, see Obama as thier savior. They see McCain as the chanpion of the rich and see the economic meltdown as the fiasco of the Republican Party which has been in power for the last 8 years.
One thing's for sure: People are voting their pocketbooks. They will vote for the candidate they think will do the most for them.
Most people won't be voting on the "big picture" this election.
I plan to get the unpleasant (this time) task of voting over with this coming week when early voting starts.
I'll try to hit the closest polling place after I get home from school and gather up the boys. It depends on how long the lines are next week at that time.
Homework and family obligations dictate how long I'm willing to wait in line any given day.
I just want to get it over with. I'm sick of the entire thing! I also would venture to guess that the Republican Party is in for a rude awakening after Nov. 4th.
With power comes responsibility (don't remember who said that). There's been a total lack of responsibility across the years and across the board.
Eventually, it catches up, snowballs and there's Hell to pay.
Amen, and Amen again, to Warren Stephens. If people would just stop and THINK and really look at what he's saying, I think we would have a lot fewer Obama voters. He said it himself -- he wants to spread the wealth. That means you tax those businesses that would create jobs if they weren't paying taxes.
The kids cast their votes on Nick.com tonight. Connor, of course, voted for Obama.
Connor told me that Sam was going to vote for McCain because Obama was going to raises taxes. LOL!
Sam did, infact, vote for McCain.
Why doesn't the McCain campaign report and use this objective information ?? It really is frustrating that so many voters do not realize the truth, not only about this issue but many other issues as well.
If Obama wins, and the senate and congress remain in democratic control, there will be no balancing force. How much irreversible damage (redistribution of wealth, socialistic policies, appointing of liberal Supreme Court Justices) can be done before new elections take place?
Just my opinion, but I am worried about the changes that Obama will bring.
Hey Kelley, maybe you should take this article and start an email campaign.
This op-ed cites government statistics to bolster an argument that the "upper 1 percent" pay a greater share of taxes than is acknowledged by Democrats.
What he does not cite, however, is the actual substance of Obama's tax plan. His arguments fall because he is not presenting Obama's tax plan accurately. Which is only to be expected since he is, as he acknowledges, an operative for Obama's opponent in this election. This is not a fact-checking piece - this is a partisan document. Behold, the sly language: adjusting tax policy is called "redistribution of wealth" to make people associate Obama with socialism. Supply-side economics (aka "trickle down" prosperity) is no less a "redistribution of wealth."
That's the kind of partisan hackery that fools some people into thinking it is honest analysis. It isn't. This is no more authoritative or honest than a campaign ad.
Obama said it himself -- when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody. Unless my Poly Sci 101 Professor was wrong, that is called Socialism.
To say that "spread the wealth" is socialism is, shall we say, rather broad. If true, then Medicare is socialism, and Social Security is socialism..and we can go all the way back to CCC camps in the depression where jobs were funded by taxes raised by the federal government. Or the GI bill.
I was interested in the article, found some of it factual, and some of it spin. Stephens forgets that, when you don't consider payroll taxes (regressive)...which are paid by all, but fall off for the top 3-4% of wage earners, our federal tax structure truly hurts the lower wage earners a lot more than the top 5%.
As an accountant, I laugh at both parties because it always seems that everytime taxes come up, it's like we started afresh. To see where the Obama plan is coming from, you have to go back to what Clinton did in 1992 and 1993, which brought the annual budget back in balance, and then layer in what Bush did in his first term. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy continue GROWING until 2010. Obama's plan rolls back what Bush did, and doesn't come near what the wealthy paid after the Clinton plan. And that, my friends, is how you put away the deficit in an era where a recession makes little dent on the top 1% and a big dent on everybody else.
Hmm.. might need my own blog piece.
But, face it, taxes are boring, which is why I'm not an accountant anymore!
quid
On spreading the wealth: did we not just spread over $700 billion in wealth around?
If we're going to use this flimsy definition of socialism, I'm okay with it. But if we do, then you have to admit that what we have is socialism for the wealthy, and capitalism for the rest of us (as Robert Reich just put it).
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