Opinion: Wealthy Americans not paying their fare share of taxes
By Robert Reich
Nobody likes taxes, but shouldn’t the wealthy pay their fair share?
That’s a key question underlying the budget fight now moving into high gear in Washington. The plan pushed by House budget Chair Paul Ryan and his Republican colleagues calls for massive spending cuts along with additional tax breaks for the wealthy. The president says he’s just as serious about deficit reduction, but instead of cutting as much spending, he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy.
The president is right. In fact, his proposals for raising taxes on the superrich don’t go nearly far enough.
Over the past three decades, the distribution of income in America has become wildly out of whack. Despite an economy that’s twice as large as it was 30 years ago, the bottom 90 percent of Americans remain stuck in the mud. If they’re employed, they’re earning on average only about $280 more a year than 30 years ago, adjusted for inflation. That’s less than a 1 percent gain over more than a third of a century.
Yet even as their share of the nation’s total income has withered, the tax burden on average workers has grown. They’re shelling out a far bigger chunk of incomes in payroll taxes, sales taxes and property taxes than 30 years ago.
It’s just the opposite for the superrich.
Over the last three decades, the richest 1 percent’s share of national income has doubled (from 10 percent in 1981 to well over 20 percent now). The share going to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent has tripled.
Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and the author of the new book “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.” He blogs at www.robertreich.org.
The statistics here are absolutely false. My first job was in 1987. At minimum wage, I earned $3.35 per hour. That’s $7K/year. Now I make $8.55/hr, which equals out to $14K/yr.
To say that I am only making $280 more per year is an outright lie. I make 100% more than I did 24 years ago.
Maybe if gas prices haven’t gone up 500% from the $0.90/gallon back then, I wouldn’t be poor.
Did you account for inflation?
Nope. “$280 more a year than 30 years ago, adjusted for inflation.”
Does this gentleman have any clue of the percentage of taxes that the “wealthy” pay? I believe it’s in the neighborhood of 60%.
With 47% of people who file taxes paying nothing, how can you say the “rich” aren’t paying their share? There is an underground ecomomy (cash only please)which is not taxed at all. Find a way to tax all income and those of us who pay taxes will be able to pay less.
Robert Reich isn’t an economist, he’s a politician. A socialist one at that.
What a left leaning article! If the “super rich” aren’t paying their fair share then where is the Goverenment getting their trillon + they spend and more each year? Two things, 1. Please define the “super rich” the President seems to think thats $250K or above. I hardly think $250K a year represents the “super rich”. 2. We have a Government spending problem not a tax income problem. This Government hasn’t earned the right to one added penny from it’s citizens. Until they can run their business like we have to (within our means) they should get nothing more and haven’t really earned the right to what they already get. Work hard, save your money, pay your bills, inch ahead and for what, so we can pay for the 90% who pay nothing? Yeah, that’s fair… dumb article.
All talk about national debt, deficit reduction, and tax reform (and our repeated financial crises for that matter) misses the mark unless it addresses this shameful fact:
In this country billionaire Warren Buffett paid 11% total (federal, state, local, corporate) taxes on $8 billion annual investment gains while a single minimum wage worker paid 37% total taxes on her $14,500 annual salary. For details, see my site: http://fairsharetaxes.org
The top 1% in the US have gone from owning 22% to 40% of the nation’s wealth in the last thirty years. This is largely due to the tax cuts for the wealthy investor class, started under Reagan. They were supposed to encourage investment and trickle down to strengthen the economy but have done the opposite. Since the Reagan tax cuts, average annual GDP growth has dropped by one-quarter. Why? Because we’ve had multiple recessions, triggered by investment bubbles, in turn caused by the favored tax treatment of investment income.
The concentration of wealth leads to a concentration of power. Especially with the state of campaign finance in this country, the rich can buy the elections of those that will cut their taxes, which makes the rich even richer and more able to buy the next election … and so on in a vicious cycle.
See http://fairsharetaxes.org/ProposedReform.aspx for a nation-saving tax proposal that would have the wealthy pay their fair share, cut middle-class taxes, fund important programs, and slash the deficit.