By Bill Maher
I know it's hard to jump up and down in excitement over the "fiscal cliff" deal, but something that seemed almost impossible a couple years ago is now a fact: the tax code is more progressive than it's been in over 30 years. The top 1% will now pay a federal income tax rate just of just over 36%, which is still low by historical standards, but up from the 28% they were paying when Obama took office.
Add that to the fact that Obamacare is essentially a program that taxes millionaires (who will pay, on average, an extra $168,000 this year because of it) to provide more health care for the poor and middle class.
These are pretty remarkable achievements for a president in a political system where the deck seems entirely stacked to favor the rich. It makes you wonder how much further he could go if the group these gains should please the most -- the Occupy Movement -- worked as hard to elect liberal Democrats to Congress as the Tea Party does to elect conservative Republicans.
I know it's hard to jump up and down in excitement over the "fiscal cliff" deal, but something that seemed almost impossible a couple years ago is now a fact: the tax code is more progressive than it's been in over 30 years. The top 1% will now pay a federal income tax rate just of just over 36%, which is still low by historical standards, but up from the 28% they were paying when Obama took office.
Add that to the fact that Obamacare is essentially a program that taxes millionaires (who will pay, on average, an extra $168,000 this year because of it) to provide more health care for the poor and middle class.
These are pretty remarkable achievements for a president in a political system where the deck seems entirely stacked to favor the rich. It makes you wonder how much further he could go if the group these gains should please the most -- the Occupy Movement -- worked as hard to elect liberal Democrats to Congress as the Tea Party does to elect conservative Republicans.
13 comments:
Bill I wish you would ask your guests or approach the subject, even in jest, how the Catholic Church can still have tax exempt status in any city, state or even the country of the United States of America. It has been proven time and again, including just this past week in San Diego, that it is a criminal, racketeering organization that condones the sexual abuse and rape of children and conspires to protect the abusers and cover up the crimes. There is no where in the application for an NGO or tax exempt charitable organization where it states it is ok to be a part of criminal activities such as these. Thank you and/or your staff for any consideration of this topic.
I'll jail and bury those committed and smother the rest in greed- Rage
Raciest Prison Orgs.
In Indiana there is a woman’s prison program called ICAN…their all white.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jjBo93K8T0
They are affiliated with an all white prison ministry called Kairos.
http://kpmifoundation.org/index.php
High profile child torturer and murderer Hope Rippey was release early with financial help from these two groups because she is white and converted to Christianity…a violation of church and state. Plus they used federal grant money to pay for her lawyer.
Her fellow inmate, torturer and murderer of 12-yr-old Shanda Sharer, Melinda Loveless is also supported by the same raciest orgs and have tried to get her released.
Mean while, Indiana prison are overflowing with non-violent offenders, many poor and people of color.
Melinda also has the support of a rich NC, GOP candidate Charlie Petrizzo, an x-Wachovia banking exec. During his rein Wachovia was convicted of laundering drug money, helping scammers steal hundreds of millions from senior citizens, and were bailed out with our tax dollars. This is what Petrizzo does with the money he and his bank stole from us, try to set murdering white women free as long as they convert to Christianity.
In Indiana, white women who torture and murder children are set free with collage educations and jobs waiting 4 them, if they convert to Christianity, while pot smokers and other non-violent offenders serve their time.
Bill, how does it feel to be in the top 1%? Do you like paying close to 50% of your income in taxes? Your $1,000,000 donation to Pres. Obama's reelection campaign and his reelection wil help keep your taxes from going down. The next time Obama says the rich aren't paying their fair share, it is you he is talking about. Obama wants you to pay more. The state of California wants you to pay more. Do you like working for the state of California and the federal government?
bill you stupid mothafucker! You are now crawfishing on these high taxes aren't you?!! Ha dumbass libtard. Fuck you bill maher!
Bill I was disappointed to see you flip flop on your tax stance. You claim to have seen recent date that the one percenters pay 70 percent of all tax, while it may be true it is still getting off cheap in my opinion if you control 90 percent of the nations wealth. Still 20 percent of their money they don't pay taxes on. 30 percent of the ocean is much more water then 30 percent of a puddle,but when you need to put out a fire you have to take from where the water is.
I watch your show every week and get more actual news from it than the news channels! But your comments on inceom tax need to be examined further:
Joe and Mika commented on your tax comment this morning, and I would like it if you REALLY examined the actual tax rate for high income earners, as THERE IS CONSTANT USE IN THE MEDIA OF A SIMPLE COMBINATION OF FED,STATE AND LOCAL MARGINAL TAX RATES WHEN PEOPLE QUOTE RATES OF 55% AND GREATER - THE VAST MAJORITY OF EVEN SUPER RICH TAXPAYERS (AND TO SOME DEGREE THOSE IN PARTICULAR) WILL PAY NO MORE THAN 30-40% ABSOLUTE MAX on average!
I am a CPA doing tax returns right now, and I have calculated that at $1 mio of wage income and no other income (which is highly unlikely, but produces highest tax), and assuming NY City resident (not going to be over 12.5 % local and state tax, which gets deducted on your federal return), and further assuming no charitable contributions, a moderate amount of real estate taxes, no home mortgage, your Fed tax gets you to 30%, then add state and local you get to about 42.5%, AND THAT IS USING 2013 RATES, NEW LIMITATIONS AND EVEN THE ADDITIONAL MEDICARE TAXES! FOR 2012 THERE IS VIRTUALLY NO WAY YOU GET OVER 40%!
And even at $10 mio of that same income, still no interest, dividends, cap gains, no 401(k) or other deferred income, using the worst tax preparer you can find, Fed tax jumps to 35%, which gets you to roughly 47.5%. You go to $100 mio this goes up by .5% to 48%!
THERE IS NO SCENARIO IN WHICH YOU COULD EXCEED 50% USING THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL TAX! NOT EVEN IN CALIFORNIA!
And if you earn more than $370,000 you are in the 1%, and with your income you are likely in the .1%, so the question is also: If you earn $10 mio/year, how much do you "deserve" for your work? I don't know the answer, but keeping more than $5 mio/year out of that $10 Mio I would take any day!
Bill, Taxes are a given. I have no problem paying my fair share. But I recently helped a young single mom do her taxes. Granted she makes less than 20k per year and gets gov assistance. But can someone tell me when our tax system became welfare system for the poor?
This person paid $1200 payroll taxes. After completing her taxes she not only got all of her taxes back in her refund but an additional $4400 , totaling $5600. How many Billions of Dollars is the Government just giving away to the poor, on top of all of the assistance they already receive.
I have sent the President and Congressman my feels and have not heard back from either.
By the way.. I like your show. DVR all of the time.
http://www.ici.org/research/stats/retirement/ret_12_q3 Value of US Retirement Accounts of approximately $19.6 trillion
National Debt at this time was $15.9 Trillion.
Trump valued America at $280 Trillion (less $50 trillion in present value medium term debt) so it is more like $230 Trillion. I knew you would love using Trump's number.
So, the Chinese and others are not willing to loan a country worth $233 trillion dollars, 1/2% of their value per year until we figure this out? Not likely. They will loan it, no doubt.
The only thing to worry about is that the people are worth $3 trillion. If the narrow minded and short-sighted folks out there demand the debt be paid then who do you think they will raid? The 1% out there worth $230 trillion or those of us worth $3 trillion.
Dear Baby Boomer,
Because you could not vote for officials that had some semblance of self-control and were willing to make difficult choices and govern then you must pay off the national debt. Your share is at least $90,000. We have already raided your retirement account so no check is needed.
Thank You,
The IRS
So I just watched an episode tonight. I like watching this show when I have time. I don't agree that we should keep raising min wage. I am not sure if it because most of you on the show are well off or were never poor, but it hurts the economy in more than one way. You assume that all employers are equal or legit. You assume with will giver a crap about anything more than the profit they earn. Min wage goes up, then a person loses a job. That means in the real world if there were two employee's, now there is only one employee doing double the work. California is not doing it better. Min wage jobs are to help earn money, but also work towards a better life. I don't agree with 2.13 an hour, but if they are good waiters and waitress's they earn way more money. If they do a crappy job and are slackers they are not going to make that much money. There are so many aspects to the service industry. You have to truly be poor and work your way up to see the difference. There are a large number of employers that really don't care how hard an employee has to work, just how much they earned as in profit and how they were able to use that person. There is way more to what is going on in this country than using a min wage increase to fix the problem. Cost of everything else will just increase. Same concept with gas costs associated with food and products and the cost to consumer. I am personally tired of being over taxed by state and federal. Everyone should be paying taxed and if they don't have a job, then they should have to pay a min amount or something. I work hard and I am middle class,single, no kids. So yes I work hard, put myself through school, no children, and be responsible and yet I pay more in taxes then someone who chose to have a bunch of children and no job and I have to pay a third of my wages to state taxes, federal, medicare,gas taxes, personal property on my car, food tax, utility tax etc... So that is what it means to work harder to make better choices and not live off the government. I think we should help when people when truly in need, but not people who work the system. I think we need to cut waste, audit state and federal governments of funds, and find out why the roads aren't fixed when we are charged so much tax on fuel.
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