The tragic, hilarious "We Are the 53 percent" movement

[meegbear]

The conservative response to the "We are the 99 percent" movement is… hilarious. (And, sure, heartbreaking.) Conservative filmmaker Mike Wilson and vacuous right-blogger Erick Erickson joined forces to start "We Are the 53%," a blog made up of contributions from the 53% of Americans who pay more in federal income taxes than they receive back in deductions or credits.

The project was kicked off by Erick Erickson, who announced that he works "three jobs," by which he means being a professional television pundit, radio pundit, and internet pundit. There is a stunning amount of cognitive dissonance, misplaced resentment, and class revulsion going on, even for a conservative web project.

The site can’t even manage to correctly represent that 53 percent, with multiple contributors very clearly belonging to the 47 percent of people who make up the supposed parasite class. There is a blog dedicated to this confused minority. The best example is obviously this dog.

Let’s get this out of the way early: Pretty much every adult American pays taxes. Workers who are too poor to pay federal income taxes still pay payroll taxes, and property taxes if they own their home. Even the unemployed pay sales taxes. The poorest Americans — people who make an average of $12,500 a year — pay, on average, 16 percent of their paltry income in taxes. That is less than every other demographic, but the point of a progressive tax system is that 16 percent of a poor person’s income is a hell of a lot more meaningful to that person than 30 percent of a millionaire’s. It’s a simple concept, and one that most Americans agree with. And that simplicity and popularity is why the conservative movement has spent 100 years attempting to muddy the debate with misinformation. (They are quite dedicated, actually, to class warfare, in that they seek to align the shrinking middle with the elites in a war against the downtrodden.)

So a good number of people who pay no federal income taxes are simply lucky enough to be impoverished. The rest are beneficiaries of tax breaks and loopholes championed most vocally by Republicans. A member of "the one percent" (or, more accurately, the tenth-of-one percent) likely considers these harried tax-payers "the 53 percent of people without the sense to hire a good accountant."

<snip>

http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/12/the_tragic_hilarious_we_are_the_53_percent_movement/singleton/

[hfojvt]

1. I had a laugh the other day

I was reading about the top 1% and it was mentioned that the top 1% owns 40% of the wealth and the bottom 80% owns 7% of the wealth.

So the wealth owned by the remaining 19% of the population is - - - 53%!!!

The 53% are probably just 19%ers who own 53% of the wealth.


The 99% probably should have said "we are the 80%" because 80% is still a huge majority, and let's face it, most people at the 96th, 97th and 98th percentile want to be part of the 1% and don't really give a damn about those in the bottom 20%.

[unblock]

3. speaking as someone in the 97th percentile, i can assure you that i have FAR more in common

with the 99% than the top 1%.

certainly, i can afford nicer "stuff" than others; but fundamentally, i live the same life -- i have no choice but to work for a living, and i have to worry constantly that my world will come crashing down should i lose my job or suffer large medical bills or some other financial calamity.

but i know people in the 1%, and they live VERY different lives. they could easily retire at any point; work for them is a game, completely optional. the CHOOSE to work and they stick their heads up high and tell themselves that they're being morally upright and socially responsible and contributing to society simply for deigning to work. so before they even sit down in that corner office and pick up the phone to chat with another 1%-er about squash or aruba, they think they're owed not just even more money, but praise and accolades for doing something the rest of us are FORCED to do, and usually get chump change and grief for our troubles.

and "work" for the 1%-ers mostly means supervising their wealth. buying companies, spinning companies off, merging companies, trading big assets with other 1%-ers.

these people move mountains with a phone call, and build or destroy entire industries and communities in the blink of an eye for a tiny extra profit.



i have a nice life and am well aware that there is a noticeable difference between my own economic situation and that of others further down the economic ladder. i don't mean to make light of that. however this is a difference in degree, whereas the difference between me and the 1% is a difference in kind. a BIG difference in kind.

[hfojvt]

4. I bet that is not true of ALL the 1% either

The top 1% begins at $390,000 a year in income. The top 5% begins at $153,000 (by IRS estimates, skewed downwards).
http://www.koch2congress.com/5.html

So taking a straight line

95th - $153,000
96th - $211,750
97th - $270,500
98th - $329,250
99th - $390,000

When you talk about the 1%, you are thinking probably of people who make $1,000,000 or more, but somebody making $392,000 is also part of the 1%. Just barely, yes, but still a part. So, if you make $270,000 (by your own admission), do you really think that you have more in common with me at $12,000 a year than you do with a 1%er who makes $395,000 a year?

Just going by percentages, you make 22 times what I do and the 1%er makes 33 times what I do. But the 1%er only makes 1.5 times what you do.

At my current standard of living, if I made $270,000 a year, I could work for two years and be set for life, spending the same amount that I do now. That would be about $190,000 after taxes, and I could live decently on $10,000 and thus bank $350,000 in those two years. Which would then net me $10,500 at 3% interest, enough for me to live on.

And I actually think I live a decent life now, except for working too hard at my job and not getting enough sex. I think the Beatles were wrong though and that if I had Paul McCartney's money that I could probably buy the illusion of love.

I think you have it backwards though, unless you are talking about the top .1%. There is much more a difference of kind between you and me and a mere difference of degree between you and a 1%er.

When it comes down to it, the 75th-99th percentile has much more income, as a group, than the top 1%, to say nothing of the top .1%.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

6. No one gets "enough" sex ...

I could always use more sex.

Sorry to divert ... that's what leaped out at me from your post. ;)

[hfojvt]

13. most people though

get more sex than none in 36 years.

If only I had seen that stupid movie.

[unblock]

9. the borders are of course artificial and at the margins, meaningless.

it depends on which table you look it up on; according to your chart i'm "only" in the 95th percentile.

in any event, it's not a hard dollar cutoff; there's nothing magical about that $309,001st dollar of annual income.

and agreed, there are people who slave away while making a mere $309,001 or so per year, perhaps living a very modest lifestyle while paying off their med school debts -- no one metric, not even income, is going to capture all the parameters.

but i stand by my post, that for the most part, there are many in the 1% (and certainly in the top 0.1%, but also plenty in the mere top 1%) for whom work really is optional and they have a major attitude about "choosing" to work.

they are not like you and me.

i once survived on $12,000 a year while putting myself through graduate school, and i can see myself at or near that level if any of a number of bad things happen. my lifestyle is 100% dependent on my continued ability to earn at this level, and if i can no longer do so, i'm screwed, bankrupt, moving into a cheap apartment or by parents' basement and starting over as a probably unemployable person as i'll be 50 soon. so i can see myself much lower on the income spectrum much more readily than i can see myself as part of the 1%. i almost can't imagine any scenario that gets me there, and if it does it certainly won't be by much or for long before i can't work any more.

[hfojvt]

12. again, there are many in the top 1% who do work

somebody making $300,000 a year is no more like me than somebody making $500,000 a year.

I will be 50 in just five months, if I live that long (not that I am sick, but there are no guarantees).

The top 1% contains about one million people in this country. Many of them work, and many of them feel that they have to because they have a huge life. Some of them even end up broke.

I stand by what I said, that people in the top 20% are not like me, and typically (for most of them) do not care about people like me.

I ran some stats.

The top .1% get 11.93% of the national income
the 99th to 99.9th percentile get 10.9%
(for a total of 22.83% for the top 1%
the 75th to 99th percentile get 45.37% of the national income - almost twice as much as the top 1%
the bottom 50% only get 12.5%

On a per household basis, the slice of the top 25% is 1.89% for the bottom 50% it is .25%, less than 1/7th of those in the higher group.

And the gap between the upper 25% and the bottom 25% is even bigger.

[unblock]

14. i think the point of the movement is that it really is the 99% vs. the 1%

using round numbers, anyway. maybe it's really 99.2% vs 0.8% or whatever.

the point is that there's not much of a REAL difference and there's certainly little political upsize for us in subdividing the 99% and creating resentments within this group.

personally, i don't own any politicians, nor will i ever remotely be in a position to do so. i am a small beneficiary of some of the stupid tax policies the government enacts in order to serve the interests of the top 1% and i get some of the bone they throw to the rest of us to make us think they're doing it to benefit us. but of course i worry more about them undermining social security, because that's still worth far more to me than a small reduction in my tax bill.

politically, the 99% are very much in the same boat, and the 1% are in their own yacht.

[hfojvt]

18. it is not "subdividing" though to point out the divisions that really exist

and resentments that already exist. I refuse to pretend that an $80,000 worker and myself are in the same boat, and where the rubber meets the road, we are not.

Social security is worth more to you. Is that because of what social security does for you, or what social security does for me?

Considering your income level, there is a good chance, a very good one, that you will retire younger than I will. Further, you are likely to have a pension that pays you more for not working than I got paid for working.

There already is a huge divide between the top 19% and the bottom 20%. Why, for example, did Obama make a campaign promise to only reverse the Bush tax cuts for couples with income over $250,000? Because he was afraid of losing the votes and dollars of those households making between $70,000 and $250,000. Those people making $150,000 a year would rather keep their $2,000 tax cuts, and if that means that Liheap gets cut in order to balance the budget - then so be it.

If you look at the Bush tax cuts over the last decade, they gave $715 billion to the top 1%, but they gave even more to the next 39% - a total of $876.6 billion http://www.ctj.org/pdf/gwbdata.pdf According to CNN, those making between $150,000 and $200,000 voted for Bush by 58% to 42%, and those making $100,000 to $150,000 voted for Bush by 57% to 42%. A solid majority of them voted to keep their tax cuts and to stay the course in Iraq. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

A pretty solid majority of the upper middle class will vote their own self interest and not give a damn about the bottom 20%. No amount of sloganeering is going to change that fact. The top 4% got an average of $37,673 in tax cuts over the last decade. I certainly do not see that as only "a bone". That's a decent chunk of change. More than any of my last three houses cost.

[unblock]

19. look, if you want to resent someone who's trying to be on your side, go ahead.

but i think you'll find politics a lonely business with that attitude.


and i would avoid rather misleading statistics like "the top 4% got an average of $37k in tax cuts". you know full well that my entire point was the distribution is heavily skewed, the top 1% getting the lion's share of that. i'm at or near the bottom of that range and i assure you that my tax cut wasn't one-tenth of that figure. i'm not whining about the size, and i'm well aware that plenty of others got less of a cut than i did. but here, too, my similarity to those far lower on the income scale comes through.

[hfojvt]

21. that begs the question though

are you trying to be on my side or trying to get me to be on your side.

When I said the top 4%, that means "the top 5% minus the top 1%". There really is no other easy phrase for that group of people. Similarly "the top 19%" means "the top 20% minues the top 1%". I could call them the "next 4%" but that only makes sense in the context of first talking about the top 1%. 95th-99th percentile is just clumsy.

Also, the $37,000 figure is for TEN years, or a mere $3,700 per year. Heck, I myself saved about $2,000 in 2008 from the Bush tax cuts (most of that was the 0% that I was taxed on capital gains from land I bought in 1987 for $4,500)

As far as your tax cut, for a single person making a taxable income of $100,000

would have paid $25,152.25 in 2001

(in 2001 tax rates for singles were
15% on first $27,050
27.5% up to $65,550
30.5% up to $136,750
35.5% up to $297,350
39.1% for the rest)

and would have paid $21,978.25 in 2008

(in 2008 tax rates for singles were
10% on first $8.025
15% up to $32,550
25% up to $78,850
28% up to $164,550
33% up to $357,700
35% for the rest) http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/103

which looks like a tax cut of $3,174 or $31,740 over ten years.

Of course, some of that cut comes from bracket indexing that was started under Reagan, and if you had kids or capital gains or dividends, then your cut would be even more. And the Bush tax cuts were phased in, so the $3,174 times ten is not accurate.

I am happy to have everyone on my side. However, to be on my side you must first agree with my view that there is a substantial difference between my side and your side. While you would have me believe that it is all "our" side.

Here's one shibboleth - Reverse the Bush tax cuts for a) households making over $75,000 a year or b) households making over $250,000 a year?

[unblock]

22. in terms of policy, i would go further than merely reversing the bush cuts for over $75,000

it's a pathetic statement about our political times when merely returning to clinton-era tax rates for those on the higher end of the spectrum is all we can remotely hope to achieve.

my own opinion is that we should dramatically increase the progressivity of the tax code. tighten loopholes, increase exemptions, and increase marginal rates. people with less than $40,000-$50,000 are paying enough of their money in payroll and sales and property taxes (directly or indirectly) and should be spared income taxes entirely. people making oddles can easily afford rates well over 50%, they did fine under eisenhower. as for my own rates, i could stand to pay more in taxes, and i'd much rather that happen than the government try to provide less and/or get more from those who can't afford it.

[bullwinkle428]

2. Speaking of the "Proud 53%", financial "guru" Dave Ramsey totally exposed himself for the RW shill

that he is by spouting off on how big a fan he is of a flat income tax, in a promo for his show as I was listening to the radio in the car last night.

His quote, as closely as I can recall, was "I think it's morally wrong that half the country is forced to carry the other half", in reference to the factoid about the bottom 47% not paying any federal income taxes.

Oh, did I mention this guy considers himself to be a devout born-again Christian? He also has been accused of some very shady financial dealings over the years as well...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Ramsey

[Mimosa]

7. He's a PIG but doesn't know it.

I believe he was bought and paid for...

[TwilightGardener]

20. He makes a zillion spouting stuff your parents should have taught you about money. He's a salesman,

selling a product (Debt BAD, income and savings GOOD--duh)--but a smart, RW salesman, who manages to mix in claims that people who depend on SS are living "on the dole", etc. along with the folksy wisdom.

[EC]

5. And then there is this :

WASHINGTON – Amid complaints that nearly half of tax filers in the U.S. won't pay federal income taxes this year, this has been lost: Those making $75,000-$100,000 a year are the fastest-growing share of people who don't pay federal income taxes.
Not working poor people — but those who are firmly middle class.

They still make up less than 1% of the total number of income tax filers who pay no tax at all, but their overall number has exploded, from fewer than 5,000 not paying taxes in 1996 to nearly 500,000 in 2009, the most recent year of available data.






http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-10-06/income-tax-nonpayment/50676912/1


And on Edit: We do pay taxes on unemployment also. It's considered income.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. Isn't it true that the "Red" states take in more federal tax revenue than they pay out?

And that they get it from the so-called "Blue" areas of the country? I think it's a pretty good bet as to who makes up the alleged 47% percent parasites over whom these Red State guys are so huffed up about. While I'm not knocking them for being poor, I'll bet that the 47% percenters are made up of quite a few conservatives (who consistently vote against their own interest).

[LaydeeBug]

10. someone should tell them that STEVE JOBS was among those that paid no federal income taxes and

that's why we need to reform the tax code.

[OnionPatch]

11. They should be ashamed that there are so many impoverished people in the US.

But they want to tax what little income they have? Sick, twisted, hateful bastards is what they are.

Here's my new slogan: "You can't be Christian and Republican"

[FarLeftFist]

15. Are conservatives even real people?

[EFerrari]

16. Sad. This guy doesn't even know how much he really pays

for the privilege of sneering at other people.

[steelmania75]

17. "I worked hard, and got shit, but hey at least I worked hard instead of complaining about it"

This is basically the message. And how stupid is that. Everyone should have a fair chance of success.