Really funny, and the comments are pretty good too.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plan ... orter.aspx

03.03.2009
Wealthy Idiots Meet Idiot Reporter




I've seen a lot of dumb news reports in my life, but I'm not sure anything can quite match this one from ABC News. The premise of the report is this: Barack Obama plans to raise taxes on people who make more than $250,000, so the reporter has gone and found people who earn a little more than that sum who plan to decrease their income so that they come in underneath the magic line.

Now, the obvious objection here is that the tax code doesn't work that way. A tax increase affects the marginal dollar that a person gains. That's means only every dollar over $250,000 is taxed at a higher rate. Obama is not proposing a tax system whereby somebody who goes from $249,999 to $250,000 suddenly becomes poorer. Nobody has ever enacted a tax hike like that in the history of the United States.

That doesn't stop ABC News' intrepid reporter. This story has to be read to be believed:



Oh my God, the stupidity. The article then quotes a financial advisor who explains the way that tax brackets rates work, but then quotes a right-wing business professor and the subjects of her article fulminating about class warfare. Pretty clearly the reporter started off on her mistaken premise, found some subjects who shared her ignorance, and then came across a financial advisor who gently corrected her. But, instead of nixing the collosally uninformed article, or writing a different kind of article ("Rich Morons Decreasing Own Income Due To Lack of Tax Code Knowledge") she instead plowed ahead with her initial premise.

This article is obviously an outlier, but it is an extreme manifestation of a broader phenomenon. Clay had a good post about how Politico's Jeanne Cummings has turned into a sounding board for right-wing economic notions. And Matthew Yglesias had a good point about how the media massively overrepresents the perspective of the rich in reporting and commentating on the tax debate. (It has framed Obama's plans as a tax hike when the vast majority of Americans will experience it as a tax cut.) Sadly, I think the next few months are going to bring us a massive surge of sympathetic and/or uninformed coverage of the tax debate from the perspective of the wealthiest segment of America.

--Jonathan Chait

Imagine the audacity of having reasoned coverage concerning tax hikes for the people actually paying for all the pet projects. The very unreported flip side to the income gap is the ever growing number of people who are a huge financial drag on the government and its services. The tax hike is demanding that the rich pay more for services they'll never use. And somehow you find a reporter who thinks reasoned coverage of this is uninformed.

After reading that, I'm pretty convinced that the stupidity begins with the blogger, and ends with his audience.

getting it completely wrong -- and quoting people who completely misunderstand the tax code -- is somehow reasoned coverage?

you've really added to the thread, pal.

try again.

I'm becoming convinced that our press corps may be the most uninformed press corps in the world. No wonder it's crashing and burning.

Not. Enough. Questions.

I was guilty of this myself many times. I asked the questions I wanted for my story.

Neither I nor the reporter I quoted were refering to the boneheaded article. I fully agree that the one article was uniformed. But the reporter says "the next few months are going to bring us a massive surge of sympathetic and/or uninformed coverage", in no way refering to the one uninformed article.

It's been widely reported that the average family will get something like an additional $13 a week. But now that it's being reported that this $13 a week has a much larger cost to those paying for it, it suddenly becomes uninformed. What's uniformed about reporting the truth. That tax hikes adversely affects people. Or ise adversely too sympathetic a word for you and the reporter.

i mistook your statement, apologies.

my impression of the blogger's statement, however, is that the next few months will bring stories like this, that aim to sympathize with a certain viewpoint and either deliberately or unconsciously ignore facts in the matter because they do not help forward the viewpoint. of course, that would be unreasonable news coverage.

now, there are myriad arguments to be made against the current tax plan laid out by mr. obama. but the arguments i'm talking about are reasoned, thoughtful, logical arguments that deal with grander-scale governmental economic issues of liberty, fairness, justice and equality.

I'd love to hear how rich people that will, after the tax hikes, still be rich but slightly less so, be adversely affected? Will they stop being able to pay their mortgage? Lose their health insurance? Cut down on eating out?

Or, maybe, they will have slightly less money to buy all manner of luxury goods and services?

Rich is relative. I have friends who would be affected by a tax like this. Trust me, they don't think of themselves as rich. They are mostly self-employed and have worked like crazy to build their businesses. Much of their "income" gets put back into their business and they don't have that much more discretionary income than I have or probably you have. What they have are mortgages, health insurance and the exact same bills those making less than $250,000 make. They also have something called payroll to meet. This is a huge responsibility to them and I've seen them all go without in order to meet that payroll when they were growing their businesses.

Their mortgage, insurance bills, etc... have not gone down but their income is. They know they are not as busy at work. Now they have an additional tax being deducted. They don't want to but eventually they'll feel forced to lay off an employee in order to keep their income where it needs to be to meet their obligations and continue to ensure the long-term viability of their business. If you don't think that's an adverse affect, or the fact that these business owners will be working longer hours to make up for work that was previously being done by an employee, well then I'm not sure we see adverse affects the same way.

The rich or well off are not evil. They have bills just like you and I. Other than having a nicer house and nicer cars they are just like you and I. These rich, also to a large part drive the economy. They are the employers, they are the glue to the community, they are the kids soccer team sponsor. They are anything but evil. They are you and I if only we'd work that hard and risk everything we had to build our own businesses. They already pay 50% of the taxes in the US. Obama says that's not enough. When is it enough? When they fold their businesses? When they stop employing people locally? WHen they stop sponsoring the local teams?

Would you be happy if Obama did away with these evil rich people and it was up to people like you to make up for the lost taxes?

Alright.

A.) The article EXPLAINS that tax rates are marginal.
B.) It ignores the fact that there are more taxes that this same class of people are going to be burdened with. To include increases on their capital gains tax, the enormous cap and trade that is almost entirely going to be pushed onto this same class, as well as a potential removal on the cap of the FICA tax.
C.) It ignores the fact that there is a "value" on work. If people are not getting that value out of their work, then they're not going to do it. Why would people work 40 hours a week in high pressure, high responsibility jobs only to see 40% of what they actually earned? If work is not worth it, then in the fuck is it stupid for the reporter, or for the "rich" person to not just blindly accept the tax rate.

It's not a simple matter of, "Well they don't get taxed at that rate for their entire income." It's a matter of the 250,000 and first dollar is NOT WORTH EARNING. And it's not some snobbish blogger or his audience to decide that. If that 250,000 and first dollar only reaps forty cents on that dollar, then it's not worth in my book.

Why the fuck should these people slave their lives away for forty cents on a dollar? Or in California and New York, probably thirty three cents on the dollar. It's not worth it. If was making upwards of $500,000 a year I would probably immediately trim back to $250,000, unless I was doing work that had no responsiblity or stress to it whatsoever. But guess what. People in the upper echelons of society don't have jobs like those.

So this blogger and his audience can pretty much fuck themselves so far as I'm concerned.

This is a good example of why you don't soak the rich.



Wait, what? What was completely wrong. Again, the article CLEARLY states that tax rates are marginal. And what gives you the right to assume that RICH PEOPLE don't understand the tax code? Gimme a break. These are the most successful and intelligent people in our society. They are largely entrepenuers, business executives, doctors, and other high level professionals. And you, David, and the author have the audacity to insinuate that the professionals in this article do not understand the concept of a marginal tax rate? Talk obfuscating the issue.



Sure, why wouldn't they be able to pay their mortgage? If a family that earns $250,000 a year to half a mil is in a situation where they are saving 10% and aside from that are living "maxed" out, what makes you think they will be able to make their bills? If Obama is soaking them for an additional $75,000 grand then what they are used to, how are they going to continue living their lifestyle? They'll have to cut back ya know.

What's ironic about idiots like you having no problem with this, is that rich people support way more people with the stuff they buy than what we buy. You don't think it's a big deal for them to move into a smaller house, but the construction worker and the business owner that builds big houses does. And you don't care that he needs to downsize from a Corvette to a Cobalt. But the engineer who designs Corvettes, and the people that assemble them do. And you don't care that the rich man can no longer afford a private jet or a yacht. But it does matter to the businesses that manufacture that stuff. And you don't care that they can no longer go out to eat. But the restaurant owner, the waitress, and the bus boy sure do.

The brilliance of it all is that clowns like you seem to think that attacking the rich who are actually productive and then buy stuff to give to people who are not productive is somehow a positive investment. One day you will understand that it is counter-productive to take away from the most intelligent and productive people in this society, the investors, the professionals, and the business owners. But I don't count on you getting the message any time soon.

Trickle down economics doesn't make any sense unless you think about it for a minute.

You mean 60% of every dollar over $250k they make, as opposed to the 63% of every dollar over $250k that they make now? How will they survive the change?

Probably the same way that people survived the mid 20th century when the highest rate was between 70 and 90 percent: By creating the largest and strongest middle class in teh history of the world.

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My dad makes roughly $100,000 and doesn't see 60% of his top end income. Nice thinking there. Look at federal income taxes, forget about the rest.

- Take away the Bush tax cut
- Take into account increases on capital gains
- Take into account the roughly three grand per household that they will be absorbing for the cap and trade scheme.
- Take into account FICA
- And now take into account state taxes.
- Take into account property taxes

You're living in a pipe dream if you think the rich are going to see anything more than 40% after $250,000 when it all gets boiled down.

Obama is doing a very dangerous and precarious thing. He's exponentially increasing the burden on the top 5%, all the while he's completely removing the support on about two thirds of the population.

This cannot be sustained.



I hate to be the bearer of bad news to you David. But these tax policies didn't go away because they created the largest and strongest middle class in the history of the world. But nice try though.

The rapidly growing disparity in wealth between the rich and the middle class tells us that the rich aren't spending all of that extra money they are earning. They just keep making more and more while everyone else makes more and more.

You're comparing apples to oranges here. I was talking only about the change in the rate of the top tax bracket. You bring in PROPERTY TAXES? Give me a break. BTW, property taxes can be deducted from federal income taxes also, not that you've ever filed a Schedule A before on your 1040EZ, but you can. State taxes are deducted too.

And I don't know what kind of moron your dad is, but I made about 100k last year and I just added up my federal, state, property, SS, and medicare taxes and I only paid $16,700 or so. Sales tax here is about 8.5%, so I guess you could add another 9000 to my tax "burden", and it still only comes to about 25%, and I can't think of any other taxes I could pay. So where on earth do you pull that 40% number out of?

For the record, I don't think your dad is a moron. I just think you don't know what you're talking about and are spewing talking points from "populists" who make tens of millions of dollars a year.

Oh, and cry me a fucking river about the people who are only saving 10% of their income. Most people save next to nothing and it's not because they're wasting it on shit. I put 4% in my 401k last year, and if I were REALLY frugal, I might have been able to put in 6%, but I wanted to get a pizza now and then and take a little vacation with the kids. I had planned to save more this year, being that my older son would be starting in public school, but the whole no job thing is going to make that kinda tough now. If I make half my income from last year, I'll be satisfied, if not fulfilled.


Why do conservatives think they're entitled to keep all of their "income" anyway? Isn't that what this comes down to? Next you'll complaining that your bills eat up 50% of your income.

Yeah, it's really terrible being rich. You buy bigger houses and more expensive cars and your bills go up. Soon enough, with all those taxes, you can barely pay for the countless things you bought. The tax burden is totally unnecessary. Think of how big your house could be if there were no taxes at all?

You're a big fan of trickle up poverty aren't you?



Fine, whatever. The only way you have an inkling of a point is if you only examine the top end and ignore the rest of the tax burden. I bring in PROPERTY TAXES! Damn straight I did, because it's thousands of dollars that go away from a persons income every single year. And guess what, that tax burden is factored into that individuals life every single year. What makes the property tax any less noteworthy than the top marginal rate? Answer, nothing. Especially when you take into consideration how the upper class value the dollars on their own work. Like I said before, when you take into account all the new taxation levies and put them on top of everything else that exists, the dollars earned after 250,000 are no longer worth it to sum people. If your effective wage drops from $60 an hour to $30 an hour after you suddenly reach the next bracket, is it worth it to really do anything extra? The whole TAX POT is taken into account on this. Not just the top marginal rate.



Are you sure about that? I haven't done my own taxes in years, but I don't ever recall deducting my state taxes on the fed tax sheets.



One that lives in NYS? No man, but thanks for blasting my dad. Maybe I'll start tossing out quips about your sick wife every now and then.



Good for you. You also have a lot more tax deductions than my father. You also live in Arizona. I live in the area of the country with the highest property tax rates. We live in the state with the close to the highest state tax rates. Deducted from the top of the income or not, my dad pays a lot in taxes. If my father works just as much overtime as he has standard hours in a paycheck then he gives more of that paycheck away to the government than he gets to put in his checking account. And he has his taxes set up so that he breaks even each year when tax time comes. That's rare of course, but when you take into account all of his payroll taxes, his sales taxes, his property taxes, the effective rate is probably right around 40%. The highest class in NYS is a tad below 50% for overall tax burden. Shouldn't be shocking.



It was just an arbitrary number, what people of all incomes are SUPPOSED to save. And yes, most people who save nothing waste their money on shit like $100 a month cell phone plans, shiny rims for their new car, Xbox 360's, and taking their kids out to pizza every now and then. We didn't get into this credit mess because people weren't wasting their money on shit.







If I was that type of person, I would have voted for Obama Mr, "I can only put away 4% of my income because of my bills!"

Totally -- Fucking -- Classic.

It's fairly easy to not understand the tax code we have.

It will probably take a few years before people find out how to still make money under the new tax code. What they can still do and what's just not worth it anymore.

I just wonder why we have to have the convoluted system we have now and why it can't be simpler to understand for the average person.

The president did say in his speech he was rasing taxes on family income over 250K.

All that money has to come from somewhere dosen't it?

You're in the federal income tax bracket at 28%. I can't fathom how you could have that much in deductions (including the burden of local, state, property SS, medicare, etc.) that would bring your total contribution to under 17%.