Rick Santelli Does Some Simple Math
April 12, 2012
12:40pm CST
President Obama seems to intent on the “rich paying their fair share”. He seems to think this is going to fix the deficit problem. I have long said that the problem is spending, not revenue. Rick Santelli does some interesting math here. Based on various sources the number of tax filers that made over $1 million in 2010 was anywhere from 22,000 to 225,000. Santelli proposes the drastic measure of taxing each one of those filers by $1 million. Guess what? That is only going to bring in revenues of $22-$225 billion. Our deficit for the first 6 months of this year alone was almost $800 million. So on an annualized basis using a best case scenario (for Obama) of taxing $1 million from 225,000 people, it would only cover 1/8 ($200 billion/$1.6 Trillion) of the deficit.
anybody who makes over $3M and pays 30% in taxes will pay more than $1M annually. there are many many people in that category so rick’s simple math is very misleading.
Appreciate your views semi.
The real problem is that the only people with real income gains in the last three decades were the upper 10% and even among them income growth was heavily scewed towards the upper 1%. Middle class people lost real income for about 15 years. Their income growth disconnected from GDP growth just as the “lower the tax mantra” started around 1980. If it takes high income tax rates as in the 1950-1980 period for income growth to happen across the whole spectrum, as it did 1950-80, then I would say bring it on. Make it as high as necessary so low and middle class income growth catches up with the upper 1%.
i totally agree, vorfhart. all the credible studies i have seen indicate there is no negative impact on the economy taxing the wealthy until rates are well above 50% (there appear to be affects starting near 60%). the argument that if they are taxed at 40% it will remove their incentive to invest, spend, and grow businesses has been proven false repeatedly and decisively. they have available cash whereas the middle class, especially the lower middle class is under ever increasing burdens, especially relative to their disposable income.