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The Rich Do Not Benefit Disproportionately

Nor do they pay anything other than grossly more than their "fair share".

By: Brian Simpson (Diary)  |  October 26th, 2008 at 01:43 PM  | 

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As many of you know, I often guest on AOL Political Machine blogger Tommy Christopher‘s Blog Talk Radio program Unusable Signal. Tommy has been making a claim for a while now that the rich benefit disproportionately from the government. He has made this claim yet again in a blog entitled “I’m Tommy the Elitist”.Therefore he says that they should pay more in taxes, their “fair share”. Not only does Tommy not cite one piece of evidence, there is mounting evidence to the contrary. That is, the rich are punished disproportionately by government.

Scott Hodge of the Tax Foundation asks “Why Is $1 Trillion In Distribution Not Enough?”. He reproduces the following chart from an earlier Tax Foundation study.

As you can see, the quintile of income earners only receive $0.32 for every dollar they pay in federal income taxes. On the other hand, the bottom quintile receives a whopping $14.67 for every dollar they pay in federal income taxes.

As I pointed out the other day, those earning under $200,000 pay only 9.7% of their incomes while those earning over $200,000 pay 21.8%, 2.25 times more than those under $200,000.

Who is benefiting from the government disproportionately here? It certainly isn’t the rich.

Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air points to a Tax Founation study of the 2005 federal income tax returns as he takes Tommy to task over this same topic. (If I can find a newer study, I’ll pass that one on.) The rich have been paying their “fair share” and then some. They generated this table (emphasis added):

The top 5% (or the top two income tax brackets) pay 59.67% of the federal tax bill while only earning 35.75% of the AGI. Those numbers represent the top income earners paying 23.92% more than their “fair share”.

Sorry Tommy:

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COMMENTS

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  • Tamblin

    in terms of absolute spending rather than in terms of spending per dollar of tax.

  • Vladimir

    On the above graph, any bar greater than $1.00 indicates that that group is a net beneficiary of wealth redistribution.

    Less than a buck, it’s your wealth that’s being redistributed.

    Now, the current scheme may not go far enough to suit you, but contrary to popular notion, the middle class is apparently a net beneficiary.

    The fact remains, as the table shows, the top income earners pay nearly all the tax. And what’s obscene is that no tax cut can ever gain any traction because those who bloviate shoot it down with “It disproportionately benefits the rich!”

    Well, duh, guess who pays all the taxes?

  • Tamblin

    that the left most bar is so high because it’s basically divide by 0 issue. Of course the poorest get a bigger share of government services compard to what they pay- they can paythe least and need the most. The more interesting question is just how much money of government services the wealthy are eating up. That’s what the graph I suggest would show. And my guess is you’d see basically a mirror image of this graph.

    Personally so long as income inequality is growing I take that to be strong proof that taxes on the rich are certainly not too high.

  • janis

    government assistance, then things are hunky-dory?

  • Tamblin

    is that extreme income disparity is unhealthy for a society in a number of respects. Taxpolicy is one way of addressing it.

  • stang

    Extreme envy is the problem.

    I leave you to ponder this quote.

    ?The urge to distribute wealth equally, and still more the belief that it can be brought about by political action, is the most dangerous of all popular emotions. It is the legitimation of envy, of all the deadly sins the one which a stable society based on consensus should fear the most. The monster state is a source of many evils; but it is, above all, an engine of envy.?

    Paul Johnson

    Are you not concerned by cardinal sin?

  • David_Hinz

    what is “extreme” is the problem. “Extreme” income disparity means Michael Jordan had no business receiving $100 million dollars in a year.

    “Extreme” income disparity is nobody’s business…

  • simpson316

    Ignore inequality. Focus on overall growth. Despite increasing inequality, ordinary Americans are seeing their incomes grow.

    When you begin to focus on inequality you will begin to harm that growth. Taking from the “rich” and giving to the middle class and poor will slow the overall growth of the economy. You will have taken care of your boogie man though. The inequality gap will have closed by making the “rich” poorer and not by raising up the middle class and poor.

  • Tamblin

    cardinal sin doesn’t concern me since I don’t believe in the concept. But since you do, wasn’t greed (or Avarice if you prefer) another deadly sin?

  • speciallist

    T the T….I’m not surprised you don’t “believe in the concept”…

  • Tamblin

    I’ve said before I’m not christian.

  • bs

    Give me a number. How much should we be allowed to make, Tamblin? $250K/yr? $100K? Should everyone be making the same thing? What is there to motivate people to improve themselves if you and your socialist progressive friends succeed in setting income limits and redistributing wealth to the lazy less fortunate?

    What exactly is extreme?

    Hmmmm???