Romney campaign edited Obama "redistribution" audio

Really?

The policies that have contributed far more than any others over the last forty years to wealth disparity in favor of the very well off involve ultra-accommodative monetary policy by the Fed, including but not limited to the recent iterations of QE. Are you claiming that those were partisan measures pushed primarily by Republicans?

If not, would you care to try to tell us what other policy or policies implemented by either party between 1981 and 2012 resulted in increased income or wealth disparity that comparatively benefited the wealthy?

(I don't think anyone needs to hold his/her breath waiting for an answer.) Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Welcome. I was looking for your post on this matter from a few days ago to cite and re-post here. You beat me to it.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/cbo...ome-inequality

http://taxfoundation.org/article/cbo...ome-inequality Originally Posted by CJ7

That's a pretty good quick take on the issue. The author clearly indicates that any redistribution by way of the tax code has been downward, not upward. That process began in the 1980s and continued in several installments over the years.

What some people seem to forget is that although the effective tax rates across the entire income distribution are much lower in the U.S. than in Europe's social democracies, the level of progressivity is much higher.

It's true that income and wealth disparity has increased substantially since the 1970s, but that's in spite of tax code and rate changes, not because of them.

What?!?

Since when is allowing people to keep more of the money they earn "redistribution of wealth?"

People may reasonably differ on what the proper tax rate is for each income bracket, but remember that the tax code of the U.S. is actually much more progressive than that of Europe's social democracies. (Although the rates are far lower across-the-board.)

Do you realize that over the last thirty years, taxes have been cut far more for the non-affluent than for the wealthy? Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

We have two tax codes in this country.

While what you say may be trure at the Federal Level, regressive taxes have been going up over the last thirty years.

You can not have an honest discussion regarding taxes without talking about all taxes and how they effect us all.

The video I keep seeing has those passages in it so what you pissing yourself about. Those extra words don't change what Obama said one iota.

We have two tax codes in this country.


While what you say may be trure at the Federal Level, regressive taxes have been going up over the last thirty years.


You can not have an honest discussion regarding taxes without talking about all taxes and how they effect us all. Originally Posted by WTF

The extent to which regressive taxes have increased over the last thirty years is miniscule in comparison to the reduction in the federal income tax burden on the bottom three quintiles of the distribution. If you want to have an "honest discussion" of taxation, you must begin by acknowledging that point.

This graph is an eye-opener to those laboring under the delusion that the main cause of our budget woes is the failure to insufficiently tax the "rich."



For the respective countries, the graph reflects federal and state income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, VAT, etc.

See discussion @ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ig-government/

BigLouie, you should have paused for just a moment and thought about a couple of the statements made by the creator of that graphic you posted. Note particularly the claim that in recent years the trend has been "the reverse", and that redistribution is flowing from the poor to the rich. In order to avoid disingenuity, he needed to note that widening income and wealth disparity in favor of the affluent has nothing to do with the tax code, yet he did no such thing. And apparently he failed to note recent rounds of additional tax cuts for non-affluent households. There were all sorts of supposedly "temporary" tax cuts, refundable tax credits, and child care tax credits, among other things. In addition, there was a supposedly "temporary" two percentage point cut in the payroll tax. But does anyone seriously believe that it's going to be rescinded any time soon, if ever?

Obviously, the fact that something is posted under the heading of "the facts" in a colorful graphic does not necessarily mean that it is...well, a fact! And to top it all off, the clown who created that crap noted at the end that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. LMAO!

I hope he managed to remain anonymous. Otherwise, he might want to consider putting a bag over his head like fans of the New Orleans Saints during their cellar-dwelling days of a few decades ago.

"Who dat?"

The video I keep seeing has those passages in it so what you pissing yourself about. Those extra words don't change what Obama said one iota. Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

This does. Completely.


"But now NBC News has obtained the rest of Obama’s comments, and it is clear his remarks were taken completely out of context. Obama is not talking about redistributing wealth at all — instead, he speaks about competition, the market place and innovation in an effort to improve government services in Chicago."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/4-pinocchios-for-a-truncated-14-year-old-obama-clip/2012/09/20/9b40f4b8-0330-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_blog.html