All Republican tax plans are about shifting more of the economic burden onto the middle class and the poor, while reducing the burden on the wealthy. Let’s take an example used by many states’ toll roads. You reduce taxes on income, so now you can’t afford to pay for roads. So you build toll roads. People who make millions a year get a huge tax cut. People who make little and pay little in income tax get virtually nothing from the tax cut, but are hugely affected by the tolls.
Another plan is shifting to sales taxes. The state increases the sales tax on everyone, and then cuts income taxes. The rich spend a much smaller percentage of their income on consumer goods than the average middle class tax payer. The tax cuts the poor and middle class receive are more than offset by the increase in sales tax, while the wealthy get a massive tax cut.
Well, how about a flat tax? Surely, that is fair. No, because the wealthy benefit more from most government functions than the poor and middle class. So, to lower taxes on people paying above the flat tax rate, you have to increase taxes on people paying less than the flat tax rate or dramatically cut spending, which almost always falls on the poor and middle class.
The answer given by Republicans is always to cut spending, cut taxes, and everyone will benefit. Total BS. The question is always who benefits from the spending we are going to cut; and that is almost always the middle class and the poor. We cut schools, we cut medical care in rural areas and small towns, we cut Medicaid, we cut food assistance and housing assistance, we allow roads and bridges in rural areas to go to hell, we cut public parks and recreation facilities, the list goes on and on, but the picture is always the same. That is why red states are always at the bottom of every metric, from the health of their population to the education of their children.
Maybe one day the people of this state will wake up and stop letting Republicans manipulate them to vote against their best interests, with culture wars, racism, and fake Christianity.
So to follow Frank’s argument, we should tax the rich, tax the rich tax the rich, like those well run Democratic states of Oregon, California, and New York and we all see how that is working out.
4 comments
All Republican tax plans are about shifting more of the economic burden onto the middle class and the poor, while reducing the burden on the wealthy. Let’s take an example used by many states’ toll roads. You reduce taxes on income, so now you can’t afford to pay for roads. So you build toll roads. People who make millions a year get a huge tax cut. People who make little and pay little in income tax get virtually nothing from the tax cut, but are hugely affected by the tolls.
Another plan is shifting to sales taxes. The state increases the sales tax on everyone, and then cuts income taxes. The rich spend a much smaller percentage of their income on consumer goods than the average middle class tax payer. The tax cuts the poor and middle class receive are more than offset by the increase in sales tax, while the wealthy get a massive tax cut.
Well, how about a flat tax? Surely, that is fair. No, because the wealthy benefit more from most government functions than the poor and middle class. So, to lower taxes on people paying above the flat tax rate, you have to increase taxes on people paying less than the flat tax rate or dramatically cut spending, which almost always falls on the poor and middle class.
The answer given by Republicans is always to cut spending, cut taxes, and everyone will benefit. Total BS. The question is always who benefits from the spending we are going to cut; and that is almost always the middle class and the poor. We cut schools, we cut medical care in rural areas and small towns, we cut Medicaid, we cut food assistance and housing assistance, we allow roads and bridges in rural areas to go to hell, we cut public parks and recreation facilities, the list goes on and on, but the picture is always the same. That is why red states are always at the bottom of every metric, from the health of their population to the education of their children.
Maybe one day the people of this state will wake up and stop letting Republicans manipulate them to vote against their best interests, with culture wars, racism, and fake Christianity.
I hear you
I hear you!
So to follow Frank’s argument, we should tax the rich, tax the rich tax the rich, like those well run Democratic states of Oregon, California, and New York and we all see how that is working out.