That is the title of an article I just found by accident. The author is DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, investigative journalist expert on Tax matters, target of the Right Wing for doing the job or reporting the facts about the almost criminal effects of giving Tax Cuts to the Richest Americans.
ILLUSTRATION: berkleyillustration.etsy.com
More follows...
It is such a powerful piece that it should be mandatory reading for all of us interested in achieving the goal of building a more just society here in the United States. Some excerpts [not in order]:
Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.
John Paulson, the most successful hedge-fund manager of all, bet against the mortgage market one year and then bet with Glenn Beck in the gold market the next. Paulson made himself $9 billion in fees in just two years. His current tax bill on that $9 billion? Zero....
In Wisconsin, Terrence Wall, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010, paid no income taxes on as much as $14 million of recent income, his disclosure forms showed. Asked about his living tax-free while working people pay taxes, he had a simple response: Everyone should pay less...
Since 1980, when Reagan won the presidency promising prosperity through tax cuts, the average income of the vast majority—the bottom 90 percent of Americans—has increased a meager $303, or 1 percent. Put another way, for each dollar people in the vast majority made in 1980, in 2008 their income was up to $1.01.
I would suggest that you do yourself a favor and read the whole indictment. The link is included next:
http://www.wweek.com/...
However there is one more portion of this extremely detailed narrative that I would like you to "digest" if you can stomach it. Here it goes:
"George W. Bush signed a tax increase, too, in 2006, despite his written ironclad pledge never to raise taxes on anyone. It raised taxes on teenagers by requiring kids up to age 17, who earned money, to pay taxes at their parents’ tax rate, which would almost always be higher than the rate they would otherwise pay."
In other words not only these cruel, despicable GOP right-wingers lie about their economic "policies", wen they contradict them they only do so to prey on the young, the sick, the poor, the elderly...all those who need protection or, at least, not to be discriminated against or targeted.
To think that this nation has let this happen for over 30 years now has to give us pause...