Seriously, when will MSNBC give Ezra Klein his own show? Surely they have room on the weekends to add to their line-up behind Melissa Harris-Perry and Up With Chris Hayes. While the rest of the pundits are running around trying to push the meme that it's not over yet for Mitt Romney, looking for any talking point they can think of to continue to make this year's presidential election a race, Ezra Klein is busy looking at facts. Better yet, he breaks the facts down into explanations that are easy to understand.
When excerpts of the Romney fundraiser tapes were released on Monday by Mother Jones, pundits were trying to glaze over facts, but it was Ezra Klein who came out with the explanation that counted. Basically, that Republicans were complaining about the effects of tax policies they championed.
Once again today, while the pundits are discussing what Mitt Romney needs to do now to get his campaign back on track, Ezra Klein focuses on the facts about the lie that Republicans continue to push about the 47% freeloaders pay no taxes. We've seen the argument before. Republicans push the meme honing in on “federal income taxes” as opposed to all taxes one might pay. And this fine line is important because if you only talk about federal income taxes then you have a good case for lowering taxes for the rich and raising them on the poor. But if you look at all taxes, including state and local taxes, sales taxes, etc., then the picture changes drastically when comparing who pays what percentage of their income in total taxes.
But most people don’t know very much about the tax code. And the federal income tax is still our most famous tax. So when they hear that half of Americans aren’t paying federal income taxes, they’re outraged — even if they’re among the folks who have a net negative tax burden! After all, they know they’re paying taxes, and there’s no reason for normal human beings to assume that the taxes getting taken out of their paycheck every week and some of the taxes they pay at the end of the year aren’t classified as “federal income taxes.”
Confining the discussion to the federal income tax plays another role, too: It makes the tax code look much more progressive than it actually is.
Take someone who makes $4 million dollars a year and someone who makes $40,000 a year. The person making $4 million dollars, assuming he’s not doing some Romney-esque planning, is paying a 35 percent tax on most of that money. The person making $40,000 is probably paying no income tax at all. So that makes the system look really unfair to the rich guy.
That’s the basic analysis of the 47 percent line. And it’s a basic analysis that serves a purpose: It makes further tax cuts for the rich sound more reasonable.
The one tax graph you really need to know
Displaying his usual wonkiness, Ezra includes a chart to show " if you want to understand who’s paying what in taxes, you don’t want to just look at federal income taxes, or federal payroll taxes, or state sales taxes — you want to look at total taxes."
*Chart added at request of enemy of the people
If you want a plain English understanding of what's really behind that 47% number, take the time to read the entire piece.
Last night in the first segment of her show (video and full transcript here), Rachel Maddow also talked about Republicans being concerned about taxes, and also turned the Republicans' demand for lower income taxes on the rich. Rachel exposes the underbelly of this lie. Yes, Republicans want to lower taxes for the rich, but they want to raise taxes on the poor.
Mr. Romney last night was asked by reporters if he wanted to retract any of that statement [47% freeloaders] and he said no. Although he said he might have put it differently if he weren't speaking off the cuff.
Mitt Romney speaking at hastily called press conference: Well, uh, you know it's not elegantly stated. Let me put it that way. I'm speaking off the cuff in response to a question and I'm sure I could state it more clearly in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that.
What would it mean to say it more elegantly? (holds monocle up to eye) Right? (pops open top hat) Top hat; monocle. Would that have made ... I don't know about elegant, but in terms of saying what he said there more effectively, he's right. And in fact, as a candidate, Mitt Romney has said this thing more effectively in the past because it is the policy of the platform of the Republican Party this year. It is the policy of the Republican Party to pursue the kinds of policies he described there, inelegantly (holds monocle up to eye) or not. It is the policy of the Republican Party at the presidential level and throughout the party.
Mitt Romney at Campaign Event: I think it's a real problem when you have half of Americans, almost half of Americans, that are not paying income tax.
It is a Mitt Romney position in this campaign. It is a Republican policy more broadly for the whole country that people who have less money; people on the lower end of the income spectrum in this country are not paying enough in taxes. And the Republicans would like to raise taxes for those people.
Video of Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah): I think it's abysmal that the bottom 51% do not pay income taxes.
Video of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia): Over 45% of the people in this country don't pay income taxes at all, and we have to question whether that's fair.
Video of Mitt Romney at Campaign Event: I think it's a real problem when you have half of Americans, almost half of Americans, that are not paying income tax.
That's a problem. That's an economic problem in this country to Mitt Romney and the Republicans. And that is a real problem that his tax plan would fix. The Romney tax plan would quote result in a net tax cut for high income taxpayers and a net tax increase for lower- and/or middle-income taxpayers [See On The Distributional Effects of Base-Broadening Income Tax Reform [PDF], Tax Policy Center, Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, August 1, 2012]. That's from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center which analyzed Mr. Romney's tax proposal last month. Cut taxes for the rich; raise taxes for the poor. That is what Mitt Romney's tax plan as a matter of policy would do, and it is also what Republicans have pursued in the states; since they took over the governorships and state legislatures in so many states in the 2010 elections. Earlier this year the Republican Tax Reform Bill in South Carolina proposed raising taxes on the poorest families in that state and cutting taxes for people who were well off [See SC House Tax Bill Would Raise Taxes on Some Low-Income Families, WSPA 7 On Your Side, March 21, 2012]. Because, I guess, South Carolina Republicans believe that South Carolina poor people have too much money.
In Wisconsin, when the Republicans took over there, what got all of the attention was the new law to strip union rights, which is now tied up in the courts. But the budget that Republicans introduced in Wisconsin when they took over in that state would have cut taxes for everybody in the state except for poor people [See Report confirms Walker budget would cut tax aid for poor, decrease overall taxes, Wisconsin State Journal, April 16, 2011]. The Wisconsin budget in the state would raise taxes on the poorest people in the state because Republicans there also think that poor people have too much money.
In Kansas, where the Republican take over has gotten, I think, much less national attention than it ought to have, Sam Brownback, the Republican governor there, signed a big tax reform bill into law which takes rich people's taxes and cuts them in Kansas, and takes poor people's taxes in Kansas and it raises them [See Brownback tax plan would hit impoverished Kansans the hardest, The Kansas City Star, January 18, 2012].
The Republican Party has an anti-tax brand. Right? They like to be seen as being for cutting taxes and being against raising taxes, but they really only believe that for upper income people. Republican budgets like Mitt Romney's and like the Republican budgets in the states, they do not ignore the poor, they specifically target poor people for higher taxes. The Republican approach to poverty is to say the problem with poor people is that they have too much money, and the government has to fix that by taking some money away from them. As a matter of policy what was spoken at that fundraiser in Florida this Spring that's now been released and that's now turned the campaign on it's head; as a matter of policy, this was a gaffe, not an error. This was not a misstatement, it was a blunt statement. There is a reason that they did not take back what Mr. Romney said on that tape. They are restating it now in a way that is less blunt, but it is actually their worldview and their policy. And that's why this tape has been like a nuclear bomb, not a dirty bomb in the Republicans' campaign for the presidency this year.
The entire segment was an eyeopener, especially the parts about what a disaster Mitt Romney would be on foreign policy. Actually, a Mitt Romney presidency would literally be frightening for our country. But what I'm seeing most people talking about is that 47% comment. If that's what people are going to focus on, then I'm thankful that we have people like Ezra Klein and Rachel Maddow to cut through the noise machine and get down to the facts and data.