Friday, September 21, 2012

Matt Miller on the 47% who pay no income tax

There have been a lot of comments about Gov. Romney's comments at a fundraiser in Florida, but Matt Miller's comments seem to get to the heart of the matter about the 47% that don't pay INCOME taxes:

...those in the 47 percent who aren’t seniors or veterans are mostly poor workers whose payroll taxes, at 15.3 percent (since the employer side of the tax effectively comes out of workers’ wages), leaves them taxed at a higher rate than was Mitt Romney on his $20 million income last year...

As far as I've seen, Miller is also the only one who has noted Milton Friedman's hand in the creation of the policies that Romney was indirectly attacking.

If ANY assistance from government is defined as dependence, we can't have a meaningful policy debate.  We all benefit somewhere, somehow, from government.  But if the focus turns to how to allow those who are struggling to empower themselves, then we might get somewhere.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A story about how 96% of American benefit from federal policies and programs:

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/we-are-the-96-percent/?src=recg