Michael Ryan Now Favors a Middle Class Tax Increase

Re: "Responsibility takes a holiday," from the April 15th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Not long ago as I noted on this blog, Mr. Ryan irresponsibly and incredibly called for an income tax moratorium.

He must have gotten his conservative talking points mixed up because in yesterday's column he whines about how 47% of people pay no federal income taxes. He quotes Curtis Dubay who said, "We have 50 % of the people getting somethingh for nothing."

So if this is bad, as Mr. Ryan suggests, he must therefore think there needs to be an increase in middle class taxes so more people will be paying income taxes. I know he would deny this, but what's his point. Usually, he's dead set against any taxes, but now conservative talking heads are complaining about the number of people who don't pay income taxes, and I guess he thinks he's got to follow suit, no matter how inconsistent this is with his other columns.

His point, however, is misleading because of one big fat factor that conservatives alway leave out when bringing up how much in federal income taxes the richest 1% pay.

Federal payroll taxes. Everyone who works a job pays federal payroll taxes. When this is factored into the statistics he touts, it totally changes the results.

Mr. Ryan noted that the richest 1% pay 40% of federal income taxes. What he doesn't say is that the richest 1% have 40% of the financial wealth in this country, so this is actually about right. Factor in payroll taxes though, and the richest 1% are paying only 22% of all federal taxes. So to be fair, they should actually either pay more than 40% of federal income taxes or their contributions to Social Security should be made higher.

In reality the tax burden is unfairly shifted on those with less money in this country. This began with Reaganomics and the now disproven supply side theory. In 1979 the richest 1% had 20% of the total net worth. By 2007 they had 34% of total net worth. Yet, their tax burden has decreased compared to the rest of us.

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Rick Mckee's cartoon of today, Friday 16th, is another idiotic one.

The U.S. has 14,000 nuclear warheads. Iran doesn't have any.

Which side would he rather be on, the one that carries a big stick and speaks softly, or the one that has no stick but has a big mouth?

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Kudos to Eugene Robinson's column today. Excellent. I'm surprised the rednecky Chronicle runs it.

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Check out the front page of the Chronicle today. The photo of the Tea Party chumps. Every single one has gray hair. What a bunch of old racist ignoramuses.