| Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #391 10/18/2021 |
| 1) Do The Rich Pay Their Fair Share In Taxes? Time to dismantle two constantly repeated lies by the progressive left. First, is the lie that the rich don’t “pay their fair share.” We think every American is for that. But what is a “fair share?” The table below shows the most recently available data on what the effective tax rate is for every income group in America. The richest Americans pay almost twice as large a percentage of their income in taxes than the middle class does. (We think these tax rates are WAY too high on both high AND middle income Americans.) The rich pay a five times higher share of their income in taxes than low income Americans.  Source: Wall Street Journal, 2021 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tax-the-rich-ruse-income-burden-wealthy-salt-cap-corporate-rate-loophole-biden-11634226708 The second persistent lie is that Warren Buffett (and billionaires like him) pays a lower share of his income in taxes than a secretary. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The IRS reports that billionaires pay an effective tax rate of 32% versus 24% for an employee with a middle income. This means that if Buffett earns $1 billion in a year, he pays roughly $320 million in taxes. If the secretary makes, say, $100,000 a year, she pays $24,000 in taxes. Are there some billionaires who find clever tax shelters to escape paying federal income taxes? Almost certainly, yes. As we’ve said umpteen times, the ONLY way to get the rich to pay more is to get rid of loopholes with a Steve Forbes-style flat tax. |
| 2) Where’s Pete? The fiasco of the nationwide supply chain breakdown is starting to feel like the war scene from the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup. There’s a cargo crisis, a fuel crisis, a truck driver shortage, thousands of flight cancellations – leading to empty shelves at stores, stranded passengers at airports, and rising prices for just about everything. Where’s the Transportation Secretary?  In exchange for supporting Biden after he lost his presidential bid, Pete was appointed transportation Secretary even though he knows next to nothing about planes, trains, and automobiles. He hasn’t apologized for going AWOL in a crisis and instead pontificates about how important it is that Congress pass paid parental leave because it’s a tough job being a parent. Pete hates cars and fossil fuels and mostly spends his time – when he is on the job – worrying about climate change. His only solution to the supply chain disruptions is for Congress to pass the sham $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Buttigieg is symptomatic of the government-wide incompetence of this administration. Loyalty to the great progressive transformation is the only qualification necessary. These people make a mockery of the idea of “good government.” Pete said on CNN this weekend that the rising prices and shortage of goods and services are the signs of a booming economy. We didn’t run out of things in the Reagan or Trump booms. |
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