QUOTE
The Massive Wealth Redistribution that Doesn't Bother John McCain
By Sarah Anderson and Sam Pizzigati, AlterNet. Posted November 1, 2008.
Upward wealth redistribution has taken billions of dollars out of the pockets of average Americans.
Thank you, John McCain, for shoving the issue of "redistributing wealth" back into political primetime. Just two problems. You're only a quarter-century or so late -- and you have everything backwards.
Senator McCain, you're attacking Senator Obama for trying to "redistribute" our nation's wealth with his plan to raise taxes on America's rich. But America's wealth is already being redistributed. Over recent decades, in fact, we've seen here in the United States the most massive redistribution of wealth in world history -- and you haven't said a word to complain.
This redistribution has been taking dollars out of the pockets of average Americans and stuffing them into the pockets of the power-suits and wheeler-dealers who sit in America's corporate executive suites and play money games on Wall Street.
Just how massive has this redistribution -- up the income ladder -- actually been?
...
John McCain, so far as we know, has never criticized this colossal redistribution of wealth we have as a nation been experiencing. That may be because this redistribution -- to the rich -- really started revving up when his hero, Ronald Reagan, became President in 1981.
The rich were paying taxes on their income over $400,000 at a 70 percent rate when Reagan entered the White House. Right now, on that income, they pay taxes at no more than 35 percent.
And that's before loopholes. After exploiting loopholes, our richest pay taxes at about half that rate. In 2005, for instance, the top 400 income-earners in the United States took home an average $214 million. They paid only 18.5 percent of that in federal income tax.
By Sarah Anderson and Sam Pizzigati, AlterNet. Posted November 1, 2008.
Upward wealth redistribution has taken billions of dollars out of the pockets of average Americans.
Thank you, John McCain, for shoving the issue of "redistributing wealth" back into political primetime. Just two problems. You're only a quarter-century or so late -- and you have everything backwards.
Senator McCain, you're attacking Senator Obama for trying to "redistribute" our nation's wealth with his plan to raise taxes on America's rich. But America's wealth is already being redistributed. Over recent decades, in fact, we've seen here in the United States the most massive redistribution of wealth in world history -- and you haven't said a word to complain.
This redistribution has been taking dollars out of the pockets of average Americans and stuffing them into the pockets of the power-suits and wheeler-dealers who sit in America's corporate executive suites and play money games on Wall Street.
Just how massive has this redistribution -- up the income ladder -- actually been?
...
John McCain, so far as we know, has never criticized this colossal redistribution of wealth we have as a nation been experiencing. That may be because this redistribution -- to the rich -- really started revving up when his hero, Ronald Reagan, became President in 1981.
The rich were paying taxes on their income over $400,000 at a 70 percent rate when Reagan entered the White House. Right now, on that income, they pay taxes at no more than 35 percent.
And that's before loopholes. After exploiting loopholes, our richest pay taxes at about half that rate. In 2005, for instance, the top 400 income-earners in the United States took home an average $214 million. They paid only 18.5 percent of that in federal income tax.