SOTU: A Coda

I hadn’t intended to say anything more about President Obama’s State of the Union speech, but this excellent post by the Blogprof reminded me of one of Obama’s most offensive pronouncements:

If we truly care about our deficit, we simply cannot afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

Those greedy “wealthiest 2 percent” must be fleecing the rest of us, right? Well, not exactly. Heck, forget the wealthiest two percent–the top one percent are pretty much pulling the wagon, as the Blogprof shows with this chart. The top one percent pay more income taxes than the bottom 95 percent. Click to enlarge:
blog20090729-chart2.jpg
We are rapidly reaching the point where a large majority of Americans are free riders. Whether democracy can survive under that condition is a wide-open question.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses