Ohio GOP Senate hopeful: Middle class doesn't pay fair share

[brooklynite]

Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Mike Gibbons, a leading Republican Senate candidate from Ohio, said at a media event last fall that middle-class Americans don’t pay “any kind of a fair share” of income taxes.

“The top 20% of earners in the United States pay 82% of federal income tax — and, if you do the math, and 45% to 50% don’t pay any income tax, you can see the middle class is not really paying any kind of a fair share, depending on how you want to define it,” Gibbons said.

The comments by Gibbons, a millionaire investment banker from Cleveland, were made in a September episode of “The Landscape” podcast by Crain’s Cleveland Business. But they could take on new resonance after Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, introduced a governing plan in February that has divided the party over its call to raise taxes on millions of Americans who don’t earn enough to pay federal income taxes.

Scott, who leads the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, has said that paying even a small tax would give poor people “skin in the game” to boost their interest and involvement in how tax dollars are spent.

[leftstreet]

1. Interesting

GOPers have spent a lot of narrative energy the last few cycle creating the working vs middle class dynamic, so you have to wonder if they're actually hoping typical Trumpers might say "yeah stick it to those latte drinkers!"

Weird times

[dflprincess]

2. Nice of him to write his Democratic opponents ads. Nt

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. This is the Rick Scott plan

Link to tweet