CHART: As Services For Main Street Are Being Gutted, Richest Pay Least Taxes

[cal04]

CHART: As Services For Main Street Are Being Gutted, Richest Pay Least Taxes In A Generation
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/09/main-street-richest-taxes/

Last night President Obama and congressional negotiators cut a deal to keep the government running, cutting “$38.5 billion under current funding levels, per Republican demands,” and $78 billion below what Obama called for in his initial 2011 budget.

Yet as Republicans and Democrats continue to battle over the deficit within a political framing that includes taking aim at Pell Grants for low-income students — which Obama preemptively proposed to cut, calling summer grants “too expensive,” while Republicans want far deeper cuts than that — Head Start funding, and other programs from Main Street Americans, there is one group of Americans that seems to be getting away without having any sacrifices demanded of them: the very richest.

As this chart from from Wealth for the Common Good shows, the top 400 taxpayers — who have more wealth than half of all Americans combined — are paying lower taxes than they have in a generation, as their tax responsibilities have slowly collapsed since the New Deal era as working families have been asked to pay more and more:



There have been a handful of proposals by congressional progressives to once again put requiring more sacrifice from the luckiest among us back on the table. The Congressional Progressive Caucus recently unveiled a “People’s Budget” that would boost taxes on the wealthiest Americans, returning them to levels closer to where they were under Ronald Reagan’s first term — hardly socialism.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[WillyT]

2. Damn... They've Almost Achieved Tax Flatness...

:evilfrown:

:kick: & Rec !!!

[Angry Dragon]

3. We should just get rid of all taxes and end this tax fight

[sasha031]

4. listening to a you tube video this morning,

Al Franken was at a town hall meeting with Bernie in Vermont.

He spoke of his wife, almost entire education being paid for by Pell grants. Now they want to cut the the $3000 students receive.

when right wingers cry for the old days, do they ever take into account our tax system then.

[Mnemosyne]

5. Very revealing chart. Thank you, cal. K&R n/t