“Why you don’t have as much money as you should have. That is the subject of this evening’s Talking Points memo,” Fox News host Bill O’Reilly explained (9/25/13).
So what’s the reason we don’t have money? Record levels of income inequality? Corporate tax-dodging? No. Barack Obama is taking your money:
As we reported last week, the federal government is now getting a record amount of tax money from us, the hard-working American public….
This is why the U.S. economy is stagnant: American consumers don’t have enough money to spend because the tax man is taking the money.
As O’Reilly noted, he’d already explained this to his viewers (9/20/13): “This year, 2013, the feds will receive the most tax money in history. About $2.5 trillion.”
And it’s easy to see what’s happening:
Simply put, President Obama and his acolytes do not want Americans to accumulate wealth. They want to take private wealth away from those who have it and give it to those who don’t have it.
So where’s he wrong? The conventional measure of the country’s tax revenue isn’t a nominal dollar figure. If it were, you might look at the tax tables and conclude that the end of the George W. Bush years presidency was a time of especially confiscatory tax policy: Revenue was $2.5 trillion in 2007 and 2008.
It’s more common to measure tax receipts relative to the size of the economy. As FactCheck.org (3/21/13) reported:
Economists prefer to view historic revenues as percentages of GDP. In fiscal 2013, federal tax revenues are projected to equal 16.9 percent of the nation’s economy, which is below the post-World War II average of 17.7 percent.
In other words, it’s not that the federal government is taking more of our money. It’s actually taking less than average. So why does Bill O’Reilly think otherwise? It might be due to the fact that people like him are paying more this year. As the New York Times (1/4/13) reported:
The last-minute deal struck by the departing 112th Congress raised taxes on a handful of the highest-earning Americans, with about 99.3 percent of households experiencing no change in their income taxes. But the Tax Policy Center estimates that the average family in the top 1 percent will pay a federal tax rate of more than 36 percent this year, up from 28 percent in 2008. That is the highest rate since 1979, at least.
O’Reilly did say he was talking about the Feds taxing “us, the hard-working American public.” Maybe he thinks the 1 Percent work a lot harder than the rest of us.
> So why does Bill O’Reilly think otherwise?
Uh, with O’Reilly, is there a thinking process, or is it merely a process of cynical nastiness designed to sabotage debate and democracy?
You might ask the folks hanging on by their fingernails
If not already in free fall
About gummint sensitivity and generosity toward their plight.
I’d imagine they’d have a different take on Dear Misleader’s “socialistic” tendencies, wouldn’t you?
O’ Bill and I have a lot in common. We’re old white guys, And we both argue for for policies that will benefit ourselves and those with whom we identify. We both argue that our respective classes should contribute less to the government and that the other’s class should chip in more.
The difference is, I know what it’s like to be a hard working American. And by both experience and observation, I can tel ya that very few people accumulate much wealth through hard work alone. And I can say that nobody accumulates wealth of O’Reilly’s magnitude by hard work.
So yeah, he’s right. Our economic system takes more and more of the accumulated wealth of hardworking people and redistributes it … upwards.
True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Not bad! Rest in peace!”
–Kurt Vonnegut
What’s sad and frustrating is how many people identify with Bill O’s point of view when their interests as working people strongly suggest that they should support policies favorable to the working class. I recall a poll that showed 20% of American adults think they are in the top 1%–meaning 19% of our nation’s adults are either delusional or out-of-step with the current . Can’t believe I’m saying this, but: They should pick up a copy of Forbes magazine!
Think any cons will praise Obama for being better than average and criticize O’Reilly and the GOP for spouting dishonest fiscal nonsense? Nah, it’s not in the nature of sheep to do such things.
While I don’t know the net worth B O; I find it highly unlikely he has had to pinch any pennies to get by, like the majority of Amercans have had to.
He probably just needed something new to blame on the Dems.
Bill O’Reilly may pretend to take on the tax man. But he is not likely to bite too deeply the hand that feeds him. He is a welfare recipient as all Americans are. Taxation continues because each American hopes that others will suffer greater taxation. Thus the competition for deductions known as tax avoidance—all perfectly legal. Legal too are the subsidies that are funded by the legal theft that is taxation.
O’Reilly did say he was talking about the Feds taxing “us, the hard-working American public.” Maybe he thinks the 1 Percent work a lot harder than the rest of us.
Nope, he just honestly and sincerely believes, he is one of the working class. He doesn’t have enough, but unfortunately, he is one of those infected with the Milikan disease. When asked how much is enough, they always answer ‘just a little more’.
What they fail to mention, that it is a tax RATE that is increased, and not a tax amount. Let him and all his cronies pay less in taxes by doing it the old fashioned way. Invest your money in business, to pay less in taxes. That is what a true capitalist does.