Is It Fair to Soak the Poor?

In recent days some Republicans have made a remarkable - no incredible - response to the call, endorsed by Warren Buffet among many others, for the rich to pay more taxes. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and several others have reversed the Robin Hood role and, like the Sheriff of Nottingham, proposed to tax the poor to protect the coffers of the rich. They claim it's only fair.

Their reasoning is that the rich pay most of the income taxes while some 47 percent of Americans do not pay any income taxes at all. Governor Rick Perry of Texas, another Republican presidential candidate calls this an "injustice," according to the New York Times, and Republican Senator Dan Coats says "everyone should have some skin in the game."

Wait a minute. This is a "cruel hoax" if ever there was one. Our Federal income tax system is "progressive" by design - meaning that it is based on one's ability to pay taxes from their earnings. In 2008 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 47.3 percent of our income earners had less than $25,000 in income, while another 28.1 percent received under $50,000 in income. Only 6.24 percent received more than $100,000, some of them in the billions. Even some 28.2 percent of our "households" had combined incomes of less than $25,000, which is close to, or below, our official (low ball) poverty line of about $22,500 for a family of four.

In fact, there has been a huge concentration of incomes and wealth at the very top of the economic pyramid over the past 30 years (the top 1 percent received 24 percent of the total national income in 2010), while real incomes at the bottom of the pyramid have declined, and this, as intended, has resulted in a shift in the burden of our income taxes. In order to "have some skin in the game," you have to have some skin, and the fact is that tens of millions of Americans are struggling to meet their basic needs. Last year some 50 million Americans went hungry at various times, according to the USDA.

Furthermore, it is flatly untrue that the poor don't pay taxes. They have payroll taxes (if they are working), as well as gasoline taxes and various state and local income and sales taxes, which are very regressive. According to the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution, in 2010 the poorest 20 percent of Americans paid 16.3 percent of their income in various taxes. I would call that more than a fair share.

Do you remember what happened to the evil Sheriff of Nottingham in the end? Warren Buffet is no Robin Hood, but he's got the right idea.