At one point during his State of the Union speech, President Joe Biden ranted about how billionaires don’t pay enough in taxes and asked the public to envision all the great things that we could do if the super-rich “paid their fair share.”
In doing so, he took lying with statistics to a new, otherworldly level.
Here’s what Biden said:
THE PRESIDENT: You know, there are 1,000 billionaires in America. You know what the average federal tax is for those billionaires?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Zero!
THE PRESIDENT: No.
They’re making great sacrifices — 8.2%.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: That’s far less than the vast majority of Americans pay.
No billionaire should pay a lower federal tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, or a nurse.
I proposed a minimum tax for billionaires of 25%— just 25%. You know what that would raise? That would raise $500 billion over the next 10 years.
And imagine what that could do for America. Imagine a future with affordable childcare, millions of families can get what they need to go to work to help grow the economy.
Imagine a future with paid leave, because no one should have to choose between working and taking care of their sick family member.
Imagine — imagine a future with home care and eldercare, and people living with disabilities so they can stay in their homes and family caregivers can finally get the pay they deserve.
All Biden has is imagination — and no facts to back it up — when it comes to this issue.
First, consider his claim that the tax rate paid by billionaires is 8.2%. That plays well with soak-the-rich leftists. But where did he get this number?
Not from the IRS. It calculates the actual tax rate that various income groups pay, including the ultra-rich. Its data show that the 400 people with the biggest incomes in America were paying an average tax rate of more than 23%. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation figures that the tax rate on the top 0.4% of families is 26%.
So where does Biden come up with an 8.2% tax rate? He changes the definition of taxable income to include all unrealized gains from investments.
If you have money in the stock market, any gains in the value of those stocks would count as income to Biden, even if you don’t sell the stock. Presumably so would any gains in the value of your home. Or the value of any other assets you possess.
By artificially inflating income, Biden can make their tax burden seem tiny.
The idea of taxing unrealized gains — in other words, extending the income tax to things that aren’t income — could very well be unconstitutional in addition to being economically reckless.
The Supreme Court heard a case in December involving a couple who had to pay taxes on offshore investments for which they received no dividends or distributions. If they side with the plaintiffs, it would put an end to the left’s “tax the wealth” schemes.
What about his claim that taxing the wealth — not the income — of billionaires would raise $500 billion?
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Except Biden is hoping nobody notices the caveat — that it’s $500 billion over 10 years. In other words, $50 billion a year.
Even that might sound like a lot … until you put it in context.
That $50 billion wouldn’t even cover one month’s worth of interest payments on the national debt, which was $69.2 billion in January.
It wouldn’t even pay half of the increase in the deficit in the first five months of this year compared with last year. (The deficit from October through February was $830 billion, which is up $108 billion from the same months the year before.)
The idea that an extra $50 billion could finance a new childcare entitlement, paid leave, and home care isn’t just ludicrous, it’s insane.
We don’t expect Biden to know or understand what he’s reading on the teleprompter, but shame on anyone else for believing the lies he’s spewing.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
The source is no longer online but I thought this worthy of your consideration:
Bonfire of the billionaires
By Syndicated columns
on January 31, 2012 at 4:10 AM
By Daniel McGroarty, The Oregonian, January 31, 2012
Republicans, Democrats, the Tea Party and the Occupy movement — it seems every American from 1 to 99 has his own favorite plan on how to tackle taxes and federal spending. Assuming there’s room for one more plan, I’ve borrowed bits and pieces from the current debate, but — urged on by the political commentariat and citizen-pundits alike — I’ve gone big and bold.
First, the philosophy behind my policy, drawn from careful consideration of the debate to date: For any plan to work, we need a federal tax policy that’s simple, fair, and — this part is key— to the maximum extent possible, involves someone else’s money.
With that principle in mind, like Willie Sutton, that early “corporate raider,” we go where the money is. Our national treasure: America’s billionaires.
Under my plan, billionaires aren’t just going to pay more, they’re going to pay it all — a 100 percent tax rate. And not just on what they make in a year. We’re going to take it all — 100 percent of their entire lifetime net worth.
As for the “99 percent,” relax. We’re cutting your 2012 rate to 0 percent. That’s right: You’re going to live like you’re a hedge fund manager on the Newt Gingrich plan.
We’re going to simplify that U.S. tax code at the same time. The IRS will be replaced — by the September issue of the Forbes 400.
Let’s get started. The Obama administration has requested $3.7 trillion in federal spending for 2012. Conveniently, that’s a bit above $10 billion a day.
Fittingly, Bill Gates leads us off, with his $59 billion. Microsoft’s founder could pay from the moment we rang in 2012 to almost midnight January 6. Up next, Warren Buffet. The Sage of Omaha’s $39 billion gets us to the end of January 10.
Larry Ellison — $33 billion — gets us through the weekend. Koch brothers David and Charles — $50 billion combined — cover the workweek. Then come four Walton Walmart heirs — sons and daughters of Sam — bringing us eight days federal spending combined. George Soros, friend of Barak Obama, is next; his $22 billion will cover two full days and a bit more. Then comes Sheldon Anderson, friend of Newt, with his $21.5 billion. Another two days and change.
We’ve burned through Forbes’ Top 10 billionaires — a total of nearly $310 billion.
It’s January 31.
Forbes’ No. 11 to 99 — folks like Google’s Sergey Brin, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — would get us through February and March, with nearly $600 billion. Numbers 100 to 200 — a collective $260 billion — get us past Tax Day and almost to the end of April.
But by the second half of the Forbes 400, we’re scraping the bottom of the billionaire barrel. All 200 billionaires batched together barely cover a month of federal spending. By mid-May, the federal burn rate reaches 10 billionaires per day.
Then, somewhere on the afternoon of May 26, we’ve run through our last billionaire: fittingly, it’s Washington’s own Dan Snyder, owner of the Redskins.
All together, the lifetime earnings of the Forbes 400 have paid for more than $1.4 trillion in federal spending. In other words, their lifetime take has covered the federal deficit — for one year.
But enough celebrating. We’re still $2,219,999,999,999.99 short if we want to keep the federal government running until New Year’s 2013.
So on to the millionaires. We’ve got more of them — but we need more, too: After all, it takes 1,000 millionaires to equal one billionaire. In federal budget terms, that’s 10,000 millionaires a day.
Trouble is, millionaires are fiscal twigs in the federal fireplace. Mitt Romney’s $20 million for 2010? That’s 3 minutes of federal spending. Romney’s entire $190 million to $220 million fortune? A bit over one half-hour. Newt Gingrich’s $3.1 million 2010 take? Gone in 30 seconds. Barak Obama’s book royalties plus presidential salary ($1.7 million)? The federal government will spend that in 14 seconds.
Hey, Steve Forbes, come back here. Thanks for compiling the federal contributor list — and for your net worth of $430 million. That’s more than an hour of federal spending!
In order to pick up the pace, let’s take the IRS data that tells us that in 2009, 236,000 Americans made $1 million or more. All told, at our 100 percent rate, that’s $610 billion — another two months of federal spending.
But there are still five months left to fund.
Let’s move from the people who earn $1 million a year to the people who have more than a million in net worth. They’re millionaires too, right?
After we’ve taken away all that wealth and fed it to the U.S. Treasury, what’s the take away from all of this?
For one thing, $3.7 trillion is an enormous amount of money — far more than our mortal minds can comprehend. $6.9 million in federal spending per second, every second of every minute, every hour of every day including weekends, every day all year. Even the lifetime earnings of all U.S. billionaires combined aren’t enough to keep the federal government fed for a single year.
But back to the budget. It’s 2013, and not a billionaire in sight. Wait a minute: Where’s that 99 percent? Please step forward. Your turn.
Daniel McGroarty, a former White House speechwriter, runs Carmot Strategic Group, an issues management consulting firm in Washington. Readers may write to him at: Carmot, 1701 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20006.
That is a great analysis, Bill, but unfortunately only a minority of Americans will understand it well enought to recognize that it is a farcical lesson in beggar the rich policies. The average person may mistake it for a truly workable policy — and those less than average? Well.
Since no one will send the Party of Biden into the political wilderness for a generation or two, I see no solution to the problem of interminable overspending except financial collapse. Perhaps, though, such a collapse would help us re-establish equality under the law, and reset goals toward that “colorblind society” that Martin Luther King spoke of.
Here’s the same general thing in video format from the great Bill Whittle:
https://youtu.be/661pi6K-8WQ?si=33sMGwCOsVIhhn7P
Pathological Joe has been telling whoppers for the better part of a century. No reason to expect him to straighten up now.
I want to express my appreciation for the writer of this blog post. It’s clear they put a lot of effort and thought into their work, and it shows. From the informative content to the engaging writing style, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.