@CommonDreams (Common Dreams) posted a new topic, subject "New Evidence that Poor Americans Pay the Highest Taxes and Get Little of the Safety Net". It read:

   ## New Evidence that Poor Americans Pay the Highest Taxes and Get Little of the Safety Net 
    
    Paul Buchheit
    
    Before taxes on the rich are cut and social programs decimated, uninformed conservatives should consider who really benefits from U.S. tax laws and assistance programs.   
      
    **The Wealthiest Americans Pay Very Little Tax On Their Full Income**  
      
    When ALL forms of taxes and income are considered, poor Americans pay higher tax rates than the richest 1%.   
    
    
      * Back to full article

So @HowlingCoyote replied

    Great topic, would be wonderful if Dr. Richard Wolff was on CD High Rotation, as he regularly pulls away the curtain to show the truth about our Economy.
    
    Paul Buchheit is doing Yeoman's Work for us, in this field, but there sure must be room, on a regular basis, for Dr. Wolff on CD, somewhere in between the daily “Fear Trump” deluge.
    
    And, yes, the burden of tax procurement in the USA is inverted, hurting the weak and rewarding the Pirates.

So @Skippystone replied

    No one in a just society should be allowed to accumulate even 1 billion dollars. Many of society's ills would disappear if individual wealth was restricted by law. A wealth tax would be moral, but no one except Bernie in our current government would support it.

@HowlingCoyote replied

    Ditto, a SANE Inheritance Tax.
    
    Allow the next Familial Generation to inherit enough to be comfortable, but not Idly Rich, hoarding obscene amounts of Wealth, living and behaving, like Royalty.

To which @Yunzer (Yunzer) replied

    I have been following ITEP's “Who Pays” report (updated every few years) for years as my state always lands in the “Terrible Ten” for tax unfairness due to its flat income tax with practically no deductions or exemptions except the small, insultingly named “tax forgiveness” credit for the destitution-level poor. But at the top of the terrible ten list are states with no income ibaird@example.net. Surprisingly, “progressive” Washington is at the top of the list. The poorest pay an average of 16.8% of their income in state and local taxes and fees, the top 1% pay 2.4%, and Bill Gates and his friends pay almost nothing.
    
    http://www.itep.org/whopays/full_report.php#The 10 Most Regressive State & Local Tax Systems

So @raydelcamino replied

    The 1% are able to game the system by maintaing residency in a state with no state income tax, establishing businesses in states with low corporate taxes, and making major purchases and registering their aircraft, yachts, and vanity cars in sales tax free states.

Then @PonyBoy said

    Legalized Corruption!
    
    Supported and enhanced for many decades by your Friendly ‘Stab you in the Back and tell you they're gIving you a Massage', Democrats and Republicans.
    
    What will it take for the ‘Great Awakening' of those voters who keep voting for these ‘Liars Royale?'

After which, @Yunzer (Yunzer) added

    Yes, but it is worse than just evasion - the structure of state and local taxes themselves are deeply regressive.

@VegasGene (gene scheel) replied

    Don't worry people. Trump is going to give the 1% another tax break. That burden is deep. I don't know how they do it. Long live the oligarchy! We must shed our health insurance in sacrifice of the elite. Let us all bow and praise the plutocracy. Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you can do for the Oligarchs…on your knees bitch.

After which, @raydelcamino added

    With Trump and the GOP in control, the 1% see their neofeudal paradise just over the horizon, where they own everything and the 99% own nothing.

After which, @theoldgoat added

    Tada… and behind this curtain is the most recent talk from Democracy at Work

To which @HowlingCoyote replied

    Thanks, theoldgoat, proving that we must BE the change we seek.
    
    Appreciate your generous contribution of this timely, current Wolff video.

@HowlingCoyote replied

    Thanks for the great Wolff video, theoldgoat, you've done us all a service.

So @Just_Chubbles (Ken Peh) replied

    Let's not forget the cutoff for Social Security is set so those that are the majority of wage earners in this country, will never reach the cutoff income level and will pay 100% of that tax. The rich and well-off get their tax break when for 2017, they meet the $127,200 limit, and if it happens early in the year, that's quite the tax break they get, while everyone else gets dinged for the whole year. Perhaps the cutoff point should be changed to a cut-on point. You don't pay the FICA tax until you get over a set amount. Its time for the rich and well off to be the ones to pay a fair tax to operate this country instead of those struggling to have some comforts in life.

So @Yunzer (Yunzer) replied

    And even worse for regressivity, the SS and Medicare tax applies to even the year's first dollar earned by a poor person - there are no standard deductions and exemptions to it.

Then @nighthawk (John Mims) said

    Thank you for that link. Before I even looked at it, I expected my state-Florida-to be in the 10 Most Regressive category. Sure enough, we're # 2, the 2nd most regressive in the nation.
    
    Of course, our Legislative and Executive Branches have been in Republican control for the past 20 years. You think maybe there's a correlation?

@nighthawk (John Mims) replied

    Yeah. Ironically, half of the 99% put them in control. But hey, at least no one is coming after their guns!

@HowlingCoyote replied

    The SS Contribution Structure is INVERTED.
    
    There should be a LOW cutoff point, rather than a HIGH cutoff point.
    
    PS
    
    Once we start to collect, it gets dinged as Taxable Income, sort of like “Here's your Cane, hold still while we kick it.”

After which, @HowlingCoyote added

    92.7 million eligible US Voters (40%) DECLINED to Vote for President in 2016.

Then @BL8 (EWG) said

    Another amazing report. I think Medicaid expenses are part of the safety net, add $305 billion or 8% of the federal budget. This brings the “safety net” total expense to 18% of spending, using the CBPP figures on the link. The bottom line: we have plenty of money and too many poor and people who deserve better opportunities. About 1 in 8 adults, almost 19 million, are looking for full-time work, see the njfac.org. FDR created public jobs and the unemployment rate fell from 25% to 9.6% between 1933 and 1937 (see Marshall Auerback, The Real Lesson of the Great Depression). We have the resources, we squander them on favors to the richest. And the dynamic of full employment is lost as too much income goes to people who do not spend it. Rana Foroohar, author of Makers and Takers, claims that 85% of profits goes into the financial casino and never benefits the real day-to-day economy, money that would fuel employment. Wm. Lazonick shows that 91% of the profits of the top 500 corporations went to stock dividends and buybacks, all of which ultimately benefits the wealthiest. Most people work for very large firms, establishments, as the USCensus shows. The economy's surplus is wasted. Buchheit is one of the few reporters who sees the waste and presents a deep analysis of intentional squandering of our – OUR – resources, our labor, our best efforts. Thanks Paul. My blog, Economics Without Greed, http://benL8.blogspot.com, with a new essay on healthcare.

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