Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Mitt Romney competing to see who see
who can best lure dumb-as-a-rock voters. (Adam Hunger/Reuters)
Rick Perry's supposed "flat tax plan" is a joke. Think Progress uses Warren Buffett, who is the current right-wing nemesis for daring point out that he pays a lower percentage of his income in taxes than most middle class workers, to
make the point:
Leaving aside the fact that it is layered on top of the existing tax code, [Perry's plan] establishes not one but two different tax rates: 20 percent for wages, and zero percent for investment income. Because capital gains and dividends would be sheltered from taxes under Perry’s plan, some of the wealthiest Americans would wind up paying nowhere near 20 percent overall. [...]
Since the legendary investor [Warren Buffett] receives most of his income from capital gains and dividends, Perry’s plan wipes out most of his already-low tax bill. Buffett reported $62,855,038 in income on last year’s tax return while receiving only $600,000 in compensation from Berkshire Hathaway and the Washington Post Co. (where he is a director). If, aside from that $600,000, all of his other income is from capital gains and dividends, Buffett’s effective federal income tax rate under the Perry plan would be a microscopic 0.2 percent. Buffett’s tax bill would be slashed from the $6.9 million he actually paid in 2010 to $120,000.
Yeah, it's a flat tax all right. As in, taxes for most income funneled to wealthy Americans would be flatly zero. The Republican obsession with making sure rich Americans don't have to pay their goddamn taxes continues unabated, as does the apparently inalterable premise that blue collar wages should be taxed more, but money you gain from just sitting around watching numbers move around—well now, that's sacred money. You can't possibly tax that.
None of this dissuades me from the nagging suspicion that the Republican base is, at this point, made up entirely of stupid people. They demand no new taxes, then rally behind the guy proposing a national nine percent sales tax on everything they buy. They throw words around like "flat tax" and can't figure out for the life of them that those proposals would see their own taxes go up.
Yes, yes, it's wrong to call your opponent names like "stupid." So prove me wrong, kids, prove me wrong. Just once I'd like to hear someone in the tea party caucus say "huh, so I'd be paying more taxes than now, but that billionaire over there would be paying less than one percent? That seems wrong."
You know, if you can tear yourselves away from the latest Breitbart report accusing some journalist somewhere of reporting stuff you don't want to hear. Dumbasses.