TPM's Brian Beutler takes on the Republicans' favorite lie of the moment, that 47 percent of Americans (the rabble-rousing class warriors, apparently) don't pay any taxes. Here's how much of a lie that is.
While 47 percent of recession-era American households don't pay federal income taxes, they pay plenty elsewhere, and more to the point, have picked up a larger and larger share of the nation's tax burden over the last half century.
Over the 58 years preceding the Lesser Depression, the share of federal revenues that came from individual income taxes has remained fairly stable, fluctuating between 40 and 50 percent, and peaking just before George W. Bush slashed rates in 2001.
The rest has come from corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, and various other taxes. To a surprising extent, the story of the last six decades is one of a shrinking burden on big business, and a growing burden on workers—the bulk of the "47 percent". Since 1950, regressive payroll taxes have grown to comprise over one-third of federal revenues—they used to comprise about one-tenth. For corporate income taxes, it's just the opposite—what used to provide the Treasury over a quarter of its revenue now provides just over 10 percent.
Payroll taxes, which were expanded in 1965 to include Medicare financing, keep on growing, while corporate taxes keep on shrinking. The numbers reflected in the chart are pre-recession, but the trend is unmistakable and unchanged. And those payroll taxes, excise taxes, and other taxes that the 47 percent do pay make up a good chunk of federal revenue.
It's that sliver at the bottom, corporate income tax, that exposes the big lie of Republicans. Their "job creators" are not carrying their fair share of the burden, any way you slice it.
