There really should be no discussion as to whether or not Obama is engaged in class warfare with his tax and revenue proposals. His own words prove the case.
The most obvious and pointed example here is Obama’s use of the focus group tested and approved phrase “their fair share” when referring to taxes on the rich. The phrase “the rich need to pay their fair share” contains a premise. Now if you need a definition of “premise,” here you go: A “premise” is “a basis, stated or assumed, on which reasoning proceeds.” The assumedbasis for Obama’s statement that “the rich need to pay their fair share of taxes” is that they are NOT, in fact, paying that fair share now. Obama knows that most of the people out there who would be likely or who might be convinced to vote for him just assume that this true. They have no facts, they’ve done no research, and they couldn’t cite one statistic … they just assume that the rich aren’t paying their fair share because their president is telling them so. In short … these people just aren’t all that bright.
Do the rich pay their fair share? Well here are some facts that show that Obama’s rhetoric is dishonest – all from the Treasury Department. Good luck finding these statistics presented by the ObamaMedia: The top 5% of income earners pay over 50% of all personal income taxes. The bottom 50% of income earners pay no income taxes. The top 1% of income earners earn about 18% of all income but pay about 38% of all income taxes. People who earn over $1 million in any given year account for 0.2% of all taxpayers. They pay 21% of all income taxes collected by the federal government. Now … let’s hear Obama make the case that these people aren’t already paying their fair share. It looks to me like the “fair share” argument needs to be directed toward the bottom of the heap, not the top.
Obama is pushing another class warfare argument that the media just seems to love. He delights in telling us that the wealthy are paying a lower percentage of their income in income taxes than the middle and lower earnings brackets. Again, not true. Data from the Internal Revenue Service shows othat throughout every stage from an adjusted gross income of $ 10,000 to $10,000,000 the percentage of taxable income paid to the government in income taxes increases. After ten million it drops about two percentage points. For those who can't do there own research... I’ll give you an example: If your adjusted gross income is between $50K and $75K you will pay 12.3% of your income in federal income taxes. Between $200K and $500K that figure is 24.6% From $1 million to $1.5 million it’s 29.4% That’s from the IRS, folks. Not Obama’s teleprompter.
If Obama were to say that we simply need the rich to step up and pay more in taxes to help bail our country out of a difficult financial situation, fine. We can then argue whether the extra taxes or smaller government would be the solution. But to imply that the rich are not now paying a fair share of their income in taxes … a pure unadulterated play to those who are jealous of people who have worked harder and smarter than they. Class warfare … clearly.
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