"The rich pay the lion's share of American's taxes"

[Uben]

No they don't! They don't pay a dime of my taxes. Now, they may pay the lion's share of America's taxes, mainly because THEY HAVE THE LION'S SHARE OF THE MONEY!

You can always tell a republican because they always repeat this meme.

Well, it's time we make them stand up to what they're saying. Let's up their tax rates by 15% and let them sing away! Heck, I'll even offer them a pat on the back and tell them "thank you" if they'll just pay their fair share. But, I suspect the "lion's share" of the mega rich would rather have the money than the accolades because that's the nature of the beast....greed.

We have an opportunity to right this wrong, and we now have a president that is holding their feet to the fire. If we could just get the money-hoarding grifters in congress to do the right thing, we might be able to return this country to the greatness it enjoyed for so many years.

The Koch brothers are a good example of the greedy traitors who have brought this country to it's knees. They should be stripped of their wealth and forced to live in a country that does not have the opportunities they enjoyed here. They have squandered their right to live among real Americans. Their ilk have stripped the middle class of fair wages, access to affordable health care, and a meager retirement. For what.....a few more zeroes on their total wealth?

There are exceptions....Warren Buffet and Mark Cuban to name a couple, who have stood up and said they are willing to pay their fair share. Money can buy a lot of things, but it cannot buy integrity or honesty. Those things have to be earned by actions.

[hobbit709]

1. They actually have an apatosaurus' share of the money.

[Uben]

2. I know, but I couldn't spell it!

LOL!

[mainegreen]

9. but do an echidna's share of the work.

[hobbit709]

10. More like a Paramecium's share.

[trotsky]

3. The Koch brothers

The Koch brothers are a good example of the greedy traitors who have brought this country to it's knees. They should be stripped of their wealth and forced to live in a country that does not have the opportunities they enjoyed here.

Naw, I say let them have all their wealth - but then let them live in a society where there is no government to provide them with infrastructure, educated workers, a military to protect their business interests, federal institutions to ensure the value of their currency and transactions, etc.

Then they'll find out how much they love government after all - because without government, they wouldn't have two pennies to rub together. Literally.

[CTyankee]

4. We've got to keep rebutting this fallacious argument over and over again!

At the same time, we have to rebut the argument that people who pay no federal income taxes are somehow leeches on the system. I wish I could find a good chart that addresses that with a strong graphic...

[SoCalDem]

5. It's about proportion, not actual amounts.

A poor woman scrounges for coins in the bottom of a ragged purse & comes up with a couple of dollars for the collection plate, while a millionaire puts a $50 in.. who gave "more" according to their circumstances?

When enough super-rich shrug off their fair-share responsibilities, it just means that the rest of us have to pick up the slack. It never gets "cheaper" to run a country.

[IndyPragmatist]

11. They actually do pay a higher proportion, the issue is wealth, not income

There are a lot of people who have accumulated massive amounts of wealth and are either hoarding it or investing it overseas. If you measure by the top 10% of income earners in the United States, you actually see that they pay a higher proportion of the tax burden than any European nation.

Many of these people accumulated their wealth in the United States, but are not putting it back into the United States. Some of this is due to the economy, making it more attractive to invest in more stable markets. However, a lot is just hiding money through foreign investments to avoid paying taxes here.

[SoCalDem]

13. they are holding it like ransom..until they get their terms met.

of course demand drives production, so we have a stalemate.. they won't hire so people have wages enough to buy, so demand remains stagnant..,checkmate on all of us..

the only dilemma here, is that the truly rich would never need to "work" another day to remain solvent..most of the rest of us have no options..we MUST get a check from someone in order to live. The only way we get that check is to trade our labor for the money., if no one wants/needs our labor, we are totally screwed.

[Jim Warren]

6. Class dominance

Our tax system is riddled with loopholes and exceptions. If you have a crooked government that wants to favor the wealthy, they can do it through taxes.

[OHdem10]

7. They OWN or control the Lionshare of America's money.

If they did not make, earn, or inherits such huge amounts
of money, their tax bill would not be so great.

We have listened to that RW talking point so much it just
slides away unnoticed any more.

Policies have been designed to help the rich maintain
their status and contol the major portion of American Money.

1. We have a minimum wage but absolutely fight a living
wage. Businesses would be forced to give up some profits
to pay such a thing.

2. The fight is now on to make this RIGHT TO WORK Country.
No bargaining power for workers means Employers can pay as
little and offer few if no benefits.

3. Businesses are encouraged to outsource and relocate jobs
to cheap labor countries in an effort to maintain high profits
for shareholders.

In other words the Rich have become so on the backs of working
class and poor and the policies are continuing to be pushed.

[dmallind]

8. easy answer

sk them if they are Christians - most RWers are.

Then ask them what the widow's mite says to us.

[WCGreen]

12. The have the prides chunck of the money and pay only a lions share...

[leftguard55]

14. If they pay the lion's share of the taxes, why do they have SO much more money...

...than the rest of us?

Seems to me that the wealth and income gap between the rich and poor wouldn't be at a record high, if the rich truly did pay the lion's share of the taxes.

[mistertrickster]

15. Imagine this scenario: the only people in the country who pay income taxes

are those who make over 1 million dollars a year in income.

Their income tax for the year is one dollar.

How much of the income tax would be paid by the rich?

Answer: 100 percent. All the income tax would be paid by the rich.

No doubt if we had such a plan, the RepubliCons would be bitching about how only the rich pay income tax, even though the rich pay only one dollar a year.

This, I think, illustrates how hollow their argument is--the percentage of the total that the rich pay is wholly irrelevant to the question of whether the rich pay "their fair share."

[ThomWV]

17. The wealth they hold is not the point, its the Income that they tax, not wealth.

A person could be worth millions of dollars and sit on his ass all year and not earn a single dime. Would that person owe taxes? Nope.

[mistertrickster]

18. Correct . . . and not only that, a lot of super-rich pay themselves in "loans"

which are never re-paid to avoid any taxes at all.

[blm]

16. The top 1% have 40% of the nation's wealth, but, they do NOT pay 40% of the tax revenue.

.