"Wealth is being spread with little to show for it"

More Redistribution, Less Income - Obama has spread the wealth, but the poor and middle class haven’t benefited.

Excerpt:

On taxes, Mr. Obama often claims that the rich don’t pay their “fair share,” yet the most affluent one-fifth of taxpayers on average supplied 68.7% of federal revenue for 2011. That’s according to the Congressional Budget Office, which last week updated its statistics on the U.S. distribution of income and taxes for 2011 and preliminary calculations for last year. As for the top 1%, they funded 24% of everything the government does in 2011. The CBO also estimates that the end-of-2012 fiscal cliff deal that lifted the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6%, plus ObamaCare’s taxes on high-income individuals, increased their average federal taxes by 4.3 percentage points to 33.3% of income. The Warren Buffett minimum-tax rule asserted that no millionaire should pay an effective tax below 30%. Mission accomplished. This has long been the reality of the highly progressive U.S. tax system, but the bigger news in the CBO numbers is that wealth is being spread with little to show for it. According to the CBO, the lowest 60% of earners all collect more in benefits on average than they remit to the Treasury. Yet even the supposed beneficiaries of Mr. Obama’s policies ended up with less in 2011 than 2007.

Comment: See also A Rise in Wealth for the Wealthy; Declines for the Lower 93%. Image source:

...  the “fair share” phrase is just a fancy way of dressing up an argument that poses that someone else’s money is yours. It’s the adult version of two toddlers fighting over a toy. There’s no true “fair share” just dozens of ways to divvy up the spoils of a population.

On "fairness" in taxes: Half of US Taxpayers pay 97% of totalhttps://t.co/Lal4nENP08 pic.twitter.com/NKOfRnJ40Q

— James Peet (@jrpeet) April 22, 2019