Salon.com > The top one percent

GOP Congress really does make the rich richer

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Are you rich and want to get richer? Vote Republican! The stronger the GOP is in Congress, the larger the share of wealth the top 1 percent controls, according to a new study in the October issue of American Sociological Review, which confirms what we figured all along -- there's a direct connection between the rightward shift of Congress and the upward advance of the richest Americans’ net worths.

From 1949 through 2008, the impact of a 1 percentage point increase in the share of seats held by Republicans in the House (a little over five seats) raised the top 1 percent’s income share by about .08 percentage points. “At first glance, this might seem negligible," said Thomas Volscho, a sociologist at CUNY-College of Staten Island who co-authored the study. But it's not. "Given that the estimated national income in 2008 was more than $7.8 trillion, an increase of only 1 percent in Republican seat share would raise the income of the top 1 percent by nearly $6.6 billion. That equates to about $6,600 per family in the top 1 percent."

Obama nailed it on taxes

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:49:00 +0000

I understand that politics trumps policy right now, such that targeting your opponent looks more important than targeting, say, the economy. But you might think that when there’s a large tax cut on the table targeted at the bottom 98% of households, partisans would be able to agree.

Of course, you’d be wrong.

Some background: think of the Bush tax cuts — isn’t it a bit strange that we’re still tussling about these tax cuts enacted a decade ago? — in two pieces: the upper income part that affect households above $250K, and the rest, typically called the middle-class part. The full set expires at the end of this year. No one wants the middle-class part to expire and the R’s want to extend them all.

Some numbers: extending the middle-class part for one year costs $150 billion — the President said yesterday that if they expire, taxes for middle-income families will go up $2,200 next year. The price tag for extending the whole package next year is $210 billion, so the upper-income part alone is $60 billion for one year. The ten year numbers are: $3.3 trillion for the whole package, and about $2.5t for the middle-class part.

Mr. One Percent’s wealth and tax troubles

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:31:00 +0000

Mitt Romney unburdened himself a little on Tuesday, hinting that he might grace us with his 2011 tax returns sometime in April and sharing some details about his own wealth. His handlers really shouldn't let him loose without a TelePrompter; Romney can't help making gaffes when it comes to issues of money, privilege and class.

As I said last week, one likely reason Romney balks at releasing his tax returns is that he pays a much lower rate than most of the rest of us, because most of his income comes from investments, which are taxed the capital gains rate of 15 percent. And indeed, today Romney acknowledged that his rate is probably around 15 percent because most of his income is investment income, meaning that his money makes money for him, rather than his labor.

It looks like Romney's trying a strategy of softening up the public by previewing some of the disturbing details of his tax returns before releasing the documents themselves. It's also worth noting that April is not merely tax month, but a point at which the GOP primaries are likely going to be already decided, meaning primary voters aren't going to be able to do anything about it if they don't like what the returns reveal.