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Sean Hannity continually says the rich pay an inordinate portion of the overall tax burden, claiming 50% of us pay nothing and .1% of earners pay 20% of the total. If true, it’s only because US wealth disparity has grown, along with unemployment and poverty as rich folks enjoyed steady double digit growth. The Bush cuts have not changed under Obama, so it’s yet another indicator the unfunded cuts were ill-conceived.
Hannity believes the rich are already paying more than their share, but Warren Buffett reminds us that middle class people pay a higher percentage of their income because they don’t pay capital gains rates, they don’t hire accountants and attorneys, they don’t exploit loopholes like offshoring and they don’t hide assets as often as the rich.
This week, a caller who earns $30K per year protested Hannity’s insinuation that the rest of us don’t work hard or pay enough. Hannity then lied to him, saying “I’m in the same boat” not once but twice before backpedaling and acknowledging he used to be one of us but today is exceedingly wealthy, personally pocketing hundreds of thousands extra every year the Bush tax cuts are extended.
The rich pay more of the overall burden because they have more of the wealth and Hannity wouldn’t have it any other way. The Heritage Foundation which pays Hannity to read talking points admits on it’s website “[t]he tax cuts shifted even more of the income tax burden toward the rich.”
It was GOP changes to tax policy that have effectively spread the tax burden out – so the middle class pays more. It’s not only intentional stovepiping, it’s redistribution – intrusive government interference.
Hannity loves the well worn talking point that the US has a spending problem, not an income problem, but his proposed cuts don’t touch the deficit-exploding Bush tax breaks, defense, or corporate subsidies – he even fought on the air for government welfare for the private jet industry as his own callers cried out against teacher layoffs and painful education cuts.
On June 30, 2011 one caller told Hannity the Bush Cuts add $700 billion to the deficit – Hannity replied this was “not true”, claiming without evidence the cuts boost job-creation. The evidence is now in, Mr. Hannity, as reported by CNN, the NY Times and the US Treasury. But even worse, the proof is in that you have been lying to America about the effect of the cuts on job creation:
99% of Small Businesses Would Be Unaffected By Repeal of Bush Tax Cuts
When Hannity, Limbaugh, Paul Ryan, Fox News or some other “conservative” tells you raising taxes on the highest brackets hurts the nation’s jobs creators, you can show them it’s been debunked by The Brookings Tax Policy Center. Not only has it been greatly exaggerated, it’s about 99% untrue – 2009 figures showed that 98-99% of small business owners would not land in either of the top two brackets that would be affected by the expiry of the Bush Tax Cuts.
This was also highlighted in the Washington Post in August, ridiculing UT Senator Orrin Hatch who said allowing the cuts to expire would be “a job-killing tax hike on small business during tough economic times” but Hannity has not yet crossed the talking point off his show notes. Will he repeat it today?
Hannity knows he deceives listeners, but he is outright lying when he says sunsetting the cuts would hamper the small businesses that drive the US economy. Hannity exploits “technically true” wordplay as follows: more than one small business in the bracket gives him the grammatical right to say “small businesses would be affected”. While not a lie, this is intentional distortion, meant to deceive, worthy of FCC complaint, on-air retraction, public scorn and industry shame.
It Used To Be Called Payola: Hannity Takes Cash For Political Messaging
If Republicans were serious about boosting small business, the Earned Income Tax credit expanded job growth dramatically under Clinton/Gingrich in the 90s and is seven times more likely to create jobs now. Even Gingrich isn’t touting what he himself did to balance the budget today.
Only the ultra affluent want the Bush cuts today, and they hire media shills to use small business owners as “human shields”. Hannity and Limbaugh are under million-dollar contracts to publicize the skewed economic claims of the Heritage Foundation.
Ironically, the Bush Tax Cuts are also socialism – government rigging of free market economics and the type of reverse Robin Hood tinkering that turned our 2001 surplus into a deficit to enrich well-connected billionaires at the expense of unborn American children.
Graphic: Hannity Claims Untrue
When taxes on the top 1% are high, it stimulates growth because reinvesting in the business is a great way to avoid taxes. This creates jobs. But Sean Hannity wants to pocket the money without creating jobs, saying the wealthy will leave if we don’t give them lopsided tax breaks. But this only proves they love money more than this country and hold jobs hostage. Hannity lies to his audience telling them lowering taxes on the uber-wealthy leads to more jobs and here is the proof:
Crossposted from The Daily Hanni-Debunk Weekday Liveblog and Archive
15 Comments
Just to be clear, although you say “repeal” and “expire” the Bush tax cuts I assume you actually mean only for certain top brackets (i.e. keep them for everyone else)?
False Claims Act covers many types of fraudulent activity against the federal government, it does not apply to tax fraud. The Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 amended the Internal Revenue Code to provide financial rewards for individuals to report tax fraud just like the False Claims Act promotes the disclosure of fraud against the government by its contractors.
You misunderstand the R definition of Small Business.
The commonly understood definition of small business is small revenues and few employees.
The R definition of small business is one with a small number of owners. Which that includes the group above, it also includes the Koch Brothers Koch Industries, and the small business run by Donald Brin, The Irvine Company in California — Donald Brin is the Richest person in Orange County, California.
Heh. Not bad, but isn’t the truth of the matter that every taxpayer was helped by the Bush cuts? I mean, who didn’t get a break?
the wealthy pay less no matter how it’s looked at when you consider regressive taxes
The middle class saw single digit “relief” but rampant unemployment, cuts in benefits, cuts to the public sector schools, firehouses, roads and bridges. They basically flatlined if you adjust for standard of living and the rich increased their wealth, especially the top 400 richest Amercians who can peel off tens of millions to buy elections and I mean both parties of course.
Not to mention 70,000 pages of loopholes that benefit them, not us. You’re right, but that’s not my point: my point is that it’s bullshit to say small businesses not helped or 99% don’t qualify when every single taxpayer derived at least some benefit.
Clean up and simplify the tax code so people pay the correct rate for their bracket? I’m all for it.
Higher rates for the very wealthy? If it’s still needed after step A then yes, I’m all for it.
But “the top two brackets” cover anything over $171K or so, and that’s NOT just the very wealthy: that’s a tax increase on the middle class, too.
Not so much. The result of ten years of these cuts have been enormous growth for the rich at the expense of the middle class in income, entitlements, regulations and future prospects.
When you say the middle class had “some benefit” it’s like saying it’s too bad you broke your neck but at least you got a cool little hospital bracelet.
Let’s also not play dumb to the reason these lopsided cuts got passed – it’s the same reason the tax code is NOT being cleaned up and why so much fraud is not being policed – the rich bought the two parties and bought media silence.
Sure: no argument.
Now tell me, if the cuts are repealed for the top two brackets will that be a “tax increase on the middle class, too”?
Look, they defined the middle class by making the bottom of the bracket $171K, not me. They purposely bring it down to the middle class to lump themselves in with small businesses, but look how even that failed after the disparity ballooned.
So those “upper middle class” folks would see an increase if nothing else was changed, but let’s get serious – we need entirely new brackets: $500K-$1M, $1M-10M, $10M-$50M, $50M-100M, $100M-500M, $500M-$1B, $1B+
We need to go back to 70-90% taxation on the extremely wealthy because it’s the only way we ever successfully balanced budgets before and we’ll need decades of this just to catch up to basic solvency.
But we’re not talking about what’s “fair” or what’s best for job creation, we’re talking about what the bought-off runaway Congress will or won’t do, and what the shill media is saying, so the first order of business is wake people up to the reality that the tax code has been written just for the richest 400 Americans…
“they defined the middle class by making the bottom of the bracket $171K, not me. “
Yes: them, not you. You do seem to be jumping aboard the bandwagon and taking the ride, though. Are you going to go along with tax increases on that group or not? Are you still pretending that the Bush/Obama tax cuts were no relief to the not-superrich or not?
“we need entirely new brackets”
Yes: if I Googled right I could find where I’ve said the same.
“we’re talking about what the bought-off runaway Congress will or won’t do”
Really? I thought we were talking about “Hannity Lying: Small Businesses Not Helped By Bush Tax Cuts” Where do you suppose I might have gotten that crazy notion?
“the tax code has been written just for the richest 400 Americans…”
Yes: if I Googled right I could find where I’ve said the same.
The article says the EITC would be a much better way to go so I am all for middle class tax relief and reverting to Eisenhower levels of taxation on millionaires and billionaires because it’s fiscally conservative and will lead us back to sustainability.
You show me the benefit of the Bush Cuts to the middle class. Again, any benefit was erased by the overall economic downturn – here are small business groups calling for repeal: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/04/small-business-owners-bush-tax-cuts-rich-repeal_n_857204.html
The rich need the middle class to buy stuff so they have been indirectly hurting themselves by hoarding wealth and farming out jobs, it’s just taken a while because we can go years just circulating paper.
It sounds like you are asking over and over if we have to agree to favorable cuts for the rich just to get modest cuts for the middle class. I’m saying that should not be in a real democracy, we can fashion tax laws other ways if the will is there. But even so, we were far better off as a country before the Bush cuts, unless you are very rich.
Congress is greatly influenced by the media, more so perhaps than even the public. What Congress will or won’t do is directly affected by what Hannity says on the air – as the #1 radio talk show in drive time, all the major GOP Congress members regularly use Hannity’s show as a platform.
“It sounds like you are asking over and over if we have to agree to favorable cuts for the rich”
No, I’m asking over and over again if you want the cuts repealed for the top two brackets, thereby raising taxes on everyone down to $171K
I agree with you (and said so) about how we need entirely new brackets, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon, do you?
If you have a cat that catches mice once in awhile but has ruined every piece of furniture in the house, you have to make a decision on balance if you’re better off with or without it.
If you have to give away millions to get hundreds, is it worth it?
If you cave in to hostage takers, will things get better for you or worse?
The answer is no to your question – if you think the token tax relief offered to the middle class has been worth it, why is the middle class suffering and disappearing? Everyone in the world is in economic trouble except the rich and they are crying class war to suggest we go back to what worked.
Remember the problem underneath the unequal tax code is rigged media and elections and the bad guys are literally writing their own laws with their bought-off officials.
But there are hundreds of millions of us and about 400 of them, so why should we capitulate to their greed? Are we afraid?
“The answer is no to your question”
Finally! So you want to repeal the Bush cuts for the top income bracket only, yes?