Pretty much no one.
A recent survey found that only 22 percent of American bother looking at political blogs.
Hmmmm.
So why not?
Poor sources, inaccurate information, narrow points of view!
Sounds like ... Fox News, the Tax Foundation, and Ann Coulter all wrapped up into one.
By the way, Ann Coulter is selling adult toys door to door to fund her habit.
I don't need a source for the inaccurate information supporting my narrow point of view.
I'm the only person on the planet who doesn't like Ann Coulters trash mouth.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Halliburton provides clean water for troops. Sometimes.
From the AP
Well, I think it's freaken great KBR has the safety of its employees FIRST, and where is the commitment for the safety of our TROOPS?
Stick that in your little sissy 28 gauge gun, Dick Cheney!
AP: Water makes US troops in Iraq sick
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago
Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.
A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.
The Pentagon's inspector general found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.
It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards" and the military-run sites "were not performing all required quality control tests."
"Therefore, water suppliers exposed U.S. forces to unmonitored and potentially unsafe water," the report said.
The problems did not extend to troops' drinking water, but rather to water used for washing, bathing, shaving and cleaning. Water used for hygiene and laundry must meet minimum safety standards under military regulations because of the potential for harmful exposure through the eyes, nose, mouth, cuts and wounds.
KBR said its water treatment "has met or exceeded all applicable military and contract standards." The company took exception to many of the inspector general's assertions. "KBR's commitment to the safety of all of its employees remains unwavering," the company said in a statement to the AP.
KBR is a former subsidiary of Halliburton Co., the oil services conglomerate that Cheney once led.
Stick that in your little sissy 28 gauge gun, Dick Cheney!
Tax Information for the middle class wage earner
From the free online version of the Wall Street Journal, full story here.
There's Rich, and There's the 'Fortunate 400'The IRS analysis can be found here, here, and here. These links open Excel files, not simple text files. You were warned.
WSJ, March 5, 2008; Page D1
The really rich keep getting richer.
The nation's top 400 taxpayers reported a total of $85.6 billion of income on their federal income-tax returns for 2005 -- an average of $213.9 million apiece, according to Internal Revenue Service data obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
Just to make the cutoff to join this exclusive club, you had to report income of at least $100.3 million, up sharply from $74.5 million the previous year. The average income among the top 400 in 2004 was $172.8 million.
"It's another piece of evidence pointing to the rapidly growing concentration of income in the U.S.," says Joel Slemrod, professor of economics at the Ross School of Business of the University of Michigan. He refers to the group as "the Fortunate 400."
Indeed, the top 400 taxpayers have greatly increased their share of individuals' income since the mid-1990s. The group accounted for 1.15% of total income in 2005, up from 1.02% the prior year -- and more than twice as large as its 0.49% share a decade earlier. It's the highest percentage since the early 1990s, which is as far back as the IRS data go.
Even after adjusting for inflation, the minimum amount of income required to make the top-400 list has nearly tripled since 1992.
"Those numbers are really stunning," says Michael Graetz, a professor of law at Yale Law School and a Treasury Department official under President George H. W. Bush. "One hundred million dollars is an enormous estate to be accumulated over a lifetime, and not what we think of as one year's income for anybody."
The new data actually understate the group of 400's remarkable performance. The income yardstick used by the IRS for its study is known as "adjusted gross income," and it doesn't include tax-exempt interest income from state and local government bonds. (An IRS spokesman says nearly 4.5 million investors reported tax-exempt interest income for 2005 totaling $57.7 billion.) Moreover, adjusted gross income, or AGI, is arrived at after deducting various items, such as moving expenses, alimony payments and the self-employed health-insurance deduction. (For those who file Form 1040 for 2007, it's the amount shown on line 37.)
For its analysis, the IRS relied only on what taxpayers actually reported, without making any independent effort to estimate unreported income. The report doesn't identify anyone by name because of taxpayer-privacy laws. It's also important to remember these figures don't represent wealth or even lifetime earnings -- merely income for a single year.
Capital gains generally were far more important to the ultra-rich than any other single source of income. The group reported net capital gains of nearly $50 billion, an average of $124.9 million per return. That represented about 58% of their income.
Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, says "it's also notable" there was a "very sharp" increase among the group in partnership and S-corporation net income for 2005. Such income surged to nearly $15 billion, from $9.9 billion in 2004 and $8 billion in 2003.
Separately, the Congressional Budget Office recently calculated that a comprehensive measure of U.S. median after-tax household income rose to $55,900 in 2005, up 5.3% since 2000.
The IRS analysis updates a report issued five years ago that drew widespread attention. In that report, which focused on the years 1992-2000, the IRS noted that the members of the club of 400 varied widely from year to year. During those years, a total of 3,600 returns were identified. Of those who appeared in that group, less than 25% appeared more than once, and less than 13% appeared more than twice, the IRS said. Thus, the data shown in that study represented "a changing group of taxpayers over time, rather than a fixed group of taxpayers," the agency said.
No such analysis was available for the latest data. But tax analysts say it's safe to assume there is significant movement into and out of the top 400 list from year to year. For example, the list might include someone who sold a business after many years, or hedge-fund managers who enjoyed a particularly lucrative year.
The average federal income-tax rate for the group was 18.23%. That's up from 18.16% the prior year, but lower than in any other year since 1992 -- and well below the average income-tax rate of nearly 30% back in 1995, when Bill Clinton was in the White House. By contrast, the average income-tax rate for 2005, based on all returns filed, was 12.6%, up from 12.3% for 2004. The IRS calculated this figure by taking total income tax divided by AGI on all returns, taxable and nontaxable.
The 400 returns represent a minuscule fraction of the 134.4 million individual income-tax returns filed for 2005. For that year, the nation's total adjusted gross income was $7.4 trillion, up more than 9% from the previous year. The largest component was salaries and wages, which rose 4.7% to almost $5.2 trillion.
[The Upper Upper Crust]
A few other notable characteristics of this 400 club:
Members paid 1.67% of the nation's total federal income tax bill for 2005. That's up from 1.51% the prior year and is the highest percentage since 1992.
The group included 393 returns with record total charitable donations totaling $7.56 billion. That's an average of $19.2 million per return.
Many people in this group earned hefty wages and salaries. The report says 332 of the returns reported total salaries and wages totaling $7.38 billion. That's an average of $22.2 million per return. Even so, that was only about 8.6% of the group's total AGI.
Taxable interest reported by the group was a record $5.74 billion, or an average of $14.4 million per return -- but only 6.7% of total AGI.
Dividends were reported on 393 of the returns. The total was $5.89 billion, an average of $15 million per return -- or 6.89% of AGI.
The new IRS data provide a rare glimpse of the highest levels of American income-earners. A separate IRS analysis of data for 2005 gives a broader look. It showed, for example, that taxpayers with an adjusted gross income of at least $364,657 ranked in the top 1% of all taxpayers for that year. To be included in the top 5%, a taxpayer must have reported AGI of at least $145,283. To rank in the top 10%, your AGI must have been at least $103,912.
The data might play a role in the continuing debate about who pays taxes in America and whether the nation's tax system is fair. "You look at these numbers, and it makes it hard to believe that Congress should repeal the estate tax," says Yale's Prof. Graetz, co-author of a book called "Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight Over Taxing Inherited Wealth."
Under current law, the basic federal estate-tax exemption, now $2 million, will soar to $3.5 million next year. In 2010, the tax is scheduled to disappear entirely -- but only for that one year. President Bush has long called for total elimination of what its opponents call the "death tax." But those efforts have fizzled in Congress. A likely compromise might include making the exclusion somewhere around $3.5 million to $5 million and cutting the top estate-tax rate, which is currently 45%.
The IRS numbers might also prompt calls for higher taxes of some kind on the super-rich, such as possibly a higher capital-gains tax rate for those making megamillions a year.
Tax Time
Dear Andrew,
First stop, www.taxfoundation.org/files/ff104.pdf, this link should open a .pdf file. You'll love it. The conclusion is that the top one percent of 'tax returns' pay 39 percent of "all" income tax.
That document was prepared using an IRS bulletin which can also be downloaded at: IRS Bulletin Article, 2005.
This bulletin very well supports the Tax Foundation conclusion despite some very small differences in the numbers.
So why don't I stop with the Tax Foundation conclusions which are based on the bulletin?
It's a bulletin, not a report.
If I'm watching some Cable TV movie, sometimes a weather bulletin flashes across the bottom of the screen. That bulletin could say tornado warning for all of Georgia.
The next day, should I tell people, "Tornadoes hit all of Georgia yesterday?"
The IRS bulletin has many "mistakes.'
Here are a couple.
Over 43 million tax returns with income, (AGI), were included in the bulletin. But, these returns paid no taxes. The bulletin does not adjust for this. That's about a 30 percent error in the number of returns with taxable income. Where in the 100% of all returns do those 'tax free' returns fit and how do they skew results?
[The tax free returns are in the bottom quintile for the purpose of reporting. In other words, 43 million returns are counted that pay no tax as being among the "other" 99 percent of of 'taxpayers.'
Now, it's very important to look at how the IRS defines the top one percent of "taxpayers" in the bulletin. There are no footnotes containing that information.
That leaves sorting through raw data. Not much fun.
But, there is an IRS Data Release called, The 400 Individual Income Tax Returns Reporting the Highest Adjusted Gross Incomes Each Year, 1992-2000. [Actually, there are more recent studies. I'll get to those next.]
Those 400 tax returns [tax forms not taxpayers] reported taxable income in 2000 of over $60 billion dollars, an average of $150 million each. About 1.32% of all taxable income.
What was the tax burden for the "top one percent of income?" Actual.
$15,507,223,000. Rounded to the nearest $1,000.
That would be 1.58 percent of all "income taxes" as defined by the IRS, the definition as used in all IRS reporting , as used on tax forms.
Since that "statistical study," [Yes, a statistical study prepared by specific authors, "Prepared under the direction of Michael Parisi and Michael Strudler, economists in the Individual Statistics Branch."] the definition of "income tax" has been changed to exclude certain taxes and certain credits.
So direct comparison of the study from 2003 and bulletins issued after the definitional changes are not possible.
If the Tax Foundation were correct in saying that 1 percent of all taxpayers pay 39 percent of all incometaxes, then why doesn't this group pay 3.9 percent or more of all taxes since they get 1.32 percent of all income?
First stop, www.taxfoundation.org/files/ff104.pdf, this link should open a .pdf file. You'll love it. The conclusion is that the top one percent of 'tax returns' pay 39 percent of "all" income tax.
That document was prepared using an IRS bulletin which can also be downloaded at: IRS Bulletin Article, 2005.
This bulletin very well supports the Tax Foundation conclusion despite some very small differences in the numbers.
So why don't I stop with the Tax Foundation conclusions which are based on the bulletin?
It's a bulletin, not a report.
If I'm watching some Cable TV movie, sometimes a weather bulletin flashes across the bottom of the screen. That bulletin could say tornado warning for all of Georgia.
The next day, should I tell people, "Tornadoes hit all of Georgia yesterday?"
The IRS bulletin has many "mistakes.'
Here are a couple.
Over 43 million tax returns with income, (AGI), were included in the bulletin. But, these returns paid no taxes. The bulletin does not adjust for this. That's about a 30 percent error in the number of returns with taxable income. Where in the 100% of all returns do those 'tax free' returns fit and how do they skew results?
[The tax free returns are in the bottom quintile for the purpose of reporting. In other words, 43 million returns are counted that pay no tax as being among the "other" 99 percent of of 'taxpayers.'
Now, it's very important to look at how the IRS defines the top one percent of "taxpayers" in the bulletin. There are no footnotes containing that information.
That leaves sorting through raw data. Not much fun.
But, there is an IRS Data Release called, The 400 Individual Income Tax Returns Reporting the Highest Adjusted Gross Incomes Each Year, 1992-2000. [Actually, there are more recent studies. I'll get to those next.]
Those 400 tax returns [tax forms not taxpayers] reported taxable income in 2000 of over $60 billion dollars, an average of $150 million each. About 1.32% of all taxable income.
What was the tax burden for the "top one percent of income?" Actual.
$15,507,223,000. Rounded to the nearest $1,000.
That would be 1.58 percent of all "income taxes" as defined by the IRS, the definition as used in all IRS reporting , as used on tax forms.
Since that "statistical study," [Yes, a statistical study prepared by specific authors, "Prepared under the direction of Michael Parisi and Michael Strudler, economists in the Individual Statistics Branch."] the definition of "income tax" has been changed to exclude certain taxes and certain credits.
So direct comparison of the study from 2003 and bulletins issued after the definitional changes are not possible.
If the Tax Foundation were correct in saying that 1 percent of all taxpayers pay 39 percent of all incometaxes, then why doesn't this group pay 3.9 percent or more of all taxes since they get 1.32 percent of all income?
Saturday, March 8, 2008
All Politicians Lie
“All politicians lie!”
That’s just not true. However, the truth does get trampled often by political hacks. But if we look, we can find the truthful politician right after an election. He or she is the one who didn’t get elected.
Speaking truth to the public isn’t the easiest path to political success. Saying things that people want to hear will win elections.
The best example of this comes in our email boxes.
Yesterday, Ann Coulter sent me her latest column on John McCain. I wasn’t as interested in John as I was in the ads neatly tucked into her column and the margins of her email.
I really, really want to know more about how I can gain strength without exercise. I’ve always known that going to a gym was unhealthy. Now, I can be grateful to Ann Coulter for providing with this shocking research that “the fitness industry doesn’t want me to know.”
But before I could cancel that worthless gym membership, Ann had already confirmed that I was paying $50,000 too much in taxes!
“What would you do with an extra $50,000 dollars?” and “Keep your money in your pocket where it belongs!” Those two sentences dumped John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and George Washington into the garbage.
Not only has the ‘fitness industry’ been lying to me, the government has $10,000, $20,000, or even $50,000 dollars of my extra money!
I don’t know where Ann Coulter gets the extra time to talk about politics given the huge burden she must carry providing me with the truth about exercise and taxes!
Now that we know where to buy our snake oil, let’s get back to the truth by using that painful subject of taxes.
Jonathan Hoenig of Fox News sent me a video about the unfairness of the tax burden. According to Jonathan, the richest one percent of taxpayers pay 39 percent of income taxes!
How dare we treat our rich people like this! How dare we!
And, who is responsible for this abuse? According to dear Jonathan, it’s those Wal-Mart workers making ten bucks an hour!
I thought it was very clever for Jonathan and Fox News to blame Wal-Mart workers for the horrible burdens of being super-duper rich.
And since I just saved myself the annual cost of belonging to a gym, signed up with an online CPA service to get my extra $50,000 back from the government, I must be in that richest one percent group, right?
Wrong! And, Fox News is wrong about the unfair burdens of being in the richest one percent of Americans.
The most likely source of the Fox News report is the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation, a far right organization, should have gotten its raw data from the IRS.
Now the IRS puts out some really good statistics and publications, but I know the Tax Foundation and Fox News didn’t bother with a statistical analysis or even look at the existing online reports.
The top one percent of Americans with taxable returns had roughly 25 percent of all taxable income in 2005 and paid a tax rate of about 23 percent. If that doesn’t shock anyone, the top 400 taxpayers in 2000, earned an average income of over $170 million dollars each before taxes.
I’d like to be in that very exclusive group, wouldn’t you? What would you do with an income of $170 million before taxes?
Judging by Ann Coulter, Fox News, and their commercial sponsors, we’d cancel our gym memberships, hire an online accountant, and complain about $10 per hour Wal-Mart workers.
Ah, the Republican version of the American dream, to be lazy, ignorant, and rude to people who are doing nothing but working to make a living.
That’s just not true. However, the truth does get trampled often by political hacks. But if we look, we can find the truthful politician right after an election. He or she is the one who didn’t get elected.
Speaking truth to the public isn’t the easiest path to political success. Saying things that people want to hear will win elections.
The best example of this comes in our email boxes.
Yesterday, Ann Coulter sent me her latest column on John McCain. I wasn’t as interested in John as I was in the ads neatly tucked into her column and the margins of her email.
I really, really want to know more about how I can gain strength without exercise. I’ve always known that going to a gym was unhealthy. Now, I can be grateful to Ann Coulter for providing with this shocking research that “the fitness industry doesn’t want me to know.”
But before I could cancel that worthless gym membership, Ann had already confirmed that I was paying $50,000 too much in taxes!
“What would you do with an extra $50,000 dollars?” and “Keep your money in your pocket where it belongs!” Those two sentences dumped John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and George Washington into the garbage.
Not only has the ‘fitness industry’ been lying to me, the government has $10,000, $20,000, or even $50,000 dollars of my extra money!
I don’t know where Ann Coulter gets the extra time to talk about politics given the huge burden she must carry providing me with the truth about exercise and taxes!
Now that we know where to buy our snake oil, let’s get back to the truth by using that painful subject of taxes.
Jonathan Hoenig of Fox News sent me a video about the unfairness of the tax burden. According to Jonathan, the richest one percent of taxpayers pay 39 percent of income taxes!
How dare we treat our rich people like this! How dare we!
And, who is responsible for this abuse? According to dear Jonathan, it’s those Wal-Mart workers making ten bucks an hour!
I thought it was very clever for Jonathan and Fox News to blame Wal-Mart workers for the horrible burdens of being super-duper rich.
And since I just saved myself the annual cost of belonging to a gym, signed up with an online CPA service to get my extra $50,000 back from the government, I must be in that richest one percent group, right?
Wrong! And, Fox News is wrong about the unfair burdens of being in the richest one percent of Americans.
The most likely source of the Fox News report is the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation, a far right organization, should have gotten its raw data from the IRS.
Now the IRS puts out some really good statistics and publications, but I know the Tax Foundation and Fox News didn’t bother with a statistical analysis or even look at the existing online reports.
The top one percent of Americans with taxable returns had roughly 25 percent of all taxable income in 2005 and paid a tax rate of about 23 percent. If that doesn’t shock anyone, the top 400 taxpayers in 2000, earned an average income of over $170 million dollars each before taxes.
I’d like to be in that very exclusive group, wouldn’t you? What would you do with an income of $170 million before taxes?
Judging by Ann Coulter, Fox News, and their commercial sponsors, we’d cancel our gym memberships, hire an online accountant, and complain about $10 per hour Wal-Mart workers.
Ah, the Republican version of the American dream, to be lazy, ignorant, and rude to people who are doing nothing but working to make a living.
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