Millionaires count as 5% of the population of the United States. They make up about 50% of the members of congress. The disparity becomes even sharper if you count only real people as citizen millionaires – it goes down to 1%. Why does congress want tax cuts for the rich so bad? Because they are the rich. Nobody is really fighting for letting the top $250,000 + rates go back up.
Just want to point out that its not a rich vs. middle tax idea here. The income tax is based on tiers of income. So, the ‘tax cuts’ apply by income tier. It also changes according to filing status… so…
To let the cuts expire for those making over $200,000 per year, would really create a new entry on the table there. $171,850 to $200,000 and then $200,001 to $373,650. Effectively, everyone still benefits from the same low rates on income under $200,000. For example, you make $260,000 per year. All income up to $200,000 remains taxed the same – 10% of the first $8,375 ; 15% of the amount between $8,375 and $34,000 ($25,625) and so on till you get up to $200,000. I do wonder if they would keep the table at $171,850 to $200,000 – a mere $28,150 taxed at 33% and then from $200,000 to $373,650 taxed at the old 36% rate up to $373,650 or would they raise the lower 28% limit up from $171,850 to $200,000…
Either way, the rich still keep most of the tax cuts – just not the rates on the highest income levels.
The President wants it to look like (first % is current, second is proposed) :
So there would be an additional tax cut in there between $172,800 and $192,000!
Back to Congress! The 2010 salary for the rank and file congress was $174,000 per year. The median income for the average Citizen Household was $52,029 (2008). Why do we pay our “representatives” over triple (3.345x) what our national median income is? They should make only what the median – the average – citizen makes.
I propose an Initiative – in the states that support it – to only allow congressional representatives to draw salary equal to the median income of the citizens. I’d like to see this for States and for the National “representatives” as well. The question is, with the corruption prevalent in government, how can we manage that?