Tuesday, February 24, 2015

How's this for Skin in the Game?


One of the more odious conservative catch-phrases is "skin in the game" which they use to justify the idea of raising taxes on the POOR so that somehow with even less money, they'll pull themselves out of poverty. Conservatives say that the "47%" who pay no income taxes need to have this mythical "skin in the game", as if they don't already pay state and local taxes, property taxes, and sales and usage taxes. It's an awful, cynical, assholish thing to say.

Well, how about this?
Roads are crumbling, bridges require repairs, schools need upgrades and public pension systems remain underfunded. How can states and cities find the money to address any of these problems? One way could be through their tax codes.
According to a new report, if the rich paid the same state and local tax rate as the middle class, states and cities would have hundreds of billions of dollars more a year in public revenue.
Last month, the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the poorest 20 percent of households pay on average more than twice the effective state and local tax rate (10.9 percent) as the richest 1 percent of taxpayers (5.4 percent).  Link
Sounds like the richest 1 percent need to have some "skin in the game", huh?

Psst. Don't worry, they can afford it.

3 comments:

Tony said...

When discussing odious conservative catchphrases, it's so hard to just pick one!

Maybe if they had ever picked a sensible position on any important issue ...

Ipecac said...

Excellent point.

Taker, not maker. Welfare queen. 47%.

They're not only inaccurate, they're all mean-spirited.

Tony said...

And because we're criticizing them, we're just like Hitler!!!