Lou Dobbs falsely claimed 40 percent of working Americans "don't pay taxes"
SUMMARY: While talking about Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan, Lou Dobbs falsely asserted that "just about 40 percent of all Americans -- working Americans -- don't pay taxes." In fact, all American workers are required to pay taxes on their wages for Social Security and Medicare, and people in the United States are also subject to excise taxes. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office found that the average effective federal tax rate for households in the lowest quintile of income earners in 2005 was 4.3 percent, while the second lowest quintile paid an average effective rate of 9.9 percent that year.
While talking about Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan on the October 15 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs falsely asserted that "just about 40 percent of all Americans -- working Americans -- don't pay taxes." In fact, in 2008, American workers who are not self-employed are required to pay 6.2 percent of all of their wages up to a cap of $102,000 and 1.45 percent of their wages for Medicare under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). Those who are self-employed are required to pay 12.4 percent of their wages up to the cap for Social Security and 2.9 percent of their wages for Medicare.
Additionally, people in the United States are required to pay federal excise taxes. For instance, everyone who buys gasoline in the United States pays 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline in federal excise taxes.
Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office's most recent calculation of the effective federal tax rate, which is calculated by combining the effective tax rates of the four largest sources of federal revenues, found that in 2005, households in the lowest quintile of income earners pay an average effective federal tax rate of 4.3 percent. The second lowest quintile paid an average effective federal tax rate of 9.9 percent. The table below illustrates the average effective tax rate by income level:
From the October 15 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight:
DOBBS: One of the tests, it seems to me, of Obama's strength right now was the much-reported encounter with the plumber in the rope line, and the plumber asked him about raising taxes. And Obama acknowledged that he's gonna raise his taxes; that he's going to spread the wealth around through the tax system -- that he believes that that's appropriate. And there's been no impact. Not even a whisper in reaction. It is clear from the Obama tax plan that he is, in point of fact, even though just about 40 percent of all Americans -- working Americans -- don't pay taxes, those folks are going to be getting checks. There's going to be tax credits for a host of issues. None of that is registering with independent voters. Independent voters seem to be buying into that. Is that surprise you?
How in the H can ANY idiot get away with such a blatantly false statement on national television!?!?!?!? Perhaps...I'm the new guy in town?
Even elementary schoolers know this isn't true. If you work, you pay taxes. That's it!
Everyone that is except for joe plumber. He's got a few liens on his house for not paying his taxes.
Oh for crying out loud MMFA, you know darn well Dobbs is referring to income taxes, not SS or Medicare taxes.
WITH!
Isn't that what will be raised though? I thought the plan was to raise the cap on payroll taxes. Not raise the income tax.
Is it a fact that 40 % of Americans don't pay income tax?
I'm not doubting you Tommy, it's just that I never knew that.
It's not true of "working" Americans, which is what Dobbs claimed.
These guys like Dobbs-- they just make this stuff up. They are incorrigible-- worms for brains. They just don't care.
Actually, I think it's 40% of corporations don't pay income tax (I think I heard this mentioned on one of the programs on MSNBC). I'm not willing to give Dobbs a pass here, as he should know the difference between an individual and a corporation.
And Tommy has to ask WITH? This is blatant misinformation.
"you know darn well Dobbs is referring to income taxes, not SS or Medicare taxes."
Last year alone, $190 billion in payroll tax receipts was diverted to general fund use, paying for everything from Iraq to the salaries of park rangers.
As of 2007, a total of $2.25 trillion of payroll tax money paid into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds had been diverted to general fund use and replaced with government IOUs. In effect, the trust funds are an illusion. Payroll taxes and income taxes go into the same pool of money and are withdrawn from that same pool of money to fund government.
And for that reason, the claim that 50 percent, or even 38 percent, of Americans pay no income tax is flat out wrong.
"The actual figure of “taxable units” who don’t pay the standard income tax — a taxable unit being a couple filing jointly or a person filing — is somewhere around 38 percent"
From the exact article you just quoted, by the left wing columnist from the AJC even. 40% don't pay income taxes, so my original post stands. It has nothing to do with where the money is allocated, it's who pays what.
"it's who pays what."
Yep, and those who don't pay income tax under the label of "taxable units" wind up paying income tax under another label. Their SS and Medicare money is going to Iraq, just like your "taxable units." We're ALL PAYING to the general fund, no matter how you want to disguise it.
It has everything to do with where the money is allocated. What you pay into Social Security and Medicare is supposed to come back TO YOU, when you need it. If that money is no longer coming back TO YOU, and is instead being funneled to war profiteers, that money becomes an income tax.
40% don't pay income tax, they're just having their SS and Medicare raided to pay for the same wasteful ***T that we all do.
Of course there is no such thing as these lockboxes for anything, SS included. But the point is 40% of Americans pay no income taxes, that is a fact. You can argue all day long that they pay other taxes or where their taxes are earmarked, but it doesn't change the fact that they don't pay income tax. And then you say that SS and Medicare is not coming back TO YOU, rather it's all going to Iraq. That is absurd, you act as though nobody is getting SS or Medicare. Ridiculous.
If Lou meant income tax, which in this case, I'm willing to think that he did, then he's correct.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/228/
I mean, you get to find a nut once in awhile right?
"That is absurd, you act as though nobody is getting SS or Medicare. Ridiculous."
And you and Dobbs act as if 40% of all Americans are not paying into the general fund. Even more ridiculous.
General fund? Did I say that? I never said 40% of Americans pay NO taxes, I specifically said income, but you know that.
You were making an assessment of how someone was acting, not what they were actually saying. I returned the favor.
Acting? I said that MMFA knows perfectly well what Dobbs is saying, yet they put this thread up here disingenuously anyway as a wink wink to many readers. I guess that means you, but not me.
"Acting?"
"you act as though nobody is getting SS or Medicare. "
Waaaahh!!! Did I say that? Waaaaahhh!!!
"What you pay into Social Security and Medicare is supposed to come back TO YOU, when you need it. If that money is no longer coming back TO YOU"
You're right, you didn't act, you came out and said it. Sorry.
I'm looking for the word "nobody" and I don't see it.
I'm also looking for "all of that money" and I don't see it.
But I can say with a fair amount of certainty that it's somewhere around $2.5 trillion.
It's disingenous of Dobbs and you to say that 40% of the people pay no taxes, or no income taxes, implying that they make no contribution to the general fund, to war, to government waste.
WITH?
Well, Tommy (and I hope you've calmed down by now), the reason this is here is because it's conservative misinformation. I trust that was simple enough.
With your long-established history of trying to read people's minds, you've decided on what you think Lou Dobbs actually meant. Well, maybe you got it right. But, as pointed out by others, that still makes the statement incorrect and slanted in a conservative way.
I remember watching some of this last night, but missed this particular blunder. Dobbs strikes me as testier than usual, probably because (a) like most media talking heads, he knows his guy is heading for a bad Election Day, and (b) he's seen the polls, and the issues that people care about are the economy (far and away #1), the war in Iraq, terrorism in general, education, health care, etc., and that his personal pet peeve, illigal immigration, just doesn't matter to many people. He's terribly out of touch, and it looks like he may finally be realizing it.
I note with a touch of irony that CNN often has "No Bias, No Bull" at the bottom of the screen. That would be a nice thing to live up to, but has precious little more validity than "Fair and Balanced" or "Mission Accomplished."
Doobs did not qualify his statement, so it's wrong for you to presume that he was only referring to income tazes. Besides, everybody pays sales taxes regardless of income, and everybody who drives a gas-powered vehicle pays federal and state gasoline taxes. So when Lou Dobbs says 40% of us don't pay takes, that's a lie; therefore, conservativive misinformation.
Anfd THAT is why this is here, Tommy.
Its typical of right wing rants. Much like how Rush tells people that the rich pay the majority of taxes paid while not telling them that the rich have the majority of the income. Republican policies have left the masses with little wealth to pay taxes on so now Reps complain that they aren't pulling their weight.
Here in New York I have to pay state taxes, local taxes and sales tax and McCain purposes taxing my health benefits.
This whole taxing health benefits is just wrong. I cannot believe that McCain thinks he can pull this off. He wants to tax my health care benefits? Really? And McCain's supposed to be a conservative...?
Conservatives only believe in tax breaks for rich people.
I read the transcript of Dobb's report and couldn't understand what he was saying. I then listened to him and then re-read the report.
I give up. He doesn't make sense. Is there a coherent thought here?
He seems to be slurring his words more than usual and talking a lot, but not really making any sense.
I hope he does decide to run for Governor of New Jersey. He'l have to give up his show and he won't get enough support to even come close to winning.
I read the transcript of Dobb's report and couldn't understand what he was saying. I then listened to him and then re-read the report.
I give up. He doesn't make sense. Is there a coherent thought here?
He seems to be slurring his words more than usual and talking a lot, but not really making any sense.
In that regard, Dobbs has a lot in common with Gramps McCain. :-)
There's going to be tax credits for a host of issues. None of that is registering with independent voters. Independent voters seem to be buying into that. Is that surprise you?
Too bad Lou's not worried about McCain's "tax credits." I guess that's different.
I don't know why it's surprising to those on the right that Americans would support raising taxes on the wealthy.
I have heard this before about 40% not paying taxes. I pray that it is not true. Honestly, I would be more concerned with how BIG business gets out of paying billions of dollars through loopholes their officials lobbied for in Washington.
I have no idea if this data is accurate, but if we assume it is then that 40% number is an exaggeration.
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=155
If the data is accurate (and it's probably pretty close) the 40% is only exaggerated by a factor of about 2, assuming that the 60%+ figures probably include a majority of retirees.
Actually, I found this one:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/228/
On the other hand, I wonder if this is true?
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS211725+28-Jan-2008+PRN20080128
Anybody know if it's true that the president is not subject to the 6.2% holding rate for SS?
WOW. I have no doubt that THAT is true. I think the one thing that the founding fathers neglected to realize is that when the lawmakers are in charge of their OWN policies with no oversight, there is a tendency to to play unfairly. Sort of like the politicians voting in their own raises, vacations, benefits, etc. Such crap it makes me sick.
Ah, but the raises issue is really outlandish, because the way the law is currently written, the raise automatically goes into effect, unless they vote not to accept it. I'm not exactly sure how this works, but according the 27th amendment, no law varying the compensation for service of Congress people shall go into effect until after the following national election. Does the raise go into effect every year or every other year?
Actually, lawmakers do have oversight. They're called elections.
Well, the retirement plan for the President, and Senators, and Congressmen and Congresswomen is a pretty good one, so there should be really no need for them to collect SS when they are able to do so.
"Oh for crying out loud MMFA, you know darn well Dobbs is referring to income taxes, not SS or Medicare taxes."
Really, where do you see that in his verbatim quote?
"just about 40 percent of all Americans -- working Americans -- don't pay taxes."
This isn't some isolated, accidental slip-up by Dobbs, it's a standard theme on wingnut radio.It's in the same package as the figures about the super-wealthy paying the majority of taxes.
If average working Americans, who feel that they're overtaxed, can be conditioned to think that a very small number of people pay all of the taxes, and another large group pays no taxes, they're going to imagine themselves in the former group, along with those who make 10 times, 100 times or 1,000 times what they make. Then they can be convinced to vote in the best interest of those making 1,000 times what they make.
Problem with that, is that when they talk about all of these rich people paying the majority of taxes, what they ALWAYS fail to note, is what percentage of their INCOME are they paying in taxes? Because almost always, poor people pay more, as a percentage of their income.
Wasn't it Warren Buffet, who recently said (last year somtime), that his personal assistant paid more in taxes, as a percentage, than he did? Also, rich folks tend to hire people to find every single little loophole that they can use to NOT pay a lot of taxes, and corporate tax welfare, well, that's just another whole realm we don't even want to bring up, because there are a large percentage of corporations in the US who don't pay income taxes either. Which is shamelessly ridiculous.
A dirty little secret that Republicans don't like to acknowledge is that, when states get less Federal money for roads, schools, etc., they raise their state taxes, and local governments raise their taxes. In Tennessee, we don't have an income tax, but we have a relatively high sales tax. Everybody pays sales tax, even those "welfare queens."
Plus, my property tax went up several times during the last 8 years, and I'm squarely in the middle class. I didn't see much benefit from President Numbnuts' tax cuts. (Although I did run right out and spend those stimulus checks.... thanks, Georgie!)
"A dirty little secret that Republicans don't like to acknowledge is that, when states get less Federal money for roads, schools, etc., they raise their state taxes, and local governments raise their taxes."
There's nothing 'dirty' about it.
Who knows better what your state needs?
Your state, or D.C.?
I think you missed the point entirely, Denv90210.
I have a question that hasn't yet been answered. Who is included in that 40%? Is my 6-month old son included? Are retirees included? What about a woman that's a stay-at-home mom with a working husband?
A MMFA post awhile back regarding O'Reilly had him claiming a similar statistic. Of course, he was counting children as non-taxpayers.
The more important statistic would be how many working families pay income taxes? I highly doubt that it's near 40%.