Tea Bagger Fail of the Day

not to mention that the population adds up to 101 percent.

I swear, the more I see this crazy crap, the more I believe I have entered some weird parallel universe. I still dont understand what they are even protesting!!

Not to defend these nuts, but the Top 1% is a subset of the top 50%, so it’s not correct to add all of the percentages together and expect to reach 100%.Regardless, the sign makes no sense and/or point, because the top 50% of the taxpayers pay 97% of the total taxes because they make 97% of the total income.

Epic Fail. Better go buy more guns tea baggers.

Make war, not tea?What you see here is a retired AIG trader.

To be fair, the math on the sign is actually correct, even if it is not immediately obvious.The top 1%, which pays 39% of the taxes, is a subset of the top 50%. The taxes paid by the top 50%, which includes the 39% paid by the top 1% of the population, accounts for 97% of the taxes.The remaining 50% of the population, according to the sign, accounts for the remaining 3% of taxes.So the sign is accurate, even if it does not appear to be so on first glance. A less confusing display of the same data might be:The top 1% pay 39% of the taxThe top 50 through 2% of the population pay 58% of the tax.The bottom 50% of the population pay 3% of the tax.

Show me that those top 1% do 39% of the work (thereby justifying their inflated income) and then we’ll talk.

Just out of curiosity, aren’t income taxes unconstitutional?

The guy holding the sign kind of looks like Larry David.

Silly Jane, don’t you know that 1% actually do 90% of the work in this country?? (according to fox noise, cnbc, morning jackass)

As others have pointed out, the sign may be unclear but it is not actually false. But the fact that the top 1% pay 39% of taxes and yet are still EXTREMELY FILTHY RICH enough to never worry about the cost of anything they wish to buy just goes to show that they don’t pay nearly enough in taxes. Most of us struggle just to pay the bills and stay out of debt.

Following the link actually shows a background image more interesting. One of the tea-baggers is carrying a sign that says:”ONLY THE GOVERNMENT CAN PRINT COUNTERFEIT MONEY.”Let’s just think on that for a bit.

question…why are teabagging protesters such pussies?! (i hate using that word but the “gloves” fit)

So I take it that to be fair to the teabaggers that the gummint should extract $10000 from every man, woman and child. That way the top 50% will pay 50% and the bottom 50% will also pay 50%.I don’t think the teabaggers are smart enough to figure out why such a plan is unworkable.

I’m still trying to figure out why these “morans” are defending the top 1%. Do you think any of these teabaggers are in the top 1%? Me neither.

Don’t any of you understand?That isn’t the top 1% pissing on you.That’s the “trickle-down” you’re feeling!

I like how you call this guy dumb, when he has the sign right. Pot, kettle, black…Anyways, empty13, not correct, as clearly stated in the communist manifesto, we have an incremental tax system, which the more you make, as a percentage, the more you pay. This way, the government is trying to make everyone have the same amount of capital. You know, make them equal, equality and diversity.The next step is to remove personal property…

Bob24:So you are in favor of the top 1% paying less tax, and middle-class America picking up the slack.Yay, Rich People!Oh – Yay Nukes, too!And such as.

If I were to spend some time – probably at EPI – I could undoubtedly find better numbers but just for a start:”In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth#In_the_United_StatesI know the numbers have gotten even more “tilted” towards the rich since 2001, but you get the idea!Not only that, I can guarantee you that in my own personal life when I was doing very well I spent money in ways that exempted me from paying taxes! Especially from about 1985 thru 1991 while I operated my own business!I did not cheat, but when you have a lot of money coming in it’s easy to shop for the proper investments, whether it be R & D for your business, or making energy-saving improvements to your own home! The list is long! That’s why people that make a lot of money run into accounting problems regarding their taxes!When you make barely enough to get by you qualify for NO special treatment under the tax code – other than that created by the Reagan administration! He made WELFARE into a dirty word and shifted welfare into earned income credits and a ton of other BS!For piss sake, look at the structuring of FICA taxes! Or the BS about giving financial investors a big break due to RISK! What risk? Real risk is going into a coal mine every day, or putting on your badge and gun, or climbing into your taxi cab!

Well said, Kansasdem.

Even if the math is correct, what’s his point? Of course the wealthiest pay more in taxes. They have all the money!Not to equate taxes with theft, but remember the quote from Willie Sutton when asked why he robs banks? “That’s where the money is”. So duh, who is going to be able to pay more in taxes? Paris Hilton or a single mother raising her kids on minimum wage?

Wolfe,I guess we just have an arguement in fairness. I define fair as, everyone pays the same %, no matter their race or sexual preference. Whatever you earn, everyone pays the same percent. You define it, I guess as a fairness in lifestyle?Also, a world without cigarettes, also a worthy goal.

“Whatever you earn, everyone pays the same percent.”And even with a completely flat tax, you’d still get a higher percentage of the total tax revenues collected coming from the wealthiest 50% than you would from the bottom 50%. So, I repeat myself: What is this guy’s point?

Bob42, fair is not always right. To take an extreme, it technically wasn’t fair of the government to take away slaves from the slaveowners, since they were property. But I think we can all agree it wasn’t right for them to be slaves in the first place.With the tax code, the majority of americans can’t afford to pay any more in taxes than we already do. So if you want to tax everyone at the same rate, the government’s revenue will fall incredibly short of where it already is, which is producing a deficit. What do we cut? Education? Roads? Social Security? Defense? There are plenty of worthless government programs but even if you just kept the important stuff we still wouldn’t be able to pay for it. So we ask the wealthy, most of whom were born that way, to pay more than the rest of us. It’s good for society as a whole if we’re educated. Our commerce is more efficient with healthy roads.I can’t believe with all the problems in our country, so many people devote their time to pleading for richer people to get more money.

“Even if the math is correct, what’s his point?”Bottome line point for most of these tea baggers is that they see more taxes coming to pay for all the government spending. All taxpayers are going to have to pay for all this spending at some point. They would just like to keep more of their own money that they earned. The Republican version is that the person who earned the money in the first place, knows better how to spend their own money than the government. So when they see almost a trillion dollars spent on “pork” (their view), they are upset, because they know big taxes are coming down the line to pay for it all. Obviously, they realize they have to pay taxes, everybody does. They know what’s coming and they don’t like it.

My first thought was, “Wow, there are a lot of poor people in this country”. Guess that wasn’t their point.

But they were strangely silent when Bush was adding a trillion dollars to the debt.Why didn’t that upset them? Was it just because he was spending to kill brown people?

I don’t see the trillion dollars you’re talking about…take a look yourselfhttp://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/28/2009.deficit/index.html#cnnSTCOther1And what do you mean “kill brown people”? Do you mean their stance on immigration? Or something else?

Bush’s budgets didn’t include the 2 wars. Nevertheless, you are confusing debts and deficits. Bush’s deficits averaged about $400 billion a year over 8 years. That’s 3 trillion of total debt….I could be off a trillion here or there…..and that didn’t even include the wars.

Jeff-Your right about the wars, I forgot about that difference. I’m looking at the charts from the congressional budget office, and I’m not seeing the average deficit of 400 billion per year over 8 years that your referring to. Did you get that from this chart? Or from another source?http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/28/2009.deficit/index.html#cnnSTCOther1I’m not clear how you took a deficit of 400 billion for 8 years and got total DEBT of 3 trillion, you said I confused the two, but you multiplied deficit times 8 years and got total debt, would that be the total deficit?

The deficit is the annual budget shortfall, ie, how much spending exceeds income each year. The debt is the total amount that the government has borrowed over the years to make up the deficit spending.So, if each of the government’s annual budgets during Bush’s had a shortfall (deficit) of $400 billion/year, then the total amount he added to the debt is 8×400 billion = $3.2 trillion.And by “killing brown people”, I was specifically referring to the Iraqi invasion. I know, there are so many brown people that the republicans want to kill, it’s hard to keep track of them all.So, with that explanation out of the way, can we get back to the question:Why didn’t it bother these protesters when Bush was adding a trillion or more the debt, but when Obama does it, it’s the end of America?I can only see one of two possibilities: 1) They really don’t care about the debt and are just howling about whatever Rush tells them to in the hopes it will return their party to power; or 2) It’s really about what the president spends the money one, ie, killing brown people vs. providing economic stability and growth here at home.

D.C.I’m trying to answer your questions, but please know that I’m originally spoke quite generally from what I know first hand in talking to many co-workers. In trying to answer you specific question about the trillion dollars, I had to look for myself to see what you were referring to. In looking at the congressional budget office report for the years 2000-2007 here are the defict amounts. (Billions)236 128 -158 -378 -413 -318 -248 -162http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/28/2009.deficit/index.html#cnnSTCOther1I still do not see the 400 billion per year in these figures. All I can say in answer to your question is that a nearly one trillion dollar deficit in one year is thought to be a gigantic number, which far surpassed any of the numbers above in a single year. I asked for where the 400 billion per year number comes from, but no answer on that, so I’ll just use the only source I know of, which is the CBO number.In regards to the providing economic stability and growth at home part, Republicans do not generally embrace Keynesian Economics. They do not accept that spending provides economic growth or stability, just the opposite. They think we’re wrong. We think they’re wrong. When the stimulus works, we’re golden and they eat dirt.I’m not commenting on any positions they may have on war. My post was only to help explain what I knew of the protestors.

Sorry…wrong linkhttp://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/28/2009.deficit/index.html#cnnSTCOther1Deficit numbers236 128(-158)(-378)(-413)(-318)(-248)(-162)

Ken, about the 400 billion, that was off the top of my head, thinking back to the past few years where it has seemed to average about that much. I hadn’t looked at that chart. I guess it’s less but over time these deficits add to the debt.Now Obama is talking about even bigger deficits which in time will add up to astronomical debt, but obviously he’s counting on job growth and other factors which will pay down the debt and lower the annual deficit. This is what happened in the late 90s. So many people were employed and making good money and we actually started paying down the debt. Obama is following the example of the Clinton years, but these are different times and we shouldn’t expect the same result. I think deficit spending will help but we’re still going to be way in debt.

“I can only see one of two possibilities: 1) They really don’t care about the debt and are just howling about whatever Rush tells them to in the hopes it will return their party to power; or 2) It’s really about what the president spends the money one, ie, killing brown people vs. providing economic stability and growth here at home.”How about:3.) They also never supported Bush’s fiscal policy.4.) They woke up sometime in the second term of the Bush administration, and started to also be against Bush’s big spending fiscal policies.5.) They saw what happened with the financial crisis and were taught that capitalism actually wasn’t the problem, but instead, it was the government policies of both Democrat and Republican presidents over a long period of time.

uh, no….my money’s on 1 and 2. 1 explains the current republican policy, 2 explains their actions during the previous administration.Your 3 is a joke, they supported Bush plenty. 4 is somewhat true. they woke up after they were trounced in 06 and realized they had no political reason to stand with Bush. 5 is way off. These DemocratIC and Republican presidents deregulated capitalism. That was the problem. If the government hadn’t stepped in to regulate last year, we would see even greater job losses. It hasn’t been pretty or efficient but it’s better than doing nothing.

Either way it’s a phucking joke! When was the last time a debtor nation ruled? Roles have changed people, China is the creditor nation and the USA is now the debtor nation. WWI was USA’s jump up the charts to EMPIRE/Global Power. The only thing left on the mainland is what, our Armed forces? What does the USA manufacture, CEO’s who run business in far-away lands!Rome was sacked….who’s next!

According to the Congressional Budget office, the top 1% of taxpayers earn an average of $719,000.The bottom 20% of taxpayers earn an average of $8,400 per year, Does it not seem fair that they top 1% pay 39% of the taxes? After all, they earn85-1/2 times more than the bottom 20% of taxpayers!

And one thing more to ponder, the top1%of taxpayers OWN 70% of all assets in this country, and take home 22%of all income too! (US Census Bureau)

Jeff, who are you talking about when you are saying “they”? You completely changed the subject. In the part I quoted from your previous message, you were talking about the protesters, not the Republicans in Washington.As for your part about “deregulated capitalism”, our current crisis was caused by bad fiscal and monetary policy of our government and federal reserve, and the deregulation only unveiled the problems faster. Trying to regulate it more will only hide the problem for later, when the crash will be even bigger.