To this day, I have no idea how Politifact rated Romney's statement as "true". The statement in the title of the article, "Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax," is true in the strictest possible definition of "true", but that's not what Romney said. He said: The pull quote that they based their rating on was in the middle of that rant. The trueness of the statement that should be rated is this one: "The 47% of people who pay no income tax vote 100% Democratic." And that is ridiculous on its face. I'd be surprised if it were even 60/40. Wonder why the GOP only can resonate with morons these days. It doesn't matter one whit whether one pulled quote, completely decontextualized of its intended meaning, is technically true or not. His belief is false, and very easily proven so. I know that's not the point you were making, but unless and until we decide to look objectively at who pays what and why, there's no good way to decide if there's a better way to operate. EDIT: I'll bet a significant number of people in that room pay no income tax, since they probably make their money off of capital gains and not much else."There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," Romney said in the video. "All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.
"And I mean the president starts out with 48, 49 percent … he starts off with a huge number," Romney continued. "These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. So he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean, that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
They've gone far enough to the authoritarian side that they're hitting what these studies reference. This snippet from one says it best: Indeed, the empirical literature reveals negative relations between cognitive abilities and right-wing social-cultural attitudes, including right-wing authoritarian (e.g., Keiller, 2010; McCourt et al., 1999), socially conservative (e.g., Stankov, 2009; Van Hiel et al., 2010), and religious attitudes (e.g., Zuckerman, Silberman, & Hall, 2013).Wonder why the GOP only can resonate with morons these days
Right-wing ideologies offer well-structured and ordered views about society that preserve traditional societal conventions and norms (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Such ideological belief systems are particularly attractive to individuals who are strongly motivated to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity in preference for simplicity and predictability (Jost et al., 2003; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011). Theoretically, individuals with lower mental abilities should be attracted by right-wing social-cultural ideologies because they minimize complexity and increase perceived control (Heaven, Ciarrochi, & Leeson, 2011; Stankov, 2009). Conversely, individuals with greater cognitive skills are better positioned to understand changing and dynamic societal contexts, which should facilitate open-minded, relatively left-leaning attitudes (Deary et al., 2008a; Heaven et al., 2011; McCourt, Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, & Keyes, 1999). Lower cognitive abilities therefore draw people to strategies and ideologies that emphasize what is presently known and considered acceptable to make sense and impose order over their environment. Resistance to social change and the preservation of the status quo regarding societal traditions—key principles underpinning right-wing social-cultural ideologies—should be particularly appealing to those wishing to avoid uncertainty and threat.
The "48, 49 percent" that supports President Barack Obama are "people who pay no income tax." "It's tricky to compare taxpaying status with presidential preferences, but there are enough data points that we can poke some significant holes in Romney’s argument." Agreed, it's a very selective fact they decided to check, and The Washington Post has argued that the number 47 has been eroding over the years. But I was surprised that the number was that high, even with all the qualifications. Milton Friedman's negative income tax proposal, sort of implemented in the EITC, probably wasn't a terrible idea.
It probably wasn't a terrible idea, but the EITC isn't a full implementation of it. I don't recall the details, but I don't think MF proposed that you had to make any money to qualify for the negative tax, so it operated more like a basic income guarantee. The EITC requires a minimum level of income to qualify, which to me lessens its impact. I think a good place to start with overhauling the tax code is to implement a negative income tax and to redefine earnings as income, whatever the source. Of the poor people who don't qualify for income tax payment, all of them who earn a single dollar pay a hefty payroll tax, which I think is another place that could use reform, but that's a whole other ballgame.
The minimum income to qualify for EITC is $1, and self-employment such as selling on eBay qualifies, so the main hurdles to overcome are awareness of the program and filing a return, similar to the negative income tax. Interesting points in the article: "In 1969, Richard Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Plan, which included a guaranteed minimum income in the form of a negative income tax." (rejected by the Senate, eventually enacted in 1975) "In 1993, President Clinton tripled the EITC. Today, the EITC is one of the largest anti-poverty tools in the United States." "Most income measures, including the poverty rate, do not account for the credit." With one child and parent filing singly or as head of household: • Tax credit equals $0.34 for each dollar of earned income for income up to $10,540. • For income between $10,540 and $19,330, the tax credit is constant at $3,584. • For income between $19,330 and $41,765, the tax credit decreases by $0.1598 for each dollar earned over $19,330. • For income over $41,765, the tax credit is zero. "The IRS estimates that about 20 percent of eligible taxpayers do not claim $7.3 billion of Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) each tax year."
At a cost of $56 billion in 2013, the EITC is the third-largest social welfare program in the United States after Medicaid ($275 billion federal and $127 billion state expenditures) and food stamps ($78 billion). Almost 27 million American households received more than $56 billion in payments through the EITC in 2010. These EITC dollars had a significant impact on the lives and communities of the nation's lowest-paid working people largely repaying any payroll taxes they may have paid. The EITC is one of the most effective social welfare programs in the United States. The Census Bureau, using an alternative calculation of poverty, found that EITC lifted 5.4 million above the poverty line in 2010.
Due to its structure, the EITC is effective at targeting assistance to low-income families in the bottom two quintiles—0–40% of households. By contrast, only 30% of minimum wage workers live in families near or below the federal poverty line, as most are teenagers, young adults, students, or spouses supplementing their studies or family income. Opponents of the minimum wage argue that it is a less efficient means to help the poor than adjusting the EITC.