Taxing the rich: The record under Obama

[Andy823]

...Under Obama, the average federal tax rate paid by the top 1% of households has gone up more than 6 percentage points to an estimated 33.8% today, according to the Tax Policy Center.

That's largely due to the following tax hikes that were part of the Affordable Care Act and the bipartisan fiscal cliff deal at the start of 2013.

Higher Medicare tax on top wages: It used to be that everyone paid 1.45% in Medicare taxes on all their wages (or 2.9% if self-employed). But the Affordable Care Act added an additional 0.9% tax on wages over $200,000 ($250,000 if married).
So the highest wage earners now pay 1.45% on their earned income up to that threshold and 2.35% on the earnings above it.


http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/30/pf/taxes/obama-taxes-rich/index.html?iid=HP_River

There is more at the link. Contrary to what some may say, the president has increased taxes on the rich and has been trying to do so from day one. Sure they should pay more, but something is always better than nothing.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. What's the gap doing?

Here's the thing. If the rich are getting richer by, say, 10% more under Obama, and he's taxing them at 6% more, the problem of inequality is still getting worse, not better. We're still driving straight at the cliff, we're just driving at it slightly slower. We have to actually be REVERSING the trend, bringing the wealth of the rest of the country up and that of the rich down to undo the damage. Otherwise you're still doing damage, just more covertly.

[Andy823]

2. As I said

It should be higher, but since republicans have had control of the house, that didn't happen, and now they have control of both branches, it sure as heck won't happen. My point is he has been trying and has accomplished some of those goal concerning higher taxes on the rich. You can't raise taxes if congress won't allow it, but getting something is better than nothing. It's better to move forwards than to move backwards, or to stay in the same place year after year.

[ND-Dem]

3. We're still moving backwards, just slower. as the poster said.

[Andy823]

4. Well...

Would you rather we were going backwards even faster?

As I said, they need to pay more, but how is that going to happen as long as republicans control one branch of congress, let alone both branches?

[pampango]

5. Krugman: Why the One Percent Hates Obama

A peculiar aspect of the Obama years has been the disconnect between the rage of Obama’s enemies and the yawns of his sort-of allies. The right denounces financial reform as a vast government takeover — and lobbies fiercely against it — while the left dismisses reform as symbols without substance. The right accuses Obama of being a socialist stealing the money of hard-working billionaires, while the left dismisses him as having done nothing to address inequality.

On all these issues, the truth is that Obama has done far more than he gets credit for — not everything you’d want, to be sure, or even most of what should be done, but enough so that the right has reason to be furious.

The latest case in point: taxes on the one percent. I keep hearing that Obama has done nothing to make the one percent pay more; the Congressional Budget Office does not agree.

According to CBO, the effective tax rate on the one percent — reflecting the end of the Bush tax cuts at the top end, plus additional taxes associated with Obamacare — is now back to pre-Reagan levels. You could argue that we should have raised taxes at the top much more, to lean against the widening of market inequality, and I would agree. But it’s still a much bigger change than I think anyone on the left seems to realize.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/why-the-one-percent-hates-obama/?_r=0