The data is in and exposes the complete inaccuracy of President Obama’s main campaign theme that the Bush tax cuts largely benefited the rich at the expense of the poor. The Heritage Foundation is the first to bring us the new CBO numbers that completely discredit President Obama and his fellow Democrats.
They report the following:
According to a report issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the tax cuts significantly increased the share of federal income taxes paid by the highest-earning 20 percent of households compared to their levels in 2000, President Clinton’s final year in office.
In 2006, the latest available year from CBO, the top 20 percent of income earners paid 86.3 percent of all federal income taxes, an all-time high.[1] This is an increase of over 6 percent from 2000, when the top 20 percent paid 81.2 percent. During the same period, the bottom four quintiles all saw their share of the federal income tax burden fall sharply:
- The bottom 20 percent of income earners’ share of federal income taxes fell from –1.6 percent in 2000 to –2.8 percent in 2006;
- The next 20 percent’s share declined from 1.1 percent to –0.8 percent;
- The middle quintile’s share dropped from 5.7 percent to 4.4 percent; and
- The fourth quintile’s share decreased from 13.5 percent to 12.9 percent.
Each of these four quintiles’ shares was an all-time low.
So if we were to go back to the tax policies of the Clinton years as Obama promoted heavily the rich would pay a lower share of taxes and the poor would pay a larger share.
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