Neil Cavuto sounded a lot like Mitt Romney redux a few days ago as he argued with Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association after his meeting with President Obama about the approaching “fiscal cliff.” Cavuto made it clear he thinks the rich are getting hosed by the 47% of Americans who pay no income taxes and that what’s really fair is to cut their services so as not to impose upon the Deserving Ones even more.
In their November 13 discussion, Cavuto asked, “So it’s only fair to go after the 2% who pay more than 40% of the taxes than address the 47% who pay no income taxes? Some quite genuinely and legitimately, but that’s perfectly fair, that math? You’re the education guy right?”
”What does make sense is everybody paying their fair share,” Van Roekel said.
Cavuto interrupted. “Wait a minute, I just told you about the 47% who aren’t paying at all.”
Van Roekel tried to explain, “When you look at their incomes, that’s the reason they don’t pay anything. We’ve got to look at jobs in this country.”
Cavuto interrupted again. “No, no… I’m not dismissing soldiers, I’m not dismissing those who are retired and paid in, but something has happened over the course of our lives, Dennis. When I got out of graduate school, that figure was in the 20s, and now it’s approaching 50%. Just that figure is kind of screwy, right? And if we’re going to continue to support a lot of the government things that you want, and you argue your folks want, we’re going to have to do more than just saddle the top 2% with that.”
Again, Van Roekel tried to answer. “We’re coming out of one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression. The middle class and lower income people have suffered more than anyone else. The idea that everyone shouldn’t pay their fair share is crazy.”
Cavuto interrupted again. “What part of the fair share part when I mentioned the 47% not paying and sticking it on the 2% who are, are you not getting?”
“I’m talking about the wealthiest 2% who got a tax cut at the time the middle class people got tax increases,” Van Roekel answered.
Cavuto sneered, “I thought with the Bush tax cuts when they started everyone got cuts.”
”Sure, but the amount was so much less, and they also received all of the other cuts they did. They lost their jobs, they lost their homes all because some people believe that tax cuts is the way to the future.” Van Roekel responded.
Cavuto interrupted yet another time to say they were getting nowhere with that argument. But before long, he was demanding to know what cuts Van Roekel would agree to – as if that were the only possible justification for raising the tax rate on the wealthiest few.
Great! For anyone new here I’ll explain why Cavuto yammers on so inanely.
Cavuto and everyone on Fux Nuze lives in a bubble of infinitesimally small dimensions with infinite thickness that formed around them once they made their Faustian bargain with phone-hacking, police & political bribing Rupert. Inside that bubble life is one Big Entitlement to Benefits for those who meet the requirements of a massively insular POV, which Rupert ensures remains intact throughout their contracts. These toads believe that reading a teleprompter and responding to an earpiece is the epitome of hard work. In other words, no one a Fux Nuze is allowed to engage critical faculties – no one.
That whole “no income taxes” line is really wearing thin. EVERY SINGLE PAYCHECK earned by the average working person in this country has a line on it that reads something like “Federal Tax Withheld.” Now, I’m not an economist (and I don’t play one on TV) but when I read that line, I know exactly what it means. And every year—around February or March—when I start to work on my 1040 (due to being single and earning less than $100K a year and not having any investment income, it’s usually the 1040EZ form, but I digress…), the most important lines that I read are the lines: “Wages, salaries and tips” (from box 1 of Form W-2); “This is your adjusted gross income”; “This is your taxable income”; “Federal income tax withheld from Forms W-2 and 1099”; “Total payments and credits”; and “Tax.” Now, again, as a NON-economist, I look at those lines and the words they contain, and it looks like—according to the Government anyway—that I am, lo and behold, PAYING INCOME TAX. (And if, for some reason, your withholdings aren’t enough—for example, you got a pay raise or you held down a second job during the year—you may have to pay additional taxes on top of what had been withheld from your paychecks through the year.)
My employer isn’t just holding that money out of my paycheck to line his own pockets. He’s supposed to be filing paperwork and attaching a check or money order or credit card information for that amount on a periodic basis. (Essentially, that’s what that W-2 is; it’s a sort of receipt showing not only how much money you earned during the year, but how much was withheld by the employer and paid to the government.) Now, we could all go back to the days before the government made it easy and allowed for “weekly” payroll withholding and let everyone be hit with that yearly “sticker shock” when your $50K a year income required you to shell out $7500 at once (hell, I go into sticker shock when it turns out that I have to pay additional tax because my withholdings didn’t cover the overtime or bonus pay or even slight cost-of-living pay raise; again, I digress….) but I don’t think too many Americans would appreciate that—especially if they’ve been fired or laid off and all that “tax money” that hadn’t been withheld wound up being used to pay for silly non-essentials like rent/mortgage and food and utilities while you were out of work.
I just wish that somebody could that through these sorry braindead right-wingers’ skulls. EVERYONE who earns a paycheck pays income taxes. But some people, even those of us in the under $100K per year brackets, overpay during the year and are entitled* to a refund (which is why it’s a “refund”—you overpaid and you’re entitled to get back some of the money YOU paid; just like at a store when you check your receipt and see the cashier overcharged you on an item, you’re entitled to get back the money you overpaid). Unfortunately, the reverse holds true as well: Some of us in the under $100K per year brackets have UNDERpaid (though usually not of our own accord) and have to pay out additional taxes at taxtime.
Oops. I used the dreaded “e” word but I’m sure that even the most braindead of right-wingers don’t have a problem with “entitle” when it benefits (oops, another “bad” word in the right-wing lexicon, unless it’s in their favor) them. It’s like the “Obamaphone” is a “bad” entitlement when it’s a bunch of “those blaahh people” getting them, but when the government’s deciding which state gets to keep its military bases and all that lovely funding, suddenly that state and its GOPer Congresscritters *like “entitlements.”