JONATHAN CHAIT JUNE 1, 2011
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The usual right-wing line on increasing the tax burden on the affluent is that it's all "class warfare," the pathetic jealousy of peons like us trying to confiscate the hard-earned wealth of our economic superiors. When very rich people endorse higher taxes for the rich, though, the line has to change. Now these rich people are actually, despite their claims, trying to shirk their tax burden by foisting it onto people less rich than themselves.
Professional spreader of voodoo economics Veronique de Rugy goes on television to explain that when rich people like Mark Zuckerberg say they endorse higher taxes, they're just pretending to favor higher taxes:
de Rugy's argument is that very rich people like Zuckergberg make most of their income from capital gains, so they wouldn't pay more if the income tax rate was raised. "When Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says he's cool with increasing the income tax rates," says de Rugy, "he's really cool with increasing taxes on people who make much less income than he does."
Well, except that the plan Zuckerberg endorsed would increase capital gains taxes as well as individual income taxes. It would also increase taxes on estates and divided income.
So de Rugy's premise completely false. I know -- shocking! If you can't trust people going on television to defend the economic interests of the rich, who can you trust?
(If the headline makes no sense to you, the reference can be found here. And while I mock her intelligence, the truth is it takes real insight to move to a new country and immediately read the political culture well enough to grasp the career benefits of endlessly peddling supply-side tripe. Other immigrants have come here dreaming that they could achieve fame and fortune as a public intellectual specializing in, I don't know, transit policy, only to spend their lives toiling in obscurity.)
8 comments
As a recent immigrant peddling supply-side nonsense, VDR is just following in the footsteps of her heroine, Ayn Rand.
- wildboy
June 1, 2011 at 10:50am
Paraphrased: Well, that's not the right chart. But the chart that I have basically was showing that as the amount of right-wing think tank funding increases the portion of income that rich Americans pay in taxes of all types decreases. Counter-intuitively, the level of BS in by discredited economists also increases. So basically when people like Mark Zuckerberg say they're cool with increasing the income tax rates, you can't take them at face value. My own self-interest dictates that you lower my taxes. Clearly, Zuckerberg is not a real economist.
- chaitless
June 1, 2011 at 11:03am
Jon, I know that you made that crack about immigrants coming to the US and toiling in obscurity in transit policy as a pure joke, but it so happens that's exactly the story of Vukan Vuchic at the University of Pennsylvania.
- benjamin81
June 1, 2011 at 11:07am
You know, there are reputable conservative economists in this country. Why does this ridiculous hack keep showing up on TV?
- DC Spence
June 1, 2011 at 11:40am
If it is possible to get something wrong, VdR will manage it. You need a more worthy opponent, Jonathan.
- liberalref
June 1, 2011 at 12:52pm
I would love for a study on the amount of "rich" people that actually earned their money with a work ethic that is truly millions of times greater than the average worker (doesn't exist imo), or an idea that is worth far more than the average idea (e.g. Zuckerburg, Gates), instead of just accumulated by business 101 investments or interest accumulations from some capital that landed in their lap like inheritance (Trump, Koch brothers). I'd love to see how that breaks down over the various wealth brackets. I'd also love to know if endorsements of higher tax rates correlates to different methods of gaining wealth. I fully understand that this study would probably be very labor intensive and hard to get accurate, but it's a wish to see it. From what I've seen (and I certainly acknowledge my very human confirmation bias, which is why I would love to see a study) is that those that actually "earn it" support higher taxes or do philanthropy on a massive scale. Those that simply were born with a massive leg up and just managed to be smart enough not to make any big mistakes are highly against it and their "philanthropy" are to organizations that are really just there to maintain their own interests.
- ChrisEB
June 1, 2011 at 2:00pm
Reminds me of something Warren Buffet said in '08 about it's not fair that he makes $50 million and pays 15% tax while his secretary, whose taxes he did, made $60k and paid 35% tax.
Libref, not to be a nit-picker, but VdR didn't get it wrong, she's lying out her pastey white behind by deliberately misstating what Zuckerberg said. As for worthy opponents, given the nature of today's Republican Tea Party, I'd have to say beggars can't be choosers. I think he's doing just fine, until such time as they can actually front someone who could be construed as a worthy opponent.
- GSpinks
June 1, 2011 at 5:06pm
Just how do you know she is lying? Are you her male concubine whom she confides in? Never underestimate the fatuity factor.
- liberalref
June 2, 2011 at 12:55am