What George W. Bush didn't want you to know about the wealthiest 400 Americans
I can't say that I was surprised to learn, from a new report by former New York Times tax reporter David Cay Johnston, that "the incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high... in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low..."
Nor was I shocked to learn that those 400 taxpayers, who boasted an average income of $344.8 million, paid an effective tax rate of 16.2 percent, which is "lower than the typical effective income tax rate paid by Americans with incomes in the low six figures."
This is America, right? We've come to expect shocking statistics on income inequality. They're practically our birth right.
But then came the kicker:
The annual top 400 report was first made public by the Clinton administration, but the George W. Bush administration shut down access to the report. Its release was resumed a year ago when President Obama took office.
A new IRS report on the richest 400 taxpayers shows their income rose an average of $81 million -- in a single year
Before angry voters restore Republicans to power -- in the name of "tea party populism" -- perhaps they should consider just how well right-wing rule worked out for them during the past decade. Last fall a Census Bureau study found that real median household income had declined from $52,500 in 2000, the last year that Bill Clinton was president, to $50,303 in 2008, George W. Bush's final year -- a period during which Republicans dominated Congress as well. Millions of those median households lost their health insurance (and, since the onset of the Great Recession, many of those same families have lost jobs as well).None of us should begrudge wealth per se. Earned wealth anyway. As Lincoln once said all wealth starts and ends with labor. Wealth, in other words is not possible except by way of the labor of average Americans. Average Americans who work hard, yet reap a small percentage of the rewards. Next time you speak to a Republican or Conservative Democrat be sure and thank them for heaping huge rewards on the people that work the least. Do we have socialism in America? You betcha - we redistribute wealth to an already rich collective.
So most of those middle-class Americans who flock to the tea party demonstrations were big losers during the Bush era. So who were the winners? According to David Cay Johnston, America's premier tax journalist, newly released IRS data shows that the country's very wealthiest citizens -- the top 400 -- marked enormous income gains while paying less and less in taxes. For purposes of comparison, Johnston notes that the bottom 90 percent of Americans saw their incomes rise by only 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with a 399 percent increase for the top 400.
In a single year, between 2006 and 2007, the income of those top 400 taxpayers rose by 31 percent -- from an average of $263.3 million to an average of $344.8 million per year.
