Chart of the Day
November 22, 2011 Leave a comment
Greg Sargent wonderfully debunks the all too common conservative talking points on taxes in three handy charts:
It’s one of the most frequently trotted out arguments against raising taxes on the rich: Over time, the share of the tax burden borne by the rich has grown, so it’s not fair to increase it more.
Paul Ryan made that case in his very serious report on inequality the other day. John Boehner and Rand Paul both repeated variations of this case over the weekend.
This is the way conservatives prefer to frame the argument. But this approach ignores two metrics that are arguably more important to the debate: How much the overall income of the wealthy has increased in relation to the increase in the share of the tax burden they’ve borne; and how much the share of their own income they are paying in taxes has shrunk. [emphasis in original]
Here are three charts, drawn up by the Post digital team, and based on IRS data, which illustrate this very clearly.
I’m just going to post the last chart, click through to the link if you want them all:
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