Nov 22, 2011
Congressman Larry Bucshon: The Ultra Rich Pay Their Fair Share
Congressman Larry Bucshon (IN-08) leapt to defend millionaires and billionaires at a recent townhall meeting with the eye-popping claim that they pay their fair share. According to the Green County Daily World, Congressman Buschon told constituents that “arguing right now that the higher income earners aren't paying their fair share is not true.” Yet just this week, new reports reveal that the richest Americans are using creative tax loopholes to lower their tax returns. Bucshon even voted to end Medicare just to give out more tax breaks to the rich so it should come as no surprise where his loyalties lie.
“Why is Congressman Bucshon defending tax breaks for billionaires when he should be getting Hoosiers back to work?” asked Haley Morris of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.”Since coming to Washington, Congressman Bucshon has supported an extreme agenda that ends Medicare just to give more tax breaks to rich and does nothing to create jobs. Hoosier families deserve better than Congressman Bucshon’s out of touch priorities where ordinary folks finish last.”
Background:
Bucshon: Higher Income Earners Pay Their Fair Share. Last week, Bucshon said in an interview with a local newspaper, "Arguing right now that the higher income earners aren't paying their fair share is not true. The data shows that. The top 1 percent of income earners are paying about 38 percent of the taxes. The top 10 percent are paying about 70 percent of the taxes." [Green County Daily World, 11/18/11]
New Report Shows Billionaires Are Paying Less in Taxes. Bloomberg News reported that, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service, the tax rate of the nation’s richest 400 people has fallen from about 30 percent in 1995 to 18 percent in 2008. Bloomberg also cited the improprieties of America’s billionaires who have reaped hundreds of millions of dollars from failing to report stock transactions that would otherwise have been considered taxable income. [Bloomberg, 11/21/11]
1,500 Millionaires Paid No Income Taxes in 2009. “At a time when America is borrowing about 40 cents of every dollar it spends because tax revenues cannot keep up with government spending, hundreds of America's wealthiest households are paying no income tax at all. According to a recently released IRS report, almost 1,500 of America's 230,000 millionaires avoided paying any federal income tax in 2009.” Most of the money went through tax “expenditures,” which are deductions, write-offs, subsidies and loopholes. [ABC News, 8/6/11; USA Today, 8/8/11; see also: IRS Publication 1304]
The Rich Keep Getting Richer. According to a study from the Congressional Budget Office, the rich have been getting richer over the last three decades. Between 1979 and 2007, the average after-tax income of the top one percent of Americans rose by 275 percent, while the bottom 20 percent of wage-earners saw an increase of just 18 percent. The report also found that the middle 60 percent of Americans have seen their income rise by just 40 percent. [LA Times, 10/27/11]
Voted to End Medicare. Bucshon voted for the Republican budget. According to the Wall Street Journal, that plan “would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills.” [H. Con. Res. 34, Vote #277, 4/15/11; Wall Street Journal, 4/4/11]
Voted to Cut Taxes for the Wealthy. On April 15, 2011, Bucshon voted for the Republican budget plan, which would have extended the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 for all income levels and reduced the top income tax rates from 35% to 25%. According to the New York Times, the plan “envisions lower taxes for the wealthy than even George W. Bush imagined: a permanent extension for his tax cuts, plus large permanent estate-tax cuts, a new business tax cut and a lower top income tax rate for the richest taxpayers.” [H. Con. Res. 34, Vote #277, 4/15/11; The New Republic, 4/20/11; New York Times, Editorial, 4/6/11]
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