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It was just a little over six years ago that the Wall Street Journal was bemoaning the fact that the Lucky Duckies were living large:
This skewed reality is the result of a growing number of absolutely legal escape hatches. Consider what happens to those in the lowest bracket. Say a person earns $12,000. After subtracting the personal exemption, the standard deduction and assuming no tax credits, then applying the 10% rate of the lowest bracket, the person ends up paying a little less than 4% of income in taxes. It ain’t peanuts, but not enough to get his or her blood boiling with tax rage.
Of course, lower-income workers are on the hook for the payroll tax–but a sizable group slip free from even that net tax liability via the refundable earned income tax credit. ("Refundable" means that even if your net income tax liability is zero, the government still writes you a check.)
Nowadays, everyone gets a check.
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In these troubled times, I find myself turning to the wise words of Tom Paxton, written in the aftermath of an earlier corporate bailout:
I’m changing my name to Chrysler.
I’m going down to Washington D.C.
I will tell some power broker
What they did for Iacocca
Will be perfectly acceptable to me.
I’m changing my name to Chrysler.
I’m heading for that great receiving line.
So when they hand a million grand out,
I’ll be standing with my hand out.
Yes sir, I’ll get mine.
Approximately 25,867 per US citizen. On behalf of my wife and our two children, I’ll take our $103,468 in small, unmarked bills.
That shit drives me insane. Tell you what: the authors should think seriously about what it would be like to try to live on a $12,000 per year. No, really; go ahead and think about it.
My, aren’t you generous, assuming that WSJ authors can actually “think”. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, too!
No, those authors need to experience grinding poverty for a significant amount of time (long enough that they’re not sure of emerging from it), and maybe then they’ll truely understand why their “lucky ducky” crap is so offensive.
I missed the Notre Dame thread below, but I’ll say it anyway —
Notre Dame is so bad they almost lost to San Diego State.
Chrysler paid the loan back and people kept their jobs for quite awhile. Here, it’s all going to the banks’ shareholders, jobs are gonna be lost, benefits discharged and the unions get fucked. Boy, that Jimmy Carter sure fucked the pooch on Chrysler.
We’re all gonna own a lot of shitty realty now, though!
Oh noes! An Aztec Hater! (not that I disagree mind you – they had to wait for Utah to get a BCS bid before they could afford to fire their head coach)
A fumble on the goal line – that’s all that kept a 2-10 State team from beating Mighty Notre Dame at The Golden Dome.
Mr. Soonergrunt, there appears to be some sort of misunderstanding. As a representative of the middle class, you will not, in fact, be receiving $103,468. Instead, we will ask you to contribute your firstborn along with the title to your house and any savings you might have been foolish enough to accumulate, in order for the brokers and upper management at Citicorp to continue to have the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed and to which they feel entitled. Please make your contribution to their American Dream no later than December 1st.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Totally off-topic–but someone else already did it!–but by Koresh it was great to see BYU get stomped the other day by the University of Utah Utes. 48-24 the final, drove them into the ground and broke them off. That’s what they get for Prop 8! Normally I could care less about the football team, but when they play BYU I wear my red UU sweatshirt, watch the game and cheer them on.
Tom Paxton has an update, I am changing my name to Fannie Mae
Oh yes. Amen to that, BYU is the dangerous cult version of Notre Dame. Any squishing of them is high-five time to me.
Gee, Bernacke says it would be counterproductive to reveal how much and to whom. Here are some other things that are counterproductive according to those of us on this side of reality:
1. Spending $10 billion per month in the Iraq war
2. Spending more on defense than the next 44 countries combined
3. Corporate tax policy that rewards sending US jobs to other countries
I could go on, but that might be interpretted as shrill on my part, and as one of those lucky duckies, I don’t want to make the massa upset wid me.
Shirley, you jest.
$12K a year would force one to drink really rather vulgar wine.
Counterproductive indeed – it would be hard for the recipients to spend the money while dodging the angry mob armed with farm implements.
Not to fear though, King Henry the Paulsen wants the REST of the $700B to shovel out the door to more of his friends before his reign is brought to an end.
Surely there will be a detailed accounting of that…
love the Utes win in the Holy War. Woo hoo. I was at the 1988 game where Utah won for the first time in like 10 years 57-28
Not an Aztec hater at all. I’m a graduate!
They are terrible, and it’s extremely disappointing. Losing 70-7 to New Mexico?
Beyond belief if you saw the Aztecs I grew up watching.
Digg it
Gee, yeah, try living on $12,000 per year or maybe the $250,000 that ABC Anchor Charlie Gibson insisted was a middle class income (if it is I’ll take it!).
I take home a little over $1500 a month (in my full time job which provides me with health care) after federal and state taxes, co-pays on health, mandatory 6% to a retirement fund, etc. In my northeastern state average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment requires an income of $43,000. I work freelance jobs and anything I can get to add to my income but I am a divorced 50 year old with college age kids at home. I am tired and I have been pedaling furiously backwards for the past 5 years. I am furious at how far the corporate/government culture has beat us down while handing out billions to the already haves.
I was brought up to pay my bills and meet my responsibilities but I to say that I have been tempted to bail on my credit card bills when I watch what is going on. My card are not run up on frivolous things but expenses like a $750 car repair and oil when it went out of sight and I was running empty. I am running out of options and I don’t like what I see for the future.
This is like the supposed 70 bucks an hour average that the autoworkers make. Does it occur to any of these reporters to ask the CEOs how they could be so stupid as to negotiate 70 bucks an hour for a salary. Ofcourse they aren’t that stupid. But god forbid that this should occur to any of these stupid reporters.
nah, I figured you weren’t – it just sounded good.
think Pete Carroll is bored at USC and might come coach State?
[CUE MUSIC]”We’re runnng off the rails of the gra-avy trai-ain!”
(With abject apologies to Ozzie Osbourne)