Topic: NewsBusters
In a March 5 NewsBusters post, Jeff Poor approving cites CNBC anchor Jeff Macke's claim that the Obama administration "has created a country full of 330 million people who all want to make $249,000 a year, lest they want to become one of the ‘wealthy,' who apparently the government hates." Poor curiously fails to note the stupidity of Macke's statement.
As Slate's Daniel Gross points out, the U.S. tax structure is marginal. Because Obama has not proposed a tax increase on the first $250,000 of income, and Obama's proposed tax increases apply to amounts past $250,000, the tax liability on that first $250,000 is not affected by the tax increases. Thus, Macke's claim that we "all want to make $249,000 a year" is stupid because the tax liability on that amount is not affected by having income over that amount.
As Gross summed it up: "That dentist eager to slash her income from $320,000 to $250,000 would avoid the pain of paying an extra $2,100 in federal taxes. But she'd also deprive herself of an additional $70,000 in income!"
