Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome Corsi goes into a laughable spasm of fearmongering in a May 24 WorldNetDaily article:
If President Obama repeals the Bush tax cuts and imposes a 20 percent value added tax, or VAT, on the U.S., Americans may be facing tax rates where more than half of everything earned is confiscated by the federal government in the form of income taxes, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Add Social Security taxes and the tax burden quickly advances to more than 60 percent.
"Adding state property and income taxes to the burden, the amount government confiscates could be in the 75 percent range before Americans have a chance to vote Obama out of office in 2012," Corsi wrote. "Are Americans willing to be taxed 75 percent of every dollar earned?"[...]
"In a five-day work week, will Americans be willing to work four days for the government?" Corsi asked.
Let's see, how many ways is Corsi wrong here?
1) Obama has never said he would "repeal" all the Bush tax cuts -- indeed, there is no "repeal" at all, since the cuts will expire by law. Obama's 2010 budget would retain the tax cuts for everyone except those making over $250,000.
2) No proposal has been formally introduced to add a VAT, let alone a VAT of 20 percent -- indeed, it's not even being considered. Corsi also baselessly assumes that should a VAT be instituted, other federal taxes would not go down. This is just straight-up fearmongering.
3) Federal income taxes are marginal -- higher tax rates apply to income above certain amounts, not the entire income. So Corsi's claim that Americans will be "taxed 75 percent of every dollar earned" is a flat-out lie because no American would ever be taxed 75 percent on all income.
4) Income over $106,800 is not subject to Social Security taxes; Corsi is making another misleading suggestion that all income is subject to the tax.
But then, Corsi is a sucky economist, so it's no surprise he would get basic taxation wrong too.
