Taxed

Admittedly, I've been a bit lethargic about the blog so far this year. Part of it is being busy (the ever-popular non-specific catch-all excuse), part is that I've had trouble working out what I wanted to write about Sandy Hook (hint: my take is highly unfavorable towards the religious community's reaction to the situation). Turns out that all it took was this mind-boggling article from the Wall Street Journal and its unconscionable accompanying graphic to shake loose my lethargy and get the keys flying again. Let's take a look at the "interactive graphic" (I can't figure out any way to actually interact with this graphic, other than destroying it with this blog article) published to accompany the article about how rich people will be slightly less rich because of changes in tax law this year:



What an unbelievable piece of art. I want that thing poster-sized in my house just to admire its sheer chutzpah and melodrama. No matter how many times I see it, I am amazed by the faces of these poor, destitute, Average American families and individuals, all earning more than four and a half times the median household income in the US, being decimated by a 2% rise in payroll tax and some other miscellaneous changes for high-income earners. Oh, the humanity.

Look, for example, at the single mom and her two kids, possibly the three unhappiest people I've ever seen depicted in a work of art. It's virtually indistinguishable like this picture of a Mom and her kids in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Since the kids are kind of obscured in the Dust Bowl pic, I suspect the WSJ had some kids model for the artist and a staffer told the youngsters right before the session that their dog had died.

But look at the financial situation: this poor woman is making $260k a year. Holy shit! Would you have that hangdog expression if you were pulling down 260 G's a year? Do you think Dust Bowl Lady would be as worn-down if she was pulling that kind of money in 1930's dollars? I sure wouldn't. But let's have some sympathy - this poor woman now has to pay $3 400 more a year in taxes! The horror! I frankly have no idea how this woman is expected to scrape by, making more money than I will ever make in a year, what with these crushing new taxes (Federal income tax rates are still at their lowest level since World War II, by the way.)

Folks, the sadness doesn't stop there. Let's look at the bottom left photo, at this pissed-off looking young Asian-American professional woman. This lady is NOT HAPPY. She's the WSJ art staff equivalent of Sad Keanu. And she's got every right to be, just barely making ends meet with the two hundred and thirty fucking thousand dollars a year shes raking in. She should be absolutely furious at that $3k more she's paying in Federal tax - that's going to drop her take-home pay to only about $150k this year (conservatively, after I subtracted some state and local tax), an absolute pittance. Poor girl.

The retired couple is pulling in $180k for not working and their taxes are completely unaffected by the tax law changes. What are they so pissed off about? Did I miss something? Did Matlock get canceled? They can still afford all the purple scarves they want.

The family with four kids at lower right is perhaps the most fun part of the whole graphic. Have you ever seen six more miserable people in your life? That cartoon family looks more distraught than the family in the photo at right, who just lost their house in an earthquake. But I understand why: The Federal government is DESTROYING THESE PEOPLE'S HAPPINESS. Dad looks like he just caught his wife cheating on him, Mom is contemplating stripping for extra cash, the kids forgot to take their depression meds, and the baby has apparently been possessed by demons. Seriously, check out that infant once more.

This hypothetical family is making $650,000.00 A YEAR. Maybe if they went swimming in their cave full of gold coins, that would cheer them up? I know, I know, it's tough knowing you might have to downsize the yacht you own, but times are tough, you know. Chin up, super-rich family - we'll get through this together.

Sarcasm aside, what the fuck, Wall Street Journal? The mere existence of this graph, presented completely without any detectable irony, reveals a couple of things:

- The WSJ is hopelessly out of touch with what life is actually like for people in America. I know they take a right-wing slant on matters, especially economic ones, with the heinous Rupert Murdoch as owner, but this is ridiculous. Do the editors of this rag really think normal Americans make this much money? Have they met a normal person, maybe walking down the street sometime? The Median household income in the US is about $50k, yet even the example with the fewest family-related expenses is making over four times that in this graphic, and everyone looks like they've been sent to the Spice Mines on Kessel. If your point was that higher-income people are affected negatively by the taxes, fine, make that point - but this graphic is an insult.

I remember a visiting professor during an Economics lecture in college telling us we were all making a huge mistake if we didn't read the Wall Street Journal every day. Aside from being one of the most pompous and presumptive things anyone has ever told me (there's an inherent assumption that we're all as preoccupied with money as him), it's also totally wrong. If this is how the WSJ sees America, I'm afraid I can't trust their perspective on anything.

- I'm still at a loss for why media types are always seeking out the opinion of Wall Street - "Wall Street likes this, Wall Street likes that." Fuck Wall Street. Wall Street crashed the US economy and hasn't slowed their manic greed even one bit as a result.

- I wasn't sure where to put this, but I'm aware that the WSJ is published in New York, where living expenses are relatively high. No problem. Multiply all the values by 70% (income and tax differentials alike) if you want - none of my conclusions change.

- Focusing the graphic here on these one percenters (and making them so over-the-top pathetically sad-looking) is an absolute slap in the face to the low- and mid-income people who are actually feeling the pain of the expiration of the payroll tax holiday. While I'm here, raising the phase-out limit of the payroll tax from its current $114k would have been a much better way to accomplish what restoring the FICA (SS and Medicare) tax to its previous levels did, though it clearly doesn't put the burden squarely enough on low-income taxpayers enough for the GOP.

The whole 47% thing that sunk Mitt Romney's campaign was built on a well-worn lie that factors in here heavily: that half of America "pays no taxes." If you think this, then you have been deceived, whether intentionally or not, and you need to read and think more. Half of America pays no Federal income taxes. Much different. Essentially all Americans pay state, local, Social Security, Medicare, and sales taxes, and a wide majority of the people not currently paying Federal income tax are either retirees who paid them for many years or young people who will soon be contributing to the Federal coffers.

So even for those low-income households that in the popular-yet-false framing "pay no taxes," they are indeed paying SS and Medicare tax, and that 2% change is a very real hardship for them. Showing the "pain" these fake rich people in the graphic are experiencing does a real disservice to the situation faced by working-class people. For the most part, no taxes other than Federal income tax are progressive, meaning that as a percentage of their available income, low-income Americans end up being harder-hit by taxation than their wealthy counterparts. For some reason, we've chosen to focus the entire taxation debate on the Federal rates, especially the top rate (which is still way, way, way lower than it was for most of the 20th century) while ignoring the way our flatter (or "fairer" to use a popular, comically inapt euphemism) taxes impact the middle- and lower-classes.

- As I've written, I do taxes for a lot of individuals and families, and I can draw in my mind a much different-looking graphic than this piece of rubbish. Single moms come in with two kids and a W-2 for the $25k she pulled in the year before; single people who made $20k in a year drop by; married couples with kids raking in $40k have their 1040's filled out. Those people, actual people with serious financial concerns instead of the minor reduction in extravagant luxury awaiting the saps in the WSJ graphic, don't even look as sad as their wealthier cartoon counterparts. This graphic really, really offends me in its stupidity and callousness. The attitude the subjects' faces conveys reminds me of an article in GQ from this year where the author spoke with people at each degree of separation along the American economic ladder and all of them were at peace with their station...except for the cranky billionaire who spent the entire interview whining, bitching, and even declaring himself an "enemy of the state." Really a fascinating article if you get a chance.

- Sadly, this graphic probably reflects the way a lot of policymakers think and explains why the only thing growing consistently in the American economy is the inequality between high- and low-earners.

Alright, I've had enough shredding this desipcable non-contribution to the discussion on taxation in America. Can I interest you in ASCME's version of that same graphic, with top hats, monocles, and mustaches photo-shopped on to everyone?