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Glenn Kessler @GlennKesslerWP
, 3 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Presumably the Minority Whip knows what marginal tax rates are? It's not 70 percent of all income, but 70 percent of any income earned ABOVE $10 million. You may disagree with the policy but a politician has an obligation to describe it correctly.
For the record, fewer than 0.05 percent of all U.S. households have income above $10 million. The @AOC proposal would not even be aimed the fabled top one percent.
Some folks wondered how much money this would raise. My colleague @JStein_WaPo did the math: $720 billion a decade. washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…
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I went down a rabbit hole yesterday trying to figure out a comment made by @potus at his Cabinet meeting. I concluded it was highly unlikely to be true, a typical mix of fantasy and bravado. Follow along….
Trump claimed that the leader of a “very rich” oil-producing country near Afghanistan at risk of being overrun by the Taliban was charging the US “millions and millions of dollars” a year for overflights. But the leader is now charging nothing because Trump made the demand...
“Nobody ever asked me not to,” the leader supposedly replied. What country? The WH of course would not respond. The best bets were Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan. But neither faces a real challenge from the Taliban though the leader supposed said “we would be overrun” w/o US help…
Read 8 tweets
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I watched “The Resistance Banker” last night, the acclaimed Dutch film about the banker who financed the Dutch resistance during World War II. My parents emigrated from Holland to the United States after the war to escape a continent torn apart by an anti-Semitic ideology... 1/8
My mother’s father had a key position in the Dutch central bank but was fired when the Nazis seized control. He had married my grandmother, who was Jewish, despite his parents’ protests. She was forced to wear the Jewish star and most of her family perished in the Holocaust…2/8
My grandmother three times was rounded up for concentration camps but my grandfather’s quick thinking and ingenuity saved her. My mother, a teenager, was forced by Germans to watch resistance fighters being shot by a firing squad; a similar scene is in the movie…3/8
Read 8 tweets
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Readers, we need your help. We have now caught three GOPers -- @PeterRoskam @RepJeffDenham (via @CLFSuperPAC) @DaveBratVA7th -- claim we gave Four Pinocchios to their D opponents re preexisting conditions. Not true! Please alert us if you spot any more. We'd like to stop this.
This is an example of this behavior --> an R citing an unrelated fact check that came out before the CBO issued a critical report that said the House GOP repeal/replace bill undermined protections for preexisting conditions. washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/…
We found a fourth one -- @RodneyDavis in IL-13. Keep 'em coming, please.
Read 6 tweets

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What were the top marginal tax rates over the last 100+ years? Glad you asked. The top marginal tax rates from 1913-present.
Well, what about the historical effective marginal tax rates on capital income? This CRS report has you covered through 2005. everycrsreport.com/reports/RS2170…
Here's the Marginal Effective Tax Rates on Capital Income as a chart Corporate top marginal tax rates
Read 6 tweets
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Grover Norquist knows how marginal tax rates works. He and his organization has done more to shape our current tax system than perhaps anyone else.
The point of this tweet is to underline that much of the conservative DC brains-trust are perfectly comfortable with propaganda. 1/
For those of you unfamiliar, Norquist is the leader of Americans for Tax Reform, whose great policy contribution has been to coerce Republican elected officials into signing a pledge to never raise taxes, promising to primary anyone who doesn't sign. 2/ newyorker.com/news/news-desk…
Norquist is hugelyy influential, nominally because of his tax policy expertise. But given his obvious bad-faith arguments, why give him op-ed space? Every time he testifies in Congress, lawmakers first question should be "why should we take anything you say seriously?" 3/
Read 5 tweets
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Those free-as-hell white guys portrayed in Mad Men all paid 70% tax on their income. Just saying.
To clarify. The top tax rate in the mid-1960s, when Mad Men is set, was 70%. Before 1963 (the first couple of seasons) the top tax rate was 91%. Those were the top marginal tax rates, not the *average* tax they paid. A good explainer here. cbpp.org/research/feder…
And for the folks out there think progressive taxation is somehow un-American our out of sync with the intentions of the nation's 18th century founders...Thomas Paine would like to have a word.
Read 3 tweets
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Listen to what Rollins is actually saying though:

1. @AOC has them SPOOKED by overtly championing pre-Reagan era tax rates.
2. She largely BY HERSELF in ONE interview has SHIFTED THE OVERTON WINDOW on tax rates.
3. In desperation, he attempts to turn other Dem women against her.
Read this thread to understand marginal tax rates a bit more and why the GOP is spooked (hint: it’s on behalf of a much tinier portion than 1% of the population):

We SERIOUSLY need to make the 70% MARGINAL tax rate for income over $10 million a talking point.

Can someone find an even more accessible way of expressing it than I can?

The Overton Window has SHIFTED.

Read 6 tweets
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okay so a lot of (rich, white) folks are freaking out about what a 70% tax rate on the wealthy would look like and they’re scared about it and shit (even though it’s literally what rich baby boomers already dealt with).

SO LET’S DO THE MATH.
Post WWII, the tax rate peaked at 94% on annual income over $200,000 ($3mil in 2018 dollars). In the decades following, it dropped to a marginal tax rate of 70% of all income over 200k/annually (again, 2-3mil in today’s dollars, depending on year).
Here’s a thing a lot of folks don’t understand: we have a tax system in the US that only taxes money above the “bracket.”

So, say the cut off for a particular percentage is 250k and you made 254k last year. The entire thing wouldn’t be taxed at the higher rate. Just the 4k.
Read 14 tweets
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70% income taxes on high-earners are both familiar (we had them not that long ago) and supported by the bulk of expert research. It is the DC establishment that's dumb on this, not AOC. vox.com/policy-and-pol…
This tweet found its way into MAGAland somehow. Read through the comments if you dare. Did you know that shouting "Venezuela!" can settle any argument over marginal tax rates?
My favorite: some dude w/ lots of flag & eagle avatars rants about how insane libtards are crushing freedom & how he will kill them in the coming race wars ... I click on the handle to block ... Twitter bio says, "Rational. Logical. Facts don't care about your feelings."
Read 6 tweets

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