Left In Lowell

No wonder the mob has gone after David Frum. In this article, which looks at a survey done about the perceptions of tea party protesters, we find out why, exactly, they think there’s a tax crisis in the country. Hell, if I thought 40% of GDP was going to just the federal government, I might be out protesting too!

Tuesday’s Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.

They are also hugely wrong on the percentages of taxes on a $50,000 salary.

The other common assumption is that taxes have gone up under Obama. W.R.O.N.G.:

Tea Partyers also seem to have a very distorted view of the direction of federal taxes. They were asked whether they are higher, lower or the same as when Barack Obama was inaugurated last year. More than two-thirds thought that taxes are higher today, and only 4% thought they were lower; the rest said they are the same.

As noted earlier, federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this survey is all about the perceptions about the federal government, not local and state. So added together, the numbers for total taxes go up a bit, obviously. But if you think about it, once under Bush you reduce even the moderate tax rates under Clinton, but you still have the same number of kids to educate, the same numbers of fires in buildings, the same amount of roads to repair, buses to run, and impoverished kids to feed, or hey, even more than you had, the local and state governments have to make up the shortfall somewhere. That somewhere ends up being our local property taxes in the end.

However, make no mistake - the tax rate under Clinton was merely moderate. Under Bush, they became, historically, extremely skinny. And we paid for it in the form of perpetual federal deficits, debt, and zero room to react to a bad recession. But don’t tell a teabagger that. They won’t listen.

[HT BMG.]