Claims and Counter Claims

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Robert Reich

2 hrs · 

HOW TO REBUT BILL O'REILLY'S BIGGEST LIE YET

“Taxes are through the roof on affluent Americans and business profits, but for the rest of Americans things are not so bad,” says Fox TV host Bill O’Reilly. “How much more can the government take from the affluent without crashing the entire free market economy?”

Ordinarily, I ignore Bill O’Reilly’s rants (he’s called me a “communist” and an “admirer of Karl Marx”) but as cable’s most-watched news host, O'Reilly poisons millions of minds daily. So when he lies about something as important as inequality and taxes, it’s necessary to rebut those lies. Here’s the truth:

1. Corporate taxes haven’t budged as a percent of GDP for more than 25 years. In 1989, corporate taxes amounted to 1.9% of GDP. Last year, they amounted to 1.9% of GDP.

2. Personal income taxes on the rich haven’t gone through the roof. To the contrary, they’ve plunged. 60 years ago, the rich paid federal income taxes over twice today’s rate. In 1953, the top marginal income tax was 91% -- applied to earnings in excess of $1,522,595 (adjusted for inflation). In 2013, after new Obama higher taxes on the rich went into effect, the federal income tax rate on income over $1,522,595 was 39.6%.

3. Moreover, in the 1950s and 1960s, the American middle class was surging and the top 1% got only 9 to 10 percent of total income. Now, the middle class is faltering and the top 1% is getting 18 to 20 percent of total income. If America had the same distribution of income as it did in 1979, before Ronald Reagan became President, the average incomes of America’s middle 20 percent of families would be $8,752 higher than today’s current middle-class incomes and the average income of the nation’s top 1 percent would be $824,844 less.

Spread the truth.