Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said President Obama wins the budget debate if the electorate is as gullible as people like NPR's Nina Totenberg.
Just three minutes later on PBS's Inside Washington, as if on cue, Totenberg said people making between $60,000 and $125,000 pay the most in taxes (video follows with transcript and commentary):
NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: And if you look at, if you look at the taxes paid today in brackets of about 20 thousand, you see that actually the people who pay the most are between $60,000 and $125,000. And then, and they pay about 30 percent in income, taxes across the board. It then starts to go down for people who make more than that. And, and this proposed budget would give all of the benies so to speaked to unearned income. Salaried people would be paying more and more, and unearned, and people who made a lot of money would be paying less and less.
Really?
If you look at this strictly from a federal income tax perspective, folks with adjusted gross incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 pay between 7.7 percent and 11.9 percent.
Those making above this pay considerably more.
As for total taxes including state, local, and excise fees, an April 2011 report by Citizens for Tax Justice also refutes Totenberg's point.
Isn't it wonderful that such a "gullible" person has so many platforms to misinform the public from?
