Okay, this is awkward! I have been placed in the position of writing a blog about a Democratic Perspective interview of myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about the coverage of a book that has yet to be officially published. And I’m thrilled that the rest of the editorial crew thought it would be of interest to our audience.
For the record, the complete title of the book is The Teapublican Book Of Lies: 50 myths and outright lies originated by the Republican Party and their Tea Party allies.
As I mentioned in my interview, the reason for writing the book stems from a blatant and wholly unnecessary lie about Al Gore during the 2000 presidential campaign. That lie led me to wonder what else the party was lying about. If the party was willing to tell a lie so easily disproved, what must they think of the electorate? And what else are they lying about?
Since then, I have mentally collected a list of some of the biggest whoppers told by Teapublicans.
We began the radio interview talking about the accepted myth that US corporations pay higher taxes than any other nation on Earth. It’s simply not true. Sure, the stated US corporate rate of taxes, including state taxes, is 34.2%. But that not appreciably higher than other developed nations. And very few, if any, corporations actually pay that rate. In fact, some of the largest US corporations have negative tax rates. In other words, through subsidies and write-offs, the US government actually pays them!
In addition, US payroll taxes are less than most of the developed world which further reduces corporate tax obligations.
Next, we addressed the Teapublican claim that most Americans don’t pay taxes. In fact, the poor and middle class pay a bigger share of their incomes in taxes than the wealthy. Even if they make so little that they don’t pay income taxes, they pay sales taxes, property taxes (even if they rent), gasoline taxes and payroll tax deductions for Social Security and Medicare. The real tax freeloaders are those who live off of investments, paying capital gains taxes of 15 percent or less.
Among other things, we also talked about the myth that raising taxes on those who make more than $1 million per year will harm small business and the myth that the Environmental Protection Agency was created by liberals and is destroying business.
If you’d like to learn more, you’ll find the origins of my book’s content on my blog at http://www.lamasterscorner.com/.
My thanks to Steve Williamson and Mike Cosentino for giving me the opportunity to talk about my coming book and for making me so comfortable in the studio I almost forgot the microphone was inches from my face.