Historic looks at effective tax rates in the US

In the run up to the election, confabulation about tax rates in the US will reach a frenzy. The disinformation coming from the Grand Old Party, now in the grips of a struggle for their identity in the face of the astroturf'd Tea Party, will likely leave the GOP candidate taking a very hard anti-tax line.

An honest look at effective tax rates in the US will be one of the many pieces of collateral damage facts will suffer. Here's the first of a few pieces I'm planning on promoting on this topic:

Ten Charts that Prove the United States Is a Low-Tax Country
Our Citizens and Corporations Pay Much Less Than They Once Did and Much Less Than in Most Other Countries

The United States is a low-tax country. That’s true for individuals and for corporations, and it’s true whether you compare us to other countries or the America of the past. No matter how you slice it the conclusion is the same.

Conservatives like to claim that our budget deficits are purely a “spending problem.” Said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “We don’t have this problem because we tax too little. We have it because we spent too much.”

It’s a popular talking point, but it simply isn’t true. Deficits do not stem from spending levels alone. They are the product of a mismatch between spending and revenue. And when revenue is as low as ours is, you end up with big deficits.

Here are 10 charts demonstrating the simple, clear truth that federal taxes in the United States are very low.



Recently, President Obama met with a group of House Republicans to discuss the federal budget and the national debt. During the course of that meeting, the president noted, correctly, that taxes today are even lower than they were under President Ronald Reagan. This fact was met with “a lot of ‘eye-rolling’” from the Republicans. They didn’t believe him.

This anecdote suggests that perhaps the reason conservatives think we don’t have a revenue problem is because they don’t know the facts. Taxes today are lower than they were under President Reagan. They’re lower today than they’ve been in 60 years. And they’re lower than they are in most developed countries.

We do have a debt problem coming down the road. That debt problem is the result of an aging population, rising health care costs, and, yes, revenue levels that are too low.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/low_tax.html