May 06, 2011 08:34 PM UTC

"Taxed Enough Already," Are You?

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• by: Colorado Pols

McClatchy’s Kevin Hall:

At a time when Washington is wrestling with how to end federal budget deficits and trim the national debt – huge questions that are expected to dominate the nation’s politics through the 2012 elections – the fact that Americans are under-taxed compared with U.S. historic norms is central to the discussion.

This fact is separate from the politically charged questions of whether government spends too much, the fairness of who pays how much and what we value or don’t in government spending. It’s simply that our tax burden is low in the long view of U.S. history, and there are many ways to measure that central truth… [Pols emphasis]

Americans across all income classes paid lower effective tax rates in 2007, the last year of complete Internal Revenue Service data, than they did in 2000. The effective tax rate is what people pay after all exemptions and deductions. This is according to the most recent comprehensive look at taxes by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The highest 20 percent of tax filers saw their total average federal effective tax rate fall from 28 percent in 2000 to 25.1 percent in 2007, according to the CBO. That’s considerably lower than the current top marginal tax rate of 35 percent, and lower than the 27.5 percent effective rate in 1979, the first year that CBO data are available.

It’s a remarkable feat of conservative messaging that so many Americans believe they are paying more taxes now than they were in the past–a claim that just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, and the story gives you several ways to evaluate the question if the one we picked above doesn’t suit you. Democrats insist that much of the forecast deficits the nation faces can be directly attributed to recent tax cuts. If that’s true, endless battles over deficits, and “being forced” to cut programs “to protect our childrens’ future”…take on a very different complexion.

Maybe we are irresponsible, just not the way some people want to talk about.