Getting It Right on the Obama Tax Plan

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Dan Amira makes a point today about President Obama’s new tax proposal, and I’m trying to figure out if I think it’s mostly a pedantic complaint or one with real substance. You be the judge.

Basically, every news outlet in the country is reporting that Obama wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making under $250,000 per year. In fact, even Obama himself describes his own plan that way. But it’s not true.

What Obama is actually proposing is to retain the Bush rates on all income under $250,000. If you’re a middle-class wage slave, this applies to all your income. If you’re a Wall Street lawyer pulling down half a million per year, it applies to half your income. Everyone would have lower taxes than they did in the 90s. The table on the right shows how this would work. (The tax brackets are approximate and apply to married couples filing jointly.)

So the question is: what’s the best way to describe this? The Obama way (“keep the tax cuts for anyone making less than $250,000”) is more populist and a lot easier to understand. The technically correct way is more complicated, but it reduces the alleged class warfare angle a bit. Obama isn’t taking away all the tax cuts the rich got from Bush, just some of them.

So which is better? More populist or more centrist-y? Decisions, decisions…..

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate