Mr Romney disastrously dismissed as irresponsible victims the 47 per cent of Americans who pay no federal personal income tax – even though 60 per cent of those work and pay payroll taxes. In fact, 80 per cent of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. The payroll tax holiday (a tax cut of 2 percentage points on incomes up to $110,000) expires at the end of 2012. Somehow, discussions of the fiscal cliff never get round to addressing that fact – even though it is likely to administer a much sharper economic shock than the expiry of the Bush tax cuts.
罗姆尼还灾难性地表示,47%不缴纳个人所得税的美国人是不负责任的受害者——即便其中60%的人有工作并支付工资税。实际上,80%的美国人支付的工资税高于所得税。工资税减免政策(对不高于11万美元的收入下调税率两个百分点)在2012年底到期。不知为什么,关于财政悬崖的讨论从未考虑这个事实,即便它对经济造成的冲击比小布什(George W. Bush)减税政策到期大得多。
But the dominant economic fact for middle-class families in the 2000s was not rising taxes. It was stagnating wages and slowing upward mobility. Wages, healthcare, tuition – these, not tax rates, worried middle-class voters even before the crisis of 2008 and they will continue to worry voters as the economy emerges from the crisis. And if a centre-right party is not a party of the middle class, it is doomed.
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