Right Wing Regressives Need to Stop

[Brian Peacock]

I'm telling the Bishop on you.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The stimulus tax break that Obama promised was never intended to last forever. That doesn't negate the fact that Obama kept his promise to cut taxes for 95% of working families. Once the stimulus tax break expired, middle class taxes remained largely the same as they had been during the Bush presidency.

"What Really Happened to Your Taxes While Obama Was President"

As of 2013, the Tax Policy Center found that, under Obama, the top 1% of earners paid an effective federal tax rate of roughly 32%, compared to about 27% under Bush. But middle earners paid roughly 12%, almost exactly the same as under the previous president, while low earners paid a bit less -- about 2.3%, rather than 3.5%.

The yelping about the ACA 'raising taxes' is a reliable Republican talking point, but the devil's in the details:

On net, the ACA significantly increased average taxes on families in the top one percent of income, cut taxes on families in the bottom quintiles, and modestly increased taxes on the rest of families. Repealing the ACA taxes in 2025 would provide an average tax cut of $46,000 to families in the top one percent, increasing their after-tax incomes by more than 2 percent. In contrast, average taxes for families in the bottom and second quintiles would increase by $90 and $170, respectively, reducing their after-tax incomes by at least .4 percent. Families in the middle quintile would receive an average tax cut of $240, increasing their after-tax incomes by .3 percent.

[source]

[Forty Two]

The stimulus tax break that Obama promised was never intended to last forever. That doesn't negate the fact that Obama kept his promise to cut taxes for 95% of working families. Once the stimulus tax break expired, middle class taxes remained largely the same as they had been during the Bush presidency.

Huh, but Bush only cut taxes for the rich. Did he also cut taxes for the middle class?

Obama's stimulus tax cut was crushed by the increase in payroll tax.

the article from time that you posted says middle earners paid roughly 12%, almost exactly the same as under the previous president (as of 2013, not as of 2016...), but which is it - did he cut taxes for 95% of working families, or did they stay the same?

Look at the average federal tax burden on households. The CBO 2013 shows that in 2009, when Obama took office, the average household federal tax rate was 17.3 percent and in 2013, the rate was 20.1 percent - a nearly 3 percentage point increase. That's not insignificant.