CNN's Crowley understates Making Work Pay tax credit
SUMMARY: Candy Crowley claimed of the Making Work Pay tax credit: "The average tax cut is somewhere between $10 and $13." But Crowley did not explain that those figures apply per week, adding up to an annual tax credit of $400 per individual and $800 for families.
During the April 15 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, senior political correspondent Candy Crowley misleadingly claimed of the tax cut included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, "The average tax cut is somewhere between $10 and $13." But Crowley did not explain that those figures apply per week, adding up to an annual tax credit of $400 per individual and $800 for families.
As CNNMoney.com senior writer Jeanne Sahadi explained in a March 31 article about the Making Work Pay tax credit included in the economic recovery package, "As a rough guide, singles eligible for the credit might get between $10 to $15 per paycheck if paid weekly; for those married filing jointly, they're likely to see an extra $15 to $20" [emphasis added]. Sahadi went on to note that "[t]he credit is ... worth up to $400 a year for single filers and $800 for joint filers" [emphasis added]. Indeed, the section of the act establishing the Making Work Pay tax credit states:
ALLOWANCE OF CREDIT. -- In the case of an eligible individual, there shall be allowed as a credit against the tax imposed by this subtitle for the taxable year an amount equal to the lesser of --
''(1) 6.2 percent of earned income of the taxpayer, or
''(2) $400 ($800 in the case of a joint return).
From the April 15 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:
CROWLEY: April 15 is not the best time to ask Americans whether they think taxes are too high, but a perfect day for the president to remind them.
PRESIDENT OBAMA [video clip]: We've passed a broad and sweeping tax cut for 95 percent of American workers.
CROWLEY: The average tax cut is somewhere between $10 and $13. While the president talked up his tax cut, an assorted group of tax protesters held tea parties, meant to echo the Boston Tea Party tax revolt.
It must be nice. That extra $67 a month in MY paycheck amounts to just under 10% of my after tax, after-401-k, after-paying-the-bills, monthly budget. So it makes a difference. If I had that last summer, the gasoline bill wouldn't have hurt so much. (It amounts to about 3/4 of my monthly gasoline bill now, just under 40% of what it was last summer.) It's an extra night out. It's a birthday present, in a month that one would nomally have to come out of our budget. It's my credit card paid of a few months earlier, without having to scrimp on our budget. It must be nice to have so much money that $67 per month can just be laughed off. It's bigger than the raise I got last year, and a full $67 per month more then the raise I got THIS year! It must be nice to be pulling down Cable News Reporter money. I say we cut THEIR salaries to the point where they might appreciate an extra $67 per month. Then they might have some basis on which to comment on economic policies that affect those of us who still WORK for a living.
I just Googled "Total American Workforce" and there are approximately 140M fulltime workers. 95 percent of that is approximately 133M workers.
I also discovered a couple of things:
Approximately 29M workers work for poverty wages and if you include workers with dependents the number jumps to about 55M.
Also, the number of American who actually work for a living and who make over 100K is approximately 100K. All the rest who make over 100K just wait for a dividend check to arrive.
Just for fun, imagine the weeping and wailing and rending of garments that would be taking place if middle class taxes were INCREASING by $67 a month. It would be a MASSIVE BURDEN then.
Interestingly, when Joe the Plumber was whining about how much his taxes would go up if he increased his profits to $280,000, the actual proposed increase would have been about $900 a year. Facing such a burden, he was thinking he'd rather just go on making $40,000 and not bother with the extra taxes. THAT, my friends is the stupidity of the Right Wing in a nutshell.
I think the problem is the average American's inability to take the sound bites they're fed one step further.
The news media has kept things simple for so long that logical thinking escapes us. How else can we explain the lust for both war and tax cuts at the same time?
Having a major disseminator like Fox doesn't help either. I wish everyone would just stop and try to think things through, but we'd rather let nutsacks like Hannity or O'Reilly do it for us.
Hey if Scowling Crowley doesn't want her tax credit, I'll certainly take it.