this morning on Squawk

The discussion was "The upper percentage of wage earners can pay more right?"

"Well.... the bottom 50% pay none..... So those people may have to step up."

....

Well, maybe we can get the 15% that are unemployed to pay more.... Right?

Well that is stupid.

so then you have the other 35% of these "Freeloaders"... make less than 30K

50% of US wage earners make under 30K...

Let us also point out that most of them are also the Uninsured.

19% of all Jobs pay below the poverty level.

so...

explain to me how you can get segnificant money from the say 20% of this 50% that "don't pay taxes."
If you tax them at 20% it's roughly taxing people who make from 20-30K per year 4- 6 K per person. Based on tax brackets, its only an increase of 5% on these people, since they are already in the 15% tax bracket. It's an increase of $1250 per person.

you are talking about 114 billion dollar increase to the federal budget.

That is 3% of the federal budget....

how if we tax them at 40%....

YOU STILL ONLY REDUCE THE DEFICIT BY 15%

what has to happen is you have to get more people making more money..

You need 5% under the poverty level.... you need the bottom 20% to make under 50K, and the next 30% making 75-100K per person.

you can't make people who don't make money pay taxes.... and certainly not the people making 15K per year
These people would love to be able to afford to pay 20% in taxes.

all my numbers are rough... and Kiss my ass if you think I should spend 4 hours checking them.

If some asshole on Squawk can broadcast figures he pulls out of his ass... I can actually run some rough numbers here on my blog, without obsessing on things to the Penny....

My point is ... YOU CAN'T make people who don't make money, pay taxes.

and as the Christians say...

TO THOSE THAT MUCH IS GIVEN, MUCH IS EXPECTED...