September 02, 2008
Tax Plan comparison - this is the graph I wanted the other day. Would like to see final avg. tax rate, but this is a stark illustration of why saying 'Obama will raise taxes' is not only BS -- in a real sense he's cutting way more than McCain.
not too picky at all.
it's a very good/important point you bring up. those numbers are so large that people may think "oh shit, look how much theyre going to have to pay!" when really, it points out the rather sizeable income they make to be paying that much tax.
I'm kind of bothered by the 'average cut' indicator at the bottom. I know that they have that indicator that shows that 60% of taxpayers are in the bottom three brackets, but still, 'median cut' would be more approrpriate for what they are are trying to communicate, perhaps with another column indicate 'tax revenue increase/decrease'
'Average cut' would be a perfectly descriptive measure of the reality of each plan IF it was weighted by the number of people in each tax bracket. The same would have to be said for 'median cut':
The median tax bracket cut would be from the 5th bracket: McCain -2.5%; Obama -1.9%. The median tax cut for a family would come from one of the bottom three brackets since 60% of families are in those. That means: McCain: -0.7%; Obama -2.4%.
I can't figure out what method they used to get that 'average cut' they note.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics...
One thing that works well psychologically for me but I guess doesn't work for everyone is to phrase it as "Obama isn't raising taxes; he's just letting the irresponsible Bush tax cuts expire without renewal."
"Tax cuts" mean almost nothing to me. Show me who plans to spend less.
heh.
Before or after we invade Iran/do whatever insane madness against Russia under McCain?
I hope you're right about Obama not engaging in any new military campaigns.
Oh, Obama doesn't have my full trust, but the only way McCain would be able ot get more hawkish would be for him to dump Palin and replace her with Havery Birdman, attourney at law.
The chart, done right:
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Does the use of percentages to refer to portion of income rather than in/decrease in taxes paid bother anyone else? I find the labelling (big colored arrows vs little text box top left) very misleading -- a 10% increase in the taxes I pay (not that I am in that category, wishful thinking) would not seem like such a big deal, but an increase in taxes equal to 10% of my income is a different story.
[NB - this is not to say that i'm horrified by or even opposed to Obama's plan, just that I think it could be better presented. Too picky?]
posted by ms cegenation at 05:23AM CST on September 03