Comment · Thu, April 19, 2012
" Obama took a not-too-subtle swipe at his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, declaring: “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.” There remains a role for government to give everybody a “fair shot,” Obama said — not just the wealthy."
What they were answering
singlehopper · 1 points
The top 1% own 38.1% of wealth and pay 38% of taxes. The top 10% own 50% of the wealth and pay 71% of income taxes.
In other words, in the top 10%, it's the 9% that are REALLY getting screwed over.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
If by screwed you mean paying a higher share of the taxes while not controlling an equally higher share of the wealth, then yes. The argument then comes in that they still have millions of dollars. That one is made out of emotion, since from an equality point of view they are getting the short end of the stick. In 2009, the median net worth for the top 10% was $1.5 million. A pretty good sum of money, but not Buffet territory. The cutoff for the top 1% is about $9 million dollars. Again, not anywhere near the very very top. People need to start putting this into perspective, because I get the feeling that everyone hearing the 1% figure is thinking way more money than that. Again, I am trying to not bring my personal view of fairness into this discussion, since I feel my factual discussion would be detracted from; that's just human nature.
EDIT: Net worth, not income.