BY SHARON MARTIN
“We have the highest tax rate in the world,” Donald Trump said last week on Fox News.
If his rude speech and bombastic personality aren’t enough for voters, he also has a slim grasp of facts.
According to data from Price Waterhouse Coopers, the United States has the 8th highest tax rate among G20 nations. This is based on an income of more than $400,000, a mortgage of $1.2 million, and New York state taxes. If you are single, have no children, and earn the average U.S. salary of $41,355 per year, you will pay less than the G20 average tax rate, 22.7% including income tax, Social Security, and Medicare.
If you are married and have two children, your tax rate falls to just 10.4%.
Candidate Trump wants to drop the income tax rate for top earners. Perhaps he thinks the top 20% are struggling; they earn only eight times what the bottom 20% earn.
Of course, Trump isn’t thinking of wage earners at all. He’s talking about the corporate tax rate. According to one conservative source, we rank number three on corporate taxes. That doesn’t count loopholes, however. We may be number one there. Ask General Electric.
With so much money parked offshore and so many jobs shipped to other countries in search of low-paid workers, it isn’t a tax plan that Trump should be devising. Our elected officials, from the top down, should be helping create a climate in which everyone who wants a job can have one. And the job should pay a living wage.
If Trump is truly concerned about ordinary citizens, here are a few ideas:
How about we pay Social Security on all wages up to $250,000? This will make sure Social Security remains viable.
Let’s make the money in pension funds and Social Security off limits to Congress when they are monkeying with the budget.
Let’s allow the citizens to determine wages and benefits packages for elected officials.
And let’s make sure every young person in this country is educated, fed, and provided adequate health care so they can become productive citizens.
If we listen carefully, we will learn what is important to the candidates. This, despite errors, will help us arrive at some sort of truth.
What does Donald Trump care about? Ask the people who got stiffed every time he declared bankruptcy.
Trump doesn’t give a fig about you or your tax rate. Is this what you want in a president?
— Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
