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Comparing Presidential Candidates Tax Plans
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2008, at 11:36 AM
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(Photo)

Recently, the Washington Post provided a chart of how the two major contenders for the U.S. Presidential election would stack up against each other with their respective tax plans, as shown here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

The Washington Post chart has been re-drawn above (click here for larger view: http://chartjunk.karmanaut.com/images/ta... ) and overlaid with U.S. census information on median U.S. household incomes, as well those for the median male & female. It also attributes each area to the percentage of U.S. population that it will affect, which is interesting data to show.

The U.S. Census data puts things in perspective, showing the percentages of the population that the candidates' tax policy will affect. Those that re-drew this chart claim that the uppermost income bracket only contains approximately 1,000 people, while the lower brackets contain millions ergo their reasoning for the re-draw to scale.

As you can see, Obama's plan calls for more tax savings in the lower brackets, but this decrease is mostly offset by increasing taxes in the two highest income brackets. The net effect is almost neutral overall with an average cut of $160.

McCain plans to provide more tax breaks to the upper-end of the income levels. Overall, the tax rates for everyone will go down on an average of $1,195, according to the chart.


Comments
Showing comments in chronological order
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I hate numbers. The always look different depending on who's showing them to you.

-- Posted by per moenia urbis on Tue, Sep 23, 2008, at 1:16 PM

Unless you're making two million a year Obama's plan looks better. I like that the net effect is nearly zero because if we tax everybody less like McCain then we will just have more deficit spending.

-- Posted by The Raven on Tue, Sep 23, 2008, at 3:15 PM

Someone once said, perhaps Milton Friedman, that "A dollar spent is a dollar taxed."

Perhaps we should also ask how and how much each candidate would spend?

-- Posted by elinneweber on Tue, Sep 23, 2008, at 7:13 PM

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stat...

Maybe we should pay back Japan and China. Clean up the debt and go to Walmart to buy ink pens and toilet paper.

-- Posted by headless horseman on Tue, Sep 23, 2008, at 7:44 PM

Good point, elinneweber! Here's an answer from Yahoo! Finance on how much each would change spending:

http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/article/1...

http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/article/1...

-- Posted by The Raven on Fri, Sep 26, 2008, at 3:29 PM


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