l don’t know who to believe, who to trust, or what the hell is going on. And unlike most Americans, I try hard to find out.
Joe Biden—you know, that President who was going to restore trust in the Presidency, not lie all the time and unite the country?—allowed this to be issued under his name by some anonymous intern (which itself is a lie):
Of course this is nonsense, though standard progressive cant. I know it’s a lie without further study because, you know, I read stuff.
The TaxFoundation.org 2023 update reveals that the average income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6%, and the top 1% of taxpayers paid a 25.99% avg rate. That’s more than eight times higher than the 3.1% avg rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers, up from 20.1%/ in 2019 and 22.2% in 2020. So Joe thinks billionaires should pay what most of them do pay. A minimum tax, however, would be likely to undercut a substantial amount of charitable contributions to crucial charities. Joe’s fake Twitter-blather is not only fals and misleading, it’s simple-minded. But that’s our President.
Over at PJ Media, the conservative commentary online giant, I read that the the fantasy Biden tweet “now has a label that says, ‘“’Readers added context they thought people might want to know'” including a link to the information I just quoted.
If it does, I can’t find it on Twitter, though that claim is made by multiple PJ columnists. Writes one: “Dems haven’t come to grips with the fact that they can’t lie with impunity on Twitter anymore and get away with it. What happened after Biden’s social media intern released that bit of nonsense into the wild shows why the lefties complain so much about the Elon Musk version of the social media giant.”
Really? If the fact-check is so buried I can’t find it, I don’t see how Musk or Twitter deserve this praise.
One small side benefit of the frustrating experience of again realizing that Americans are on their own when it comes to combating deception and misinformation from the Left and Right: I looked at Biden’s Twitter feed for the first time. It is literally one lie, exaggeration, misrepresentation, or hilarious pandering tweet after another, and his followers’ wide-eyed acceptance of this garbage is either hilarious or likely to promote clinical depression. You’ll also fine bewildering tweets like this one….
Yeah, there’s nothing that will keep me from sock drawer duty like a video of a mentally-declining man discussing mental health with an English soccer team.
Ethics Alarms 
Does that tweet regarding and English soccer team refer to the cast of the terrible and annoying and preposterous TV show “Ted Lasso?” The people that inexplicably turned up at a White House press briefing by Biden’s paid professional liar? Joe thought those people really were an English soccer team? Come on, man.
Re: that last bit — news reports said he met with the cast of “Ted Lasso”, the Apple TV show.
So, a fake tweet? Biden didn’t know who he met with? An intern messed things up again?
I’ve read that the show is about a British soccer team, so maybe that’s close enough.
I tried watching “Lasso” once. The premise is preposterous. A vindictive divorcee acquires the small-town team in a divorce and she’s intent upon running it into the ground. Among other things, she hires an American football coach from Kansas or Oklahoma and installs him to coach a team playing a game he knows nothing about. Jason Sudeikis, Olivia Wilde’s celebrity new cohort, plays Lasso. It’s all very hip and cool and in, but stupid. I’m sure the Biden administration kiddie corps thought they could score tons of hip points with the whole dog and pony show. Pathetic.
I wonder if the correction is only visible to logged in users. I refuse to sign up for twitter to check though.
That appears to be the case.
Right now there is a community note on the tweet in question: https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1637136790208356354
Wow. Guess I’m not missing anything by avoiding twitter. Whew. The level of commentary is subterranean!
I still can’t see it. Apparently only registered Twitter users can, which seems particularly stupid.
So everyone can see it, it looks like this…
The link is…
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/13/joe-biden/joe-bidens-dubious-math-federal-income-tax-burden/
Just wanted to confirm what Alex posted. Indeed on that tweet from @POTUS there is a community note, saying the the top 25 billionaires paid this, and so on. Funny thing, that community notes has a link to Politifact. Go figure!
And the figure was based on including unrealized capital gains which effectively created an appearance of higher incomes. Such capital gains are not subject to taxation because the stock market moves up and down daily. If the S&P rises 500 point tomorrow and falls 600 points a week later Any gains would have been would have been wiped out. You have to sell securities to realize gains or losses.
The old Twitter crowd HATES the new context feature. It lets the truth be pinned directly to the offending tweet, rather than being buried below in some largely unread reply. This one function does more to control actual misinformation than their previous government collusion and speech suppression process.
This seems to answer the mail:
“Do you know what American Jews pay on average in taxes?
8 percent.
No Jew should pay a lower tax than a teacher or firefighter.
I’m calling on Congress to pass my proposal for a Jewish minimum tax.”
Chancellor Brandon Feb 18, 2023
Same thing; otherizing, demonizing and scapegoating an innocent group of Americans with a lie in order to distract from his administration’s incompetence and failure to address real concerns (many of his party’s own making) with real solutions.
I see what you did there.
Next thing you know, Alyssa Milano will be buying another electric VW to protest.
A big part of the problem is people don’t know the difference between Federal Income tax, state income tax and FICA. Add on other deductions that might come out of your check (medical and dental premiums, 401k, etc) and “take home pay” becomes significantly less than wages earned. If all I see is that 30% of my pay doesn’t make it to my pocket, then “rich people” paying 25% doesn’t seem like all that much.
Yes, and keep in mind that some of the people in that situation actually have a negative income tax rate. There is a real tendency to measure the skill of one’s tax preparer by the size of the refund and nothing else. Needless to say, that’s not a good thing.
You forgot to mention the portion of those that the Employer pays, that effectively is taken from YOUR wages, since in business everything is paid for by the customer/employee.