The top earners depend heavily on salaries. In 2010 the top 1% earned 36% of their incomes from salaries and wages (what the CBO calls labor income), 22% from businesses, farms and partnerships, and just 19% from capital gains. The majority of their income would thus be taxed today either at the corporate or the highest marginal rate rather than at the lower capital-gains rate of 23.8%.
Wanna get a sense of the size of labor-unions’ political contributions relative to those of, oh, the Koch brothers? Mark Perry has the picture.
My friend Ross Kaminsky reminded me that many years ago I wrote this little piece on puffery. I post it here simply so that I can more easily find it in the future if I need it.
Gene Healy explains why U.S. presidents emphatically are not worth celebrating. (Duh! They’re politicians – members of a profession as worthy of celebration as are, say, house burglars or purveyors of Ponzi schemes.)
