Tax the poor to build missiles!

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Have you ever wondered what Robin Hood's Bizzaro World doppelganger might look like? Well it turns out that there is an approximation of such a character. His name is Eric Cantor and he wants to tax the poor, in part, to pay for a bigger military with more missiles. This is no joke.

House Majority Leader Cantor recently repeated the lie that the poor don't pay taxes, and went on to say that we need to "broaden the base" by expanding income taxes to the very poorest Americans who are currently exempt from it. By taxing the poor, he posited, we could then lower taxes for other groups, like the super rich for instance.



Not only has Cantor proposed raising taxes on the poor, he and his republican colleagues in the House want to gut health and education to prevent cuts to the military. In fact they want to expand the military by building a missile defense shield on the East Coast, supposedly to protect us from Iran. Meanwhile the GOP refuses to "broaden the base" by asking millionaires to pay their fair share (at least as much as the middle class) or by depriving oil companies of unnecessary subsidies even as their profits skyrocket at the expense of average people.

But let's get something straight: the poor pay taxes. In fact they pay a larger share of their income in taxes than the wealthiest one percent. That's because the federal income tax is just one of many different taxes we as Americans are asked to pay. For instance, the poorest Americans pay a much higher share of their income in payroll and excise taxes than do the rich. They also pay more in state and local taxes which tend be regressive.

 
This notion that somehow the poorest half of Americans don't pay taxes is an unmitigated lie. Those who subscribe to such a notion are either brain dead, dishonest, or woefully misinformed. Is it not hypocritical, contradictory, and utterly nonsensical that the same group of people who would rather shut down the government than even consider higher taxes would turn around and propose a tax hike on the impoverished? How do they justify ending Medicare and gutting food stamps to pay for a defense shield to protect us from a country that lacks the capability to attack us with a missile?

Welcome to Bizzaro World - where Robin Hood steals from the poor to feed the rich (and build missiles).

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