Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

Since taxes are starting to become newsworthy because of Trump's tax plan, it might be a good time to take a look at some facts. According to the Tax Foundation (non-partisan) in 2016, The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (39.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.1 percent). The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 27.1 percent individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.5  percent). The top 10 percent of income earners paid a whopping 71 percent of all federal income taxes. Think about that the next time you hear the mantra about the rich needing to "pay their fair share".

People create fake news for all kinds of reasons, mostly political. Here's an example: The following "news" article claims that Wikileaks leaked a Podesta email that contains the following: “JB, CF, and JK PACS will be noticeably silent for the rest of the campaign. Each will receive a significant allowance from advertising budget. HRC is in the loop and has talked to all three personally. Eyes only.” I n fact if you search google on the first sentence, about 425 so-called "news sources" have picked this up and run with it. To it's credit, Snopes shows up in the search and they successfully debunk it. But you know what else shows up? A Wikileaks search! That's right, Wikileaks has an excellent search facility. And if you plug that phrase into their search, you will come up with ..... NADA! Wikileaks never published any such email. Apparently somebody in an effort to discredit both the GOP and Wikileaks concocted it out of thin air. You're