He says the middle class STARTS at $100,000 (here):
I am against a VAT completely. And I certainly do not like exempting the first $100,000 [from any taxes whatsover] because the tax burden would then fall only on the middle class.
How crazy is that?
Of just over 150 million wage earners in 2010, 141 million make less than $100,000 a year. How many of them do you think would agree that the remaining 9 million who make in excess of that are in any way, shape or form "middle class"?
SocialSecurity.gov (here) shows on examination that federal taxable earned income divides pretty neatly into a lower, middle and upper class, with each class accounting for about $2 trillion of the total of almost $6 trillion in net compensation in 2010.
Americans in the lower class make up to $45,000 per year and haul in $1.9 trillion. The next tranche up, the middle class, makes up to $100,000 and hauls in $2 trillion. The upper class makes everything in excess of that, in total another $1.9 trillion.
It is a common conceit of the rich that they are middle class. The rich aspire down to it as much as the lower class aspires up to it.
