Edward Luce must watch CNN

A rather straight forward FT article on TARP funds (still no answer as to what will happen to those funds once repaid) turns nasty:

Meanwhile, the mood music is getting steadily uglier. On Wednesday, fringe Republican groups entertained the country with a collection of "tea parties", protesting at tax increases. The fact that Mr Obama is cutting taxes for the large majority of Americans, albeit by small amounts, did not damp their sense of outrage.

The fact, also, that this "grassroots" protest was heavily sponsored by Fox News, Rupert Murdoch's "fair and balanced" channel (meaning that it was, in fact, an "Astroturf" rather than a "grassroots" event) should not remove its underlying message. Most Americans – Democrats included – detest bailing out Wall Street. Whose side is Mr Obama on, they wonder: the banks' or the public's?

There are many ways to look at this tail-end of the article smarminess, the most important relates to the "large majority of Americans" receiving a tax cut. Let us be clear, when individuals speak of tax cuts they are speaking of income tax cuts. The equally odious Social Security tax is part of the mix when speaking of "tax cuts" but the by-and-large is, tax cuts = income tax cuts. With this fairly simple knowledge it is easy for any individual (even a journalist) to run the numbers, they are quite telling as to whether a "large majority of Americans" are receiving a "tax cut":

2006 (Latest Year Available) Individual Tax Returns

- US population: 298,754,819
- Total Number of returns filed: 135,719,160
- Average Number of individuals per return: 2.20
- Total Number of returns filed by the bottom 50% of filers: 67,859,580
- Average Number of individuals represented by the bottom 50%: 149,377,410
- % of US population represented by the bottom 50% of filers: 50% (shock)
- % of all Federal income taxes paid by the bottom 50% of filers: 2.99%
(Editor's note: It is at this point which the noted FT paras are effectively spiked as 50% of all Americans effectively pay no income taxes by which to qualify for a "tax cut". Unless of course "large majority of Americans" has been re-defined.)
- % of all Federal income taxes paid by the bottom 75% of filers: 13.73%
- % of all Federal income taxes paid by the bottom 90% of filers: 29.21%
- % of all Federal income taxes paid by the bottom 95% of filers: 39.86%
- % of all Federal income taxes paid by the bottom 99% of filers: 60.11%
- % of all Federal income taxes paid by the top 1% of filers: 39.89%

The portable version (and journalistic friendly) of the data above:

- % of all Federal income taxes paid by the bottom 50% of filers: 2.99%
- % of all Federal income taxes paid by the top 50% of filers: 97.01%

Source: Internal Revenue Service (US)