Josh Barro, Columnist

Let's End the 47% Nonpayer Nonsense

September 19, 2012 at 9:17 PM UTC

Josh Barro is the lead writer for the Ticker, Bloomberg View's blog on economics, finance and politics. His primary areas of interest include tax and fiscal policy, state and local government, and planning and land use. Previously, Barro was a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a commercial real estate banker at Wells Fargo. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Harvard and lives in Queens, New York.

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Mitt Romney may have killed his campaign by saying that President Barack Obama's base is the 47 percent of Americans who are freeloading, non-income-tax-paying losers. With any luck, he also killed the stupid Republican talking point about "nonpayers."

Tax collections at all levels of government will total about $4 trillion this year. Of that, just $1.1 trillion will come from the federal income tax, which is by far the most progressive major component of the tax system.