Half of America 'effectively on welfare'

Jim Brown
OneNewsNow
4/9/2010

A leading free-market economist says it's not a stable situation for a republican democracy when half of the citizens aren't contributing to the cost of the government they're benefiting from.

The Washington-based Tax Policy Center estimates that about 47 percent of Americans will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions, and exemptions to eliminate their liability. (See related report [PDF])

J.D. Foster, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, says it is pretty noteworthy when a center-left organization like the Tax Policy Center is pointing out that an enormous portion of Americans are not paying any income tax. the rest