According to a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, few workers would be affected if the cap on federal payroll taxes were lifted. Currently, the payroll tax — which funds Social Security and Medicare — is only applied to an individual’s first $110,100 in wages, meaning that middle-class and low-income workers pay the tax on their entire income, while the wealthy pay it on only a fraction.

As CEPR found, just 5.8 percent of workers would be affected if the cap were eliminated, while just 1.4 percent would be affected by a proposal currently before Congress that would apply the tax to income over $250,000 (but not on income earned between $110,100 and $250,000):

Eliminating the payroll tax cap would ensure Social Security could pay full benefits for nearly 75 years. However, this simple solution is ignored by conservatives, who would rather take the more regressive step of raising the retirement age, or simply privatize the program. And it certainly doesn’t help that the mainstream media consistently misinforms the public about Social Security’s financial health, ginning up a “crisis” while ignoring that one simple step would wipe the crisis away entirely.

During a press conference today, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) reacted to Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) suggestion that the Bush tax cuts only be extended for those making less than $1 million by saying that such a move would hurt small businesses and therefore job creation. In fact, he claimed that half of those making more than $1 million annually are small business people:

“I believe that raising taxes at this point in our recovery is a big mistake,” Boehner said at a Capitol press conference when asked about Pelosi’s letter…“Even under Ms. Pelosi’s argument, half of those who would get this higher tax are small-business people that are sub-Chapter S or other types of pass-through entities,” Boehner said. “At a time when we are trying to help small businesses create jobs, this proposal would kill jobs.”

This statistic is simply not true. In fact, it’s false according to Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel. When Boehner made the same claim regarding millionaires and small businesses last year, FactCheck.org contacted Boehner’s office, and Steel “quickly admitted that the speaker was mistaken.”

Under a reasonable definition of small businesses, just 13 percent of millionaires can be considered small business owners. And just 0.5 percent of the nation’s small business owners cross that income threshold, making them the absolute top of the income scale.

Plus, at the end of the day, even if a millionaire makes his millions via a business that is considered small, the income tax is levied on take-home pay, not business profits. Anyone taking home $1 million annually should be taxed like a millionaire.

A favorite conservative myth is that raising taxes on millionaires at the state level will chase those millionaires away to other states. That was the rationale Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) used to justify vetoing a millionaires surtax…twice.

However, the data doesn’t back up that claim. Steve Roth at Angry Bear used this chart showing that millionaires simply don’t congregate in low-tax states. Roth found that “of the 12 states with the highest concentration of millionaires, 10 (83%) have above- or at-trend (in this case, median) income tax rates.”

This jibes with a report from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst which showed that “the evidence available in the research literature suggests that the worst fears of the policy debates over raising additional revenue from high-income households to sustain spending on public services are unlikely to materialize. The rich will not go on strike. They will not cease working, stop investing, or even move.”

The Washington Post reported last week that dozens of candidates being promoted by the National Republican Congressional Committee have refused to sign the anti-tax pledge circulated by Americans for Tax Reform and its president, Grover Norquist. The ATR pledge asks Republican candidates to promise never to raise taxes at any time for any reason, but GOPers have been wavering on it in increasing numbers over the last several months.

Joining the list of Republicans not interested in signing Norquist’s pledge is Brendan Doherty, who is running for the seat in Rhode Island’s first congressional district:

“Brendan has not signed the ATR pledge and has no plans to sign it,” Doherty spokesman Robert Coupe told WPRI.com, using the acronym for Norquist’s group, Americans for Tax Reform. [...]

“The premise behind this and similar pledges that seek to tie the hands of candidates and elected officials tends to result in greater division and increased gridlock in Congress, at a time when we need to seek consensus and common-sense solutions,” Coupe said.

“Brendan has called repeatedly for comprehensive tax reform to simplify the tax code, close loopholes and create a tax plan that treats middle class families fairly and allows small businesses to compete and create jobs,” he continued. “That is Brendan’s commitment to the citizens of Rhode Island and his pledge is to provide the real leadership that is needed in Congress right now.”

Of course, Doherty is running in a heavily Democratic district, which may have something to do with his decision to ignore Norquist’s directive. Earlier this year, Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL) blasted the pledge, saying, “I think anybody who doesn’t indicate their willingness to look at revenues — expiration of tax loopholes, tax credits, increase in contribution to Social Security, which is a tax, and otherwise — would be disingenuous and irresponsible.“

During an interview today, Honeywell CEO David Cote — who President Obama named to the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission — told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that he believes the U.S. corporate tax rate should be zero. Cote added that the only reason his desired rate won’t happen is because “from a fairness perspective, nobody would be able to stand it”:

SORKIN: David, I have a tax question for you. What do you think the ultimate effective tax rate should be on corporations?

COTE: Zero.

SORKIN: Zero?

COTE: The problem is from a fairness perspective, nobody would be able to stand it. But at the the end of the day, jobs come from companies and if we wanted to create the most effective foreign direct investment pipeline you’ve ever seen, we would have the lowest rate possible.

Watch it:

Cote’s belief that a low corporate tax rate will spur job creation stands at odds with the country’s current experience. After all, U.S. corporate taxes that were actually paid (the effective rate) fell to a 40-year-low in fiscal year 2011, despite corporate profits rebounding to their pre-Great Recession heights. The U.S. actually has one of the lowest effective corporate tax rates in the developed world. However, job creation has been slow, if steady.

“Our corporate tax rate last year, effectively, in terms of taxes paid for the United States, was around 12 percent, which is well below those existing in most of the industrialized countries around the world,” explained billionaire investor Warren Buffet. “Corporate taxes are not strangling American competitiveness.”

Cote made $37 million in total compensation in 2011, while spending the last few years busting unions and driving down pay and benefits for his company’s workers.

Several states across the country, from Vermont to Wisconsin to California, have been taking some of the money they received from the foreclosure fraud settlement signed with the nation’s biggest banks and diverting it away from its intended purpose of providing relief to desperate homeowners. According to ProPublica, the total amount of money taken from the hands of needy homeowners is close to $1 billion.

Now, housing advocates are alleging that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is doing the same thing, diverting $75 million meant to help homeowners into the Garden State’s general fund:

Affordable housing advocacy groups today said Gov. Chris Christie is misusing $75 million from a foreclosure settlement, calling his budget plan “reckless” and “a shell game.”

Christie is putting that money into the budget general fund, advocates said at a Statehouse press conference this morning, instead of specifically earmarking it to fund help for people who have been foreclosed on.

Several governors, the first of whom was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), have used the settlement money to simply bolster their general funds, patching over budget problems that they’ve created. Progressives in New Jersey have been concerned that Christie would follow suit, and those concerns now seem to be justified. Previously, New Jersey’s attorney general had declined to confirm whether or not the state would use the settlement funding for foreclosure aid.

But not all homeowners are quietly accepting losing out on the funding. In Arizona, a group of homeowners have sued the state, saying that the diversion of settlement funds is illegal.

In an interview with the Guardian last week, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagardge scolded Greeks for not paying their taxes, essentially arguing that they deserved the pain that is coming with the austerity package they are being forced to swallow:

Lagarde, predicting that the debt crisis has yet to run its course, adds: “Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax.” She says she thinks “equally” about Greeks deprived of public services and Greek citizens not paying their tax.

“I think they should also help themselves collectively.” Asked how, she replies: “By all paying their tax.”

Asked if she is essentially saying to the Greeks and others in Europe that they have had a nice time and it is now payback time, she responds: “That’s right.”

But as it turns out, Lagarde was throwing stones from inside a glass house, since she doesn’t pay any taxes of her own due to working for the IMF, which is part of the United Nations system. Most UN employees pay no taxes on their income.

Of course, when it comes to Greece and revenue, Lagarde did have a bit of a point. Greece’s revenue is on the low end for a European nation, due in part to its large underground economy:

In 2009, Greece collected just 36.9 percent of GDP in total government revenues. That was far below the overall EU total of 43.9 percent. Greece’s anemic tax collections ranked them seventh from the bottom among EU countries…This has been a longstanding problem in Greece. From 2001 to 2007, Greece consistently collected far less in revenue than a typical EU country. [...]

The current crisis has cast a light on Greece’s shadow economy and massive illicit financial flows. There are varying estimates of the size and impact of the country’s underground economy. Some suggest that a quarter of Greece’s GDP comes from its underground economy and estimates are that Greece lost an estimated $160 billion in unrecorded transfers through its balance of payments over the last decade ending 2009.

Perhaps next time, though, Lagarde should find a messenger that doesn’t earn a tax-free income that is larger than that made by the President of the United States.

Despite repeated media inquiries from a conservative-leaning newspaper, Mitt Romney remains stubbornly silent on the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill that would bring up to date the 1970s-era Fair Pay Law.

Congressional Democrats are gearing up for another legislative effort to ensure that women and men receive equal pay for equal work and are renewing their push for the Paycheck Fairness Act. But as with many ongoing political fights, Romney is not taking a decisive position.

Romney was originally unclear about his position on another fair pay bill, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and he has not spoken about this specific legislation — despite repeated requests for comment from the Washington Times:

His campaign didn’t respond to five messages left over the past week seeking his stance on the Paycheck Fairness Act. In April, when he was fending off questions about his stance on women’s compensation, his campaign would only say he “supports pay equity” but would not say any more about the new legislation.

“Governor Romney only says that he wouldn’t change existing law, raising questions about why he feels the need to parse his words on issues that are so significant to the security of women and families,” said Ben LaBolt, President Obama’s campaign spokesman. “Would he sign a veto of Lilly Ledbetter? Why won’t he express support for the Paycheck Fairness Act?”

The Paycheck Fairness Act would close loopholes in existing pay equity law and give additional funding toward programs that help women close the gender pay gap. President Obama has come out strongly in favor of the legislation, as have several prominent Democrats, but many Republicans claim that it would be a hindrance to businesses.

Mitt Romney, who last night secured the Republican presidential nomination with his win in Texas’ primary, has already made clear his desire to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, enacted in response to the financial crisis of 2008. But according to Glenn Hubbard, one of Romney’s economic advisers, even if Romney can’t get rid of the law wholesale, he’d still like to dismantle important aspects of it:

For example, he said Mr. Romney would propose:

– replacing the new system for dismantling failing financial companies that was created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law with a new system, which he declined to specify.

– a new system of consumer financial regulation that either moves the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau outside of the Federal Reserve or breaks up the new agency and places the powers within existing financial regulators.

That Romney would break up and disperse the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s duties amongst existing financial regulators shows just how little he cares to address the causes of the 2008 financial crisis.

After all, it was the fact that consumer protection responsibilities were dispersed throughout the regulatory system — and were no regulator’s primary responsibility — that allowed banks to get away with so much pernicious behavior. The creation of the CFPB was meant to address this problem, giving consumers at least one regulator explicitly tasked with looking out for their interests.

Romney, of course, has been raking in money from Wall Street interests who fought the creation of the Bureau tooth and nail. Back in January, Romney called the Bureau the “most powerful and unaccountable bureaucracy in the history of our nation” and falsely claimed that it is “headed by a powerful and unaccountable bureaucrat with unprecedented authority over the economy.”

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R), in the face of a challenge from Wall Street reformer Elizabeth Warren, has been going out of his way to claim that he has been tough on the nation’s banks. Case in point, a recent ad released by his campaign prominently claims that he was “the tie-breaking vote on Wall Street reform“:

The problem with Washington is that people down there are always battling. That’s not how I operate. We’re Americans first, and I’ll work with anyone to get things done. I was the tie-breaking vote on Wall Street reform.

Watch it:

Brown did cross the aisle to vote with Democrats to approve the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. However, what the ad neglects to mention is the role Brown played in significantly watering the down the law, which has landed him heaps of Wall Street cash.

Brown was instrumental in weakening the Volcker Rule, which was meant to rein in risky trading with federally backed dollars by the nation’s biggest banks. He also forced Democrats to strip from the law a $19 billion bank tax. Without that provision, the Congressional Budget Office is now bizarrely claiming that the law has a “cost” of about $20 billion, a score which Republicans have seized upon as justification for their efforts to repeal the law entirely.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, employees from the securities and investment industries have given more money to Brown than those of any other industry. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, which just lost billions of dollars on the sort of trading that the Volcker Rule was originally meant to curtail, are amongst his top ten donors.