re: #564 BryanS

It’s only a massive tax break if they are already paying massive amounts of taxes. Yes, income is not distributed evenly, and disparity has grown between the top and low rungs of the economic ladder. For some neutral stats we can both agree on..

[Link: en.wikipedia.org…]

So the top 20% pay 65% of all taxes, top 1% pay 22.7% of all taxes. The rate probably does need to be higher. I wouldn’t mind too much if the higher tax brackets went up some.

The suggestion however that Bushes tax cuts made the tax burden less progressive is wrong—he lowered taxes on the lower brackets more than the upper brackets as a percentage of their tax burden (as opposed to the absolute tax rate—i.e. lower 10% what rich folks pay cuts tax burden by a third, but lower 10% the rate low income people pay reduces tax burden to zero).

I wouldn’t have a problem with the lower 10% paying nothing but FICA and medicare. Anyone household making lower than $20K in my part of the world is dirt poor.