"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:35:28 +0000, NOYB wrote:


The progressive tax system that we currently use has the top 1% of wage
earners paying 32% of the taxes. The top 5% paying 50.1%. The top 10%
paying 63.5%. And the top 20% paying 78% of all income taxes.

So the "less wealthy" (as you like to call them) only pay 20% of the tax
burden. Is that equitable?

Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors. You can't look at the "progressive
tax" and ignore all the regressive taxes when looking at total tax
burdens. Federal income taxes make up less than half of the tax burden.
While they are mildly progressive, the other tax revenues are quite
regressive.

And, let's not concentrate only on federal taxes. There has been a
considerable shift in the tax burden, from federal to more regressive
state and local taxes. Besides, your data is old. Using newer, 2004
data, let's look at the true tax burden. While it's true, the top 1% paid
32.8% as percentage of income, they also had 19.1% of the total income.

Read the numbers, our tax structure is getting quite close to being a flat
tax structure.

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/fsl2004.pdf

Look at the numbers!

The lowest-earning 20% garner the greatest share of government subsidies but
only contribute 2.2% of the overall tax burden.

Imagine you went into a restaurant and the price you paid for a hamburger
depended upon how much you earned.

The poor guy gets a Super size burger, fries and a coke...and has to pay
$2.20. The rich guy goes in and has to pay $20.80...but he only gets a
kid's size meal for it.

And that's fair in your eyes?

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 17:08:41 +0000, NOYB wrote:


http://www.ctj.org/pdf/fsl2004.pdf

Look at the numbers!

The lowest-earning 20% garner the greatest share of government subsidies
but only contribute 2.2% of the overall tax burden.

Don't forget they only have 3.4% of the income. But you are wrong on who
gets the greatest share of government subsidies. It isn't the poor, it's
business. Depending on how you calculate them, business subsidies run
between $125 billion and $200 billion.



Imagine you went into a restaurant and the price you paid for a hamburger
depended upon how much you earned.

The poor guy gets a Super size burger, fries and a coke...and has to pay
$2.20. The rich guy goes in and has to pay $20.80...but he only gets a
kid's size meal for it.

And that's fair in your eyes?

LOL, we are not talking Mickey D's, we are talking Uncle Sam's. One of
the dirty little secrets, and IMO the root of much/most evil in
Washington, is the incestuous relationship between our elected leaders and
corporate leadership. There is a direct linkage between corporate
welfare, and campaign financing. This is neither good for the
corporations, as they can't get off the money teat, nor us, as our elected
officials whore themselves. You can whine about the benefits given the
poor, but it amounts to pennies compared to the big bucks given to
corporations. Hell, until Bush's record deficits, ending corporate
welfare would have balanced the budget.