Molly Ivins: Guess who's paying for dinner?

[Dudley_DUright]

David Cay Johnston, the invaluable New York Times reporter who specializes in our tax system, has come up with some staggering figures on what he calls "the hyper-rich," the wealthiest one-thousandth of the population, and their taxes.

# "The share of the nation's income earned by those in this uppermost category has more than doubled since 1980. ... The share of income earned by the rest of the top 10 percent rose far less, and the share earned by the bottom 90 percent fell."

# "Under the Bush tax cuts, the 400 taxpayers with the highest income -- a minimum of $87 million in 2000, the last year for which the government will release such data -- now pay income, Medicare and Social Security taxes amounting to virtually the same percentage of their incomes as people making $50,000 to $75,000."

# "Those earning more than $10 million a year now pay a lesser share of their income in these taxes than those making $100,000 to $200,000."

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19172

[getmeouttahere]

1. This is what separates us....

from most of the rest of the industrialized world...and why another depression will be so ugly!

With our resources, we wouldn't have to raise taxes to have a decent social safety net...just collect the fair share from these rich bastards!!!

[acmejack]

4. Exactly!

They will be like the rich in Rio, tucked away in their little gated and sentried compounds, safe from the masses. As you said, no other industrialized nation has anything close in wealth disparity. The ramifications are ugly at best.

[TahitiNut]

2. "Those earning more than $10 million a year"???

That's NOT "earned" income. With the arguable exception of entertainment and sports figures, that's income from the labors of others.

[Rose Siding]

3. Ironic, considering the position of our brand new fed appeals judge, huh?

Highlighted yesterday were Brown's "sweeping denunciations of New Deal legal precedents that enabled many federal regulations and social programs - developments she has called "the triumph of our socialist revolution."

I heart Molly.

[paineinthearse]

5. Nominated

Molly always gets my vote.

[NewWaveChick1981]

6. Right on, Molly!

I see people every day of the week in my line of work (student financial aid) who struggle to make it on far less than any one of us would consider "enough" to get by, and it just makes me violently ill to know that our lovely Federal government exists to make the lives of the morbidly rich even greater. The poor schmucks at the bottom of the totem pole just get beat up repeatedly.