After years of propaganda, the Left has managed to convince most Americans that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes. According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, 6 in 10 Americans now agree with that proposition. Interestingly, the same survey found that 40 percent of taxpayers think they pay more than their fair share.
A quick look at the facts will reveal just how false the accusation is. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and reported by the Wall Street Journal, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in this country pays 45.7 percent of all income taxes. That’s almost as much as all the rest of taxpayers combined. And they do it while making only 17.1 percent of the total income in this country.
By the way, the same WSJ report reveals that top 20 percent of earners pay 83.9 percent of all federal income taxes. And they do so while making only 51.3 percent of total income. So if you’re fortunate enough to be in this group and feel that you pay more than your fair share, the numbers support you.
What about the folks at the other end of the scale? It turns out that the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers earns only 4.5 percent of total income in the U.S. But get this: They pay -2.2 percent of the taxes. Yes, that’s a minus sign in front of the number. It means that thanks to all of the various welfare programs, the people in this group actually get more money back from the government than they contribute. But you knew that, didn’t you?
Karl Marx would no doubt applaud the disparity. After all, he made a graduated or progressive income tax the second plank of the Communist Manifesto. Most Americans don’t realize that the idea that the more money you make, the greater percentage you should pay in taxes comes straight out of communism’s founding document.
Except for a brief period during the Civil War, the United States managed to go more than 130 years without an income tax. In fact, until 1913, when the 16th Amendment was ratified, the courts had repeatedly ruled that an income tax was unconstitutional. Now, of course, the income tax is the main source of money for our profligate central government, generating nearly $3 trillion a year in revenue.
Even that astronomical sum isn’t enough for the big spenders in Washington, who have managed to rack up over $18 trillion in debt. And they pile on even more every day, with the latest deficit spending down to “only” $500 billion a year or so.
If the Democrats have their way, the spending numbers will only go up. In fact, a poll by Investor’s Business Daily last month found that 90 percent of Democrats favor “raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to pay for programs that will benefit the lower and middle classes.”
Never mind that we’ve been fighting a “war on poverty” ever since President Lyndon Johnson announced it back in the 1960s. Despite spending trillions of dollars on various welfare programs, the numbers-crunchers say we have more poverty in America now than we did when that phony war began. (Of course, “poverty” today means owning several color TVs and spending over a hundred bucks on a pair of sneakers.)
It was Harry Hopkins, a close aide of President Franklin Roosevelt and one of the architects of the New Deal, who summarized the Democrat strategy this way: “Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.”
That formula has worked pretty well for Democrats for the past 80 years. We’ll find out next year if they can get enough voters to buy into it again.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest. This article first appeared on PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
