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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (132154)	3/16/2001 11:10:37 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

The tax picture looks very different if you look at income taxes alone vs. looking at income taxes and payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are regressive and are now the largest tax burden for many low-income workers. If you look at income taxes and payroll taxes together, the percentage of tax paid by the richest Americans is not growing.

To: KLP who wrote (132154)	3/16/2001 2:01:37 PM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 769667

Excellent article. Andrew Sullivan has an important insight on the danger the Dems pose to this Republic - a warning first made by de Toqueville: THE WEALTHY ONE PERCENT: Interesting piece today in the Washington Post, pointing out that the richest 400 tax payers pay as much to the feds as the poorest 40 million in taxes. It kind of puts into perspective the constant refrain that Bush's tax cut mainly benefits the rich. In today's lopsided economy, any reduction in all tax rates will inevitably benefit the rich. I guess Al Gore wasn't smart enough to figure that out. The real worry is the danger in a system where increasing numbers of people are consumers of government goodies, and a smaller and smaller number of people pay for more and more of it. This is a recipe for majoritarian tyranny. If we have one-person-one-vote and you can always vote for higher taxes and spending, knowing you won't ever have to pay for it, why not do so? There's a reason public spending increased by 8 percent last year under a Republican Congress. And there's a reason some Republicans are quietly insouciant about possible future deficits under their tax plan. They figure there's no legitimate way to stop the dependent class voting for more and more, except throwing the government into periodic fits of bankruptcy. There really ought to be a better way. ONE MORE THING: A reader points out a weird detail in the Post story. The data was "calculated by a Harvard University professor who asked not to be identified." Why anonymous? Is Harvard so intolerant a place that a professor who points out that the rich pay more than their fair share would suffer ostracism if it were known? The other alternative is modesty. Well, I spent several years at that great university and modesty was to be found purely on the football team. andrewsullivan.com SMOKING GORE: Interesting anonymous tip. Could the reason for the extreme modesty of the Harvard professor who provided the Washington Post with data showing the wealthy paying more than their fair share be pretty simple? Could he have been the economist who actually provided the Gore campaign with their demagogic "wealthy one percent" rhetoric last fall? Just asking, as they say.