I snagged this off the web, some of you may well recognize the source:
Only The Rich Pay Taxes
Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.09% of Income Taxes
October 23, 2002
The IRS has released the year 2000 data for individual income tax returns. The numbers illustrate a truth that will startle you: that half of Americans with the highest incomes pays 96.09% of all income tax. This nukes the liberal lie that the rich don't pay taxes. The top 1%, who earn 20.81% of all income covered under the income tax, are paying 37.42% of the federal tax bite.
Think of it this way: less than four dollars out of every $100 paid in income taxes in the United States is paid by someone in the bottom 50% of wage earners. Are the top half millionaires? Noooo, more like "thousandaires." The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $26,000 and up in 1999. (The top 1% earned $293,000-plus.) Americans who want to are continuing to improve their lives - and those who don't want to, aren't. Here are the wage earners in each category and the percentages they pay:
Top 5% - 56.47% of all income taxes; Top 10% - 67.33% of all income taxes; Top 25% - 84.01% of all income taxes. Top 50% - 96.09% of all income taxes. The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.91% of all income taxes. The top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 50%! And who earns what? The top 1% earns 20.81% of all income. The top 5% earns 35.30% of the pie. The top 10% earns 46.01%; the top 25% earns 67.15%, and the top 50% earns 87.01% of all the income.
The Rich Earned Their Dough, They Didn't Inherit It (Except Ted Kennedy)
The bottom 50% is paying a tiny bit of the taxes, so you can't give them much of a tax cut by definition. Yet these are the people to whom the Democrats claim to want to give tax cuts. Remember this the next time you hear the "tax cuts for the rich" business. Understand that the so-called rich are about the only ones paying taxes anymore.
I had a conversation with a woman who identified herself as Misty on Wednesday. She claimed to be an accountant, yet she seemed unaware of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which now ensures that everyone pays some taxes. AP reports that the AMT, "designed in 1969 to ensure 155 wealthy people paid some tax," will hit "about 2.6 million of us this year and 36 million by 2010." That's because the tax isn't indexed for inflation! If your salary today would've made you mega-rich in '69, that's how you're taxed.
Misty tried the old line that all wealth is inherited. Not true. John Weicher, as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank, wrote in his February 13, 1997 Washington Post Op-Ed, "Most of the rich have earned their wealth... Looking at the Fortune 400, quite a few even of the very richest people came from a standing start, while others inherited a small business and turned it into a giant corporation." What's happening here is not that "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer." The numbers prove it.
And another:
Democrats Get More Money From "Rich"
December 18, 2002
Another myth about "the rich" has been shattered – namely the conventional wisdom that they are all Republicans – thanks to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. A December 18, 2002 Washington Times editorial reports that donors giving "small and medium amounts" in 2002 overwhelmingly supported the GOP, while "rich or deep-pocketed givers" hugely backed the Democrats!
Those giving $200 to $999: GOP $68 million; Democrats $44 million. Those giving $1,000 to $9,999: GOP $317 million; Democrats $307 million. The "fabulously wealthy" donors of $10,000+ gave $111 million to the GOP – a whopping $29 million less than the $140 million they lavished on the Democrats! Among those who gave $100,000+, the Democrats raised $72 million – more than double the $34 million the GOP took.
"Yeah, but all those millionaires are Republicans." No, that's not a fact, my friends. The fact is that in the 2002 election cycle, those who gave a million dollars or more poured $36 million into the Democrat coffers, and a paltry $3 million into the pockets of the GOP. Again: millionaire donations went Democrat by a 12:1 margin! The two parties took in about the same amount overall – GOP: $384 million; Democrats: $350 million. Just look at the Hollywood left, and you see where the big money goes.
In addition, the GOP attracted 40% more individual donors! (George W. Bush set an all-time fund-raising record by collecting the most money from one-thousand-dollar donors in the history of presidential politics.) Far more people giving small amounts exist as contributors to the Republican Party - while Democrats skunked the GOP among the super-rich. That's no surprise, since nine of the twelve richest members of the United States Senate are Democrats.
We're going to put this up on our website homepage permanently, right alongside the story that the top 50% of wage earners, those who make more than $26,000 a year, pay over 96% of all income taxes. This myth that the Republicans are the party of the rich is breathing its last gasps, so we're giving you these figures to help put it out of its misery for good. This is not a political commercial you have to disprove. These are actual results of campaign contributions in just the 2002 cycle, which is why this class-envy garbage isn't getting the traction it used to.
And one more article, this one from the Washington Times:
Washington Times Op-Ed: The Richest 1%
Dateline: December 18, 2002
Headline: The richest 1 percent
Byline: The Washington Times
So much for Republicans being the party of the wealthy. According to a new study by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, that moniker more appropriately belongs to the Democrats. "Republicans raised more than Democrats from individuals who contributed small and medium amounts of money during the 2002 election cycle," the report notes, "but Democrats far outpaced Republicans among deep-pocketed givers." Among donors who gave more than $200 but less than $1,000, Republicans enjoyed a substantial $68 million to $44 million edge over Democrats. The margin was closer among those individuals who gave $1,000 or more: The GOP took in $317 million, compared to the Democrats' $307 million.
But among the fabulously wealthy, the Democrats cleaned house. Donors of $10,000 or more gave $140 million to Democrats, while only $111 million went to Republicans. Among those individuals who gave $100,000 or more, the Democrats raised $72 million compared to the Republicans' $34 million. And when it comes to the millionaires' club - those kicking in $1 million or more - the Democratic Party skunked the GOP, $36 million to $3 million. Needless to say, despite the near-parity in overall amounts - $384 million to the Republicans vs. $350 million to the Democrats - the number of individual donors to the GOP exceeded those to the Democratic Party by more than 40 percent.
In other words, in 2002 a select group of bigwigs dumped big money into Democratic causes, while a broad base of folks donated respectable [but not overwhelming] amounts to Republican candidates. That goes a long way toward explaining the Democrats' shallow support in the midterm elections, and should give an indication of which party's agenda has been hijacked by the big money-men.
But it also sheds light on the president's first round of tax cuts - arguably the highest-profile domestic referendum in the midterm elections. We can't help but notice that only those who are so stinking rich that money doesn't matter supported the Democrats' opposition to tax cuts. Meanwhile, the many more who form the backbone of America's economy supported the Republicans. As the White House and congressional Republicans prepare a new tax package, we hope they bear that in mind. And just to show that there are no hard feelings, we'll still support tax cuts for the limousine liberals. With all that extra change in their pockets, maybe they'll put it to more productive uses than propping up the rejected policies of the Democratic Party.
There seems to be more of a connection between wealth and liberals than I previously thought, good topic muck.
Ok, all done. Fire away!!
