Next time you hear the liberals and Democrats demagoguing the tax issue, shove these numbers down their throats.
According to a recent Congressional Budget Office report, for instance, the top 40 percent of Americans pay 99.1 percent of all income taxes - while the bottom 40 percent pay nothing at all.
And economist Gary Shilling reports that more than half all Americans - some 53 percent - receive some form of income from government.
Indeed, notes the Tax Foundation, the poorest fifth of Americans wind up getting $8.21 in government spending and services for each dollar of state, local and federal taxes they pay.
The highest earners, by comparison, get 41 cents back on each dollar spent on taxes. Top earners thus collectively kick down as much as $1.53 trillion a year to the bottom 60 percent.
Note, too, that high earners actually picked up a bigger share of the load after President Bush's tax cuts took effect.
Indeed, the richest 1 percent now shoulders 36.7 percent of the nation's income-tax bills.
Democrats have long argued the system is unfair.
The question is: for whom?
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