What the top 1% are paying in taxes now

Neal Boortz:

In a few weeks, the IRS is going to release its latest data on who pays how much in taxes. But an article in the Wall Street Journal gives us a sneak peak on what we can expect. According to the Treasury Department, perhaps for the first time ever, the richest 1% of taxpayers will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. Do you remember when we had Dennis Kucinich on the Boortz Show (audio) and I asked him what percentage of the tax burden do the top 1% of taxpayers pay? His answer was something like 15%. Not even close. I then asked him how much of total income the top 1% earned .. and he came back with the asinine figure of around 60%. In short (pun intended) he didn't have a clue. The actual answer was around 17.5%.

Again .. who are these people in the top tax bracket? Two-thirds of them are small business owners. Small business owners who provide 70% of existing jobs and 80% of all new jobs in our economy. These are the people Barack wants to nail with more taxes. Come on folks, liberal or conservative, black or white --- does this make any sense? Are you really going to go vote for someone just because he is the same color as you when it could well mean your job?

Do you get upset when I start talking about income redistribution? Get used to it. I think that income is earned. Democrats like Obama think that income is distributed. Obama's solution? Redistribution. The Tax Foundation reports that Obama's tax plan would transfer $131 billion from the top 1% of taxpayers – who are already paying 40% of the load – to all other taxpayers. Either you have to admit that this is wholly unfair, or admit that you are just plain flat envious of those who have accomplished more than you.

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There is more.

Neal captures many of my thoughts on the tax burden. It is why I desperately want someone to ask Obama what percentage of taxes he thinks the top one percent should pay. I think the answer would be very revealing whether he knows the current amount or not. If he pulls a Kucinich it will just prove he is ignorant. If he gets it right and still wants them to pay more, it will demonstrate his embrace of government greed as well as his ignorance of economics.