re: #403 austin_blue

Yes, and given the combination of payroll and income taxes, you and I are fulfilling much more, as a percentage, of the Social Contract than folks who blow our doors off in income.

Have any idea how much the top 3% *don’t* pay in Social Security taxes as a percentage than we do? It’s capped at an income about $110,000.

We are but pawns in a game rigged for the rich.

Oh dear. Yes, the rich don’t pay social security taxes on the bulk of their bulky income. But they do pay federal income tax. Big time. The top few percent of earners pay about half the taxes. If not for their hefty earnings and the taxes that go with such earnings, us somewhat-above-average earnings types would have to pay double what we pay now, to make up the gap.

There are valid criticisms to be leveled at the rich, but the charge that they don’t pay their fair share of the overall tax burden is way off base. If we put taxes much higher, going on past experience, the next generation of rich-in-the-making will conclude that being rich is impossible because working like a horse to get rich enriches only the government.

With the exception of the Jeff Skillings and Bernie Madoffs, (outright criminals), and the John Edwards and Al Gores (whose wealth flows, in barely legal ways, from being connected rather than from doing useful work), today’s rich are doing the rest of us many favors. They invent stuff. They make our economy more productive. They hire people. They doctor us and entertain us. And they pay taxes that would otherwise fall on us.