Tax Cuts for the Rich

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today that delves into the IRS data for 2004.

What fun!

No, seriously, it's kind of interesting. Here's the short version.

The wealthiest 1% of tax filers paid a remarkable 35% of all individual income-tax payments that year.

It goes on to say that the top 3% paid 50% of all taxes. The tax system in the US is incredibly progressive. What that means is that any tax cut will be a tax cut for the rich, since no one else is paying any substantial amount of taxes.

Here are some questions to ask our friends in the Mainstream Media (MSM): Do you know this? If so, what's with allowing politicians to come on the air and talk about tax cuts for the rich? If the rich are the only ones paying a significant share of the taxes, who else would get a tax cut?

The real problem with the government is the spending. Right now, we spend every penny we get in taxes, we spend every penny of social security and we borrow more money to spend that. That's the same as you or I spending all of our income, spending our 401K savings and running up our credit card bills.

Just how long is that supposed to go on? What's the plan from, say, Barack Obama to deal with this?