The latest data shows the top 1 percent of earners pay 37 percent of all income taxes. The top 10 percent pay more than 70 percent. The bottom half pays 3 percent, and 47 percent pay nothing.
Also, a recent study indicated conservatives give significantly more to charity than liberals. Suggest that a recipient of government support take a drug test or work for the money like FDR required during the Great Depression, and one is derided as a hater by progressives.
Yet if someone paid $6.2 million (14 percent) of his income in taxes and gave another $7 million (16 percent) to charity, he hasn't paid his fair share because someone with less income paid 28 percent of his earnings in combined income and Social Security taxes.
We don't spend percentages. We spend dollars, and the vote from the $6.2 million contributor counts the same as the voter who pays nothing. Those same top 10 percent earners derive earnings from business that provide jobs that pay an additional 7.5 percent of their employees income to the employees' Social Security and Medicare.
Demonizing this group defies logic. So who are the truly greedy?
To those in the 99 percent who claim they want justice, I simply ask: What sacrifices are your rights and safety worth to you? The 1 percent say by their tax payments they're worth millions every year.
Michael Jennings
Duncansville
