ABOUT THAT MIDDLE-CLASS SQUEEZE

Democrats seem unable to stop themselves from promoting higher taxes for the wealthy and lower taxes for the poor. But if the public knew the facts, their rhetoric would have no resonance. The poor in America pay virtually no taxes at the federal level. What taxes they do pay have been falling for decades:

• The total effective federal tax rate -- for income, payroll and excise taxes -- for the bottom 20 percent of U.S. households was halved from 1979 to 2005.
• From 2000, the year before President Bush took office, to 2005, after his tax cuts had fully kicked in, their total effective federal tax rate fell by nearly a third.
• If you look at households with children, the difference is even more stark -- for the top incomes, taxes have risen, while those at the bottom saw a whopping 85.7 percent cut.

Don't think that the poor's tax burden has been passed to the average American family:

• The total effective federal tax rate for the middle quintile has fallen faster than the top two quintiles.
• The effective tax rate for middle-class Americans has fallen since the late 1970s.
• While that was happening, the median after-tax household income jumped by more than a quarter.

With taxes down and incomes up, all quintiles are doing better.

[yeah stats can be filtered to show nearly anything, but beware those comparing current economic circumstance to the whacky 90's (as is routinely done), which were hardly 'average'. What ever happened to the moral aspect of stealing from one person to give to another - is that what we want our democracy to stand for?]

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