Some Tax Data

These are via the Tax Foundation and are from 2016, which happens to be the last year of the Obama administration and so represent the culmination of Obama’s tax policies.

  • The share of income earned by the top 1% of taxpayers rose to 20.6% in 2014. Their share of federal individual income taxes also rose, to 39.5%.
  • In 2014, the top 50% of all taxpayers paid 97.3% of all individual income taxes while the bottom 50% paid the remaining 2.7%.
  • The top 1% paid a greater share of individual income taxes (39.5%) than the bottom 90% combined (29.1%).
  • The top 1% of taxpayers paid a 27.1% individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50% (3.5%).

Progressive-Democrats argue, and they’re actually serious, that this isn’t enough.  The rich still aren’t paying “their fair share.”  Cynically, those same Progressive-Democrats refuse to say how much, or what per cent, is the rich’s fair share, beyond saying, “More, more, more.”

Progressive-Democrats’ only principle, when it comes to OPM, is Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.  They have no limiting principle.

It’ll be interesting to see how those data compare with the data for 2019, the first year of the Republicans’ tax cuts and reform.

Sound Familiar?

Sadanand Dhume led off his Wall Street Journal op-ed last week with this:

Seven decades after the country first embraced caste-based quotas in education and government jobs, they have become permanent entitlements that cement social divisions, encourage mediocrity and poison political discourse.

Segregationist identity politics. This is the preferred ideology of the Progressive-Democratic Party, also.  No less a light than Senator Kamala Harris (D, CA) led off her campaign for President saying she would center her campaign on her potential to be our first black woman President, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) insists it’s time for a woman to be President (she’s a young mom, you see).  And San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro (D) wants to be our first Hispanic President.

Notice the pattern here: none of these Progressive-Democrats want to be President of the United States.  Every single one of them want to be the first [ethnic/race/gender-of-choice] President of an identity politics-divided United States.

The Indian example is what we can look forward to if the party of identity politics ideology gets a member elected.