Democrats always claim that they will raise taxes on the rich because the rich aren’t paying their “fair share,” but don’t expect anyone in the mainstream media to ever ask a Democrat to give a precise definition of exactly what proportion of someone else’s income it is “fair” to take. The real answer is always “more,” but occasionally Krugman or some other nitwit will openly call for something like a 90 percent marginal tax rate.
A related falsehood is that the rich enjoy lower tax rates than the middle class. Matthew Dickerson and Sarah Wagoner of the Economic Policy Innovation Center have a nice short paper out debunking these familiar claims. Main conclusion: “The rich already pay higher federal tax rates. Those with higher income pay a larger share of the tax burden than their share of national incomes.”
Among their findings in graphic form:
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