In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning

Ben Stein wrote in NYT Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay,

Who determines "what they can afford to pay"

or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap....

Best way to close the deficit gap is to cut spending.

In fact, the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry rule. It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say).

But because they increased spending.

Only by the end of fiscal 2006 did income tax revenue surpass the $1 trillion level again. By this time, we Republicans had added a mere $2.7 trillion to the national debt. So much for tax cuts adding to revenue.

The tax cuts did add to revenue. They caused the economy to grow, which takes time, and with lower taxes the revenue was over $1 Trillion by the end of fiscal 2006. The increase in the national debt is because we spent too much, for 9/11, for Katrina, etc and did not cut spending to pay for the war.

To be fair, corporate profits taxes have increased greatly, as corporate profits have increased stupendously. This may be because of the cut in corporate tax rates. Anything is possible.

May be???