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The Top 50 Percent of All Taxpayers Paid 97 Percent of All Income Taxes; the Top 5 Percent Paid 57 Percent of All Income Taxes; and the Top 1 Percent Paid 35 Percent of All Income Taxes in 2011.

Gad I've been at FR for almost fourteen years and you think I've never seen those numbers before? Try thinking for a second before blathering with the knee-jerk response you would direct at a liberal.

"The top 1%" is not the cohort of which I am speaking, which was very clear by how I defined it. In fact, it is THE LEFT that calls "the top 1%" "rich" because it includes a fraction of the upper middle class still fighting to get above the line. By "the rich" (as the article says and not by how you define it for the purposes of bandying the numbers, namely those who own "charitable" foundations as I made perfectly clear and you ignored), I'm speaking of incomes of roughly $1 million per year and up. With foundations to shelter expenses covering everything from yachts to vacations to hirelings, these people do not pay at the rates that those lacking sufficient cash flow to set up and maintain the sheltering infrastructure. Think back to Warren Buffett explaining how he pays lower tax rates than his secretary, or Theresa Heinz laughing about paying only a relative pittance in taxes on her massive income. That is what I am talking about here.

And don't believe for a second that those foundations exist only for charitable purposes. The funds for the vast bulk of regulatory racketeering in the Federal courts of this country by green groups, "safety" hustlers, and others, bringing cases designed to put their competitors out of business, are first laundered through secondary bundlers (such as Tides) but derive from the foundations of major stockholders. THAT is why the rich are so often limousine liberals, because big government makes buying influence is a very good investment.

I've written two books and several articles discussing this topic. Consider this one about the Natural Resources Defense Council. FReepers have been borrowing that data and posting it here for a decade. In fact, that work changed somewhat the way that these creeps launder their money (Drummond Pike should be sending me Christmas cards). Don't be a chump for that "1%" meme as the MSM set you up to be.