On the recordDecember 8, 2010
I appreciate your perspective. One of the things, when you keep looking at this from the poor people/rich people kind of continuum, that is really the wrong question to be asking. The question should be: What do we need to do to put the economy back on track? That should be the question. What do we do to provide jobs and paychecks? That is our objective, not to discuss whether somebody is paying too much or their fair share of taxes. I forget the exact numbers, but as I recall, I think it is the top 10 percent of people who pay income taxes, pay something like over 70 percent. All of the tax money that is paid to the Federal Government comes from only 10 percent, and the bottom 40 percent pay zero. Now that is a pretty graduated income tax, that you have only the top 1 percent paying a very, very high amount, I am trying to remember if it is as much as 50 percent but it is quite a lot. But all of this stuff about the rich and the poor and the pay, it really should be about America. It should be about the American dream. And it should be common sense that when the economy is in bad shape, the one thing you do not hear anyone with any common sense saying is that you want to increase taxes. That is just plain nuts. And yet that is exactly the train wreck that is about to happen January 1 if this Congress doesn't take action. I at least credit the President for getting the message. He got it late.
