Today is tax day, and in case you were wondering, tax rates on the super-rich are very, very low:
The Internal Revenue Service tracks the tax returns with the 400 highest adjusted gross incomes each year. The average income on those returns in 2007, the latest year for IRS data, was nearly $345 million. Their average federal income tax rate was 17 percent, down from 26 percent in 1992.
Keep in mind, congressional Republicans just voted to give these folks further tax breaks, as if they were laboring under the yoke of an oppressive tax regime, when in fact, the opposite is true. Indeed, overall, Americans are paying less in taxes than they have since the 1950s, despite receiving far more in government services:
For the past two years, a family of four earning the median income has paid less in federal income taxes than at any time since at least 1955, according to the Tax Policy Center. All federal, state and local taxes combined are a lower percentage of per-capita income than at any time since the 1960s, according to the Tax Foundation. The highest income-tax bracket is its lowest since 1992. At 35 percent, it's well below the 50 percent mark of much of the 1980s and the 70 percent bracket of the 1970s.
One quick observation: we can easily raise money by taxing the rich, but ultimately, middle-class tax hikes are necessary for the political sustainability of progressive governance. Without middle-class buy-in -- and more importantly, a sense of middle-class ownership -- major social programs are incredibly hard to defend (see: the fate of AFDC). President Obama seems to understand this (from last week's speech, "I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have an obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments."), but so far, he has steadily refused to make the case for middle-class taxes.
