These figures are no surprise to anyone who has a Wall Street Journal subscription. They occasionally write an editorial detailing where the income taxes come from. The analysis generally divides taxpayers into quartiles - top 20%, bottom 20%, and three in the middle. The bottom 20% pays no income taxes, and in fact receives more money back than they pay due to refundable credits such as the EIC. The next 20% pay essentially no income tax. The top three quartiles carry all the income tax burden, with the top 20% shouldering about three-quarters of that.

Of course, this covers only the income tax, and it is highly progressive. In contrast, the social security payroll tax is highly regressive. Low wage earners pay proportionately more than higher earners, and the great majority of Americans pay more in SS taxes than they do in income taxes.

Other taxes, such as excise taxes and tariffs also hit low income earners harder because they are tied to consumption, and low income individuals consume a greater proportion of their income than to high income earners.

So I do agree with your ranting and raving about the income tax, but also look at it in the larger picture of the overall tax burden in this country. Scary as it is, we in the U.S. have relatively modest tax burdens compared to much of the world. Of course, our economy is also the envy of the world, and there is no small connection between those two facts.