Republican/Conservatives have different favorite whipping boys like “Welfare Queens” and “Tax and Spend Liberals”.

Meanwhile, if you have any demonstrable facts hidden in your posts, please feel free to reveal them. I cited data from the Federal Reserve, which data seems contrary to your position.

That’s one of my favorite bumper stickers of all time. Along with “Kill Your Television”

Anyways, read David Cay Johnston
He won a Pulitzer for reporting on this stuff. (Local guy, too: lives in Brighton)

He wrote Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)

and Perfectly Legal : The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich–and Cheat Everybody Else

Read his books before discussing this.

He details how the middle class pays a lower higher effective marginal rate than the rich - and so the middle class ends up subsidizing the lifestyles of the super-rich… We pay more so Paris Hilton can pay less.

As for your ad hominem attack about an anecdotal claim, are you claiming that your probable hero, George Bush, is not the king of the anecdotal? And didn’t Reagan make the political anecdote into an art form? Or are you saying they were truly “Democrat/Liberal”s? And by the way, I’m not getting the use of “postulate” here.

But by going after the tax rate claim (which I still believe I accurately described) and my inconsequential anecdote, are you implicitly acknowledging the rest of what I said is true? No facts, painting with too broad a brush, the Upper East Siders ain’t going nowhere, etc.?

I’m sorry, but your analysis of the data reported by the Fed is wrong.

The data clearly state that the average tax rate was higher as you moved up through income groups. Despite your claim that “we average Joes” pay a third of our salary as income taxes, it just isn’t so. It may well be that we here in New York pay a third of our income for taxes of all kinds, but with regard to income taxes, the progressive system works just fine.

Meanwhile, your anecdotal claims show that you have been properly indoctrinated in the area of “class warfare”, another one of those tried and true Democrat/Liberal postulates.

You start out with some broad claim, lumping a varied and large group of people together: “Democrats and liberals love their tried and true theories, even when they prove factually troublesome.” Great - so let’s look at the “tried and true theories” and the factual basis you use to challenge them. But first, to your non sequitor:

“For example, your penchant for identity politics is coming back to bite you in the Obama - Hillary slugfest as the various interest groups you have so carefully cultivated are turning on eachother.”

Who do you think is coming out on top in what you refer to as this “slugfest”? With record numbers of Democrats registering and voting in the primaries, do you think the Republican party is gaining here? And what about polls comparing the likelihood of either candidate beating John McCain? Here’s one from yesterday as an example - either one beats McBush.:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ijClHoidEl8XEJMJoUooHU1R_nmgD8VQLMRO0

Then you write, “Now, comes you and your post ballyhoo-ing the fact that most New Yorkers accept another Dem/Lib favorite: soak the rich. Gee, I’m shocked that people who think they won’t be affected are willing to pass the burden for government costs to rich people who can “afford it”. Too bad that the reality is that taxes on the rich most often do affect “poorer” people.”

Facts John, facts. Or are we still buying into the mythical “trickle down economics”? Let’s see some facts establishing that taxes on the rich hurt the poor. Or would they alleviate some of the tax burden of the middle class and increase the income for the state, allowing greater services for less money?

You claim to have an example:
“My favorite example of this comes from the ’80’s, when the Dems in Congress decided it would be good to put a big excise tax on luxury items like yachts and private planes. After all, anyone who’d buy those things could afford to foot a bigger part of the tax bill. So what happened? Those rich people just stopped buying those items and many “just plain folks” lost their jobs in the factories that built the luxury items.”

John - First, are you talking about the 1990 tax? And second, I know some rich people and I don’t recall anyone electing not to buy their luxury items. Maybe you can cite some…er….facts? And were the industries already suffering at the time the taxes were imposed? Any real analysis here John, or just sweeping statements unsupported by anything but fervor and zeal?

As for your claim, “I know you think rich people are mostly idle heirs, but in fact, most of them got rich by being productive through their hard work. Those people often run small businesses which employ most of the workers in the country. There is a point of no return on taxation.” Any stats or facts here, either on what the folks who do this website believe about rich people, or what the breakdown really is between those who grew up with money and remained wealthy, and those who grew up without and became wealthy? And who are we defining as rich?

Then you say: ” People with that level of wherewithal can, and will, move to a more favorable place to operate. New York State is, in effect, a living experiment and testament to that fact.” This seems to be fairly inconsistent. You seem to be claiming that rich people will move from New York to preserve their wealth. Any facts to support this? Who are all those people living on Park Avenue, the Upper East Side, etc? Never mind those who own the brownstones in Brooklyn. Aren’t they the testament to the fact that the rich are not moving? The places people are moving from are places like Rochester, where small minded legislators use government to enrich their friends and relatives, and deprive our community of the best available, whether it is college presidents or new development.

As for your data (and when you quote, you should use quotation marks and attribution):

http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/itv/2006/a/pages/lead_story.html

“The top 25 percent accounted for 64.9 percent of AGI and paid 83.9 percent of taxes (IIT). Their tax rate was 15.4 percent.”

So if the raw data was broken down, are we to understand that the top 25% was so rich that when they only paid taxes in a 15.4% bracket, the actual number amounted to 83.9% of taxes paid? And are we also to understand that so many of us, who are really struggling to pay mortgages, college bills, groceries, and yes, gas for the cars due to…never mind…are paying one third of our money to taxes,while those who have so much more are being given tax breaks? Even your own numbers recognize that the richest pay the least proportionately to what they make. That hardly seems fair, does it? Nobody’s looking to soak the rich. We’re just looking for them to pay their fair share.

What TAXPAYERS want is for people to pay their fair share.

Math lesson:

Bill works at a factory and makes 38K a year and is taxed at a HIGHER percentage than Biff, who works for Monroe County, making 185K a year after perks and “salary”.

Bill thinks Biff should pay the same percentage in taxes as he does. Biff thinks it’s Bill’s problem he’s not politically connected so he can get the higher paying job.

Bill hates Biff. Biff hates Bill.

The difference is that Bill has the MAJORITY. Biff will lose now that his “friends” no longer control the laws.

Biff wants to move to Florida, where he can set up offshore bank accounts, and get a nice big fat job as an assessor in a GOP controlled state. Biff eats alot of Tums and his life expectancy is short - even shorter in federal prison.

Bill on the other hand will live a long and healthy life now that the Dems have passed national health care and spends his weekends with his grandchildren.

Funny how things work out in the end, eh?

Be careful not to tax them too much; you may kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

If the bird can’t fly, where is the loss?