Pay your fair share!!

How many time have you had politicians tell us that those fortunate Americans making over a certain number have to pay their fair share in order to finance the government. They contend, as Vice President Biden believes, that it is our "patriotic duty" to pay more in taxes because our country is in a hard place right now and more revenue is needed. Others add on to this reasoning that the wealthy need to pay their fair share because they have benefited in the last decade while others have seen their wages stay stagnant. However, if there is a group that should be paying their "fair share" it's the poor. I know that must sound quite mean and uncaring, but it's true. Former Bush press secretary, Ari Fleischer, had a great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal recently. He wrote that, "A very small number of taxpayers -- the 10% of the country that makes more than $92,400 a year -- pay 72.4% of the nation's income taxes. They're the tip of the triangle that's supporting virtually everyone and everything. Their burden keeps getting heavier." He went on to write that "According to the CBO, those who made less than $44,300 in 2001 -- 60% of the country -- paid a paltry 3.3% of all income taxes. By 2005, almost all of them were excused from paying any income tax. They paid less than 1% of the income tax burden. Their share shrank even when taking into account the payroll tax. In 2001, the bottom 60% paid 16.3% of all taxes; by 2005 their share was down to 14.3%. All the while, this large group of voters made 25.8% of the nation's income." Say what you want, but such a system is not fair. One suggestion that Ari makes to solve this problem is to end the act of only raising or cutting taxes for certain income brackets. Instead, he proposes that if a tax cut or increase goes into effect, everybody's rate moves up or down. That way you won't have such an imbalanced system like we have now. Today's system is so unstable and risky. What's going to happen to the wealth of this country once those being classified as "rich" decide to retire or move out of the country? They can only carry the entire tax burden on their shoulders for so long. One day, it's just going to become too much. What will be the results? I don't even want to think about it right now...