Are you a domestic terrorist?

[Jester]

"The top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $66,532) earned 68.7 percent of the nation's income, but they paid more than four out of every five dollars collected by the federal income tax (86.6 percent). The top 1 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $410,096) earned approximately 22.8 percent of the nation's income (as defined by AGI), yet paid 40.4 percent of all federal income taxes. That means the top 1 percent of tax returns paid more in federal individual income taxes than the bottom 95 percent of tax returns."

Yup. Means that the poor folk on the bottom of the pyramid don't get stuck paying taxes they can't afford, and instead, the burden is shouldered by those that can. The marvels of progressive taxation!

For those earning over $66,532 a year...

155,000,000 * .25 = 38,750,000
1,000,000,000 * .687 = $893,100,000 / 38,750,000 = $23 / day or $690/month or $8280 / year.

Sounds about right. Your taxes at work! You still pay less of them than nearly any other developed country. Of course, you also get less for them, notably in health care. But we've already had that thread.

What bill do you have that exceeds $690 / month? House payment/rent perhaps.

Me? Yeah, rent is more than that. But I live in London. Food and drink come out to something around there, maybe a little less. (Okay, quite a bit less.)

Much less callous indeed. The government spends more per day to service debt they incurred forcing me to be benevolent than I spend on myself.

Hey, you wanted the Iraq war, remember? The WMD you were so darn convinced were there? Look at that table you showed - Bush very nearly *doubled* the national debt. (Reagan did the same - the only other guy on the big spenders list is FDR, and he had what you might call "a good excuse".) Bush sure didn't spend all that scratch on poverty reduction and foreign aid.

-Jester