my connection with the tea party

[Lissa]

I think you are referring to taxes other than that on income. Sales tax, gasoline tax, property tax, and various other taxes do end up consuming a larger percentage of a persons gross income when they make less. Income tax on the other hand is(should be, IMO) simply(or not) a percentage of your income no matter what amount you gross.

Nope, I am not. The WSJ was speaking specifically about income taxes alone. Most people don't realize the various tax rates at various income levels. The income tax rate on dividend income is 15%. Now, if you look at the top 2%, some take in a very large percentage of their income through stock dividends. Warren Buffet in fact takes in so much dividend income each year that he pays around 16% to 17% of his total income per year as taxes.

Lower earners do have the option of not consuming products and avoiding sales tax. That would mean they would have to make everything on their own(or black market purchases). They do not have to buy gasoline and can avoid that tax. The list can go on and on.

How do you expect the low income earners to get an income if they live outside a metropolitan area? I don't know if you've ever lived out in a rural area, but the average pay in rural areas is much, much lower than cities (most rural living people think that if you pull in $50k/year you're rich where as $50k/year in a metropolitan area is relatively normal). Low income earners have to buy a car, they have to buy gas, otherwise they don't have much chance to survive as there is no public transportation in a rural area. You simply cannot get by without buying something that requires you to pay sales tax in some way.

Not every low wage earner pays a higher percentage. Some must pay a negative percentage, considering all the welfare programs that exist.

I like turtles.

Have you ever had you income low enough to require those services? As a college student I was placed into the hospital after being forced into a parked car while riding a bike. I didn't have the money for that hospital stay, nor the surgery to put my shoulder back together. If it weren't for programs like that, my right arm would be mostly useless for lifting anything of semi descent weight (I could lift a gallon milk/water jug, but anything above that in weight wasn't likely).

And as a final comment, consider this:

the top 400 income earners in the US bring in as much income a year as the bottom 150,000,000 (50% of the total population). 0.0003% at the top makes as much as the bottom 50%.