Today, in a Washington Times op-ed, Bill O’Reilly complains that if President Bush’s tax cuts “on those making $250,000 or more” are repealed, “me and other rich folks” — who as “part of the 1 percent of Americans that paid an astounding 40 percent of all federal income tax in 2006″ — would have to finance “folks who dropped out of school, who are too lazy to hold a job, who smoke reefers 24/7“:
That means people who drink gin all day will get some of my hard-earned money. Folks who dropped out of school, who are too lazy to hold a job, who smoke reefers 24/7 all will get some goodies in the mail from UncleBarack and Aunt Nancy, funded by me and other rich folks.
O’Reilly’s characterization of the 99% of Americans who earn less than $250,000 a year notwithstanding, his argument that the richest Americans are overburdened by taxation is demonstratively false. According to Internal Revenue Service data, “the share of income reported by the very wealthy has risen faster than the group’s share of income taxes.”
In fact, “the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years,” allowing the wealthiest 1% of Americans to garner “the highest share of the nation’s adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929.” The “average tax rate in 2006 for the top 1%, based on adjusted gross income, was 22.8%,” down from “28.9% in 1996, and…24% in 1988″:
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