Middle Class Americans Pay More in Taxes than wealthiest Americans

August 17, 2004 (Excerpted from Newsday)

President George W. Bush spouted a familiar refrain on the stump Saturday: "If you pay tax, you ought to get relief - it seems like to be the fair way to do things instead of trying to pick winners and losers," he said. But pick them or not, with the Bush tax cuts, there are winners and there are losers.

Since 2001, tax cuts have shifted the federal tax burden away from the wealthiest Americans (the winners) and to the middle class (the losers).That's not partisan, election-year spin. It's the conclusion of the respected, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, run at the moment by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former chief of Bush's own Council of Economic Advisers.According to a CBO report released Friday, the top 1 percent of earners - average annual income $1.1 million - saw their combined share of federal tax payments fall to 20.1 percent this year, from 22.7 percent in 2001.

For the top 20 percent of earners - average annual income $182,700 - the decrease was to 63.5 percent this year from 65.3 percent in 2001. At the same time, middle America - average annual income $75,600 - saw its share of the federal tax burden increase from 18.5 percent to 19.5 percent.That's fundamentally unfair.

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