He doesn’t seem to be able to help himself. In the New York Times (of course), Warren Buffett has — once again — insisted that America’s “mega-rich” are not paying their fair share. In fact, he claims, they are paying less than some middle-income earners.
This is a broken record that Mr. Buffett has taken to re-playing over the past five years. What’s different this time is that it coincides with a tour throughout America’s Midwest being taken by President Obama, in which the chief executive is echoing the same theme.
But you only need to look at the Congressional Budget Office’s figures to see that, contra the Obama-Buffett school of economics, America does in fact have a progressive tax system. As the CBO stated in late 2010: “In 2007, households in the bottom fifth, or quintile, of the income distribution paid about 4 percent of their income in federal taxes, while the middle quintile paid 14 percent, and the highest quintile paid 25 percent.”
What’s more, the CBO is also clear that those who earn more have been paying an increasing share of the tax burden. “The share of taxes paid by the top fifth of the population,” it states, “grew sharply between 1979 and 2007.” Indeed, this group was paying almost 70 percent of federal taxes by 2007.
The New Testament Documents
15 years ago