WE'RE GOING TO HEAR A LOT FROM THE NOISE MACHINE

Rep. Rangel's plan for tax code changes has already gotten the The Hive in action because it goes against their ideology of cutting taxes only for the rich. As Dick Armey wrote in the WSJ: "America's top income-tax rate will skyrocket from the current 35% rate to a top rate of 44%. Let's be clear -- that's a 25% tax hike." Human Events feels that taxing some of the Masters of the Universe like the rest of us will harm the economy: "It would also take the wrong-headed step of taxing so-called “carried interest,” the share of profits that an investment fund manager receives, at ordinary income tax rates rather than the lower capital gains rates it has always been subject to."

Let's put the overall tax rate into some historical perspective: The rates have become less progressive since 1960, as the NY Times shows:

We've had different rates of growth during the years since 1960 and it is clear that the economy can do well regardless of the tax rate on the wealthiest, contrary to the supply-siders ideology. The wingnuts often make the point that the wealthiest are paying a greater percentage of taxes than ever but NEVER mention that they are doing so because their income has risen so much. As the Times puts it:

The affluent are paying more of the taxes because they’re making so much more money.

A family in that top 1 percent of earners paid a total federal tax rate — including everything from payroll taxes to income taxes to capital gains taxes — of 30 percent in 2004. That was down from 41 percent a decade before. Since the 1950s, tax rates on high-income families have generally been falling.

The top earners pay a bigger share of the government tab than in the past because their incomes have risen so sharply — even more sharply than their tax bills. (Mr. Fleischer was able to claim the opposite by looking only at income taxes.)

The affluent, in short, are paying less in taxes on every dollar they earn but earning many more dollars.