If you made more than $52,965

in 1999, thank you.

Why? Because you are part of

a group that paid $83.50 of every $100 in individual income taxes collected

Are you shocked? There's more.

If you're in the group above,

you are in the top 25 percent in adjusted gross incomes of all U.S. taxpayers.

There were 31.5 million tax returns in that category in 1999, the most

recent year available from the Internal Revenue Service for these kinds

of analyses. Remember that many of those returns reflect husband-and-wife

households filing jointly.

Now in case the Democrats haven't

figured out the implications yet, here it is spelled out: The remaining

75 percent three out of every four of all taxpayers contributed less than

$14 TOTAL out of every $100 taken in by the IRS.

It gets worse.

"By 1999, the bottom half

of the income spectrum was paying just 4 percent of the income tax,"

according to a startling new report by the Washington, D.C.-based Tax

Foundation.

That's not a misprint. The

lower 50 percent of income earners combined pays less than a nickel out

of every tax dollar collected.

Here's another way to state

it: By 1999, 96 percent of all personal income taxes paid to the IRS came

from taxpayers whose household income was above $26,415. And how many

taxpayers were below that threshold? Half.

That lower half, by the way,

earned 13.3 percent of all AGI, but paid only 4 percent of all individual

income taxes. Is that "fair"?

Now, how about that infamous

"wealthiest 1 percent" of taxpayers so reviled by Democrats?

Turns out that robber baron group earned $19.50 of every $100 reported

as adjusted gross income. But here's the kicker: That much-maligned group

paid $36.20 of every $100 in taxes collected.

Let's see: That evil group

earned 20 percent of the money but paid 36 percent of the taxes? Hmmmmm,

is that the Democrat notion of "fairness"?

One supposes with some justification

from past Democrat administrations (Did you know that for a spell within

the past 60 years, the top income tax withholding rate was over 90 percent?!)

that "fairness" in the Democrat sense would be attained only

if that 1-percent group paid ALL of the taxes.

As one who was poor but was

appalled anyway at such confiscatory tax rates, I can tell you that, given

their head, Democrats have jacked withholding rates to unbelievable levels

in the past.

It's like that famous tale

of the non-swimming scorpion stinging to death its turtle ride across

a river: It's just in their nature to soak the rich. And rich to a Democrat

seems to be anybody making six or seven bucks an hour above minimum wage.

Let's go to the 5 percent level.

If you or your household made more than $120,000 in AGI, your group earned

more than 34 percent of the total AGI, but your group paid 55.5 percent

of all taxes collected. Is that "fair"?

How about the top 10 percent?

That would mean you filed a return showing AGI of at least $87,682. If

you are in that rarefied group of "rich" people, you earned

44.9 percent of total AGI, but you paid 66.5 percent of all income taxes

in 1999. Is that "fair"?

The trend is not favorable

for those paying most of the taxes. For example, 10 years earlier, the

top 50 percent of taxpayers earned 85 percent of total AGI, but paid 94.2

percent of all taxes. By 1999, those figures had increased to 86.7 percent

and 96 percent, respectively. But the increasing burden is even more targeted

than those figures suggest.

"The only segment of the

income spectrum paying a steadily higher fraction of individual income

tax collections is the top 5 percent of filers," the report says.

To put it simply, fewer and

fewer people are paying more and more of all taxes. Those who pay little

in taxes to begin with can look forward to paying even less as a percentage

of the whole. The share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent

has decreased from around 7 percent of the total in 1980 to less than

4 percent in 1999. Is that "fairness" in action?

Remember that the above figures

represent only those taxpayers who actually paid taxes. There is a whole

segment of lower-income earners who receive "earned income credit,"

essentially a pass on paying income taxes. They pay withholding taxes

but get most or all of it back when they file a return.

Let's talk about "fair."

Democrats at the national level

talk about "fairness," but what that translates into might seem

anything but "fair" to most people.

Why is it "fair"

to tax a person making $87,000 a year at a much heavier rate than someone

making $27,000 a year? Because the 87K person "can afford it better"?

Let's look at it another way.

The 27K person gets the same level of government services for which taxes

are paid in the first place as the 87K person, but is paying much less

for the same services. If it's "fair" to the 27K person, is

it correspondingly "unfair" to the 87K person?

Let's suppose two of us were

standing in line at the Demo-mart store. Each of us bought identical coats.

You are ahead of me and the clerk asks for your IRS withholding statement.

Seeing that you make $87,000 a year, the clerk charges you $30 for the

coat.

My turn now. The clerk sees

that I make $27,000 a year, so the clerk charges me $10 for the same coat,

one-third of what you just paid. You are standing there with your mouth

open. I don't blame you.

"Why did you charge me

three times what you charged this guy for the exact same coat?" you

demand of the clerk.

"Because this guy makes

a lot less money than you do," the clerk explains.

"Wait a minute,"

you say. "Didn't each coat cost Demo-mart the same price? Didn't

the same amount of labor, the same amount of materials, the same level

of workmanship, go into each coat?"

"Well, of course,"

the clerk replies. "But that's not the point. It's just not fair

for this guy to pay the same price as you pay. You both need coats, but

you can afford it. He can't."

Do you suppose such a private

sector store would stay in business for very long?

But, Democrats would have you

believe that government services are different from that coat. And they

would have you believe, that in matters of government and taxation, the

clerk is just being "fair."