This is a press release from Rob Portman's website. It's important because it shows the fundamental unfairness of the progressive income tax. It's also important because Rob Portman is on everyone's shortlist for Romney's VP. The press release explains that Bush's tax cuts actually made the income tax more progressive. This is ironic, considering the Democrat's criticism of Bush's "tax breaks for the rich."
From the article:
“While President Obama calls for higher taxes on jobs creators, two new government reports undercut his class warfare argument and the basis for calls for higher taxes. While I doubt these new studies will cause President Obama to change his tune, because too often, with this President, politics trumps good policy, yet another of his straw men has fallen flat. As the nation careens toward a fiscal cliff, real leadership, not more rhetoric and finger pointing, is necessary to reform our tax code and address Washington’s out of control spending."
In a second report, the CBO said
that in both 2008 and 2009, the highest-earning 20 percent of taxpayers paid 94 percent of the total income tax burden – up from 86 percent in 2007, and 81 percent before the 2001 tax cuts. In other words, higher-income Americans have been paying a bigger and bigger part of the total tax burden under the so-called “Bush tax cuts.”
http://portman.senate.gov/public/ind...8-42c510de959f