Democrats' Definition Of 'Fair'

Class Warfare: The president has spoken incesantly about "shared sacrifice" and the importance of everyone paying his or her "fair share." Yet the people whose taxes he wants to raise already shoulder the biggest burden.

Throughout the debt-ceiling debate, President Obama rode his talking points hard. He punctuated his lectures about deficits, the debt and the debt ceiling with demands that the debt he and the irresponsible members of Congress have rung up be paid for through a "shared sacrifice" of Americans who pay their "fair share."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Democrat from Nevada, worked in a variation on the theme. Hardly had the debt deal been done that he didn't start talking about "equal sharing."

The implication, of course, is that the richest in this country aren't paying enough in taxes. It's a play to the Democrats' base. It's ugly class warfare, demagoguery of the kind that will always get the political left rolling. It also happens to be factually wrong.

Under federal tax laws, the richest Americans — the top 1% of earners — pay roughly 38% of the federal income tax revenue while earning only 20% of the national adjusted gross income, according to Internal Revenue Service data.

Meanwhile, the bottom 50% pays less than 3% of federal income tax revenue while earning almost 13% of the national adjusted gross income. And almost all of that small slice is paid by just a few at the top of that bottom-50% bracket: About 47% of U.S. households pay no federal income tax at all.

The top 1% also have the highest average tax rate — just more than 23%.

In stark contrast, the average rate for the bottom 50% is just short of 14%. This is a product of the Bush tax cuts that have been so vilified by the left.

So which group isn't paying its fair share? Which cohort is not sharing in the sacrifice? The facts show that the richest Americans are the ones who have been largely financing Washington's careless spending and the buildup of the soul-killing welfare state. Why should they have to pay even more?

We would also like to know why the president gets to define "fair" for the purposes of tax collecting. Why does his definition and that of his party outweigh any other definitions of what is fair? That seems like the job of an emperor, not an elected president who swore that he would uphold the Constitution and its 14th Amendment requirement that everyone receive equal treatment under the law.

We're not making this point to defend wealthy Americans and to malign the poor. We're simply trying to make an argument for true fairness — not a political or ideological "fairness."

We also wish to point out that adding to the tax burden of the rich causes problems because it is the rich whose investments expand the economy and create jobs. Taxing the top earners isn't a solution. It's a backward move.

As radio talk show host Neal Boortz wrote Thursday in his blog: "If taxing the rich was a viable economic solution, then California's economy should be booming, instead of drowning into fiscal oblivion."

Even if we wanted to, we can't stop the Democrats from airing their toxic and misleading rhetoric. They have free speech rights. But we can at least set the record straight.