The Most Misleading Part of 'The 47%': Total U.S. Taxes Are Barely Progressive

The Most Misleading Part of 'The 47%': Total U.S. Taxes Are Barely Progressive

by Matthew O'Brien

We do not live in the world Ayn Rand imagined

(Wikimedia Commons)

Are we John Galt? 

Mitt Romney is worried that half of make the wealth and half of us take the wealth. So is his running mate Paul Ryan. If this sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, that's because it is. The world we live in is far different from the world Ayn Rand imagined. Just take a look at total taxes.

The chart below, from the Citizens for Tax Justice, looks at how much households earn and how much they pay in all taxes. In other words, it compares what percent of overall income they make and what percent of overall taxes the government takes from them. It's not exactly a picture of moochers waging war on heroic entrepreneurs.http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/the-most-misleading-part-of-the-47-total-us-taxes-are-barely-progressive/262536/