Tax day 2007

Which the Wall Street Journal marks with an op-ed by former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. Ari offers a predictably dishonest diatribe (subs. req'd) in which he complains about the share of total taxes being paid by rich people without mentioning the share of total income being made by rich people. Ari might want to look into the share of total taxes paid by rich people in Brazil or South Africa, which is unfairly high too! One specific example of his spinning --

A taxpayer who makes $1 million a year pays $14,500 in Medicare taxes while a worker who makes $10,000 a year pays $145. But when they retire and visit their doctors or go to the hospital, Medicare reimburses both an equal amount of money. That's a pretty big redistribution of income and a pretty good deal for the low-income worker.

Note that when selecting among the payroll taxes, Ari picks the relatively low Medicare (elderly health) tax that applies to all income and not the larger Social Security (the equivalent of UK National Insurance) which is capped at $90,000 -- a nice deal for the millionaires. But leave that aside. One unanswered question permeates the article: if being on low income is such a great deal, would any of the rich victims of the snouts in the fiscal trough want to swap places with them?