Who Is A Taxpayer?

With the Market Stabilization bill being discussed as well as the Presidential Campaign going on, a word you hear a lot of is "taxpayer". It is virtually never defined, but is usually used to mean all American citizen's. You hear talk of "$700 Billion of the taxpayer's money" and "we don't need taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street". Then Mr. Obama goes and says things like:

"And the reason is, is because we've got to make sure that the 95 percent of folks get a little bit of relief. We've got to stop borrowing from China and running up the credit card on the next generation.

There is a sense of fiscal responsibility that we've got to have here in this country, and the notion that those of us who have been extraordinarily lucky can't pay a little bit more so the waitress down the street or the guy making $40,000 or the guy making $70,000 can get a little bit extra so that he can put away some savings and watch his child eventually walk off that stage with a college diploma in her hand."

Given all this, you would think that pretty much everyone pays taxes. You would be completely wrong. 41% of the population pays no taxes. That number would rise roughly equally under Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama. If you're in the middle 20%, you pay virtually no taxes, about 2-3%. The second highest 20%, at little more, around 6-7%. Only the wealthy pay much in the way of taxes. How much? The top 1% pays almost 40% of total income taxes, and the top 20% pay almost 85% of all income taxes.

So when you see the talking heads on TV, or politicians talking about "Taxpayer Money" "bailing out the rich" or "why can't the working class get bailed out" just remember, "Taxpayers" means the rich.