Rich got richer and paid more taxes under GW Bush

From the Washington Times - The rich did indeed get richer under President George W. Bush, but they also paid an ever-larger share of the federal tax burden, according to new numbers compiled by Congress' chief scorekeeper. After dipping in the early part of the Bush administration, by 2007 the top quintile of earners - the 20 percent who made the most - paid nearly 70 percent of all the taxes that the federal government collected, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. That includes a staggering 86 percent of the income tax being paid by just the top quintile of earners. By contrast, the bottom 40 percent on average not only pay no income tax, but they siphon money back from the federal government in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit, a 35-year-old program designed to offset some of what low-income workers pay in Social Security taxes. Read more

Rich got richer and paid more taxes under GW Bush