Mankiw on the Tax Gap
CMM July 15th, 2007
Greg Mankiw in tomorrow’s NYTimes on taxes.
With the use of facts and some economics-101 analysis, Professor Mankiw debunks the criticism from the democratic presidential candidates, Warren Buffet and Robert Reich on America’s tax structure.
Simply put, the folks above would like you to believe that those in the top 10% income bracket are paying too little on taxes. It’s the classic “the rich don’t pay their share and the poor can barely survive.” The reality is, we now have a class of “working rich” who are far from the elite crowd of 50 years ago sitting on their yachts sipping mint juleps. If you look at the chart below, the top 10% pay more than their share of taxes.
Highlight quote from the article: Fairness is not an economic concept. If you want to talk fairness, you have to leave the department of economics and head over to philosophy.
PS: Mankiw is awesome.
PSS: President Bush had a campaign promise in 2000 that no income group would pay more than 33% of their income in taxes. It looks like he kept that promise.
