99.9 versus .1 - Krugman explains the top 1/1000th
His column is titled We are the 99.9% and it is very much worth your time. As he writes, according to a CBO report which only examines data up to 2005 (and it has gotten worse)
between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted, after-tax income of Americans in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. The equivalent number for the richest 0.1 percent rose 400 percent.
And if we look at Capital Gains taxes, currently at only 15%,
taxes on capital gains are much lower than they were in 1979 — and the richest one-thousandth of Americans account for half of all income from capital gains.
Given this history, Krugman asks a very basic question, why do Republicans advocate further tax cuts for the very rich even as they warn about deficits and demand drastic cuts in social insurance programs?
Please keep reading.