Not the GP, but yes there is: The wealthiest people don't earn their wealth in the form of income.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2021/06/08/richest-...

the 25 richest Americans (by Forbes’ tally) paid a “true tax rate” of just 3.4% on wealth growth of $401 billion between 2014 and 2018.

> That hardly looks regressive.

I know you're making a good faith argument, but you're twisting the definition of regressive. For example, if a country has one citizen with an income of 1 trillion, and one hundred thousand citizens with an income of $10,000 each, the trillionaire would still pay over 99% of taxes even if taxes were proportional.

The point is that with severe income inequality, it is fair that the super rich pay a very, very high proportion of taxes. The 40.4% seems high for the "top 1%" of the population, but if you replace "top 1%" with their actual average income, the comparison is less misleading.

The bottom 50% own 2.4% of American wealth [1], while paying 3% of taxes. That, to me, is regressive.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBSB50215

The Tax Foundation has a well-known conservative leaning mindset when they publicize data. They project the benefits for business and lower tax policy.

It is not a legit source for progressive tax policy.

The Congressional Budget Office has been the most reputable source for tax policy data. The current director was appointed by Trump 2019 and was retained through Biden's presidency.

The CBO is very wonky and so far as withstood partisan meddling by presidents.

Now change it to comparing disposable income.

Impressive, very nice.

Now let's see control of assets.

This only takes into account income tax and not other taxes which are often more regressive such as sales tax, payroll tax etc. When analyzing taxes paid we should take into account all taxes

And life SUCKED then. Absolutely no labor rights, food filled with sawdust, income inequality, bank runs constantly, no retirement.

The national debt increased because we increased the amount of the federal government does, it the income tax.

Are you saying income taxes lead to an increase in the national debt?

No but it's not rocket science.

In 1960 the top tax rate was 91%. In 1980 it was 70%. Reagan dropped it to 35% and it's stayed below 40% since. Then add in that corporations and the wealthy have moved away from having normal income that isn't taxed (loans backed by assets) and you've lost half the tax revenue that paid for cheap housing, nearly free healthcare and public college and you have a healthy society and middle class.

But then to screw the pooch even more, Bush printed 5 trillion for his wars and two tax cuts. Trump printed money for his tax cuts too. (these expenses were never in the annual budget - they just printed the money)

Tesla, one of the richest corporations in our country just reported 0% tax in three years.

Our national debt has nothing to do with the annual budget and expenses, including USAID and helping Ukraine.

It is 100% because of tax policy.