I read an article on the WSJ site the other day about who pays taxes… and who doesn’t. It’s actually got a great chart. Take a look at it here: Wall Street Journal Article.

The jist of the article was the top 50% of the people pay 97% of all the taxes. As the bottom 50% of the people only earn 12% of the income, I can understand the discrepancy, but 97% that’s sort of extreme, isn’t it?

The real issue here is how this will influence elections and politicians in the future. As I see it, when a politician asks it’s electorate… “Should we raise taxes?”, if only 50% of the people pay taxes the answer will be a resounding YES! The time is near when the majority of people will not be paying any federal tax… this is scary.

The only hopeful thought is the lower 50 still thinks they are paying taxes, whether they really do or not.