The majority of the U.S. think the wealthy do not pay their fair share in taxes. Some 68 percent of Americans polled said that wealthy households pay too little in federal taxes.
You can read the poll here. Do please scroll down to see the make-up of the people who were surveyed. Among other things, they considered themselves mostly moderate, politically.
And thanks, Doug, for letting me steal this from you on Facebook.
Dating Jesus 
Tangentially relevant: Feb. 27th’s The Week includes this little nugget from The Washington Post: “Over the past 20 years, the U.S. government has paid at least $11.3 million in farm subsidies to 50 billionaires, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, investment mogul Charles Schwab, and Chuck-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy.”
I really must start that agri-business I’ve been meaning to start…
Mostly white folk, too.
Middle class suburbanites with significant numbers of conservative/Republican and even Tea Party supporters lining up for more progressive taxation.
I am moderately encouraged…as it reflects a growing realization of just how bad things are economically…especially in the suburbs.
Now…if we could just get them informed on Single Payer financing…..
When I hear things like: “Obama’s plan was to increase the capital gains tax rate to 28 percent—the rate they were set at under President Reagan” (for incomes over $500K), I am reminded partly why the income gap has widened in the same period of time. Isn’t the current Capital Gains max rate at 15% now? How did we allow it to drop so far (28%–>15%) since the Reagan years? I clearly have not been paying attention and feel as though our generation allowed this to happen. I wasn’t even aware of the drop in tax rate. It’s hard to pay attention to all of this and understand the future impact of the little steps taken over time. It’s easy to see the results in hindsight. We need to fix a few things… a lot of things.