[nazgulnarsil]

Spending years and tens of thousands of dollars studying things no one is interested in isn't normal, but in the American middle class it is.

the top 1% of earners pay 38% of all income tax while earning 27% of all income. The top 50% pay 97% of all income tax.

Broken windows fallacy, broken window fallacy and zero-sum thinking everywhere in this whole debate.

[nazgulnarsil]

if you downvote me enough maybe it won't be true!

[CJefferson]

Your comment is a commonly claimed statement, which hides many points.

How much of the income does the top 50% get? Without that, your figures are useless.

Just concentrating on income tax hides the fact lower earners tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on other taxes (such as sales tax).

ycombinator is not the place to repeat poorly researched, often quoted and misleading statistics, without a proper discussion of how they effect the current discussion. Sorry.