&#62; The % of income paid as taxes by those people went down.<p>How about some actual data?  Note that tax rates aren't the whole story.<p>And, even if it was true, that doesn't tell us what fraction of the tax revenues that they're paying.<p>Do you really think that it's good when most people don't have much, if any, skin in the game?  (As CA is discovering, collecting the bulk of your revenue from a small number of people makes tax revenues very volatile.)<p>&#62; As a matter of fact, people in the top tax brackets typically pay a lower % of their income in taxes than their secretaries.<p>Nope.  They pay higher rates on their earned income and they pay higher rates on the investment income.  You're "confusing" the two.<p>And, their deductions are phased out.<p>&#62; Also, where does this persistent myth that "half of all people pay no federal income taxes" come from?<p>The IRS.  <a href="http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=133521,00.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=133521...</a><p>The relevant data is formatted better in <a href="http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html</a><p>&#62; When I made small money right out of college I paid income tax beyond FICA.<p>You may have had it deducted fromyour paycheck, but unless you were someone's dependent, you could have gotten it refunded.