Excellent question! Obama is not. Our income tax system needs a complete and total overhaul that no one politician would be able to achieve without being assasinated before being allowed to pass it through. The comment to which I was referring was the notion that taxing the rich does nothing. It takes so many of us to make one of them, that their percentage isn't really relevent.
In my extremely vocal, long-winded, and decidedly unhumble opinion, our tax system is nothing short of stupid. It's obvious that if there are people living on $20 - 30K/year, that it must be possible to do so and therefore equally obvious that, even with normal excess taken into consideration, the "rich" have more disposable income than the rest of us. So, naturally, we tax them at a rate roughly 2x what mine is (based purely on reading my tax tables one day while lacking a sleeping pill). Whining ensues, as I would whine if I were one of them, and tax shelters are created. Not just the obvious ones, but all sorts of ridiculous little tiny ones that include loopholes and magical freaky crap, causing Uncle Bill to have both a very well-funded and well-respected charity, and his very own computer at the IRS, and creating an entire industry full of jobs that, if the planet were ever hit by a sufficiently large meteor, would be completely useless. It just seems to me that it would be cheaper and we'd make more if we would slowly, and over time, come up with a plan that includes fewer extremes and more common sense.
On top of that, I'll admit that I'm not yet wrinkled and gumming my dinner, and I haven't researched my memories, but if I do remember correctly, in my lifetime we seem to keep running into recessions when the republicans are in power.
Wouldn't it be handy if we had a viable third party from which to choose at election time? Maybe Uncle Bill needs a new tax shelter....
